Pro: almost everyone have changed their outfit from the first one. Con: Goemon, Ranmaru, Kunoichi and Okuni don't have story modes. There are three reasons: Ranmaru was only 18 when he died in Honnoji, no knew when Okuni died or when Goemon was born and Kunoichi was a fictional character.
I played DW2-5 and Warriors Orochi 1 & 2 before playing any of the Samurai Warriors games and i can say unequivocally that SW2 (and the SW2XL extension) is my favorite game in the PS2 era of Koei Warriors games. I feel like it perfected everything I liked about Dynasty Warriors and took it a step further in its own unique fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed this game so much that I really cannot bring myself to giving it a proper critique.
Chris Gildart his special moves are trash. Bombs? Really? Lame and serve no purpose in end game. But the rest of his moveset is sweet. My favourite character hands down
Kotaro Fuma is greatest addition. I love fight against him. SW2 is great game , storytelling is exellent and combo system is incredible, only thing missing is duels. DW4 and SW2 are best warriors titles in ps2 era imo.
Much love from Singapore. I don't know how many non Americans are on your channel but I am one of them. I loved Samurai Warriors 2 except that defeating the non UPC generals was always too easy. They were pushovers so I always played on hard or chaos. I also loved how Nagamasa and Oichi relationship was introduced to us, yet we never got to see inside Odani Castle, just the courtyard. Great review. Note: Toshiie true ending on XL was considered "extremely violent" by Micosoft so you have to pay money on 360 to see his true ending because they replaced it with different ending.
It may seem like there's mostly Americans in the comments, but I've noticed this community is pretty diverse! I'm not American myself, but Canadian is pretty close. I played so much Samurai Warriors 2 back in the day. Still need to grab a couple of achievements on 360 to complete it.
I remember really loving SW2 and its other versions/entries. I loved Nobunaga Oda's VA :P I loved the delivery on his officer defeat line: "It's just... that... simple."
Love both games, SW2 was better though. But the original also had so many unique features that SW2 didn't have, like the create a character, branching story lines, etc. Both games are still playable today
"Hey, we're gonna be adding Akechi Mitsuhide's little girl, ok? We'll call her, Gracia, but since her story's utterly tragic and she's a Christian which is something that we can't talk about along with the Imjin War in our little series, we'll just say she traveled all over the world and adopted their lifestyle" - a potential pitch meeting between Koei's employees regarding new characters
You'd be remiss to not even mention the Sugoroku board game mode in SW2. I had plenty of fun playing that with a friend, like some kind of strange Japanese Monopoly.
I need to start the HD collection of this, pity it was a Japanese exclusive. This is my favourite Samurai Warriors btw. As always, brilliant review Chris. 👍
Thanks man! I need to get my hands on a copy of the HD collection. It does suck that we didn't get it on PS3, but at least we got an HD version at all. Unlike DW5. Still salty about that. lol
Chris Gildart it is. Me and mom still prefer some of the music and stages over 4/4-2. Osaka Castle amd Sekigahara come to mind. Plus while i love 4 for being accurate to the timelines of the respective factions i love the individuality of the single character story modes in SW 2. And i love the what if dream stages. Its nice to have a scenario of what if Yukimura made it to Sekigahara. Or what if Nagamasa defeated Nobunaga but decide to ally under him ultimately for Oichi's sake. Instead of seeing him get killed no matter what. I wish it/4 had that dynasty warriors 8 approach to story of,a bad/historical ending and the good/what if ending.
I sunk over 200 hours into the PS2 version when I was younger. I remember being so excited for the game to come out too. Sadly, I no longer have my PS2 copy and don't own a 360. I wish the PC version were available for purchase somewhere...
I have now watched all of your Pro v. Cons, amazing series! I did just want to comment on why you likely found Gracia as weak... I did too, until I realized I wasn't playing her right. She is a literal mage character. All of her real attacks are from her specials that stack as she levels up. Her basic string is to try and get out of bad situations, oddly enough. She, is to my knowledge, the only character who increases her Musou with just a press of the first Charge. I was disappointed in her at first, but when I realized what they were aiming for, I really enjoyed this unique style.
Hey thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the reviews! I enjoyed Gracia more in SW4 when they added the Hyper Attack. I felt like she just became this overpowered god, but previous to that she didn't match my play style.
I hated Gracia in Warriors Orochi but actually liked her quite a bit in SW2XL, you have to learn to use her and I can tell you that she has some absolutely devastating attacks. She is one of the more enjoyable characters in the game once you figure her out.
Play her in SW4. She is complete OP because her magic attacks do not take away from her musou gage. Her ultimate musou look like the spirit bomb from Dragonball Z
Interesting review, Personally favor SW 2 over the trash that was SW3 *on WII* , however one of the most major annoyances is that the cutscenes despite looking so godamn good it will play in Compressed 480p which is highly noticeable on 360 playing on HDTV, i heard that PS3 Hd port does upscale the cutscenes better for 720P but even looking on youtube and nicoTV i couldn't find defenitive answer, also the camera tends to move up when you're moving which is highly annoying at times People give a lot shit to the voice acting but personally i founded it quite charming and almost the best dub the series has to offer,
I find this is the voice acting I remember most. When I think of how a character sounds, I think of SW2. I wish I had the PS3 version so I could give my thoughts on it, but sadly I don't.
Samurai Warriors 2 empires is actually my favorite in the empires series. While I agree the CAW is kind of meh, I love all of the other aspects that they added to it from DW5 Empires. I think the skill/leveling system in SW2 works a lot better in Empires then the item production from DW5 Empires.
thank you for making these videos, havent played many warriors titles other than 4 and 4 hyper on pc along with the kinda meh berserk one. you helped me find the ones worth playing.
Love the review, i just picked up a copy when i found out about the extreme legends dlc. Also the SW2 empires game combat reminded me of the first fist of the north star game, slow and sluggish combat. I also put over 100 hours into the ps2 version though, one of my beloved ps2 titles.
I did get this on Xbox 360 as well as Xtreme legends. What I love about Xtreme legends being Digital is I don't have to put a disc in Everytime to load that Xtreme legends. I usually still hate how koei treats the Xbox they do get warriors games but never Xtreme legends it's very annoying and doesn't make sense but sw2 has the best warriors treatment on Xbox.
Jackal Gold Kick That's kind of why I moved back to PlayStation. I was tired of missing Koei Tecmo games. Now, I have every console they'll release games for, so I'm covered haha
Sam 2 probably has the best balance of difficulty. The game isn't too easy that you get bored with it, nor is it too difficult that you just quit out of frustration. The maps are manageable especially when compared to Sam 3 and overall the mechanics just felt right for the title.
This was one of my favorite installments as well. I put a lot of time on the vanilla version and had a similar experience with the XL expansion. To make up Gracia's weak moves, I put her on horseback, which seemed to be a more effective, yet unorthodox way to damage and break opponents
boy, gracia is strong her horse back attack is the technique ranmaru doesn't have a story because would you really want to repeat some of the story mode from the other oda officers? while okuni doesn't really need any story. she is a nobody in history while the other characters are. but okuni has special interactions in each stage or they are mostly the same
I wouldn't mind replaying stages if Ranmaru got his own story. Usually they give the stages different events and missions for each character, so it would be cool to have seen that done for Ranmaru. Plus giving him a dream stage would have been nice. As far as Okuni goes, I completely agree with you. I'm not a fan of her, but it just seems weird that only a couple of characters dont have a story.
I say if you're going to do alternate colour pallets, then just change the clothing, not the character. I don't mind those costumes, but will always prefer really different looking outfits like SW1.
I liked some of the Orochi ones that recoloured the costumes to be like the new factions they joined, like Hanzo in Shu colours. And in DW, when they reflect other factions they fight for, like Guan Yu in Blue and Shangxiang in Green.
I've always thought it'd be cool to have enough colour swaps for each faction. That way, if you're playing free mode on another side, you can match them.
I still love this game now since I first played it. I do think it's ridiculous that kunoichi and goemon appear in suguroku as little easter eggs that happen every now and again but are not playable. Seriously they choose okuni as unlocklable but not everyone's favourite girl kunoichi
Okuni can be wiped from the roster entirely and patched out of every previous game and I wouldn't notice. The lack of Goemon and Kunoichi, as well as Ranmaru not getting a Story are really the only effective offenses this game makes.
This is the best Musou game of all time. Your review seemed super nitpicky and focused on a very small amount of things, many of them really not that important. You didn't even mention the fun board game, Sugoroku, and spent maybe 5 seconds on the special stances which was the biggest change... There was a ton of variety in those special abilities, a glance at several of them would've been appropriate. SW2 also refined the skill system and gave characters unique skills. For example, some got an ability to dodge cancel or jump cancel. Also notable is how they'd put enemy grunts into formations and give them special attacks to make them more dangerous, like an impenetrable wall of thrusting spears or coordinated hails of gunfire. Oh, I also think it's worth mentioning how they integrated castle and battlefield stages into one cohesive map, allowing for battles where you fight your way into and through a castle after laying siege, only to dash back out to deal with a relief force that's arrived. SW2 did a lot, and you...chose to gripe about Empires and character costumes and stuff instead of point any of it out... Now, the one major negative I have w/ the game, and something you didn't mention, is how a lot of characters get a "story mission" where you just fight a bunch of generic bandits. That felt rather lazy and is a shame. But I could overlook that. As for Gracia, you seem to not understand how to play as her... SW2 XL introduced characters that could spend musou on stuff other than musou attacks, mainly Gracia and Motochika. It's especially major for her. Yes, her normal attack strings are weak and short ranged. But she can very quickly refill musou w/ them. And her special abilities (at the cost of some musou) are....very powerful. She's basically a spellcaster. Being so different from the others makes her pretty fun to use, and she's not weak at all... She only seems that way if you use her like any other character and generally ignore the specials (which, based on your complaints about the "Special" moveset seeming gimped for having shorter combos, I suspect you weren't using those specials much....).
Nicely said, but from the videos I've seen of his, he's just looking at these games from a casual perspective, so I get where he's coming from, aside from the nitpicks. But he's right about Garcia, ugh. Just another weeb bait character that's not even fun to use either...but if you have fun with her, more power to you. I just remember only using her on horseback to get her weapons lol.
Not gonna lie, the black-haired keiji is one of the most cursed thing i have ever seen. Otherwise, great video! Does the pc port support hd? Or is it only for xbox?
I still haven't completed sw2 on Xbox yet it's got tons of Content especially with XL but from what I played it was very fun and I enjoyed leveling up characters. Yeah I agree on the outfits it's lazy to have them just with a different color.
I love this game! and I could kill every enemy on horse with almost every character! I feel sorry for Goemon and kunoichi, but as kunoichi is a fictional character (I thought is female version of Sasuke Sarutobi) and i prefer jigen instead of Goemon! XD (Lupin III)
My favourite game on my PS2 which I also played a lottt on PC. This is what really got me into gaming. You gotta love it. Story, music, game play and English voice dubs and didn't feel like dubs. So yeah I loved it. My favourite character was Hanzo Hattori. Storywise my favourites were Nobunaga Odas' conflicts with Akechi & Uesugi. I remember the obsession to want to clear all the map before going to the boss. lol. And getting all those alley respawns that I forgot the name of. I wish they kept the English voice actings for their games. SW4 and XW8 doesn't have any.
Great Review Chris. I think this was overall a good samurai warriors game sequel but the lack of goemon and kunoichi is really stupid considering kunoichi played a big part with shingen and yukimara. Goemon was pretty cool too and fun to use. The main thing I hate about SW2 is the voice acting while some is great like Yukimara alot of it is so bland and generic the voices aren't distinct either that's why I'm glad warriors orochi changed up the voice actors
@@frostthe1headshot293 Samurai Warriors 2 is available on Windows since 2008. You can download it for free, I could even give you a link although you have to know how to utilize a torrent.
THIS IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE WARRIORS GAME! The gameplay, the cinematic cutscenes, the voice acting (except for Keiji lol) all great! Not to mention SW2 had the best Xtreme Legends and Empires expansion (imo) (But the character customization was really trash) The Xtreme Legends expansion also added extra combos WHAT REALLY PISSED ME OFF ABOUT KUNOICHI’S REMOVAL, IS THAT SHE MAKES A CAMEO IN THE SENGOKU MONOPOLY GAME! SHE APPEARS RANDOMLY AND TAKES ALL OF YOUR GOLD, THEN JUST DISAPPEARS. . . WTF
The removal of Kunoichi still hurts. I didn't enjoy the Episodes entry this time around and when I went to play my old file there wasn't much time put into it either.
Nice to first meet you,Chris Gildart! This is the first time I left comment on your video :) I have played only "Samurai Warriors 2 series" before. But this video is very interesting.Many thanks indeed. PS) What does "Con,Pro" mean? If you can,speak me please.Because I'm Japanese (my mother tongue is Japanese).
Hi, nice to meet you too! Pro means a positive thing while Con means a negative thing. So the format of the review is always show 3 good things and 3bad things about the game I'm reviewing. Hope to see you around in future videos. :)
I think samurai warriors 1 Is the best one to me because it had the best levels, music, story, voice acting and gameplay. The Sequels just don't deliver as much. SW2 is a fun game but the voice acting is horrible besides a few characters, I haven't played SW3 only cause it's on Wii and sw4 2 is probably the second best but my issue with it is it's too easy.
This may be because I played SW2 and 2E a year or two ago (couldn't find the XL version for the 360 if there was one) but my only thing that has an opinion change on was saying 2 Empires was 'slow' when I think it is definitely the same speed as I know from 5 Empires except this game has formations that can speed up combat. Especially Wheel 3 that drastically increases Speed and Attack Speed. Othewise a good enough of a review minus anything with XL or the 1st game since I hadn't played those.
You don't just get the 2 bodyguards in survival mode but you get 2 of the top tier horses in survival mode too. Normally I don't do survival mode unless I want those guards, the horses, or extra money. I use Kotaro for survival because he's diverse with his attacks, has outstanding range, excellent control of his musou, and his attacks are fast.
I've been using Keiji because he's my strongest character and is also fast and has decent range. I just need to unlock those two bodyguards then I will have all the achievements.
@@ChrisGildart I just got to the 100th floor this Tuesday, on my other memory card I got to the 200th floor because I thought there was going be a special mission besides the one that gives you 10,500 gold. There isn't sadly...but at least I got a lot of money out of it.
Not only that, but you can unlock the hidden skill of Master 4 on characters, by completing specific missions and reaching floor 100. I reached that point, but I didn’t unlock Master 4 because I didn’t have Master 3 on the character I was using (If you ever want Master 4, reach floor 100 and complete specific missions with Nobunaga or Tadakatsu because they have master 3 after leveling up). Also, floor 100 does have a very interesting Theme to it. The characters on those floors have unique voice lines, and the stage of each floor is a character for the name of the game in Japanese (I think). Furthermore, the sound track that is played is a remix version of the first Samurai Warriors game. I dunno if master 4 is an achievement, but it is something that is hella grindy to get. At the same time, its super cool if you’re aware of the uniqueness of those stages
You missed one of the most terrible CONs of this game: the voice acting. These Keiji and Nobunaga are the most terrible things I've ever heard, especially compared to their voices in WO1 and WO2
Douglas Rye aka the dude who voiced Cao Cao is the man behind Oda Nobunaga’s voice in Samurai Warriors 1 and he sounds like a ruthless mastermind and Christopher Corey Smith aka Yuan Shao’s voice actor is the man behind Oda Nobunaga’s voice in Warriors Orochi 1 and 2 and he combines Douglas Rye’s ruthlessness and Brent Schaus’ calculating portrayal of Oda Nobunaga in Samurai Warriors 2 It’s pretty weird that both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao’s English VAs voiced Oda Nobunaga
@@Mikey-rh1ic wow. I didn't know that Nobunaga was voiced by the same person who voiced Yuan Shao in DW7 and DW8. Sounds like a completely different person. That's a talent!
@@mr_chere Christopher Corey Smith did a decent job of voicing Oda Nobunaga and while Yuan Shao's voice sounds like a pompous douche, Christopher Corey Smith portrayed Oda Nobunaga as a mix between the guys who previously voiced him in prior Samurai Warriors games, Brent Schaus and Douglas Rye aka Lord Cao Cao in the Dynasty Warriors games
a huge reason why Samurai Warriors 2 Empires is a letdown is because it doesn't have enough "conflicting powers", if you play the actual scenarios, it feels like you are limited to the 3 unifiers, Shingen, Kenshin, Nagamasa, Masamune or the Shimazu, it would've been a lot better if they added Motochika and Yoshimoto, they would add a lot more depth, also later game additions like Ujiyasu and Motonari gives you even more clans to play as, and SW4 even takes it a notch further and adds at least one more character to each clan, making clans like Date or Shimazu more fun to play as since you are not stuck with one unique character. so I think the Empires titles especially suffer a lot from a limited roster, so the new characters from XL would've just added a lot more depth to it
From what I could tell, the PS3 HD release is just a port of the 360 games with more enemies on the map. I'll probably pick it up on PS3 some day, but would prefer to play in English.
There is a glitch with Gold in the vanilla version that you could exploit before you switch to XL. Highly recommended to buy all skills before you switch the XL ver. because they fixed the exploit. LOL
@@ChrisGildart Dang, but it's also not doable in the 360 ver. either. Only PS2. That's why I was able to transfer the Data from vanilla ver. to have a goodass start in the PS2 ver.
I'm not sure if they could have the same aggression in their troops from previous games with the number of troops they have now. Maybe on hard difficulty they could. But the modern troops could definitely use a bit more of a push. As long as they don't make the archers go back to what they used to be.
@@ChrisGildart That explains it. I have only played SW4 and she was one of my favorites there, so I wouldn't know anything before that. XD I was mostly joking btw. Great vid series. It revived my interest for the Warriors series.
Thanks doode. I have all the samurai warriora game for the ps2, and i was just wondering if this version had so.e different content and what not. Like how dynasty warriors 6 pn the ps2 is different from the 360 and ps3 versions. I still dont kbow why they released dynasty warriors gundam 2 on the ps2 but not part one, and im still searching online to see if there is a difference from the ps2 and ps3 version aside from some dlc the ps3 version may have.
Xbox doesn't use microsoft points anymore, it's all been changed over to really world currencies. But you will need to use that or your credit card to buy XL. It can only be bought digitally.
Pro: almost everyone have changed their outfit from the first one.
Con: Goemon, Ranmaru, Kunoichi and Okuni don't have story modes. There are three reasons: Ranmaru was only 18 when he died in Honnoji, no knew when Okuni died or when Goemon was born and Kunoichi was a fictional character.
I think SW2 + XL is one of the best Warriors experiences out there.
It's pretty awesome. I remember first getting XL and loving it.
COME TO MY ARMS, MY LOST BROTHER
Iconic game
Couldn't agree more my dude.
I played DW2-5 and Warriors Orochi 1 & 2 before playing any of the Samurai Warriors games and i can say unequivocally that SW2 (and the SW2XL extension) is my favorite game in the PS2 era of Koei Warriors games. I feel like it perfected everything I liked about Dynasty Warriors and took it a step further in its own unique fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed this game so much that I really cannot bring myself to giving it a proper critique.
All that Ranmaru footage is great and all but where is my boy Mitsunari? This game was the bomb
I'm not a big fan of Mitsunari. lol
Chris Gildart his special moves are trash. Bombs? Really? Lame and serve no purpose in end game. But the rest of his moveset is sweet. My favourite character hands down
His movest is actually pretty good in Warriors All-Stars.
SW2 the pinnacle of Musou games
Dynasty Warriors 4
@@KudosMSGP i still think SW2 is the best musou ever to be made
BestGlaive in the world wb sw4 and dw8?
@@moomanchu608 doesn't come close to SW2
@@iNeverLikedYou 4 is on par at the very least
Kotaro Fuma is greatest addition. I love fight against him. SW2 is great game , storytelling is exellent and combo system is incredible, only thing missing is duels. DW4 and SW2 are best warriors titles in ps2 era imo.
Agreed. I played way too much of SW2 and DW4. And still do.
Much love from Singapore. I don't know how many non Americans are on your channel but I am one of them.
I loved Samurai Warriors 2 except that defeating the non UPC generals was always too easy. They were pushovers so I always played on hard or chaos.
I also loved how Nagamasa and Oichi relationship was introduced to us, yet we never got to see inside Odani Castle, just the courtyard. Great review.
Note: Toshiie true ending on XL was considered "extremely violent" by Micosoft so you have to pay money on 360 to see his true ending because they replaced it with different ending.
It may seem like there's mostly Americans in the comments, but I've noticed this community is pretty diverse! I'm not American myself, but Canadian is pretty close.
I played so much Samurai Warriors 2 back in the day. Still need to grab a couple of achievements on 360 to complete it.
I remember really loving SW2 and its other versions/entries. I loved Nobunaga Oda's VA :P I loved the delivery on his officer defeat line: "It's just... that... simple."
Love both games, SW2 was better though. But the original also had so many unique features that SW2 didn't have, like the create a character, branching story lines, etc. Both games are still playable today
"Hey, we're gonna be adding Akechi Mitsuhide's little girl, ok? We'll call her, Gracia, but since her story's utterly tragic and she's a Christian which is something that we can't talk about along with the Imjin War in our little series, we'll just say she traveled all over the world and adopted their lifestyle"
- a potential pitch meeting between Koei's employees regarding new characters
You didnt mention the awesome board game?
That thing is strangely addictive
My favorite Samurai Warriors game. Been playing SW2 since 2008. It's my childhood. I liked it more than SW4 and SW5. I would definitely rate it 10/10.
It's. Just. That. Simple.
Also you got me to stay when I was about to watch your next samurai warriors review! 😅
You'd be remiss to not even mention the Sugoroku board game mode in SW2. I had plenty of fun playing that with a friend, like some kind of strange Japanese Monopoly.
1. Gracia's special moveset is Bonkers
2. Gracia's dream stage is hilarious
Beautiful game
SW2 EMPIRES was awesome, my man
Yes! I freaking love this game! It was my first Samurai Warriors game, and I logged soooooo many hours into it and it's Xtreme Legends expansion!
I need to start the HD collection of this, pity it was a Japanese exclusive. This is my favourite Samurai Warriors btw. As always, brilliant review Chris. 👍
Thanks man! I need to get my hands on a copy of the HD collection. It does suck that we didn't get it on PS3, but at least we got an HD version at all. Unlike DW5. Still salty about that. lol
Yesterday I bought Samurai Warriors 2 xbox 360 for £4. And now watching your excellent review.
That xbox360 gameplay 😍👌
Kasunami So good! Played some more last night thanks to all the comments this videos been getting.
@Chris Gildart About Kunoichi and Ishikawa, they appear in a certain mini game in Samurai Warriors 2 series.
Legendary game!
My childhood was based on this game 💙☹️
Same here. I am playing this game since 2008.
This was my first warriors game bought by my dad that started both me and my moms loves for the games ^-^
It's such a good entry. I still need to go back and get the rest of the achievements for the 360 version.
Chris Gildart it is. Me and mom still prefer some of the music and stages over 4/4-2. Osaka Castle amd Sekigahara come to mind. Plus while i love 4 for being accurate to the timelines of the respective factions i love the individuality of the single character story modes in SW 2. And i love the what if dream stages. Its nice to have a scenario of what if Yukimura made it to Sekigahara. Or what if Nagamasa defeated Nobunaga but decide to ally under him ultimately for Oichi's sake. Instead of seeing him get killed no matter what. I wish it/4 had that dynasty warriors 8 approach to story of,a bad/historical ending and the good/what if ending.
We need more historicals/original stories in our Warriors games.
Still the best SW game.
I sunk over 200 hours into the PS2 version when I was younger. I remember being so excited for the game to come out too. Sadly, I no longer have my PS2 copy and don't own a 360. I wish the PC version were available for purchase somewhere...
Samurai warriors 5 is coming in summer for the modern consoles, check the trailer.
I know it’s quite different but it’s something.
You can pirate it very easily.
I have now watched all of your Pro v. Cons, amazing series!
I did just want to comment on why you likely found Gracia as weak... I did too, until I realized I wasn't playing her right. She is a literal mage character. All of her real attacks are from her specials that stack as she levels up. Her basic string is to try and get out of bad situations, oddly enough. She, is to my knowledge, the only character who increases her Musou with just a press of the first Charge. I was disappointed in her at first, but when I realized what they were aiming for, I really enjoyed this unique style.
Hey thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the reviews!
I enjoyed Gracia more in SW4 when they added the Hyper Attack. I felt like she just became this overpowered god, but previous to that she didn't match my play style.
Gracia's blizzard spell was OP as hell
I hated Gracia in Warriors Orochi but actually liked her quite a bit in SW2XL, you have to learn to use her and I can tell you that she has some absolutely devastating attacks. She is one of the more enjoyable characters in the game once you figure her out.
Play her in SW4. She is complete OP because her magic attacks do not take away from her musou gage. Her ultimate musou look like the spirit bomb from Dragonball Z
By the way great game collection Chris that's impressive.
Jackal Gold Kick Thanks! It's still growing lol
Interesting review, Personally favor SW 2 over the trash that was SW3 *on WII* , however one of the most major annoyances is that the cutscenes despite looking so godamn good it will play in Compressed 480p which is highly noticeable on 360 playing on HDTV, i heard that PS3 Hd port does upscale the cutscenes better for 720P but even looking on youtube and nicoTV i couldn't find defenitive answer, also the camera tends to move up when you're moving which is highly annoying at times
People give a lot shit to the voice acting but personally i founded it quite charming and almost the best dub the series has to offer,
I find this is the voice acting I remember most. When I think of how a character sounds, I think of SW2. I wish I had the PS3 version so I could give my thoughts on it, but sadly I don't.
Samurai Warriors 2 empires is actually my favorite in the empires series.
While I agree the CAW is kind of meh, I love all of the other aspects that they added to it from DW5 Empires.
I think the skill/leveling system in SW2 works a lot better in Empires then the item production from DW5 Empires.
It was worth it just for Sugoroku. I spent hours playing that with friends.
thank you for making these videos, havent played many warriors titles other than 4 and 4 hyper on pc along with the kinda meh berserk one. you helped me find the ones worth playing.
Thank you for your comment! I'm hoping to do more reviews in the future so hopefully they'll also help you find some good Warriors games to play.
Love the review, i just picked up a copy when i found out about the extreme legends dlc. Also the SW2 empires game combat reminded me of the first fist of the north star game, slow and sluggish combat. I also put over 100 hours into the ps2 version though, one of my beloved ps2 titles.
Good to hear man. Glad you enjoyed the video. The DLC for the 360 version is really cool. Xbox doesn't really get enough love.
I did get this on Xbox 360 as well as Xtreme legends. What I love about Xtreme legends being Digital is I don't have to put a disc in Everytime to load that Xtreme legends. I usually still hate how koei treats the Xbox they do get warriors games but never Xtreme legends it's very annoying and doesn't make sense but sw2 has the best warriors treatment on Xbox.
Jackal Gold Kick That's kind of why I moved back to PlayStation. I was tired of missing Koei Tecmo games. Now, I have every console they'll release games for, so I'm covered haha
Sam 2 probably has the best balance of difficulty. The game isn't too easy that you get bored with it, nor is it too difficult that you just quit out of frustration. The maps are manageable especially when compared to Sam 3 and overall the mechanics just felt right for the title.
This was one of my favorite installments as well. I put a lot of time on the vanilla version and had a similar experience with the XL expansion. To make up Gracia's weak moves, I put her on horseback, which seemed to be a more effective, yet unorthodox way to damage and break opponents
Can u get it on pc
Gracia on foot was good it you just used her R1/RB moves. C1 could refill musou to full so it was fireballs nonstop
My childhood
Same. So good.
boy, gracia is strong her horse back attack is the technique
ranmaru doesn't have a story because would you really want to repeat some of the story mode from the other oda officers?
while okuni doesn't really need any story. she is a nobody in history while the other characters are. but okuni has special interactions in each stage or they are mostly the same
I wouldn't mind replaying stages if Ranmaru got his own story. Usually they give the stages different events and missions for each character, so it would be cool to have seen that done for Ranmaru. Plus giving him a dream stage would have been nice. As far as Okuni goes, I completely agree with you. I'm not a fan of her, but it just seems weird that only a couple of characters dont have a story.
Have you ever tried gracia's special??
👁️👄👁️ she's definitely one of the most op chars in sw2
I also dislike hair and skin colour changes in alternate costumes.
I say if you're going to do alternate colour pallets, then just change the clothing, not the character. I don't mind those costumes, but will always prefer really different looking outfits like SW1.
I liked some of the Orochi ones that recoloured the costumes to be like the new factions they joined, like Hanzo in Shu colours. And in DW, when they reflect other factions they fight for, like Guan Yu in Blue and Shangxiang in Green.
I've always thought it'd be cool to have enough colour swaps for each faction. That way, if you're playing free mode on another side, you can match them.
I think 6 Empires did that.
The4thSnake yeah they look janked
I still love this game now since I first played it. I do think it's ridiculous that kunoichi and goemon appear in suguroku as little easter eggs that happen every now and again but are not playable. Seriously they choose okuni as unlocklable but not everyone's favourite girl kunoichi
Okuni can be wiped from the roster entirely and patched out of every previous game and I wouldn't notice. The lack of Goemon and Kunoichi, as well as Ranmaru not getting a Story are really the only effective offenses this game makes.
This is the best Musou game of all time. Your review seemed super nitpicky and focused on a very small amount of things, many of them really not that important. You didn't even mention the fun board game, Sugoroku, and spent maybe 5 seconds on the special stances which was the biggest change... There was a ton of variety in those special abilities, a glance at several of them would've been appropriate. SW2 also refined the skill system and gave characters unique skills. For example, some got an ability to dodge cancel or jump cancel.
Also notable is how they'd put enemy grunts into formations and give them special attacks to make them more dangerous, like an impenetrable wall of thrusting spears or coordinated hails of gunfire. Oh, I also think it's worth mentioning how they integrated castle and battlefield stages into one cohesive map, allowing for battles where you fight your way into and through a castle after laying siege, only to dash back out to deal with a relief force that's arrived.
SW2 did a lot, and you...chose to gripe about Empires and character costumes and stuff instead of point any of it out...
Now, the one major negative I have w/ the game, and something you didn't mention, is how a lot of characters get a "story mission" where you just fight a bunch of generic bandits. That felt rather lazy and is a shame. But I could overlook that.
As for Gracia, you seem to not understand how to play as her... SW2 XL introduced characters that could spend musou on stuff other than musou attacks, mainly Gracia and Motochika. It's especially major for her. Yes, her normal attack strings are weak and short ranged. But she can very quickly refill musou w/ them. And her special abilities (at the cost of some musou) are....very powerful. She's basically a spellcaster. Being so different from the others makes her pretty fun to use, and she's not weak at all... She only seems that way if you use her like any other character and generally ignore the specials (which, based on your complaints about the "Special" moveset seeming gimped for having shorter combos, I suspect you weren't using those specials much....).
Nicely said, but from the videos I've seen of his, he's just looking at these games from a casual perspective, so I get where he's coming from, aside from the nitpicks.
But he's right about Garcia, ugh. Just another weeb bait character that's not even fun to use either...but if you have fun with her, more power to you. I just remember only using her on horseback to get her weapons lol.
Not gonna lie, the black-haired keiji is one of the most cursed thing i have ever seen.
Otherwise, great video! Does the pc port support hd? Or is it only for xbox?
I believe the PC version has the same visuals and assets as the 360, but it's displayed in 4:3 rather than 16:9.
@@ChrisGildart shame, but i play cs on 4:3 stretched so it should be fine! Thanks for the info.
I still haven't completed sw2 on Xbox yet it's got tons of Content especially with XL but from what I played it was very fun and I enjoyed leveling up characters. Yeah I agree on the outfits it's lazy to have them just with a different color.
The alt costumes we got in the first game will always be some of my favourite unlockable costumes.
Chris Gildart yeah they were great and unique. Like bald Keji or the mask with hair Hanzo.
I love this game! and I could kill every enemy on horse with almost every character! I feel sorry for Goemon and kunoichi, but as kunoichi is a fictional character (I thought is female version of Sasuke Sarutobi) and i prefer jigen instead of Goemon! XD (Lupin III)
Playing the original game.
Think I’m just about beaten it
My favourite game on my PS2 which I also played a lottt on PC. This is what really got me into gaming. You gotta love it. Story, music, game play and English voice dubs and didn't feel like dubs. So yeah I loved it. My favourite character was Hanzo Hattori. Storywise my favourites were Nobunaga Odas' conflicts with Akechi & Uesugi. I remember the obsession to want to clear all the map before going to the boss. lol. And getting all those alley respawns that I forgot the name of.
I wish they kept the English voice actings for their games. SW4 and XW8 doesn't have any.
Great Review Chris. I think this was overall a good samurai warriors game sequel but the lack of goemon and kunoichi is really stupid considering kunoichi played a big part with shingen and yukimara. Goemon was pretty cool too and fun to use. The main thing I hate about SW2 is the voice acting while some is great like Yukimara alot of it is so bland and generic the voices aren't distinct either that's why I'm glad warriors orochi changed up the voice actors
I didn't mind the voice acting. I think because I played this game to death. To the point where the voices were my norm.
Chris Gildart yeah the gameplay and leveling up is so fun to where I can deal with the voice acting though I will say
I have the PS2 version of the vanilla game, the Empires expansion and also Xtreme Legends expansion. It was a good experience.
Bruh Gracia is broken, you just need to know how to use her correctly. Her specials and her C1 is all you need, avoid the C2 to C5 like a plague.
I'll keep that in mind next time I play her. I know in SW4 with her hyper attacks she's OP as hell.
And the musou spam ;)
I put 3 years into this game played when I was like 5ish and played till 17 I have a pc and want it now 😭
Emulators *cough *cough
@@domeplsffs wym
@@frostthe1headshot293 Samurai Warriors 2 is available on Windows since 2008. You can download it for free, I could even give you a link although you have to know how to utilize a torrent.
THIS IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE WARRIORS GAME!
The gameplay, the cinematic cutscenes, the voice acting (except for Keiji lol) all great!
Not to mention SW2 had the best Xtreme Legends and Empires expansion (imo)
(But the character customization was really trash)
The Xtreme Legends expansion also added extra combos
WHAT REALLY PISSED ME OFF ABOUT KUNOICHI’S REMOVAL, IS THAT SHE MAKES A CAMEO IN THE SENGOKU MONOPOLY GAME! SHE APPEARS RANDOMLY AND TAKES ALL OF YOUR GOLD, THEN JUST DISAPPEARS. . . WTF
The removal of Kunoichi still hurts. I didn't enjoy the Episodes entry this time around and when I went to play my old file there wasn't much time put into it either.
I feel your pain bro! Hopefully the next Samurai Warriors game makes a return to form, because these recent entries have been lack luster. . .
Nice to first meet you,Chris Gildart!
This is the first time I left comment on your video :)
I have played only "Samurai Warriors 2 series" before.
But this video is very interesting.Many thanks indeed.
PS) What does "Con,Pro" mean? If you can,speak me please.Because I'm Japanese (my mother tongue is Japanese).
My favorite is Maeda Toshiie,Maeda Keiji,Ishida Mitsunari,Sanada Yukimura,something like that. In other words,ALL=)
Hi, nice to meet you too! Pro means a positive thing while Con means a negative thing. So the format of the review is always show 3 good things and 3bad things about the game I'm reviewing. Hope to see you around in future videos. :)
Thank you and I'll watch your video,when I have enough time
I've understood "those word's meaning,this video's intention".
I think samurai warriors 1 Is the best one to me because it had the best levels, music, story, voice acting and gameplay. The Sequels just don't deliver as much. SW2 is a fun game but the voice acting is horrible besides a few characters, I haven't played SW3 only cause it's on Wii and sw4 2 is probably the second best but my issue with it is it's too easy.
This may be because I played SW2 and 2E a year or two ago (couldn't find the XL version for the 360 if there was one) but my only thing that has an opinion change on was saying 2 Empires was 'slow' when I think it is definitely the same speed as I know from 5 Empires except this game has formations that can speed up combat.
Especially Wheel 3 that drastically increases Speed and Attack Speed. Othewise a good enough of a review minus anything with XL or the 1st game since I hadn't played those.
You don't just get the 2 bodyguards in survival mode but you get 2 of the top tier horses in survival mode too. Normally I don't do survival mode unless I want those guards, the horses, or extra money. I use Kotaro for survival because he's diverse with his attacks, has outstanding range, excellent control of his musou, and his attacks are fast.
I've been using Keiji because he's my strongest character and is also fast and has decent range. I just need to unlock those two bodyguards then I will have all the achievements.
@@ChrisGildart I just got to the 100th floor this Tuesday, on my other memory card I got to the 200th floor because I thought there was going be a special mission besides the one that gives you 10,500 gold. There isn't sadly...but at least I got a lot of money out of it.
Chris Gildart i just cheesed with NENE BUNSHIN! and her c1
Not only that, but you can unlock the hidden skill of Master 4 on characters, by completing specific missions and reaching floor 100. I reached that point, but I didn’t unlock Master 4 because I didn’t have Master 3 on the character I was using (If you ever want Master 4, reach floor 100 and complete specific missions with Nobunaga or Tadakatsu because they have master 3 after leveling up). Also, floor 100 does have a very interesting Theme to it. The characters on those floors have unique voice lines, and the stage of each floor is a character for the name of the game in Japanese (I think). Furthermore, the sound track that is played is a remix version of the first Samurai Warriors game. I dunno if master 4 is an achievement, but it is something that is hella grindy to get. At the same time, its super cool if you’re aware of the uniqueness of those stages
@@vehks7774 I didn't know about the Master 4!!
what about the best game mode ever. SOGUROKU
2021 stil play extreme legend 1&2 from 2006
You missed one of the most terrible CONs of this game: the voice acting. These Keiji and Nobunaga are the most terrible things I've ever heard, especially compared to their voices in WO1 and WO2
All Nobunaga ever says is “is that so?” anyways and i like Keiji’s voices on all of the games so not much of a con for me personally.
Douglas Rye aka the dude who voiced Cao Cao is the man behind Oda Nobunaga’s voice in Samurai Warriors 1 and he sounds like a ruthless mastermind and Christopher Corey Smith aka Yuan Shao’s voice actor is the man behind Oda Nobunaga’s voice in Warriors Orochi 1 and 2 and he combines Douglas Rye’s ruthlessness and Brent Schaus’ calculating portrayal of Oda Nobunaga in Samurai Warriors 2
It’s pretty weird that both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao’s English VAs voiced Oda Nobunaga
@@Mikey-rh1ic wow. I didn't know that Nobunaga was voiced by the same person who voiced Yuan Shao in DW7 and DW8. Sounds like a completely different person. That's a talent!
@@mr_chere Christopher Corey Smith did a decent job of voicing Oda Nobunaga and while Yuan Shao's voice sounds like a pompous douche, Christopher Corey Smith portrayed Oda Nobunaga as a mix between the guys who previously voiced him in prior Samurai Warriors games, Brent Schaus and Douglas Rye aka Lord Cao Cao in the Dynasty Warriors games
i dont remember SM2 having custom characteers
a huge reason why Samurai Warriors 2 Empires is a letdown is because it doesn't have enough "conflicting powers", if you play the actual scenarios, it feels like you are limited to the 3 unifiers, Shingen, Kenshin, Nagamasa, Masamune or the Shimazu, it would've been a lot better if they added Motochika and Yoshimoto, they would add a lot more depth, also later game additions like Ujiyasu and Motonari gives you even more clans to play as, and SW4 even takes it a notch further and adds at least one more character to each clan, making clans like Date or Shimazu more fun to play as since you are not stuck with one unique character. so I think the Empires titles especially suffer a lot from a limited roster, so the new characters from XL would've just added a lot more depth to it
Always loved sw1 never played 2
I'd recommend it!
You missing out. SW2 is far far superior to SW1. Try it when you get the chance. You won't be disappointed.
Update I finally ordered it and the disc won’t read thanks Amazon
They messed up nobunaga good in this one. His move sets are cut down. And there wasnt many three way battles like sw1.
I have the hd release that comes with the empires part, it's in japanese but you can have both games with even better visuals.
From what I could tell, the PS3 HD release is just a port of the 360 games with more enemies on the map. I'll probably pick it up on PS3 some day, but would prefer to play in English.
There is a glitch with Gold in the vanilla version that you could exploit before you switch to XL. Highly recommended to buy all skills before you switch the XL ver. because they fixed the exploit. LOL
Too late for me lol
@@ChrisGildart Dang, but it's also not doable in the 360 ver. either. Only PS2. That's why I was able to transfer the Data from vanilla ver. to have a goodass start in the PS2 ver.
I hope that we will be able to make a character In WO4
I doubt they have a CAW in WO4. Just judging by previous titles and titles lately.
You didn't mention the generic stages which sucked (killing a band of pirates/bandits)
Why do all the new games feel so bad compared to the old, is there a way they could have added more units without making it feel dumbed down?
I'm not sure if they could have the same aggression in their troops from previous games with the number of troops they have now. Maybe on hard difficulty they could. But the modern troops could definitely use a bit more of a push. As long as they don't make the archers go back to what they used to be.
@@ChrisGildart Or having those strike and sky ninjas launching you all over the place
i literally finished this game 4 times on my ps 2
Did you just bad mouthed Gracia? How dare you!
I didn't like her moveset until SW4.
@@ChrisGildart
That explains it. I have only played SW4 and she was one of my favorites there, so I wouldn't know anything before that. XD
I was mostly joking btw. Great vid series.
It revived my interest for the Warriors series.
How do I download this game on pc don’t have Xbox 360 anymore and I’ve put like 3 years into this
There's no official digital version for PC. You'd have to look online for a physical copy of the PC version.
Chris Gildart I put mad viruses on my laptop
stfu i was playing on pc 10 years ago
aside from graphics, what does this and the ps3 version have that the ps2 version dosent?
The difference between the 360 and PS2 version is just graphics. With the Japanese only PS3 release, there's more enemies to a unit. That's it.
Thanks doode. I have all the samurai warriora game for the ps2, and i was just wondering if this version had so.e different content and what not. Like how dynasty warriors 6 pn the ps2 is different from the 360 and ps3 versions. I still dont kbow why they released dynasty warriors gundam 2 on the ps2 but not part one, and im still searching online to see if there is a difference from the ps2 and ps3 version aside from some dlc the ps3 version may have.
Thanks for responding
I have empires
Is there a Samurai warriors 2 XL for Xbox 360? Reason for asking because wilkpedia states it did but I can't find it
There's no physical release, but it is available as DLC for the vanilla game.
For 30$
I was wondering if I have to use microsoft points to by XL on xbox?
Xbox doesn't use microsoft points anymore, it's all been changed over to really world currencies. But you will need to use that or your credit card to buy XL. It can only be bought digitally.
@@ChrisGildart thank you for the reply. That makes me mad! I love the cover from XL better! Oh well thanks though!
@@justincontreras3046 I made my own custom cover for SW2XL and printed it off. Looks great in the collection.
How do you get 2XL on the 360?
It's DLC under SW2 on the store. If you search for "Samurai Warriors 2" you should find it. I believe it's $19.99 CAD.
It's actually 29.99 nowadays. For anyone interested.
Can we ply SW2 on xbox series x ? this is my favourite SW game and would be awsome if we can ply it on new xbox
Unfortunately, no. None of the Warriors games are backwards compatible on Xbox One or Series X. 😭
@@ChrisGildart Dang :/
Can you play this on the Xbox one is it compatible
unfortunately no
I HATED how they ruined masamune's combos
do you ever played the PC version of this game?
The only PC version of a Warriors game I've played is DW7, the demo for DW6, and the beta for DW Online.
I could never even finish one story let alone beat the game