Warriors: Legends of Troy - Well, this is different.
By Hailinel 10 Comments
The game is set during the ten-year period of the Trojan War, from the kidnapping of Helen and the landing of the Greek ships at Troy all the way up to the final battle, when Troy itself is invaded using the famous Trojan Horse. Rather than select a character and fight through his or her own storyline, however, the game features only one plot, and the character you play as is dictated by the stage. So in one stage, you're Achilles, the next you might play as Hektor, and then Pentesilea, then Paris, then back to Achilles, then Ajax, and so on. All of the characters are equipped with a weapon of some sort and a shield and no drastic differences in movement speed, so while there is some variation in the way that they move and fight, it's not like going from, say, Tadakatsu Honda to Nene in Samurai Warriors. The game also does away with jumping, freeing up the X button for a stunning kick strike, and rather than a standard musou attack, the game uses a Fury meter. When you use fury, enemies will temporarily cower and you do significantly more damage while it's in effect. You can also pick up spears off of the ground and hurl them at enemies, and it's also possible to instant kill enemies with a basic quick-time event once you've put them in a proper state.
There are a lot of ways that the combat has been made more complex, but at the same time, there are some cases where the developers probably played God of War too much. There's at least one boss fight that concludes with a lengthy QTE (hit triangle, rapidly hammer X, now hit circle, now hit triangle, now hammer X...oops. Now the boss gets a third of his health back.) Luckily, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule so far, and I'm guessing that I'm at least halfway through the game at this point.
Also, unlike other Warriors games, there's no leveling system of any sort. Powering up the characters is entirely equipment-based. Money earned during battle can be spent on gear like rings that increase health and attack power, gems that unlock longer combos and special items with effects like making it easier to destroy shields. Then you equip you're character by slotting the gear into a grid. Think Diablo-style inventory Tetris. It's also possible to buy larger equipment grids.
As far as the presentation is concerned, the graphics look great, though some of the character models could stand to be more detailed. The music is definitely fitting, and the general presentation of the story, which intersperses cutscenes with Greek-style still artwork. As for the story itself, it's been a bit tricky to follow at times, simply because it jumps back and forth between the Greek and Trojan viewpoints, with characters appearing and then disappearing for chapters at a time. I'll have to play through the rest of it to see how it goes.
As for side modes, there's not much to speak of. Once again, unlike the other Warriors titles, there's no Free Mode, so you can't select a character, select a stage, and go. You can select to play any chapter you've completed, but once again, you're locked into playing as whatever character was designated for that chapter. There are also some challenge modes, though the ones I've played so far don't seem compelling enough to keep my interest. In a general action-game sense, it's not bad, but I've been spoiled by the plethora of modes and characters in games like Samurai Warriors 3.
So it's kind of a mixed bag at this point. There are things I really like about it; Tecmo Koei Canada didn't just make a carbon copy of an existing game and slap Greeks into it. It has its own unique play style and in general has a good feel about it, but it's also missing a lot of things and takes some of the wrong lessons from other hack-and-slash titles. I also don't know how often I'll go back to it once I've beaten it.
Oh, and whoever named the trophies in this game really needs to lay off the Youtube. There's an Over 9000 achievement. Seriously. Why.