Samurai Warriors 5 brings a refreshing take on the musou genre. As with other Koei Tecmo games like Dynasty Warriors, players once again get to blast their way through hundreds of opponents with crazy antics and attacks. This time around, Samurai Warriors 5 cuts its roster of characters to fan favorites, boasting a shorter campaign opposite loads of hours' worth of new content offerings.
Newcomers to Samurai Warriors 5 might feel overwhelmed having to mow down hundreds of enemies whenever the opportunity arises. Fortunately for them, Samurai Warriors 5 offers quite an intuitive way of maximizing fun regardless of one's experience with the musou genre.
10 Find Pacing Within The Two Modes
Samurai Warriors 5 has two major modes: Musou Mode and Citadel Mode. Players need to go through these two modes interchangeably in order to fully enjoy their playthrough. Thankfully, progress in these two Modes is synced, so improvements via Citadel Mode carry over the Musou Mode and vice versa.
- Musou Mode: This is the main story mode of the game. As with other story modes, players can unlock certain features after completing certain parts of the Musou Mode. It's advised that players periodically make progress in the Musou Mode to fully unlock the offerings of the game.
- Citadel Mode: This serves as a base defense mode where players defend their Castle from intruders. Players can select various characters to accompany them and earn resources here.
- Free Mode: This acts as a way to replay story missions. However, there aren't incentives for doing so, given the more engaging Citadel Mode.
9 The First Chapter Makes Gameplay Smoother
Unlike other entries in the franchise, Samurai Warriors 5 has a rather streamlined approach to its story. Instead of depicting the Sengoku Era as a whole, Samurai Warriors 5 focuses more on the stories of Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi. In turn, the game's Musou Mode offers two routes in the story mode – one for each main character.
The game also has a Tutorial, which occurs within the first few segments of the first chapter. After that, players can go to the Citadel as they wish. It's advisable to actually finish the first chapters of both scenarios, as some aspects of Citadel Mode are locked behind story progress.
8 Morale Means Everything
Morale has always been a key gameplay mechanic across the Warriors series. In Samurai Warriors 5, Morale is represented by the conflicting bar on the top-right, where red represents the enemy Morale and blue represents the player's Morale. At its core, players are closer to victory as their Morale starts overtaking the enemy's.
Players can increase their Morale by overtaking the enemy's red zones. To do that, players need to defeat officers, eliminate barracks captains, and accomplish objectives within those zones. The faster players overtake the enemy's Morale and fill theirs, the faster they'll accomplish the level.
7 Interim Save Is A Lifesaver
Sometimes, players just encounter sticky situations while playing Samurai Warriors 5. So if they leave the game on while they do their business, they can come back to a mission failure. However, players don't necessarily have to pause or quit a mission whenever they have to step away.
If players really need to step out of the game in the middle of a mission, they can use the game's Interim Save feature. This is a handy option accessible via the settings menu. When accessed, players can boot up the game and return straight to the part of the mission where they left off.
6 Pursue Missions To Unlock New Characters
As gamers play through Musou Mode, they'll notice sub-missions popping up every now and then. Players should try to complete these missions as often as possible, as they contribute a lot to the overall experience. Narrative-wise, these sub-missions do provide new perspectives regarding the overarching story. This is important for fans who want to get a better understanding of the Sengoku Era, at least as per Koei Tecmo's description.
Gameplay-wise, sub-missions unlock new characters. Granted, Samurai Warriors 5 only offers 39 characters compared to Samurai Warriors 4's 55-character roster; however, these sub-missions guarantee that each character in this roster does have a role to play in both Nobunaga and Mitsuhide's story.
5 Grow The Castle Periodically To Maximize Progress
In the My Castle menu, players gain access to the major character progression elements of the game. As with a typical feudal castle, the menu offers locations that provide certain gameplay upgrades – be it to characters, their weapons and gear, and even usable items. It's highly recommended that players focus on Musou Mode to access milestones that unlock upgrades to certain parts of the castle.
- Dojo: This serves as the skill progression menu for all characters. Each character has a skill board that can unlock special traits. Inside the Dojo is also a Weapon Mastery menu, which unlocks stronger weapons and skills as they make progress.
- Blacksmith: This is the weapon upgrade location. When upgraded, weapons gain and improve special qualities, which help improve overall builds.
- Shop: This acts as the main item shop for the game. These include weapons, Skill Gems, and utility items that work while playing through missions.
- Stables: This is the main place to upgrade and manage horses.
4 Farm With The Right Officers
Granted, all officers and characters have special skillsets to offer in combat. However, players who want to focus on farming for those sweet upgrades need to bring the right officers to maximize their resource gain. As a handy tip, it's ideal that players should get skills and weapons that focus on high drop rates. In terms of character skills, here are the most ideal traits for farming:
- Wealth: When equipped, enemies can drop more Gold when killed.
- Wisdom: When equipped, enemies provide higher EXP when defeated.
- Collector: When equipped, enemies can drop more Skill Gems upon defeat.
- Luck: When equipped, the game is likelier to provide more "good" things such as increased resource gain.
3 Maximize Partners In Pair Missions
Some missions in Musou Mode actually need players to participate with another character. They can do this by playing with an actual friend via online play or by partnering up with an AI. In the game, players can freely switch control between these two characters, allowing them to play through two perspectives at once.
However, the real fun begins when players can actually issue commands via the D-pad on the console. Thanks to these commands, players can let the other officer tackle new missions as they pop up while their main character accomplishes the mission.
2 Get Smarter With Skills And Buffs
Why bother with skills, items, and buffs when Samurai Warriors 5 just needs players to smash through as many enemies as possible, right? Despite Samurai Warriors 5 having quite chaotic gameplay, players might have much more fun if they know exactly how to approach combat and character progression.
In terms of character growth, players would do well to spend skill points so they can access each character's Ultimate as soon as possible. Dishing out these Ultimate Skills can earn a ton of Gold and EXP. Likewise, having the Stone skill on a weapon can make it easier to flinch officers. And in terms of buffs, attack power buffs give players a much-needed edge when eliminating enemies quickly.
1 Stan Nobunaga Oda
Aside from getting quite the dashing makeover, Nobunaga Oda is arguably the star of Samurai Warriors 5. Upgrading certain weapons and buildings requires that specific characters are at certain levels. However, it's Nobunaga Oda that is usually the character in question when it comes to these requirements.
As such, players should prioritize leveling up Nobunaga Oda as soon as possible. Aside from being quite a powerful asset in the long-term, Oda's progress can help speed up the progress across other characters as well.