Graphics: Warriors Orochi has a decidedly last gen look that’s broken up only by the occasional inspired character model or flashy sequence of attacks. Regrettably, the environments stand as some of the most barren and impersonal I’ve seen this generation, leaving me to wonder what the rest of my 360′s power was doing while I was playing. Wide stretches of nothingness met me at every corner, bordered by bland, sepia-toned textures and peppered with a sparse count of breakable objects. In the game’s defense, there is an impressive number of bodies on the screen at one time, the lines are crisp and the action never hiccupped once. Although I’d like to give Orochi the benefit of the doubt, I expect more almost two years into the HD era of gaming.

Interface: The overly convoluted menus in Warriors Orochi should’ve been condensed to make outfitting and leveling your characters easier. Navigating effectively sometimes requires backing out of more than two menus, and team assembly entails flipping through seemingly endless cycles of characters, all of which are too small to discern, even in HD. The main HUD isn’t quite as baffling, though, making it easy to see who has the advantage in a fight, how your team is doing and where the enemy is located. I just wish the front end was more compressed.

Gameplay: There’s nothing wrong with charging headlong into a mass of demon underlings and laying waste with your fully upgraded King’s Sword until all that remains are mysteriously disappearing bodies. The problem is, after so much repetition, you just don’t care anymore. My thumb, which is heavily calloused from two decades of gaming, actually started to hurt from slamming the X button so much. A good offset to all of the recurrence, however, is that each character can be ground up to a cap of 99, and the number of weapons, upgrades and mission locales will convince you to stay just a little bit longer, especially if you want to gather all of the achievements.

Sound FX: First off, the Hideyoshi Toyotomi character’s voiceover is a dead ringer for late AC/DC singer Bon Scott. I was in stitches after I heard him speak for the first time. Unfortunately, the laughter stopped soon after I realized the rest of the voice work was stiff and unemotional. The remainder of the audio has an arcade flair, with vanilla whoops and hollers emanating from the slain and one-liners used by more than one character. Weapon noises are weak and rendered almost null by the constant barrage of death rattles and final breaths. The gallop coming from the horse is also far from perfect.

Music: I’m not the biggest fan of techno, but the gameplay in Warriors Orochi suffers when you turn off the thumping background track. I tried turning it off completely as an experiment, but for some reason, the game didn’t feel the same afterward. Perhaps the onscreen action sounds were too intense, and the music acted as a buffer to break things up. Regardless of what it does, the soundtrack for Warriors Orochi features a competent electronic assembly infused with Chinese and Japanese instruments. Although some of the tracks come off as a little too “in your face”, there are a couple of rockers and the odd lounge or metal track for variation. Overall, the music complements the experience to a T, but I don’t plan on buying the album version anytime soon.

Intelligence: Orochi’s army may be built of the most fearsome and powerful warriors the world has ever known, but that’s no excuse for standing around on the job. Most units tend to stay put until you’ve come within a close enough proximity, and then they advance, surround and wait for you to attack them. Enemy generals prove to be more of a challenge, as they use special attacks and combos against you, but once again, only if you’re close enough to be seen. Allies regrettably fare no better, breaking away from battle on occasion, running off to parts unknown or planting their feet firmly and letting an enemy general pummel them. Oftentimes, the only reason I lost a mission was due to the ineptness of my warrior colleagues.

Difficulty: Missions offer main objectives which are pretty easy to understand, but not altogether easy to complete. You may be heading from point A to point B, but the route you were going to take might be blocked by a gate or downed bridge. To make matters worse, the area you cleared earlier now has encroaching troops streaming into it and attacking your allies. Do you head to your main goal or do you run back to help them and lose the army you were traveling with in the process? These kinds of scenarios either add to or take away from the experience of playing Warriors Orochi, depending on how you like your game. I don’t care for them at all, as it negates a sense of completion. Should you want more of a challenge, difficulty scaling in Warriors Orochi is based on two areas: the enemy’s health and strength. On easy mode, bad guys have short life bars and go down in a couple of hits, but as you gauge up the difficulty, the bars get longer, and each hit they inflict on you does about double the damage as before. Try Chaos difficulty to see just how long you last against the first wave on the first level.

Overall: Diehard fans of the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games have found their ultimate collection, but those looking for something new and profound should keep moving. There’s a metric ton of playable characters, a generous amount of upgradable weaponry and quite a few levels to sate your bloodlust for swordplay. I just wish the interface was more streamlined, the graphics were up to standards and the A.I. was more aware. I’m sure we’ll see more improvements in the future, and I’m just as sure we won’t have to wait long until the next addition to the series hits shelves.