Ever since I was introduced to the Dynasty Warriors series, I was addicted. When I found out about Warriors Orochi, I was even more intrigued. While Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors follow (mostly) accurate historical data, Warriors Orochi combines the warriors from both of those series and creates a fictional universe. This leaves the game open to create whatever fun and exciting situations they want, as well as interesting interactions between powerful characters who would never have met in history. The new Warriors Orochi 3 continues that with yet another situation for these warriors to solve to save the world, and even brings in yet more warriors, from Warriors: Legends of Troy!.

The warriors in these games have looked the same over the years, basically, except that they keep getting crisper and sharper looking with each version. I like that in Dynasty Warriors, you can mostly tell what nation a warrior is from by the color of their clothing. Warriors Orochi 3 gives you the option to change this if you want, though. Personally, I leave the characters in the same clothing that I'm used to, but most characters have at least 3 different clothing options. For the most part, they are the same outfits with different colors.

The one complaint that I have is that they do not have an English dub available. The story is in Japanese. I am shocked they didn't bother with an English dub. It's not so much a problem during cutscenes, but it does make it very hard to read what they're saying during battle and still attack at the same time! I found that I missed instructions, even in the first board, like jump down and defeat the hydra. I didn't see that so I was running around lost 3 minutes in. Eventually though, I got the hang of attacking and reading at the same time.

The Story Mode in Warriors Orochi 3 is set several years after they beat Orochi in the previous game. Now, a giant hydra has appeared and Kiyomori Taira is back and working with it. Almost all the fighters are killed. Ma Chao, Sima Zhao, and Hanbei Takenaka go to its camp to kill the hydra and they meet a mystic named Kaguya after they fail to kill it. She tells them that she needs to send them back in time to increase their numbers so that they will have the strength needed to kill the hydra. She takes them back to before their base was destroyed. The base has a Circle of Light that you can use to take you back in time to places in the character's memories so that they can save their fellow warriors. The more people that you rescue and areas that you save in the past, the larger your camp will grow in the future. You don't start out with things like the Teahouse, but you will get them after you save enough of the past. You will need to talk to the people in camp to get more stages unlocked as stages are unlocked based on people's memories. To get to talk to everyone, you'll need to switch characters in the camp as only certain characters trigger certain conversations. Story Mode is where you can unlock more characters by rescuing them in the past (usually 4 on the main levels and 1 on specific rescue missions). You also unlock new levels to play. You can even play one or two players, if you have a friend to play with you.

Free Play Mode is also available from the Main Menu, but honestly I have yet to find a difference it in and Story Mode except that you actually unlock more in Story Mode. In both, you can play two players, you can access the Teahouse to increase bonds, and you can buy weapons. You also have the Network Assistant in both modes. When you talk to her, you will be able to download new content and play online. Online play lets you with one other person. You can join a Quick Match and play with a randomly-assigned player or you can search for your friends to join up with. I really like that they make it so you can play both online and locally with another player as so many games seem to be choosing one or the other.

The Main Menu also has Musou Battlefields for you to select, which is really cool. Basically you can take any stage that you have unlocked already and edit. You can change what the characters say and which characters appear. After saving it, you can upload it for other people to play as well. When you go into edit one, you will be given a certain number of "edit points." Character lines and music do not cost edit points, but everything else does. This means that you can only change so many things in each board, so be careful how you use them. Of course, you still can't make them speak in English, but it's fun to change things around and have totally different things happen. You can also choose Gallery from the Main Menu. You might think the Gallery would only have wallpapers that you have unlocked, but it also has the characters' lines, emotion charts, and more. It's actually neat to be able to see all of the stuff outside of battle. There are also additional things like overviews of the previous two games, just in case you haven't played them and want to know what happened.

I find that the difficulty in Warriors Orochi 3 varies from stage to stage depending on what characters you use and how much they are leveled up. The good thing is that when you select a stage, you then select the difficulty level that you want: Easy, Normal, Hard, or Chaos. Each level has between one and ten stars, telling you how hard it is to beat, so this should help you decide on what you want to do and which characters you want to use. Each level has a "recommended" team for you to use or you can use the ones you want. I have found that I like to use the recommended each time as it seems like you get more missions that way. Of course, I could be imagining that, but I guess I like doing what the game tells me to. Missions can be accepted before you start the battle and give you bonuses, so I recommend accepting them. Anyway, the levels don't have to be played in order. You can choose whichever ones that you have unlocked to rescue whichever officers you want next, which is quite neat. If you have issues with one, skip it and level up some or change it to a different difficulty. You choose the difficulty after you choose the level, so this makes it so that if you have issues on any specific board, you can just play it at an easier difficulty level.

The Distribute Growth Points option will save you at times. As you unlock new characters, those will be recommended for the next battles but they will start out at level 1 with a weak weapon. You can use the Distribute Growth Points that you have accumulated to get them up in level (usually at least level 7 based on how many points you have) and you can use the gems and crystals that you have earned to buy new weapons for them. You will automatically get the gems, but you have to pick up the crystals from drops. They are a bit hard to see, but if you keep an eye out, you'll see a glowing dot when they are dropped. I might even recommend buying two or three weapons and using the fusion to make a stronger weapon depending on which stage you are taking on. Of course, since you can play two players, you can recruit a friend to help you past a difficult spot.

The actual controls in Warriors Orochi 3 are mostly the same as the previous games, so if you played those, you will feel very comfortable. Your Left Stick will move your character and the Right Stick moves the camera. (X) does a Normal Attack, (Y) is a Charge Attack, (B) is a Musou Attack, and (A) will jump. (LB) is Guard and (RB) is a Special Attack. But if for some reason you don't like these, you can reassign and switch around which button does what under Options and Xbox 360 Controller Settings. Your character can equip one sword and two items to increase their powers. Weapon Fusion is back in this game. You can fuse your weapons together at the Weapons Dealer using the crystals that you have earned. Sometimes after battles, you will be given Lottery Tickets. You can use these at the Weapons Dealer. When you use them, you will get random weapons for quite a few characters. Since they're random, sometimes they aren't any good, but sometimes you get really lucky and get a powerful one, so make sure to use tickets when you get them! One recommendation is to watch for enemy Musou attacks because you can get killed by one single attack if you're not careful! You can hear a certain sound when they are about to cast it so when you hear it, block or run.

As I have said, I love the Warriors series and I'm quite glad to have the new Warriors Orochi 3. I love that they have even added in characters from Warriors: Legends of Troy as it gives even more variety to the storylines that they can come up with. Warriors Orochi 3 will provide you many, many hours of entertainment if you are trying to unlock everything as you will have to work on the character bonds, which really takes time. The Warriors games are my favorite hack n' slash games ever and Warriors Orochi 3 is a fine addition to the series. If you're looking for a great hack n' slash, I highly recommend that you go pick it up today!