WARRIORS ALL-STARS

My first hour with Warriors All-Stars was spent squinting at the roster screen trying to work out whether that tiny cat in a general's outfit was actually playable. He is. Oda Nobunyaga, a rifle-wielding feline warlord who summons squads of gun-toting cat soldiers mid-combo, is real, and he is genuinely one of the more entertaining characters to appear in the Musou genre. That tells you almost everything you need to know about what kind of game this is: a broad Koei Tecmo crossover that works best when you find your unexpected favourite and just start mashing into crowds with them. The core loop is classic Musou. You pick a leader from a roster of 30 characters drawn from 13 franchises, including Zhao Yun and Lu Bu from Dynasty Warriors, Kasumi and Marie Rose from Dead or Alive, Yukimura Sanada from Samurai Warriors, and William from Nioh, then bring up to four support characters with you into open battlefields. Bases are scattered across a grid-style map, each with a type that matters: standard bases drop orbs to reset Hero Skill cooldowns, restorative bases stock healing items, attack bases shoot arrows, and defense bases shore up nearby fortifications. You capture them, chase shifting objectives, and occasionally face off against enemy officers with their own move sets. Light RPG elements layer on top through a Bravery system that temporarily boosts your stats as you defeat officers, a Hero Card setup that lets you slot elemental buffs and stat modifications, and a Regard system where keeping consistent party members together raises their bond tiers from Associate up through Companion, unlocking stronger Musou Rush finishers and Friendship Skills. Musou Rush is the headline addition here and it earns the attention. Activate it, and the game starts dropping hundreds of enemies directly in front of you while you tear through them invincible at boosted speed. Kill enough in the 20-second window and the timer extends. Clear the threshold and your whole party slams down a screen-wide finisher together, showering you in loot. It is absurd and completely satisfying in the way only Musou games manage. The bond between your characters directly strengthens how hard that finisher hits, which makes party composition a genuine decision rather than just aesthetic. The PC port is serviceable: keyboard and mouse support exists but is rough around the edges, on-screen prompts still display gamepad buttons, and the game caps out at a 30fps or 60fps toggle rather than an uncapped framerate. Plug in a controller and most of those complaints disappear. Where the game stumbles is variety and story. There is one mode: story. No free battle, no Empires-style campaign map, no local multiplayer. The narrative gives just enough justification to start slaughtering crowds, but navigating which missions unlock the next story chapter versus which are optional side routes is confusing enough that players have written guides specifically to decode it. The branching structure does produce 15 different endings, so completionists have something to chase across multiple runs. Art style clashes are also present throughout since pulling character assets from games with very different visual identities means some fighters look like they wandered in from the wrong engine entirely. If you have no familiarity with Koei Tecmo's catalogue, this is a hard sell. Genre newcomers are better starting elsewhere. But if you played Nights of Azure, Toukiden, or Atelier and never expected to see those characters drop-kicking Dynasty Warriors generals, this crossover delivers exactly that weird joy. The underlying Musou mechanics are among the more polished in the mid-period of the genre, and Musou Rush alone elevates combat above a simple button-hold affair. Just come in with a gamepad and low expectations for the story.

Alex · Scout Team

Catch-all

Be the first to comment on WARRIORS ALL-STARS.