As you might know, I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Warriors games now, including some of the Empires games. Overall, they are among my favorite games, and I am happy that the new Samurai Warriors 4 Empires is excellent as well. I can say that it is my favorite of the Empires that I have played.

If you played Samurai Warriors 4 or Samurai Warriors 4-II, then you will recognize the characters since they look exactly as they did there. Plus, if you had any custom characters in either of those games, you can import those into Samurai Warriors 4 Empires. You will unfortunately have to rename them as the names don’t carry over, but it’s nice not to have to remake your favorites. You can also make custom characters in Samurai Warriors 4 Empires. Something that I really like is that when you are in a base, it has visible borders. If it’s an enemy base, you’ll see a red curtain-like thing at the entrances. If it’s blue, it’s an allied base. These borders make it really easy to tell when you are inside a base or not.

Samurai Warriors 4 Empires is all in Japanese with English subtitles. As before, I still have trouble reading what is going on while fighting, so I find I miss some things that I wouldn’t if it was in English. But I’d rather have it in Japanese than not at all. There is a whole lot of music in the game too. Like all the other games, there is a different song for each battlefield. You can choose to change to any of those songs before each battle too. The developers also didn’t forget the little effects, like Nobunaga’s sword’s sound effects.

When I first started up Samurai Warriors 4 Empires, I unlocked a couple of free items because I had data from Samurai Warriors 4 and Samurai Warriors 4-II, a "Sanada Army (Gold)" banner and a "Ii Army (Gold)" banner. Anyway, after that you need to decide what to play and you’ve got a few choices. Conquest Mode and Genesis Mode are both places that you can play. Edit Mode is where you can create your own custom characters. The Vault is where you can see cutscenes, music, and biographies that you have unlocked. Settings lets you change game stuff, but you can also upload and download your games to the cloud. This is very handy if you happen to play in different locations a lot. That said, most of your time will be spent in Conquest Mode.

In Conquest Mode, you choose a clan and try to achieve whatever objective that clan wants. You only have three scenarios to choose from when you first start up, but more will unlock as you beat the current ones. Once you select a scenario, you will be given the option to change up game settings: Difficulty, Data Importing, Custom Characters, Female Characters, and Officer Deaths. I find it odd that you can get rid of all the female characters. You can also choose to just have the "famous" female officers. It’s just a strange setting to me... Officer Deaths will let you decide in advance if officers can be executed or not.

Once you set your options, you can choose a clan. Each clan will have a different ambition for you to try and achieve. Some are simply "reach the capital" or "unite an area." Some are more deliberate, like "destroying the Hojo Clan." Some of the clans will have Recommended in red right below the clan name. These are the ones that the game thinks that you should play. At the end of the battle, provided you win, you will then start setting up your empire. First you will need to appoint a strategist. All your officers will assemble four times a year for politics. Your strategist will be the main adviser. Their strategy will affect your entire territory so choose wisely. The territories can produce Commerce, Rice, Troops, and Loyalty. After a strategist, you will appoint up to two magistrates per room. These people are in charge of the domestic stuff. You have a room for Development, Military, and Personnel. You can only appoint each person once and you can change these officers each spring if you want. After you get everything set up, you will choose somewhere to invade. Different castles will be easier or harder, so strategize accordingly. The game will sometimes recommend who they think you should take out next.

Basically, you have a politic phase where you take care of kingdom needs and a battle phase where you can invade or defend if someone happens to attack you. In the battle phase, you do not have to fight each season. You should definitely let your troop strengths recover, especially after a hard battle. You will also need to build up enough supplies and gold to march into battle. During the politic phase, your advisers will bring various proposals for you to hear. These will all cost, so make sure the cost is worth the reward. You can only listen to one proposal per spring at first, but you will be able to listen to more as your fame increases. Once you complete whatever your initial ambition was, you can choose to continue to reunite the entire land or start as a different clan. Genesis Mode is basically the same as Conquest, except you can move the clans around wherever you want to create a custom game.

After you choose a scenario in Samurai Warriors 4 Empires, you will be given the option to choose a difficulty level. You can choose from Easy, Normal, Hard, or Nightmare. I will admit that I am not the world’s greatest strategist. Typically I prefer to just fight, so I started on Normal to begin, but I didn’t have any trouble running an empire on Normal. I did have to levy supplies from the people from time to time, but not so much that my fame really went down enough to matter. I can still beat the Hard difficulty, but it takes some work, while Nightmare is a nightmare for me! There are some things to remember and some tricks to help make your game easier.

You want to capture enemy bases so that your bases can have a supply path. You can capture a base by reducing their troop count to zero. You can tell how far it needs to go down by the red bar on the top left of the screen. You have to remember to check the supply paths first though. If you do not have a line of supplies into that base, you will not be able to conquer that base. In some castles, it can be quite tricky to get to the bases that you have lines to. Taking a base will also affect the morale.

The morale of an area can make or break your battle. If the area is red on the screen, the enemy has higher morale, so it will be harder for you to beat them. If the area is blue, your troops have higher morale, so the battle will be much easier. Your health will gradually recharge in allied camps, so make sure to watch your health and head to one of your bases if you need. I did find that when my health was low, my musou gauge refilled really quickly, so sometimes I would use that to attack with musou and then get out of harm’s way until that musou filled up again.

When you invade or defend, you will choose which officers go into battle with you. You have to choose from officers that are stationed either next to a territory you are invading or inside one that you are defending. Their troop strength, along with the rest of their stats, will greatly affect the battle. You can play two player in battle, so if you’re having trouble, try and find a friend to help.

Once you take over a castle, you get to choose what to do with the surviving enemy officers. You can either employ them, release them, or execute them. Some of them would rather die than work for you, but for the most part, they will abide with your choice. You will have to live with your decision. Obviously you don’t want to kill everyone, since you need strong officers, but you don’t want to release or recruit someone if that decision will haunt you later when they turn on you. Making friends with various officers and strengthening that friendship can help you conquer as well.

The controls in Samurai Warriors 4 Empires are very similar to the previous Warriors games. In battle, (L) moves, (Square) is basic attack, and (Triangle) is power attack if following a basic attack, or a hyper attack if used first. (R1) is your special skill and (L1) blocks. The Touch Pad opens your information screen. (R2) switches the map view and (L2) calls a horse. (R3) enters rage mode when the meter is full and you can use the D-pad to give command to all of your units. Press right on it to tell them to all charge and left to tell them to all defend. Press down to give them free will and up to open a tactics screen where you can give individual commands. Some of the officers are playable characters that you can switch to inside this tactics screen. Sometimes you are given Objectives. Meeting this is recommended as it can give you some good bonuses. You can use (Options) to change playable character if that character has an objective.

There is even more to Samurai Warriors 4 Empires than I have covered here. There are all sorts of other things that you will need to try and achieve, like making officers retainers, which will upgrade your weapons. There is a lot to this game! Check out the various banners that you can fly on your castle since each banner changes bonuses for your castle. I don’t even want to think about how many hours it would take to manage to have each clan conquer the world in each scenario. If you just go for the first objective, you can beat some scenarios in under an hour if you try, but to continue on to unite the land takes many more hours.

While I liked the last Empires game that I played, it wasn’t my favorite in the series. I usually prefer to just play the stories rather than try to manage the kingdoms. Something about Samurai Warriors 4 Empires feels different than the last one though. I really want to keep playing it and try to conquer the world. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I love the strategy in Samurai Warriors 4 Empires. If you’re a fan of the series or if you like strategy games, check out Samurai Warriors 4 Empires today!