Warriors Orochi

Warriors Orochi (無双OROCHI, Musō Orochi) is a cross-over game created by Omega Force in which the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series are combined in a new parallel universe. It is the first title in the series.

Gameplay

 * Warriors Orochi allows the player to choose three-man teams to play in-battle and are limited to playing only one character at a time. Switching to other selected characters is used on game consoles via back shoulder buttons. Inactive warriors recuperate health and Musou. Although the player chooses a team of characters, one man's death leads to a stage's failure.


 * Working closely with other allies causes characters to slowly regenerate health. This feature encourages players to fight together with friendly units. A more lasting effect can be gained by forming alliances with third party factions in battle.


 * Characters now have special attacks which can be triggered by pressing R1. Depending on the class of warrior, these abilities require Musou to activate. Up to two of these attacks may be attributed to each character. All personages playable are divided into three classes - Power, Speed, and Technique, which affect special moves.


 * The Musou gauge can only be refilled by picking up recovery items, by standing still and holding without a full Musou gauge, or by staying as a reserve party member. It cannot be refilled by getting hit, attacking, or by being low on health. Up to three characters can participate in a damaging attack called Musou Chain. While initiating a Musou attack, switch to another character and immediately press . If the timing is right, the following character will have a stronger Musou than before. Their attack gains a special property depending on the team's character classes. One character from each class activates the Flash skill which will break the enemy's guard.


 * Growth Points, earned through completing stages, can be used to increase characters' levels and enrich weapons through Weapon Fusion.


 * Unique items are used to improve the strength of special attacks. Each character has his/her own item, and has his/her own requirements to unlock it. With special attacks, weapons can also be refined and upgraded, using the Weapon Fusion system. Elements, such as Fire, Ice, Multi, Agility, and Brave, can be added on using Growth Points. Each element has a special effect on a weapon, and with more of one component added on to one weapon, the more powerful that component becomes, and more often it comes. Level 4 weapons are obtained by playing through a level 3 or higher stage on Hard or by clearing any stage on Chaos difficulty.


 * Horse calling, originally exclusive to Yukimura Sanada and Keiji Maeda, is now available to all characters. Horse jumping, a technique from Samurai Warriors, can also be done by all characters.


 * Special Requirements are needed to unlock the eighth Gaiden stage. These requirements will be done on the regular seventh level.


 * Characters can no longer use arrows, reflect arrows back at opponents, or evade from enemy attacks by rolling. Bodyguards, features from Dynasty Warriors 5, such as Musou Rage and Weight system, were not included. Ninjas can no longer double jump or use the ninja paths in the Samurai Warriors maps.

Characters
All major characters from past Warriors games appear, save for Fu Xi and Nu Wa. The two new unique characters are Orochi, the game's main antagonist, and Da Ji, his strategist. In the English game, Orochi's generic officers are named after snakes, an allusion to Orochi's mythological background.

Zuo Ci, Lu Bu, and Tadakatsu Honda are not unlockable by completing a story mode. Zuo Ci can be unlocked by completing all four stories. Lu Bu can be unlocked by impressing him on all the eighth Gaiden stages, while Tadakatsu Honda is unlocked by completing and impressing him all the seventh Gaiden stages.

Once additional characters have been unlocked, replaying the main levels will often switch certain characters for select dialogue in the opening and closing cutscenes from among the unlocked characters. The characters selected is random regardless of whether or not they are related to the particular faction's story.

Shu
From the introduction, Liu Bei was captured and supposedly killed while Zhao Yun is held in Ueda Castle where he loses all hope of any restoration of Shu. He is rescued by Zuo Ci, Yoshihiro Shimazu, and Xing Cai with Zuo Ci revealing that Liu Bei is still alive. Zhao Yun rejoices at this news and embarks on his journey to rescue his lord. During the course of the timeline, Zhao Yun receives news that his lord is at specific locations, though they turn out to be deceiving, which deflates the morale of the army. At Hasedō, after rescuing a captive Yue Ying, Zhao Yun finds out that Shu's former strategist Zhuge Liang works for Orochi, which confuses them. At Edo Castle, Shu unexpectedly battles Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, Liu Bei's oath brothers. The two reveal that they, including Zhuge Liang, fight for Orochi only because he keeps their brother captive. Though with hope and logic, they see that their tyrant is close to falling with multiple resistances, and join with Shu, to defeat Orochi.

Wei
In this story, Cao Pi takes command after his father Cao Cao has gone missing. As the new leader of Wei, Cao Pi agrees to form an alliance with Orochi after an offer sent by his strategist, Da Ji. Under this alliance, Cao Pi suppresses all rebellions under Orochi's command. Da Ji puts an unfriendly Mitsunari Ishida into Wei to keep an eye on Cao Pi. Throughout the early stages of this story, the latter makes a friendship with Ishida, and begin to creep away from Orochi's unfocused eye. Da Ji finds out once she sees Cao Pi let Sun Ce go, when he was supposed to be captured. With encouragement from Nobunaga Oda, Xiahou Dun, who led his own anti-Orochi force, joins Wei along with Xiahou Yuan, and Pang Tong. Near the end of the story, at Yamazaki, Dian Wei and Cao Cao appear to help the Coalition, and mold into the powerful Wei, greatly increasing morale, and deflating their enemy's. Wei eventually defeats Orochi.

Wu
For the kingdom of Wu, Orochi blackmails the Sun family, as well as Ieyasu Tokugawa into servitude with the life of Sun Ce's father Sun Jian's, and Tokugawa officers' lives as the consequence. As a reward of sorts, every time Sun Ce completes a mission, Orochi releases one of his hostages. The first to rebel, Sun Ce encounters more conflict in the form of his disapproving siblings, who think that he is acting selfish, forgetting the price of disobeying Orochi. During the later course of the story, Sun Ce is attacked by his brother, Sun Quan, who repeatedly fails. For this, he and Sun Jian are designated for execution at Komaki-Nagakute, though Sun Ce successfully rescues them. In the story, fortunately, after reuniting, the Sun family leads Wu to defeat Orochi.

Samurai
Here, the three major daimyo Nobunaga Oda, Shingen Takeda, and Kenshin Uesugi each maintain a resistance force against Orochi but refuse to work with each other. Each daimyo, instead of focusing on combining to defeat Orochi focus on gaining more people for their resistances to make themselves more powerful. Throughout the story, Nobunaga predicts the future, making intricate plans that foresee and takes action with Cao Pi's betrayal of Orochi, and sending Sakon Shima to help Wu. Eventually, the three daimyo ally together to defeat Orochi. Afterward, the alliance splits, preparing for future war.

Free Mode
Allows any team to play once on any stage. Each time free mode is selected, the player will need to select a team of three characters. By contrast, teams created in story mode will keep for multiple runs in the story scenario they were created under.

Gallery Mode
Allows players to see acquired characters, weapons and movies. Each character has four images dedicated to them. For each image unlocked, a miniature description is given to state the requirements to view them.

Bugs and Glitches

 * Jumping charge bugs
 * Have Xu Huang in a team. When facing an enemy officer, finish them with his jumping charge. He will continue spinning until he is hit by peons, arrows or cannon fire. A similar phenomenon can also happen with Zuo Ci and Xing Cai.


 * Have Ginchiyo in a team and perform her R1 ability. Switch immediately to a Dynasty Warriors character and perform a jumping charge attack. Depending on the character, certain elements of their attacks will act erratically. This is also an easier way to recreate the previously mentioned effects.


 * Kunoichi and Goemon share a unique glitch in which they can defeat faraway foes with their jumping charge attacks. The characters do not need to be near one another as the ninja will seemingly "shoot" a destructive, invisible force to foes. This also affects Kunoichi's C3. The requirements are vague but it seems that a weapon must have the barest of essentials to make this work. This does not appear on the Xbox, PSP or PC ports.


 * See the Sky
 * Have Ina approach a wall and perform her C1. The camera has to be facing the wall when this occurs. The same effect can be done with Okuni's C4.


 * Horse glitch in Fan Castle
 * To do this glitch, you can only do this on SW Chapter 6 Battle of Fan Castle. While on the bridge between the land and Fan Castle call a horse, but randomly the horse appears under water. To get the horse out of the water, you must call the horse far away from the bridge or capture the flood gates. Sometimes this glitch/bug will not work on the bridge.

PSP
In this version of Warriors Orochi the only main difference is that it is on a hand held console. This game marks the first time a Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors game port featured full maps. Before this game, maps were divided into smaller portions that had to be taken over before players could move on.

This game features all of the characters and features from the original game with the addition of wireless multiplayer by using the PlayStation Portable's wireless networking.

PC
The PC version of this game offers the highest resolution graphics and additionally adds two more pictures for the characters' gallery sections. These images can be obtained when the character reaches level 30 and level 60. Many of these same renders later appear in the gallery section for Warriors Orochi 2.

Related Media
Aside from the guide books, character encyclopedia, and special character guide, Koei officially funded the following publications for this game:


 * Comic Musou Orochi ~ Battle Royal Vol. 1 - collection of four panel parody comics created and illustrated by fans. ISBN: 978-4-7758-0605-0
 * Comic Musou Orochi ~ Battle Royal Vol. 2 - ISBN: 978-4-7758-0606-7
 * Comic Musou Orochi ~ Battle Royal Vol. 3 - ISBN: 978-4-7758-0607-4

Image Song

 * Zero No Kotae
 * Performed by UVERworld
 * * used for commercials