Warriors All-Stars

Musou ☆ Stars (無双☆スターズ) is a crossover Warriors game that features several IPs owned by Koei and its subsidiaries and one of the projects that celebrates Omega Force's twentieth anniversary. It was first revealed to the public on stage during the 2016 PlayStation Press Conference in Japan.

Masaki Furusawa is the producer. The game was originally going to be another Warriors Orochi game, but the developers decided to create something different to "evolve" the Warriors brand. The general concept is to present "a hero battle starring all the protagonists", so the majority of the playable roster are characters who are fan favorites or starring in one of the company's latest IPs. A keyword for development is "festival" while the action parts are themed to "joint struggle."

Kou Shibusawa remarked that there are no characters from his IPs in this game, although Furusawa considers Nobunyaga and William to be representatives (the latter being "a quasi" one). The team chose a vanilla character roster that they think would have entertaining character interactions with one another and would look visually interesting together. Another goal was to avoid overlaps, meaning that if Nobunyaga is in, Samurai Warriors Nobunaga would not be considered.

The Treasure Box edition includes a visual book, an original soundtrack, two scroll wall posters, and a postcard calendar. Buy the game new to receive downloadable serial codes for Wang Yuanji's Kasumi costume and an early Opoona unlock. Reserve the game from Gamecity or Amazon to receive a code for Arima in Yukimura's costume. Other bonuses are being offered at various outlets.

Plot
The story takes place in an alternate world that relies on a miraculous spring to sustain itself. The King, who could control the spring's powers, suddenly perished, leaving the world in turmoil. The Queen tasked her daughter with summoning otherworldly heroes to save their land, but the attempted summoning errs and scatters the heroes to different areas of their world. Other members of the royal family rise to claim the throne and divide the heroes into three warring factions.

Gameplay
The player decides on one character to act as their party leader while the others provide support. A five-man party is the maximum limit. Leaders and party members can be changed any time before battle. There is no character switching during battle, only the rearrangement of the support characters' order.

Each character has a "Hero Skill", a special ability that they use for when they act as support. They have cooldown if used, so a single character cannot be used consecutively. Hero Skills are divided into three types: healing, support, or offensive. Press R1 and the corresponding button assigned to a character to activate their skill; hold R1 to read brief descriptions for the party's skills.

Every character has a fluctuating "Brave" rating for each stage, which can further strengthen their attack and defense power. Brave can be boosted by defeating enemies and completing sub-missions. When Brave is high, characters can use their "Awakened Skill", a stronger Hero Skill, and gain the ability to start "Hero Chain", which has all party members lined up and attacking enemies. Brave can help with the harder parts of a map, but it is not a mandatory requirement for proceeding through stages.

Characters can additionally perform "Combined Skill", or the simultaneous activation of Hero Skills between two characters that can be freely decided by the player. Combined Skills are given their own names when they are activated. Character pairings that come from different IPs are encouraged and may unlock unique Combined Skills.

"Musou Fever" (R3) involves every party member in a festive Musou limited timed sequence. After the leader starts the sequence, a timer ticks down at the top of the screen. The player can freely move around their leader while a support character provides assistance such as boosting the leader's strength or increasing the time on the Fever Timer. The player has to defeat a certain number of foes to summon the rest of their party to cheer before the timer runs out. Longer Musou Fevers can make the leader completely invincible.

Musou Fever sequences can end with all party members performing the finisher. Character quotes change depending on their friendship levels with one another. The higher their friendship level, the stronger their Musou Fever.

Stages contain bases, and are divided into five types:
 * 1) Standard - if captured, this base will drop orbs. Collect these orbs to remove the cooldown for Hero Skills.
 * 2) Restorative - stores healing items.
 * 3) Treasure - grants additional bonus rewards after the player wins the battle.
 * 4) Attack - shoots arrows at the opposition.
 * 5) Defense - boosts the durability of nearby bases and base soldiers.

Friendship ratings are unique to each character and play a pivotal role in strengthening a character's performance as leader. Each character has their individual relationship ratings with the cast that are ranked into five tiers: Stranger (lowest), Acquaintance, Friend, Trustworthy, and Intimate (highest). Affinities can be increased by specifically having characters form a battle party. Character interactions that increase ratings for the leader are noted by the hearts that pop over a character's portrait.

Aside from Musou Fevers, friendship ratings can unlock "Friendship Skills" which can be used on "Hero Cards", supplementary character cards that can alter character attributes like granting elemental buffs, altering base stats, and so on. Cards can be collected by defeating generals in battles or completing sub-missions. Cards come with different rankings of rarity; the rarest Hero Cards have special conditions for unlocking and cannot be altered. Gold and materials collected from battles are needed for alterations. Friendship Skills can offer different benefits than the default Hero Card skills and can be stacked based on a character's friendship ratings with the cast. The mastery levels for Friendship Skills vary between each character.

The Holy Castle is the player's main base. The player can wander the castle confines with whoever they have selected as their leader to enjoy various out-of-battle character interactions at any point in the story. It includes a Refinery to sell, alter or disassemble Hero Cards and a Training Ground to level up characters outside of battle.

Special character conversations at the castle grounds often involve groups of characters and have a limited time to initiate before they expire. They include multi-choice answers for the player to select. Like the Neoromance series, it's advised to select a favorable answer to further boost character friendship ratings. Friendship conversations are reliant on the interacting characters' gender, as same sex conversations will not be the same as the different sex ones.

If character friendship ratings reach Intimate and the player has successfully completed a special conversation, a unique hot springs bathing scene will occur as a reward. Mixed gender bathing scenes are available.

During the World Screen pause menu, the player can access the in-game Gallery and Encyclopedia. The gallery collects earned movies, music, character models and dialogue, character events, wallpapers and battle results. The encyclopedia explains terminology from various continuities. More terms are unlocked from character events.

Other gameplay traits include:
 * To contrast the Warriors Orochi series, all characters have up to C6 for their movesets. Certain characters will have more appending charge attacks to better allude to their original IP.
 * Certain characters can afflict a new status ailment on their opponents called "Heart Break" which lowers a character's fighting capabilities. Cards can grant "Love" status to defend against it.
 * Dashing attacks no longer force characters to stop their sprint.
 * Stages, music, materials, and enemies will be based on varying IPs from Koei, Tecmo or Gust. Original NPCs and stages will be included.
 * Music selection for battles is present for certain stages.
 * Downloadable content is so far costumes. Furusawa has stated consideration for a future multiplayer themed update.

Story Mode
Characters are automatically assigned based on their IP to one of the three factions: Tamaki, Setsuna, or Shiki. The available scenarios change depending on the player's starting faction. After the introduction cinematic, the player can select their next course of action through the world map screen. Battles, items, and information events are all marked. Information events are required to unlock further events for their faction's story. The player is free to collect materials and items or proceed with the story at their leisure. Battles that can be repeatedly played with no effects to the main story like challenge battles will be present.

As the player proceeds through their faction's main story, they can unlock additional playable characters by completing "Hero Battles." However, there are instances where recruiting a particular character at a certain part of the main story will restrict conditions for obtaining a specific ending.

The other watershed events are "Key Battles"; completing these events will close off a story branch in favor of another. These battles can be unlocked or missed altogether, depending on the selected route, the player's available party members, or specific key items.

Hero Battle and Key Battle conditions may also fail to trigger if a specific character is not made the leader of a party. Clearing one type of battle over another may cause the unselected battle to disappear for the rest of the playthrough.

Repeated playthoughs are encouraged since it is impossible to see every possible ending in a single playthrough. Fifteen different endings can be unlocked in the vanilla game.

Characters
Characters with * are starting characters.

Tamaki's Force

 * Tamaki
 * Zhao Yun (Dynasty Warriors)*
 * Wang Yuanji (Dynasty Warriors)
 * Zhou Cang (Dynasty Warriors)
 * Lu Bu (Dynasty Warriors)
 * Ōka (Toukiden)*
 * Horō (Toukiden)
 * Tokitsugu (Toukiden)
 * Opoona (Opoona)
 * Sophie Neuenmuller (Atelier)*
 * Plachta (Atelier)
 * Sayo - Unique NPC

Shiki's Force

 * Shiki
 * Yukimura Sanada (Samurai Warriors)*
 * Mitsunari Ishida (Samurai Warriors)
 * Naotora Ii (Samurai Warriors)
 * Hajime Arima (Harukanaru Toki no Naka de)*
 * Darius (Harukanaru Toki no Naka de)
 * William Adams (Nioh)*
 * Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden)*
 * Ayane (Ninja Gaiden)

Setsuna's Force

 * Setsuna
 * Nobunyaga Oda (Samurai Cats)*
 * Kasumi (Dead or Alive)*
 * Marie Rose (Dead or Alive)
 * Honoka (Dead or Alive)
 * Millennia (Deception)
 * Laegrinna (Deception)*
 * Rio Tachibana (Rio)*
 * Arnice (Nights of Azure)*
 * Christophorus (Nights of Azure)

Related Media
Famitsu held a poll for fans to make character requests until October 16, 2016. Up to five characters will be considered for inclusion; they will appear as downloadable characters with their own stories and endings. The top ten results of the poll were revealed in the April 13, 2017 issue. They are: Furusawa was surprised by the first two, especially the second. He stated that he may consider more Neoromance protagonists in the sequel.
 * 1) Diaochan (Dynasty Warriors)
 * 2) Nozomi Kasuga (Harukanaru Toki no Naka de)
 * 3) Nobunaga Oda (Geten no Hana)
 * 4) Ionasal kkll Preciel (Ar Nosurge)
 * 5) Earthes (Ar Nosurge)
 * 6) Leiji Myoga (Kiniro no Corda)
 * 7) Logix Fiscario (Atelier)
 * 8) Hotaru (Geten no Hana)
 * 9) Oscar (Angelique)
 * 10) Totooria Helmold (Atelier)

PlayStation Japan wants to know players' strongest dream team from the thirty default playable characters so they can post select comments on their blog. Interested participants have until March 20, 2017 to share their thoughts through blog comments or over Twitter.

Four fans who retweeted their favorite character(s) during the game's Twitter campaigns won autographed cards from the voice actors. The most popular character scene voted by fans for the first and second campaigns are fully available for early online viewing, while second and fifth place scenes for the first and second campaigns are compiled into one video.

Furusawa was a guest for the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 6 Gentou Rondo pre-release live stream; he promoted Musou ☆ Stars's hot springs fanservice using a placard that features the male cast. January 26, 2017 was the date of the first live stream that had Kazutoshi Sekiguchi as a special guest. The second live demonstration happened February 24, 2017 with Nobunyaga. The third live stream occurred on March 10, 2017 with Osamu Mieda present. March 28, 2017 was the date of the fourth live stream with Masumi Asano (Ouka), Mai Aizawa (Marie Rose), and Yuuka Aisaka (Sophie) as special guests. Five viewers can gather keywords at the end of each live stream to receive voice actor autographs or merchandise if they follow instructions at the end of the fourth live stream; the deadline for entries is April 2, 2017.

A press conference to celebrate the game's completion was held March 23, 2017. Ai Nonaka (Honoka), Yuka Iguchi (Plachta), Tomoyo Kurosawa (Christophorus), Kanae Ito (Wang Yuanji), and Yusuke Kobayashi (Opoona) shared their commentary about the game on stage.

Game★Maniax featured a pre-recorded visit to Koei's main company building and an interview with Furusawa about this game for their March 4 broadcast. Three people can potentially win free PS4 copies of the game by entering the show's online giveaway; deadline for entries was March 17, 2017. Famitsu featured gameplay footage from the game during their March 22, 2017 Tokaigi TV segment.

Japanese let's player duo Ii Otanatati will be hosting a company sponsored let's play of this game on their Nico Nico Douga channel. The first video was posted on March 24, 2017.

Omega Force's twentieth anniversary website has the original characters for this game star for March in their 2017 online calendar.

Thirty-four Tokyo and Akihabara cafes, restaurants and other outlets are hosting a food campaign for this game March 10~31, 2017. Place mats of the playable cast are offered at each location. The majority of the participating stores are assigned to a single playable character. Customers with 500 yen or more orders from a store's menu will be given a postcard of that store's character. Customers who collect all of the Akihabara postcards can be eligible to receive a postcard exclusive to this campaign.

Baseball team Yokohama DeNA Baystars shall have two collaborations with this game. The first includes three downloadable costumes that will be free from the PlayStation Store. The second includes original collaboration merchandise with illustrations by Katsuki Onda that has the baseball players dressed as characters from the playable cast. Additional merchandise for this collaboration will be sold at YOKOHAMA GIRLS☆FESTIVAL 2017.

Furusawa was a guest on the Taiwanese program Baha Game Crazy for their March 16, 2017 segment. His appearance came with another announcement for a cosplay contest hosted by Koei-Tecmo Taiwan. Cosplayers have until March 29 to share their photos on the official company Facebook. Taiwanese cosplayer DenKa, who is also the special guest for Koei-Tecmo Taiwan's pre-release press conference, will act as a special judge for entries. The top contestant may win a PS4 copy of Musou Stars.

Allusions

 * The soundtrack contains many re-arranged musical motifs that originated from their previous IPs.
 * Dynasty Warriors - Arena, Welcome to China, Sacred Ground, Lu Bu's Theme
 * Samurai Warriors - Ōsaka Castle, Okehazama, City of Flowers
 * Toukiden - Melodies of Nakatsukuni
 * Samurai Cats - Neko Bushou Sengoku Emaki
 * Haruka - Kokuchou
 * Nioh -
 * Ninja Gaiden - Ryu's Determination
 * Dead or Alive - Hitohira, Tropical Beat
 * Deception - To The End of Deception (Millennia)
 * Rio - Jackpot
 * Rygar -
 * Atelier - Yattemiyou!
 * Nights of Azure - Lady Crimson