Warriors: Legends of Troy – Review – PS3

For many years, Tecmo Koei held a strong presence in the hack n’ slash genre with Dynasty Warriors. There have been many iterations of Dynasty Warriors but each followed various stories in Chinese mythology. At first, it was an interesting story to play through but eventually, after each game, it felt the same. Now, to appeal more directly to the Western market I assume, Koei Canada decided to create a different game that fans of Dynasty Warriors should still love, but instead, follow Greek mythology. I love Greek mythology so this was a game I was interested in.

Story: Warriors: Legends of Troy, has you playing through the battles of multiple warriors on both sides during the Trojan War. You are introduced to and are shown a brief glimpse into the life of familiar characters mentioned in Greek mythology like Achilles, Helen, Odysseus, Paris, and Diomedes to name a few. I didn’t know too much about the Trojan side so it was interesting to see that side of the story in this game. The other thing you will see, which seems farfetched when reading the mythology, is the use of supernatural powers and ghostly figures of the gods.

Gameplay: Warriors: Legends of Troy, in my opinion is best described as a skillful hack ‘n slash game. What I mean by this is, instead of just mashing the X and Y button for standard and powerful attacks, you are given incentive for timing your attacks. For instance, if you press X, X, X, X, you will create a standard combo, but if you press X, then X roughly a second later, and so on to complete the combo, your warrior ís attack will be flashier and more powerful than the previous button mashing combo. Over time, you can upgrade these attacks and also unlock new, even more brutal attacks. Each warrior you play, which alternates between battles, features a different fighting style. This is good because the gameplay is always different from each battle as opposed to playing the same warrior and using the same attacks over and over until you can upgrade; which even then, the attack can feel very much the same with only strength being upgraded.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was playing a video game version of 300. No, not the terrible movie-based one from a few years ago, I’m talking a proper 300 game. Although the story is not directly related to Spartans alone, many of the attacks felt very similar. Things like jumping in the air and forward for a piercing sword attack into the enemy or creating a shield wall to protect from overhead arrows then cutting them off with your sword or slow motion attacks and counter attacks with spears, swords, arrows, shields.

Graphics/Audio: Compared to Dynasty Warriors, Warriors: Legends of Troy contains a lot more Blood and gore. Blood isn’t too apparent, but the gore is definitely there when enemies are killed and limbs are sometimes removed. Graphically, Warriors: Legends of Troy is quite an improvement over Dynasty Warriors, both in models and textures. With that, the draw distance is surprisingly increased eliminating a lot of the obvious pop-ups in the world.

Cutscenes come in three forms: pre-rendered, in-game and wall drawings of sorts. Both pre-rendered and in-game can look good, with pre-rendered obviously looking the best, however, lip-syncing in both doesn’t always synchronize and can appear stiff.

Apart from the poor lip-syncing, the voice over work isn’t too bad. Voices match characters fairly well as in a big tough warrior actually has a big voice as opposed to some games in this genre that will likely use any normal voice. Music is very well done and sets the fighting mood throughout the game from the menus, cutscenes and of course the actual battles.

Overall: Although I never really enjoyed hack n’ slash games because of the repetition and mashing of buttons for attacks, Warriors: Legends of Troy and its skillful hack n’ slash gameplay kept me engaged. Of course, the underlying Greek mythology helped too. Even though I mentioned animations can be off especially with lip syncing, the actual gameplay is smooth and fun. For those who were slightly interested in hack n’ slash games but wanted something a little different in the story and more appealing to the western market, Warriors: Legend of Troy is for you.

Overall score: 7/10

Pros:
-Skillful hack n’ slash as opposed to just button mashing
-Engaging gameplay and story based on Greek mythology
-Improved graphics and draw distance from the predecessor Dynasty Warriors

Cons:
-Poor lip-syncing
-The story can be tough to follow when switching between the different
warriors

A PS3 copy of this game was provided from the publisher for review purposes.

Popularity: unranked [?]