Touken Ranbu Warriors review

When a faction of evil-doers want to chance the past, it’s time for swords incarnated as handsome husbandos to save the day.

Prolific game franchises can often be daunting for newcomers. With mainline games spread across the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series, as well as spin-offs, crossovers, and licensed adaptations of Gundam, One Piece, Fist of the North Star, Persona, Fire Emblem, and The Legend of Zelda, there isn’t a clear entry point for ‘1 vs. 1000’ (or musou) games.

Sure, Tochigi-based developer Omega Force habitually offers a tutorial for each of their games. And often, there’s a difficulty setting than can be relaxed to embolden novices. But familiarity with more advanced mechanics or historical knowledge is almost indispensable. Without an understanding of say, the Yellow Turban Rebellion, you’ll probably be tossed onto one of Dynasty Warriors’ with little concern for why hundreds of troops are involved in scattered skirmishes. (a short answer: the peasants were tired of corrupt eunuchs and besieged by high taxes, famine, and floods. They wanted to establish a new imperial dynasty.)

Easy Does It

Despite being real-time reworking of a browser based, collectable game released for Japanese-literate audiences, Touken Ranbu Warriors is surprisingly adept admission in the world of musou games. Some of this accessibility stems from the game’s easy mode. This extends one of the most stress-free experiences found in Omega Force’s entire body of work, which stretches beyond 50 different games.

Yes, tackle Touken Ranbu Warriors on easy and time limits become a more precarious threat than any enemy. Typically, success with musou is a balance between issuing attack combos and knowing when to exploit your most powerful, crowd-clearing assault. But instead of reacting to on-screen adversity with different strings of button taps, you can dispense damage with by tapping the “Y” button repeatedly.

Musou Without the Minutiae

While characters can dash out of the way of danger, the ability proves non-essential. Most of the time, you can interrupt an enemy’s attack animation or simply step out of the highlighted area that reveals where the strike will land. Sporadically, you even summon one of your fellow swordsmen, who will automatically fight adversaries.  Given the straightforwardness and strength of the controls, you’re free to focus on the game’s storytelling without worry about getting stuck on a particular stage.

Even the levels themselves are downscaled. You won’t have to worry about chasing after flash points and switching units to help shift the balance of power. Instead Touken Ranbu Warriors’ stages are modestly sized and completed in a few minutes, making for an ideal commute-time recreation.  The only issue that might concern musou veterans is that many of your attacks will ping-pong the protagonist around in a flashy animation rather that focus on a specific foe.

Battle Misinformation Better than YouTube

Musou games are frequently built around historical context, and Touken Ranbu Warriors doesn’t tamper with the trend. The story centers around the Touken Danshi, a group of tsukumogami, or tools that have acquired a spirit. These swords brought to life as bishōnen, are asked by the Saniwa to travel through time, disrupting the efforts of the History Retrograde Army. Echoing the spread of misinformation by modern-day groups, the History Retrograde Army is fixated on revisionism. Stages display a gauge in the top right corner of the screen that tell you how close your team is to disrupting the Army’s malicious plans.

Friendships Bloom Off the Battlefield

The best part is that you don’t need much acquittance with Sengoku-era Japan. Just know that each leader of the Touken Danshi’s five teams are an important historical Japanese katana. The original Touken Ranbu helped rekindle touken joshi (girls with a passion for swords) around Japan. But unlike these women who often read dense volumes of history, TouRabu Warriors script helps explains what’s going on. Sure, it can be a bit chatty at times, but the game’s localization preserves the chivalrous banter quite well. Beyond Japanese voice acting, the character portraits demonstrate modest animations.

Between battles, you’ll return to your honmaru (or base) to augment your Touken Danshi through an uncomplicated management system. You can assign your beautiful boys to work at different places around the honmaru, earning money, experience, and materials. Pleasingly, you can funnel those resources into additional upgrades or purchase new items for your swordsmen. Of course, there’s some bonding between your swordboys, with time spend in the honmaru or in battle, elevating stats and offering conversation outside of the main storyline.

DLC Warriors

With different movesets for most of the fifteen leads, TouRabu Warriors can’t complete with the encyclopedic Dynasty or Samurai Warriors titles. To compensate the publisher offers an array of launch-date downloadable content, which include cosmetic backdrops for your honmaru, additional music, and additional costumes inspired by Touken Ranbu -ONLINE-. Altogether, the DLC sells for about $60, but it’s the type of supplementals that were once offered as free unlockable in games. Ideally, the Touken Danshi could go back in time and fix this dilemma.

Agreeably, TouRabu Warriors feels like it was designed for Nintendo’s console. Although enemy counts aren’t as robust as most musou titles, with several dozen onscreen foes, the framerate is wonderfully stable. While loading breaks are common, the delays are bearable and much faster than say, One Piece Pirate Warriors 4. One downside is that enemy variety is a bit underwhelming. Be prepared to slash through multiple waves of the same type of opponents.

Conclusion

With a lenient difficulty, plenty of context, and control scheme that lets you button-mash your way through the storyline, Touken Ranbu Warriors is hands-down Omega Force’s most accessible musou title. It’s all too easy to jump right in and start caring about your Touken Danshi. Seasoned musou enthusiasts might find it a bit too easy, though. The advice for veterans is to sit-tight for Omega Force’s next title. Chances are that the wait won’t be long.

Touken Ranbu Warriors was played on Switch
with review code provided by the publisher