KOEI's Japanese themed tactical action game series will soon get a new full-blown release here in the United States, and though the latest title - Samurai Warriors 2, might look more like an expansion than a full blown sequel at first glance, Omega Team has added a number of new elements and modes that should keep fans of this series happy. Samurai Warriors 2 presents a few additional features and changes to the popular tactical strategy action mix and changes some key elements that offer a slightly different variation on Samurai Warrior.

Old Guard

First the expected stuff - Samurai Warriors 2 adds more playable characters - ten brand new - for a total of 26 playable characters. These include such legendary warriors as Musashi Miyamota and the ninja Kotaro Fuma. There's some pretty unusual characters in the mix, most of whom have some pretty powerful and varied attacks that players will enjoy.

New Guard

There are now five modes in the game including the usual suspects like Story & Free modes and the Vault (which isn't really a game mode, but we're lumping it in there anyway); and two new ones including Survival and a board game called Sugoroku. Story mode remains pretty much the same, letting you take on one of the 26 playable characters (most of which are locked at the start of the game) through a series of semi-historical missions. Vault offers you a ton of information on the characters, weapons , moves, etcetera - as usual. Free mode lets you do the same open challenges as it did in the last game along with access to a store prior to jumping into a new mission (stores are also available in Story and Survival).

Survival is a pretty cool mode where you fight your way through endless castle levels to see how many floors you can clear. But these challenges aren't always as they seem as you play out a scenario that involves different directives on each floor. Some examples could be killing every boss on the floor, running to the stairs quickly or getting a 100 chains in under ten minutes. It's a fun concept that mixes things up pretty well for the player and it certainly adds a slight break from the combat of the other two modes.

Finally there's Sugoroku, a board game that can be played by up to four players. In this board game, players move around a Japanese themed board by rolling dice and buying lands. The goal is to acquire three flags and return to home base to be rewarded with a promotion and gold. When you land on a square that isn't owned by you, you can pay a toll -- and if you feel lucky, you can try and battle the owner for control of the square. This leads to a random mini-game where you win a challenge over your opponent like killing a certain numbero of enemies or getting a certain number of chains. The winner of the overall game is the first player to hit a certain amount of gold. There's lots of variety in this interesting board game like random events, mini-game style battles and the whole idea of owning property and collecting funds from it. The concept feels a tad bit like a Japanese flavored game of Monopoly sans the Chance and Community Chest cards though and the pacing feels too slow.. Still it's an interesting mode that four players can play so it might be a nice way to waste some time with multiple friends. Two player split-screen is available in most of these modes and 1 -4 players can try their hand at Sugoroku. The Xbox 360 version offers online play in a special mode called Vs.

Ready, Set, Fight

But the most important changes don't come from new modes or multiplayer: the changes come in the new skill system, special stances and attacks, linked charge attacks and castle warfare changes. Samurai Warriors 2 changes the skill system dramatically because new moves and skills are gained by gaining levels, learning techniques from enemy officers or by simply buying them in the game's new store (scrapping the former point system used for skills). Skills are now divided into multiple categories including Ability, Battle, Growth and Special. The really unique skills are learned from just growing your character as usual. Every time you level up you'll learn these new skills in addition to increasing your stats and adding to your Musou meter, Life meter, attack, defense, etc. In Samurai Warriors 2 you'll have plenty of room to grow too because the level cap is 50 which means an obscene amount of skills to choose from..

Beyond the new skills system there's a lots of new ways to take down all those miscreants, defense guards and raiders.. One of the marquee features is reworked controls and a new attack method that revolves around stances. Now holding the R1 (RB on Xbox 360) puts your character into a special attack stance. When in this special stance you can press a normal attack or charge attack button to execute a special move. Players will have plenty of chances to try out new moves, because as you level up you get more powerful moves to execute jsut like skills. And when we say powerful we mean it - you'll be killing dozens upon dozens of bad guys with these new combat moves.

The Musou gauge has also changed slightly, allowing players to fill it up three times. As you level up your character your gauge will increase in size and it will allow you to unleash ultra powerful Musou attacks. You'll still have the single attack after filling up your gauge, but as you develop your character and increase it's levels you can unleash devastating attacks against the enemy the do a lot of violent damage.

Another change to gameplay is the new linked charge attack. By pressing different combinations of your normal and charge attacks in the right sequence, you can unleash powerful attacks that do a fair amount of damage of enemies in your general vicinity. Again, as you level your character up you are rewarded with new moves.. Obviously all of these things we mentioned are directly linked to leveling up your character which means more time playing the game.

Finally there's the castle warfare elements. In the last game these were separate affairs, but in the new game they are tied together to make for a more compelling game experience. Now castle warfare is incorporated directly into each mission. As you capture these spots on the map they increase your armies' morale and give you a better chance of winning. Players will have to enter these structures and head to the stairs to clear each spot in order to capture them but it's not anymore difficult than capturing any other spot on the map.