While Samurai Warriors 2: Empires is being called a follow-up to Samurai Warriors 2, the game is technically a follow-up to KOEI's other Empires game, Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires. Beyond a handful of new features the real hook for gamers is that it lets players unify twenty-five regions in feudal Japan. So beyond the real aesthetic changes in this game, the key changes are characters and the regions that you'll conquer.
The Empires series is a bit different than the rest of the series because of how it handles the combat and what it adds to gameplay. At the heart of the game is a pretty heavy strategic level where you can do all sorts of things to make money, align yourself with other clans, keep your people happy, hire generals and lieutenants and raise troops. While the strategic level is interesting it isn't the real focus of the game. As you expect from a KOEI game, SW2 Empires is really all about combat. But the new tools at your disposal and the interesting strategic layer make for something that feels somewhere in between the game whose name it bears and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
You'll begin the game by choosing one of Japan's greatest Samurai as a lord - and if you have played the previous Empire title you know the choices thrown at you are vast (there are hundreds to choose from). From there you are given five other characters - two more generals (your lead character is a general) and three lieutenants. As you expand your character's territories and capture other officers you can have Fiefs that have their own armies (up to six offers per region) and can even provide a small amount of relief on the battlefield. The ultimate goal, just like DW5 Empires and all the other KOEI titles, is to reunite the territories under one rule.
As each you try to subjugate these areas you have your usual large scale battles where you try to take your enemy’s home base camp while defending your own. Like the last Empires game you can give all of your leaders orders and these orders are then carried out to the best of their ability. Depending on who you have under your command, these officers will in turn have their own troops to command as well. As you clear each area, it will turn blue and you'll subjugate the camps and dispatch the enemy either by making them retreat or by capturing their officers. The gameplay here is pretty familiar and hasn't changed all that much since the last Empires game. There are however some new ways in which certain elements are handled and some new gameplay elements altogether. The most noteworthy are Tactics and Formation.
Formation lets you put your army in a certain formation that has real battlefield consequences. This could include giving your army speed, regeneration, better defense and more. If you or your enemy has another formation that is weaker then that army is point at a disadvantage which makes the battle easier or harder. It's a nice gameplay element that can make some situations a lot more challenging.
The other element is Tactics, which are special cards that make things happen on the battlefield to directly affect both your troops or the enemy. This could include the ability to cause the enemy to want to defect to your side, give you a defense bonus or even force the enemy to have an even force. Having magic as a key element of these games has always been a hallmark of KOEI's approach to things and SW2 Empires is no exception.
