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The Warriors Orochi series is well-known for bringing together the humongous casts of both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. As iconic as they are, these games also thrust those characters into time-travel shenanigans and blend them with mystical, fantastic aspects - expect to see demons, monsters, and mythological figures.
Of course, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is still a Musou game. You're still going to be faced with the same fast-paced combat, superhuman fighters, utterly wacky weapons, and plenty of complex mechanics both on and off the battlefield to contend with. Whether or not this is your first foray into a Warriors game, we have some great tips to get you started.
You Have Three Characters For A Reason
One of the central mechanics in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is the ability to switch characters on the fly in the middle of battle. This has many benefits, not least of all letting you experiment with lots of different warriors quickly - something very important in a game with as many characters as this one does.
- Switching characters in the middle of a combo will prolong the combo with a switch attack. These are very powerful and can be chained from most light attacks. Certain setups will be able to chain switch attacks into each other far easier than others - especially those with longer and larger weapons.
- Each character has their own health and Musou gauges. When a character is not in battle, these will refill over time. This is very important as enemies in this game hit very hard - even on Normal Mode. You'll want to switch a character out whenever you get low on health because if even one of your characters dies, it's Game Over.
If you hit the down button, the two characters that you aren't controlling will join you on the battlefield. You'll still be able to switch between them and your overall damage output will increase, but be aware that their health and Musou will not recharge while they are summoned. Hit the down button again to make them withdraw.
Hitting both shoulder buttons while all three characters are summoned will let you perform a True Triple Attack, as long as the blue bar in the bottom left of the screen is full. Enemies killed by this attack have a chance to drop Crystals, and this is the only way to get them in the game.
Mounting Your Horse
You can save time in the middle of a battle - especially one in which you have a long distance to travel - by holding down the Call Horse button (which is the up button by default). If you hold it down, the horse will run towards you and you'll mount it automatically without losing speed.
Doing this prevents you from losing momentum and might let you reach a crucial destination before something disastrous occurs.
How To Unlock The Tea House
You're treated to a tutorial very early in the game about using the Tea House to improve the bonds between your army. However, the Tea House is not initially available to you.
To unlock the Tea House, you must complete the first chapter of the game. This ends when you emerge victorious from the Battle of Odawara Castle. From then on, you can pay Gems at the Tea House to improve the bonds between all of your soldiers.
In Chapter Four, you'll unlock a new option at the Tea House that lets you select two soldiers and improve their bond significantly. This is one of the best ways to quickly increase a bond in order to unlock certain sidequests that require a relationship already formed.
Weapon Fusion
At the Blacksmith in the camp, you can buy and sell weapons - the quality of which depends on how far into the story you are. What you can also do here is fuse weapons together. Many weapons that you acquire over the course of the game will have empty skill slots in them - you can use Weapon Fusion to fill those slots with skills taken from other weapons. This consumes the other weapons but allows you to create and customize very powerful weapons.
You can add slots to a weapon by picking a weapon with empty slots as the fusion fodder. A weapon can have up to eight slots.
There are some particularly good skills that you should be on the lookout for:
- Bolt gives weapons a chance to stun enemies with your attacks.
- Wind makes your attacks pierce through guarding. It does chip damage, but could be very useful for finishing off pesky, low-health officers.
- Flak gives you a damage boost to aerial enemies. This is mainly useful for characters who have great moves for launching enemies into the air, such as Kaguya.
- Providence increases the chance of enemy officers dropping Item Boxes upon defeat.
- Chronos gives you a more generous window for combo attacks.
- Brilliance improves your damage output while your Musou gauge is full.
- Multi gives you doubles, letting you deal some more damage and increasing your attacks' range.
Aerial Recoveries
Getting knocked into the air is one of the most frustrating things that can happen to you in the game. You can end up being juggled about, unable to act, and all you can do is watch your life gauge get whittled down. This is where Special Attacks come in - you can use a Special Attack (by hitting the right shoulder button) in midair even when you've been launched.
Doing this will let you recover quickly and counterattack. Of course, you'll need some Musou Gauge to do this, but it's extremely handy to have in an emergency. Try to get into the habit of hitting the Special Attack button whenever you're knocked into the air.
Talk To Everyone To Unlock New Stages
Many of the stages in the game, including the alternate history stages where you can recruit characters who otherwise remain locked to you, are unlocked by talking to people in the camp.
Every character has their own set of characters that they can converse with in the camp, depending on who they have special bonds with and such. Characters will also vary depending on your point in the story. Change your controlled character every now and then and talk to everyone - this way, you'll unlock all the sidequest stages or, at the very least, the ability to view the requirements to unlock the sidequest stages.
Difficulty And Rarity
If you play on Normal, you might notice that you don't get very many high-rank or high-rarity weapons, and the weapons you do get will have weak skills. You might even find this if you play on Hard or Chaos Mode, if you haven't gotten far enough into the game.
The quality of the weapons you receive is based on two things:
- The difficulty that you are playing on.
- The difficulty of the stage.
You'll want to be playing on Hard or Chaos Mode and playing exclusively the hardest stages if you're trying to farm the best weapons and the best skills.
That said, even Hard Mode is a significant rise in difficulty, so you'll want to make sure you're well-leveled and experienced at the game before you delve into the higher difficulties.