Samurai Warriors 4 Empires is the latest spin-off in the franchise from Omega Force and Koei Tecmo. It’s just as it has always been: a hack and slash take on feudal era warfare with a fantastical twist on Japanese history.
The game’s war field is full of officers, both allies and enemies. You will choose from a pool of 56 historically famed officers to play yourself, and then the rest you will either fight alongside or against. This pool is made up of females and males, and battles also feature random officers outside of this pool, which also can be male or female. Samurai Warriors 4 Empires introduces a new feature, however, this time around giving players the option to “disallow female characters.”
The setting is available when you start up either a new Conquest or Genesis game, alongside more common options like “Difficulty” and “Data Importing.” Allowing female officers leaves the game unchanged. Allowing only famous officers keeps the 56 historical figures intact, but prevents female characters appearing as random officers throughout the game. Disallowing female characters entirely both prevents random female officers and removes all 13 famous female officers from the character pool, meaning neither the player or AI can choose the following characters:
- Aya (SW3)
- Ginchiyo Tachibana (SW2)
- Gracia (SW2)
- Ina (SW)
- Lady Hayakawa (SW4)
- Kai (SW3)
- Koshosho (SW4)
- Kunoichi (SW)
- Naotora Li (SW4)
- Nene (SW2)
- No (SW)
- Oichi (SW)
- Okuni (SW)
The option seems to be a first for not only Samurai Warriors, but all recent Warriors games.
Samurai Warriors 4 Empires releases in the US Tuesday, Mar. 15 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PS Vita.
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