An expansion for Samurai Warriors 2
Samurai Warriors 2: Xtreme Legends is the fifth Xtreme Legends expansion by Koei. It shares the same achievements with the parent game on the Xbox 360. The expansion introduced new characters to the series. Imagawa Yoshimoto from Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends returned in the expansion with an updated character design, and Shibata Katsuie and Sasaki Kojiro from Samurai Warriors 2 Empires are also playable and have new weapons. Shibata Katsuie wields two hand axes, while Sasaki Kojiro still carries a nodachi, but can now summon an ex-dimensional sword during battle. Because Imagawa Yoshimoto was put back into the game, the previously omitted Battle of Okehazama is brought back, and Hideyoshi's Shikoku campaign against Chosokabe Motochika is also included.
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I mean, this added content is cool as it is, but also a bit underwhelming compared to something like Dynasty Warriors 5 Xtreme Legends, which not only added a multitude of new battles, but there was also that really neat mode where you created your own character and experienced the Three Kingdoms Era story through his perspective as you could follow one of the different factions or switch allegiances if you wanted.
I wish SW2XL was more like that, there are many other interesting historical battles/events that got left out in SW2 and could be added here: The Siege of Kakegawa where Ieyasu defeated Yoshimoto's son and effectively took over what the Imagawa had left, the Takeda, Uesugi and Hojo campaigns in the east that were mostly ignored in the original game also deserve more love, Nobunaga's infamous massacre at Mt. Hiei, and even some other notable Sekigahara campaign battles like the sieges of Gifu, Fushimi and Otsu. But I digress, SW2XL is stil a decent addition to the original game anyway, so I can't complain too much.
More levels to grind, new weapons to get, personal skills for each characters, alt colors and some changes to Level 3 musou attacks. These expansions feel like big patch fixes more than updates at this point of reviewing these. The new mode this time around is Mercenary Mode which is pretty interesting. It kinda feels like Xtreme Mode from Dynasty Warriors except character progression carries over from your standard game so you can grind levels, gold and skills while playing this mode which I feel is pretty great considering how grindy this game can get. Some new characters join as well including Katsuie Shibata, Kojiro Sasaki, Gracia, Motochika Chosokabe, Toshiie Maeda and Yoshimoto Imagawa coming back from the previous Xtreme Legends.
As always a great addition in combination with the original Samurai Warriors 2 and essentially acting as a demo disc by itself. I gotta admit it's nice they've done this to add more content into the original experience but these games must have been expensive to properly fully experience too buying each of them at full price.