Last February I played what I still consider to be one of the Vita’s best exclusive titles, Toukiden: The Age of Demons. I strongly recommend checking out that review for more info and thoughts on Toukiden, as all of that is still valid for Kiwami. At the time, I believed it was hands down the best game I have ever played by Omega Force, the studio behind the Dynasty Warriors and Bladestorm games. Both of those things are no longer quite true since I have now spent time with Toukiden: Kiwami. Kiwami is available on both the Vita and the PS4, and it also includes the full Age of Demons game within it. Yet, Kiwami is more than just an expansion pack, yet it’s also not exactly its own game, either. You have to clear Age of Demons’ story to get to Kiwami’s story, so no matter how you slice it, this is a massive game.
The good news for those like me who have already put in x number of hours into Age of Demons on their Vita is that you can upload that save data and continue precisely where you left off, character stats, inventory, money, Mitama, all that is intact. Better still is that Toukiden: Kiwami has an intuitive and fully functional Cross Save support between the PS4 and Vita versions. Furthermore, it’s Cross Play, so if you are on your Vita you can play multiplayer with those on PS4, and vice versa. Kiwami understandably does not go for the Cross-trifecta at launch however, which is to say it is not a Cross Buy title.
I was fortunate to receive a review code for both versions of Kiwami, and in terms of gameplay, both are identical. To address the elephant in the room, yes, the game on PS4 does not look quite up to par with a native PS4 title. This is an upscaled port, so while it looks quite good, you can tell that it was not built for PS4 initially. I have included some of the screen cap comparisons Koei Tecmo provided two versions, and as you can see the PS4 one has some extra visual effects that the Vita one does not, but, I would suggest not getting too caught up in the visual comparisons. I was not disappointed with either version’s presentation. From the new opening cinematic to the many hours spent in-mission, Kiwami has plenty of visual (and aural for that matter) appeal. From character clothing, to the awesome-looking oni, there’s a lot to look at and appreciate regardless of platform.
Playing Toukiden is only vaguely reminiscent of a Dynasty Warriors game. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. Omega Force seemed to break out of their comfort zone to provide Sony with a game, and now perhaps a series, that can fill in the gap left by the absence of Capcom’s Monster Hunter series. I haven’t played Monster Hunter enough to attempt a comparison, which isn’t necessary anyway, but the gameplay is similar. You are a Slayer (of Oni), and after a massive rift opens and some ungodly number of Oni come through, it’s largely up to you to, well, do your job. You’ll have help of course, and there are many NPCs that you will meet within the story and can talk to in Utakata Village in between missions. When playing single player, you select which of these NPCs you want to go into battle with you, taking care to select those that best fit the task at hand. With a variety of battle styles, weapons, and Mitama, these choices become more critical the further along you get. When playing online, you’re likely to find players more capable than the AI, but the team’s overall battle styles may not work well.
With Kiwami, the total number of battle styles is now ten, as both Support and Plunder were added. Plunder is very helpful in eliminating parts of Oni. In any large Oni boss fight (and there are certainly plenty of these), you have to break them down “part by part,”, obviously just like as in Toukiden: Age of Demons. Anything you can do to speed up the elimination of these parts not only helps your chance of survival, but speeds the whole game up. Support is for helping your fellow Slayers out instead of directly helping yourself. Whether playing the new Infinite Missions which will go on as long as you want them to (or as long as you can survive), or just going against some of the tougher Oni, speeding the game up helps cut down on fatigue. Repetition, and the subsequent fatigue, is still the biggest issue I have with Toukiden as I noted in my Age of Demons review. When playing solo — or just with people you don’t know — it’s hard to go for more than a couple hours in a session, or it is for me. There’s no shortage of content or things to go and do, there’s just a lot of grinding and boss fights can be really long.
That said, as was always the case with Age of Demons, Kiwami’s pros outweigh its cons. It’s a much larger, even deeper title than was Age of Demons, too. If you’re in the hunt for a four player cooperative title and can handle the repetition, Kiwami brings a lot of quality content to the table.
To the summary…
