Empires is an expansion for KOEI's Warriors series where the player controls a kingdom in a region and aims to conquer all of the regions in the land. KOEI has done it with Shin Sangoku Musou 3 & 4 (DW4&5), and now, they are going to do the same with the Japanese counterpart, Sengoku Musou. Interestingly enough, KOEI didn't make the usual Moushouden/Xtreme Legends expansion to the recently released Sengoku Musou 2 (SW2); but instead they went straight into making an Empires expansion, which is this game: Sengoku Musou 2 Empires (also known as Samurai Warriors 2: Empires in English).


Just like the two Chinese Empires game, this game's objective is to unify the entire Japan with a clan of your choice. If conquering a huge land seems to be a tough task, you can instead take on a regional campaign first. Yes, one of the new features is that there are region-specific campaigns here, and once you have completed it, you'll be given an option to move on into entire Japan mode with the said region already in your hands, making your campaign easier.

In total, there are 11 scenarios in total. 4 historical, 6 regional, and a what-if scenario where you can freely put any officers you like. You cannot change the daimyo in other scenarios, however you can change the clan retainers (For example, you can replace an officer in a clan with another officer).

The usual interesting thing about an Empires game is that you can play as anybody, including generic officers. In total, there are about 400 Sengoku officers featured in this game. Moreover, the highly popular Edit Officer feature (better known as Create-a-Warrior or CAW) is back here after it has been missing from the original SM2, although the options are not as vast as DW5's CAW. Another nifty note is that all the officers including generics and CAWs' faces now have emotion changes when they're talking.

The newest addition into SM2:Empires is Formation. By using different formations, your army will get additional attack or defense. However, these formations can't last forever. If the enemy army uses a formation that is stronger than yours, then your formation will break, and vice-versa. This adds into the strategy element of SM2:E. The SW mission system is also incorporataed to this game. Sometimes, missions may appear during battle, and if you succeed in it, you may either cause an enemy officer to defect or stopping your own officer from defecting.

Last but not least, if you're disappointed with SM2's music, fret no more. KOEI has brought the SM1 music back here, and you can freely choose almost any BGMs you want before starting a stage. There are about 100 BGMs you can choose in this game.

In the end, we have seen so many Three Kingdoms strategy games, but it has been a long time since KOEI last translated a Nobunaga's Ambition game. If you want a game where you can try to unify Japan, but you can't have a Nobunaga's Ambition, this game will be a great alternate. Maybe, if many people buy this game, KOEI would consider translating Nobunaga's Ambition series again.

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