In a rather unique arrangement, Japanese publisher Koei Tecmo Games have teamed up with NIS America to bring a limited edition of Samurai Warriors 4-II to North America. The limited edition, which releases on September 29, will only be sold via NIS America’s online store. However, Koei Tecmo is still handling publishing duties for Samurai Warriors 4-II, as this deal does not impact the standard physical copies of the game for PlayStation 4 or the digital releases on PlayStation 3, Vita and PC.
The limited edition of Samurai Warriors 4-II comes with an 80-page art book and a CD containing the game’s soundtrack. Fans of the Japanese counterpart to Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors series can pre-order it now via NIS America’s online store. It costs $64.99, which is $15 more than the standard edition’s $49.99 price-point.
Samurai Warriors 4-II is the latest in Koei Tecmo’s popular hack-and-slash series, which shares many gameplay similarities with Dynasty Warriors, but instead focuses on Japanese history. And, for the first time in the series, Koei Tecmo is promising a “hero focused saga,” which means that, instead of offering dozens of playable characters, Samurai Warriors 4-II will focus on only 13 characters – each of which has their own story to be told.
While the pairing of Koei Tecmo Games and NIS America may seem strange at first, it makes sense given how often NIS America produces special editions for their games. Also, at $64.99 it’s moderately priced, at least as far as limited editions go, and should sell well with the passionate fan-base that buys Samurai Warriors.
Also interesting is the shift to a narrative-driven story. Koei Tecmo’s popular series has felt stale for a while, so it looks like Samurai Warriors 4-II should be a nice change of pace. Although judging from the announcement trailer, which can be seen below, it looks to be more of the same gameplay-wise.
