What can you do with a Samurai Warriors 4-II edit character?

Koei Tecmo’s Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games have a long history of letting people be themselves when they play. Literally, you can go ahead and create a character based on yourself with the Edit Mode, and then use this original avatar to go through different modes in the titles. Samurai Warriors 4-II is no different, though there are some changes when it comes to what a person can do with their personalized hero or heroine.

First, you’re going to actually have to make an original avatar. This is done in the Dojo. You can customize the heroe’s gender, appearance, growth rate, weapon, and voice. Once he or she is set to your liking, it’s possible to take the character into one of two modes.

Samurai Warriors 4-II‘s story mode has no place for edit characters. Here, everything focuses on known characters and their interactions with other prominent people in the series. Your original creation doesn’t get to enjoy any special moments with people, like the avatars in the recent Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3 did.

The Free Mode does offer some generic interactions, but nothing of any real substance. People can replay unlocked stages from the Story Mode here, using any characters they’d like. Think of it as a way to level grind for experience, earn additional strategy tomes for skill acquisition, and attempt to clear objectives that might have been missed the first time around. If an edit character is pulled along for the ride in this mode, they’ll spout the same repetitious phrases after major events.

It feels like Samurai Warriors 4-II‘s Survival Mode is where these edit characters shine. After all, this is the mode where players are supposed to challenge themselves. They see how many floors they can go before the character faces odds too overwhelming to continue. While the existing characters would work well for this, going in with an original character means you’re getting the exact build and weapon set you want. It’s important, because you’ll know exactly what you’re working with. Having a character you customized and enjoy looking at helps too, since you could very well spend a substantial amount of time attempting to clear this randomized, endless castle.

The edit character felt even more useful to me in the various Challenge Mode chambers. I went with my favorite weapon for Michibiku, the character inspired by our site’s mascot. I made sure she was attack heavy. I built up her skill set while level grinding so she would be exceptionally lethal when going after named opponents, but could also take a hit in areas where she might be overwhelmed. When it came to tackling the Chamber of Trials and Chamber of Death, I felt confident that she would be able to defeat scores of enemies in the former and actually survive for a while in the latter.

But then, I suppose asking what a player can do with edit characters in Samurai Warriors 4-II is something of a trick question. You enjoy them. Whether you use send a facsimile of yourself out to beat down waves of enemies in Free Mode or hope for a strategic advantage with a specialized character in Survival Mode, you’re hopefully having a good time.