Xbox Live Gold subscribers will be receiving quite the eclectic selection of free games with August’s Games With Gold initiative. Thanks to the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 titles, that means four free games for next month.

Xbox One titles include Warriors Orochi 3: Ultimate, which is free for the entire month, and WWE 2K16 which will be free from August 16th to September 15th. For Xbox 360 players, there’s Spelunky from August 1st to August 15th and Beyond Good & Evil HD which will be available from August 16 till August 31st.

And honestly? You should be picking up Beyond Good & Evil HD. It’s just that good. Some of July’s free Games With Gold, like Tumblestone, are still available till August 15th so you might want to hurry up and download them now.

What are your thoughts on August’s Free Games With Gold? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more information.

Regardless of which setting it chooses, Warriors games can consistently be commended for the hectic feeling of a war zone and sheer power fantasy to be found in decimating whole units at a time. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is my first foray into the franchise, in the interest of full disclosure, and Warriors Orochi 3 was certainly sure to put its best foot forward.

" You can challenge the Hydra again at any moment, but should you advance before you’re ready, be prepared to get mangled as badly as the enemy armies. "

Warriors Orochi 3 opens with a leaf from the Gears of War book, with humanity on the defensive from a giant, mysterious Hydra and the demon armies that it commands. It tosses you right into the thick of battle after a brief controls tutorial, and allows you to get right into what the game does best. Despite any efforts you put up though, you simply aren’t strong enough to fell the beast and retreat.

Being the obvious third part to a series, there is a degree of backstory here that isn’t found by jumping right in. Cursory research suggest this particular series is a mash-up of Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, as well as characters unique to itself and even other Tecmo Koei properties such as Ninja Gaiden.

I suppose that would make this some kind of Tecmo Smash Bros, with a dash of the storytelling from recent Bioware RPGs. You can challenge the Hydra again at any moment, but should you advance before you’re ready, be prepared to get mangled as badly as the enemy armies.

" Hundreds of solders can swarm the battlefield at once, though they don’t ever do much outside of walking into your weapon. "

After your first tussle with the Hydra, you come across Kaguya, a resident of the mystic realm and has the convenient ability to command time. This opens up all kinds of loopholes in service to the gameplay, if only just to make more sense of why you can retry missions within the plot.

To return to an earlier analogy, the driving goal here is to build up your ranks through traveling through time and altering events that took the lives of comrades, before trying once more to take the Hydra. How successful you’ll end up being depends heavily on how many characters you can save from their fate.

The story is far from the meat of the game anyways (in many ways, more like the gristle). The moment to moment gameplay maintains the map management and hectic battles that Tecmo should by every right have down to a science by this point. Hundreds of solders can swarm the battlefield at once, though they don’t ever do much outside of walking into your weapon.

" Without a real dash function, crossing the map to meet the enemy can be a chore and leave you without something to kill for upwards of 5 minutes at a time. "

Dispatching them couldn’t be easier either. While each character technically has separate movesets, you’ll only need them on the hardest of difficulties and missions. You’ll take three characters at a time into a battle, and chaining attacks together using the character swapping and random button input to keep up momentum.

Combat still isn’t overly engaging for the majority, but the map management and army moral still please. Trying to take down every enemy will drive you nuts, so the game flows much better when you keep an eye on the situation as a whole. Bringing down units to the point where they aren’t a huge threat is fine enough, but then its off to meet another advancing unit while pushing ahead yourself or backing up NPC generals on your own side. As for the army that fights for you, they are about as useful as their enemy counterparts. Though both sides get affected by moral, and solders will do better when their side completed a major play, and conversely do worse when they need to fall back.

The actual mission objectives don’t vary drastically, mostly demanding you capture up to a certain point or down a specific enemy general. Both tend to come down to the exact same thing, take out the fodder. Without a real dash function, crossing the map to meet the enemy can be a chore and leave you without something to kill for upwards of 5 minutes at a time. Even enemy generals don’t pose a huge threat, simply taking more of a beating and perhaps asking a bit of finesse from you on the block button.

" There are a variety of other modes to play around with, but none of them drastically change the moment to moment gameplay, at least not for the better. "

There are a variety of other modes to play around with, but none of them drastically change the moment to moment gameplay, at least not for the better. Museo Battlefields is a basic senario editor, and allows you to change up which characters appear on any cleared maps, as well as what they’ll say and what you need to accomplish to achieve victory. It’s about as featured as you could expect, but still takes a specific mindset to enjoy.

Alternatively, the Gauntlet mode takes the game on with a more arcade approach. Inviting you to command five characters at once on a battlefield, you can command their formation and jump between them on the battlefield while you navigate through far less story driven battles. The driving goal behind this mode is activating certain points on the map, opening chests and trying to reap as many rewards as you can.

The balancing point is the evil energy in the area will grow the longer you dawdle, and the enemies with grow more powerful as a result. It’s a risk/reward system that puts an interesting spin on the same game that you were otherwise playing, if nothing else. Finally, Dual mode, which takes away everything else and tries to turn the game into a very poor, 3V3 fighting game akin to Marvel VS Capcom. It has some modifier attacks in the form of cards that can be used, but they make little difference, and honestly if you and your friends are advanced enough in Warriors combat to find nuance and worth in this mode, you aren’t reading this review because you care what I think.

" The benefit of the PS4 comes in the technical stuff, with a framerate set in stone regardless of how many enemies flood the battlefield. "

Wrapping all of this up is a rather underwhelming presentation. Music is rather bland and forgettable, delivering asian and rock undertones to the hectic battlefield. Textures are muddy and look like they belong on the PS3. Voice acting isn’t translated at all, which might bother some. The benefit of the PS4 comes in the technical stuff, with a frame rate set in stone regardless of how many enemies flood the battlefield.

Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate brings out the best impression that Warriors really could, and can be commended for many things. It by every right has the gameplay of the series down to not only a science, but down to a simple universal force. The literal tons of content will keep someone who gets into it busy for hundreds of hours. Whether or not Warriors Orochi is for you can be discovered with fifteen minutes in a demo from this or any of the other entry in the series, but this one made me at least a little bit of a believer and something i could cautiously recommend.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The title is developed by Omega Force (a development team from within Koei) whilst the game is being published by Koei, the same team behind Nintendo’s Hyrule Warriors game. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate will be primarily available on Sony consoles, launching on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. The title will also be launching on Xbox One, but not Xbox 360.

It will launch on PS3/PSVita: Jap September 26 2013, US September 2 2014, EU & AUS September 5 2014. PS4: Jap June 26 2014, US September 2 2014, EU & AUS September 5 2014. Xbox One: US September 2 2014, EU & AUS September 5 2014.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 2. Characters

Development

Given the nature of Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, meaning it’s effectively an upgrade, the development cycle focused on changes and new inclusions rather than the development of a new game. Beneath, you can find a list detailing some of these tweaks.

Character performance has been tweaked to alter gameplay by influencing how the play when compared to Warriors Orochi 2.
The level cap has been raised to 100. One level higher than the previous 99.

Character level progression is partly influenced by weapon enhancements, this means that any character which has reached the lofty level cap can still be customised a little by switching these enhancements out.

Reaching the level cap will allow you to “reset” your character for a permanent buff to your characters stats. This could originally only be done three times, but has since been patched to allow for nine resets.
Player characters all receive a second personal skill, these buffs contribute to the overall stats and performance of the players team.

The player can choose to field their entire team and throw them into battle by pressing the Down button.
Players can select which side they play on during Free Mode, this includes the option to play on opposing teams.
Triple Ruse (a stronger version of the Switch Combo attacks) will launch enemies upward for more combos, Triple Ruse also allows easier attack cancelling.

Triple Rush can be combined with up to 50 different combinations for character specific attacks.
“Midair Tie Up Action” is a new aerial attack, it will drain the Musou gauge. How the attack is executed depends on the characters power, speed, technique and wonder.

Two players can perform their individual teams Musou attacks to have all six characters perform a special attack called Shin Musou Burst.
Borrowing from Dynasty Warriors 8, Horse Whistling (which summons your mount) is available by pressing Up.

Rather than carrying two items into the field, players can carry six. Upon reaching level 100 an extra two slots are unlocked.
The array of items in the game has been expanded with new inclusions.

Story

Similar to Warriors Orochi 3, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate eschews the stylings of the previous games by having the games story mode split into a clearly defined storyline that takes place over 4 chapters and multiple battlefields.

4 new chapters have been included in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate. These chapters carry the player across two story arcs. They are:
The Tale of the Latter Day.
The Tale of the Former Day.

Gameplay

The clear inspiration for the Warriors Orochi titles has always been Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate borrows very heavily from Dynasty Warriors 7. Anyone familiar with the hack and slash combat that is found in Dynasty Warriors will instantly slide into place whilst playing Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate.

Town features that allow players to converse with the characters in that area and purchase weapons from the store carry over, as does the AI of the enemy, the missing morale gauge, the ability to swim and the ability to climb.

Gameplay mechanics that first showed up in Warriors Orochi 2 return, this includes thing slike the triple attack and switch attack functions.

A new gameplay mode, Gauntlet Mode, which focuses on a 5 man team has been introduced. The goal is to make it out of a mutli tiered dungeon that scales in difficulty. Players can only save once a dungeon level has been cleared. A co-op mode gives two players control of a character of their choice within the team, they can however switch between characters by pressing Up. Any other characters on the team are controlled by AI.

Characters

The following characters have been added to Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate:

• Tamamo
• Yinglong
• Nezha
• Kyubi No Kitsune
• Hundun
• Kasume (dead or alive 5)
• Sterkenburg Cranach (Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland)
• Sophitia Alexandra (soulcalibur IV)

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game. 

Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate, the upcoming tactical action game (that serves as an enhanced re-release of an already released game) from Tecmo Koei that will be releasing on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Playstation Vita, and Xbox One, has just got a slew of new media, highlighting especially characters and fighters who will be making their debut in the game.

There are also a host of new screenshots showcasing the new fighters, including Sophitia Alexandra, Sterkenburg Cranach, Nezha, Tamamo, and Yinglong. You can check out the new slideshow here.

Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate will be releasing in Europe on September 5, and in North America on September 2. Tecmo promises that there is enough new gameplay content and depth of replayability to satisfy warriors of all levels including additional cross over characters such as and battle stages from franchises like Atelier, Dynasty Warriors, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Samurai Warriors.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.

Tecmo Koei has announced that Warriors Orochi 3 is coming to the west as Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate. In addition to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita, it will also be coming out on the Xbox One, marking the second time in as many days that the western localization of a Tecmo Koei game is getting an SKU that it simply did not have upon its Japanese release.

The game promises the same style of densely packed battlefields, with hundreds of enemies to slice through, that the series is known for; the PlayStation versions of the game all benefit from Cross-Save and Cross-Play functionality, and the PlayStation 4 version, in particular, also lets you share your experiences online.

Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate will be available exclusively through the PlayStation Store for $49.99 (PS3) and $39.99 (PS Vita) respectively for those versions, and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will be available for $59.99, presumably also at retail.