So he shatters time and space to kidnap the heroes from the Three Kingdoms era (AD220-280) in China and Japan's Warring States period (1568-1603), takes their relevant battlefields and locales, and puts them all together in a new world built for war. This mind-bending mash-up is reminiscent of the plot for Time's Eye, a 2003 novel by British science-fiction authors Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. In Warriors Orochi, the heroes from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors must join forces to wage war against the sorcerer and his demonic army.

Players get an amazing roster of 77 characters to use, while four action-packed 'crossover' storylines feature team-ups and confrontations between characters from both series. The four storylines allow a player to join different groups of heroes in campaigns whose final goals differ.

The developer apparently assumes someone who plays the game has also played the other two series and knows who's who and what's what. But even without that knowledge, everything that happens in the game boils down to killing vast numbers of nameless, mindless foes.

Warriors Orochi offers no new gameplay elements other than the ability to use three characters in a tactical battle system. At any given time, one warrior will be engaged in battle while the other two are recuperating. A player simply pushes the PSP's shoulder button to change into another character.

This is where the developer dropped the ball. The designers failed to implement tag-team moves in which two or three characters can attack in different combinations.

An improvement in Warriors Orochi for the PSP is the way a player's character is able to freely roam the battlefields on screen. The old grid system used in previous PSP-based Warriors games had a player fight for a couple of minutes in a small battlefield, stop, go through a role-playing game-type menu and operating mode, and then move to the next small square on the battlefield.

The game's graphics are simple, providing more detail for the 77 playable characters and less for the hordes of cannon fodder. The background environment is lacking, interiors all look pretty much the same.

There is a global positioning map function to help a player find directions.The game's soundtrack employs upbeat techno music. The voices, however, are poorly dubbed, much like those in old kung fu movies; corny and not quite in sync.

There is a free mode allowing players to undertake missions with any team of warriors.

The game is recommended for fans of the franchise or gamers completely new to the hack-and-slash genre.

Pros: Easy, fast-paced button-masher with an amazing 77 playable characters.

Cons: Team system limited to switching characters in battle.