The grand armies and the drive to amass thousands of kills makes Arslan: The Warriors of Legend the most fitting anime spin-off of the Samurai Warriors series yet. And if you ever wanted to know what would happen if a game actually adapted an anime TV show episode for episode, Arslan is a great test case. It delivers an enthralling narrative-driven hack-and-slash campaign and presents a deep knowledge base of the anime series, both of which help it overcome the familiarity of the core gameplay.

Arslan: The Warriors of Legend is adapted from The Heroic Legend of Arslan anime TV show, which itself was adapted from a still-ongoing novel series. The series at large is influenced by a 19th century Persian epic with a dash of Arthurian allusions thrown in. The main character i…