their own stories. Each story contains five stages (except for Ieyasu Tokugawa and Mitsunari Ishida, who both have six stages), plus a "Dream Stage" or "Gaiden" (Side Quest) in the Japanese version, that effectively asks "what if". For example, Yukimura Sanada's Dream/Gaiden stage (Battle of Sekigahara) puts him into a battle that took place historically between his fourth and fifth stages (Ueda Castle and Osaka Castle respectively). Correspondingly, since Mitsuhide Akechi and Nobunaga Oda both have endings where they won their historically final battles and survived, their Dream stages have them mopping up their gathered opposition. This game also contains a Sugoroku mini-game as an additional feature. Up to four players can participate in this mode, and each player has to choose a character. The game's goal is to collect the requested amount of gold (depending on the player's settings). At the beginning of the game, three flags for each player will be divided in the map, and players can earn gold and raise their ranks by collecting their respective flags and returning to their home square. Additionally, a player can buy territories on the map, or challenge another player for the control of a territory. There are six types of challenges in the game: Annihilate (requires the players to defeat as many enemies as possible), Chase (requires the players to defeat as many fleeing Fire Ninjas as possible), Destroy (requires the players to destroy as many boulders as possible), Race (requires the players to break through the doors to reach the end before the opponent does), Reveal (requires the players to uncover as many Sky Ninjas as possible), and Steal (requires the players to collect as much gold as possible). The New Officer mode from Samurai Warriors has been removed, but it was reintroduced in Samurai Warriors 2: Empires. Characters The game features a total of 26 characters, 16 returning and 10 new, some of them former unique NPCs from previous game. Almost all characters from previous game (including Xtreme Legends additions) return with the exception of Goemon Ishikawa, Kunoichi, and Yoshimoto Imagawa, although the new character Nene seems to be a replacement for Kunoichi due to similarities in combat characteristics and skills. Two returning characters, Okuni and Ranmaru Mori do not have their own story mode, although they still can be played in Free Mode, Survival Mode and Sugoroku (Including Mercenary Mode). Similar to previous games, the game