Koei have done well with the Dynasty Warriors franchise as we are now in its 5th incarnation as well as having the spin off Samurai Warriors earlier this year. The series is based on Luo Guanzhong’s historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and allows players the chance to get their hands right into the thick of some major epic battles that shaped an entire empire!

Gameplay

I think with these types of games there is possibly a big misconception surrounding them; as to the untrained eye you would probably view the game as having a single character running around fairly large open maps hacking and slashing at vast quantities of enemies. Now in some respects this is probably the core mechanic of the game but in fairness to the title and when you delve a little deeper below the surface you will find a little more depth. I guess first impressions count for a lot and the majority of people pigeon hole the Dynasty Warriors games as “Hack n Slash” titles which get boring after 5 minutes of play.

Dynasty Warriors 5 and like the other 4 games before it has a hidden depth that isn’t apparent until you actually play a few missions. I think the key factor in the games is the fact that there is an element of tactics required; for example. You begin a level and rush into the fray getting deeper and deeper into the heart of the enemy territory sometimes engaging in and sometimes avoiding combat. You Kill loads of enemies that cross your path but then you suddenly realise you are in the thick of it and quite far from any other allies. At this point you are told by a message that your leader is now under attack, yet you are miles away from his location. What do you do? Do you rush to the opposing leader and try and take him down first or do you try and make it back to your own leader and attempt to save his skin?

Well ok the strategy is rather simple but it’s a nuance of the game that adds some depth as you are told about key points of the battle on numerous occasions which you can either ignore or get over and help out.

Dynasty Warriors 5 offers plenty of options to mess around with such as Musou mode which is a story mode for several characters within a number of dynasties. This is perhaps the main focus of the game and it is here where during battle you will be able to pick up items and weapons to add to your character’s arsenal in between battles. You can also choose which bodyguard will accompany you and like any RPG you and your bodyguards will level up and get more powerful the more battles you win.

There are also a lot of extras such as Free Mode which allows you to choose any character and then engage in a preset battle from a vast list of available battles. Challenge mode is perhaps a less serious mode and allows you the chance to do things like time attack where you have to kill 1000 men as quickly as possible. The challenge modes are actually quite fun and a good distraction from the story mode. Then you have things like the Encyclopaedia which features a full history of the game and its characters which is actually quite interesting if you take the time to read and understand.

Moving back to the actual game play and at its core you can quite easily sit there and mash the attack buttons all day and kill lots of enemies. However this is probably true for a number of fighting games and the real skill comes from practising and executing flash combo attacks. Admittedly the move set for each character is rather limited but it does pay to experiment a little and see how large a combo you can accumulate. The AI as with most games of this nature can also be a little off key where you will have groups of enemies surrounding you standing there doing nothing; which kind of takes away any attempt at realism away from the game.

There are a number of boxes/ crates/ vases on the battle field and again it’s your choice as to whether you wish to spend the time seeking out unique items for your warrior or not (remembering that this detracts from the overall battle in the grand scheme of things). During the battle you will encounter enemy officers which usually have their own set of skill and much larger health pool. Defeating these will bring rewards to your character as well as raise the morale of your army. If you are lucky you can actually grab the enemy officer’s horse and use that to navigate the map a little quicker than on foot; you can even attack on horseback but again the moves are pretty limited and you do feel vulnerable when surrounded by huge numbers of enemy foes.

Graphics

The graphics are reasonable here for perhaps a Ps2 game and to be honest are a little bland at times, especially when looking at the environments. There are lots of characters on screen at any one time and the frame rate remains steady but this is not an excuse for having such under par looking graphics for Xbox. The main character models are rather distinct and colourful but the enemies not so detailed, still when in the thick of it to care about the graphics of the enemies is rather null and void.

Sound

Sound is somewhat annoying unless you really root for uninspiring rock music that really feels out of place with a game of this nature. I guess the developers wanted to emphasise the fast paced nature of the game with the music rather than opting for a more authentic sounding soundtrack. The sound effects in game are pretty much the moans and groans of enemies you are chopping up as well as the sound of your warrior. During the game there will be mini cut scenes which are voiced by English and Japanese and thankfully you can switch to Japanese voices with subtitles for a more authentic sounding game especially as the English voice acting is rather bland.

Longevity

Dynasty Warriors 5 is a long game and with battles that can be finished in 5 minutes or half an hour depending on what you do then there is a lot of battles to wade through which will take some time to complete. There are loads of characters and a number of unlockables to seek out as well. As per usual there are 3 levels of difficulty to mess around with and of course the challenge mode scores to best. Dynasty Warriors 5 also features a 2 player split screen mode for those of you who want to duke It out together verses the opposing armies however the lack of a view makes this mode a little boxed in as well as when special moves are performed both players screens pause momentarily which does get annoying for the other player.

Overall

Dynasty Warriors is not going to appeal to everyone, especially those that require a little more strategy in games of this nature. For quick bursts of play to let out some aggression then I say Dynasty Warriors 5 is well work a look and as mentioned earlier has enough on the disk to last quite some time if you aim to unlock everything in the game. I found the game to be mostly enjoyable other than the sub par graphics and poor AI at times. If you are looking for an arcade slash game that has the option to use minor elements of strategy then I suggest getting this game; although in honesty there isn’t much difference in this game compared to Samurai Warriors. For any one else I suggest renting first to see if slashing away at foes for hours on end is your cup of tea.

Pros:

• Lots of characters.
  
• Lots of battles.
  
• Challenge Mode.
  

  Cons:
  

  • Poor Graphics for Xbox.
    
  • Dumb AI.
    
  • Repetitve.