"Kessen II + Final Fantasy Tactics = Tacsty Dynactics?"

Kessen II is a good game. Final Fantasy Tactics is a good game. Therefore, if you take some stuff from each, you get a good game, right? Well, not if you take the worst aspects of both games.

Visual -

Yeah, this is pretty good. Great. I might watch a movie made by Koei, but they should stop randomly combining games... I liked the animations, but then I realized that if I were playing Kessen II instead, I would see the cool fighting animations all the time, not just when my officer used a skill.

Audio -

Compared to the orchestral Final Fantasy Tactics and the booming Kessen II, this game leaves a lot to be desired in the sound department.

Story -

Yeah, it's pretty much the same as the other 10 or so Dynasty/Three Kingdoms games. Not bad, but I've heard it many, many times before.

Gameplay -

This is what it's all about, right? It took Kessen II's crappy ''strategy'' aspect and combined it with Final Fantasy Tactics' turn based combat, only slower, with almost no differentiation between classes, no magic, no equipment (that's any good), and a ridiculously powerful move usable by both your enemy and yourself. This game has two main aspects, the ''strategy'' aspect, and the tactics aspect.

''Strategy''

On the map of China, you get to move your armies around the map, accomplishing certain objectives. Now... about armies... Armies in this game are apparently magical things that are carried around in the long robes of certain special people, they're not based on population or anything like that. The stronger your general is, the better his army gets. I'm not talking about tactics or training, the actual number of troops in an army depends on how many times you've pushed the ''attack'' button with a certain general. Since armies are magical, possibly imaginary things that replace lost soldiers but cannot go over a certain number (determined by your general's level), conquering territories doesn't really do much. A strategy game where conquering territories doesn't get you more troops? Just like Kessen II, except Kessen II didn't pretend it was a turn-based strategy. Kessen II's appeal was based on the battles themselves... I'll talk more about Dynasty Tactics' battle in a little bit. What you do get for conquering territories are more officers, which you can recruit if you have a certain other officer as an emissionary. Which you don't. Even if you did, you can only have 10 units involved in a single battle, so your officers with their magical armies just sit on the bench and gather dust. Also, unlike a good strategy game, you lose most of your territory several times with no possibility to prevent it. That would be more annoying, except territory doesn't do anything anyway.

Tactics

While the battles are much better than the ''strategy'' section, they leave a lot to be desired, and don't hold a candle to either Final Fantasy Tactics or Kessen II. It's turn based, like Final Fantasy Tactics, but combat works similarly to how it did in Kessen II... except instead of doing stuff yourself, you click ''attack'' or ''tactic''. Kessen II was cool because you got to see your armies rushing gallantly around, you got to whack the little foot soldiers with your invincible general, and when you used skills, you actually had an affect on the outcome of many of them. In Final Fantasy Tactics, you could customize your characters to a very high degree. In Dynasty Tactics, all the units are just upgraded versions of another unit. The archers are a little different, but they have a very short range and don't do all that much damage.

''As long as we're combining the worst elements from two great games, we should make sure to include a ridiculously overpowered skill!! I know! We'll change it's name from ''calculator'' to ''taunt''!! We could even add another skill that does exactly the same thing, with a different name! How about ''pit''? Oh.... and just to make sure they don't know what we're doing, we'll give a bunch to the enemy and not very many to the player!!!11!11!1!1!!one!1!!1''

Pit. Taunt. Fear them. What's so scary about a hole in the ground and a bunch of magical 2000 year old chinese soldiers making ''your momma'' jokes? They don't do that much damage. They don't have any devestating status affect attached to them. What they can do, though, is suck an enemy unit from the other side of the battlefield and confuse them. Since it's pretty much unavoidable, you can set up devestating combos. Let's take the following diagram as an example -

____EEEEE______
______EGE______
_______v_______
_______v_______
_______v_______
_______v_______
_______v_______
_______vC______
______CxC______
______CTGLFL____

E = Enemy Unit
G = General
T = Your officer using Taunt
C = Your officer using a tactic in the combo
F = Friendly Unit
L = A Strategist using a linked tactic

The combo will unfold as follows -

1 - Your taunter calls the enemy general over and inflicts some casualties.
2 - One of your strategists uses linked morale boost, increasing the power of the later steps of the combo, as well as increasing the power of your units slightly.
3 - Same as step 2
4 - The officer to the left of your taunter uses Assist, dealing a large amount of damage ot the enemy general.
5 - The officer to the left of the Assister uses All Attack, devestating the enemy general. The enemy general is probably dead right now.
6 - The officer two spaces to the East of the All Attacker uses Encircle, causing more damage and pushing the enemy North one space. The enemy general is now definately a pile of dust, but we're going to add one more step just to add insult to injury.
7 - The officer above the Encircler uses Raid, charging through the enemy general's unit. The enemy general is already dead, so perhaps the officer using Raid is just looting the corpses or something. The general finally expires, you win.

Remember, this takes almost no skill or timing to set up.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? But wait... You WISH you could do this. Your enemy will be doing this to you many, many times before you get the opportunity to return the favor. If you manage to survive to the point where you get an officer with Pit or Taunt, it becomes a contest to see if you can get their general with Pit or Taunt before they get you with Pit or Taunt.

So there you have it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 11/16/02, Updated 11/16/02