Dynasty Warriors 4

"The best in the series to date"

Dynasty Warriors 4, the fourth installment in KOEI's series of tactical fighting action games, is a vast improvement over the previous games. While it doesn't follow the timeline of history or even the novel with perfect accuracy, it is nonetheless a very engaging and well-made game.

If you've played the previous Dynasty Warriors games, you know the routine: Choose a character from the kingdom of Wei, Wu, or Shu, and do battle with the other two kingdoms to conquer China. You'll fight hordes of peons, enemy generals, and eventually the ruler of each kingdom, becoming more powerful with each battle. Your accomplishments will also unlock new characters and items, and defeating enough worthy opponents will earn you weapons that will allow you to cause even more mayhem.

How exactly does DW4 compare to the other games in the series, you ask? Here's a more detailed explanation:

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics in DW4 are, in a word, beautiful. The character portraits and models are colorful and detailed, and sport six different costumes each. It even looks like a great deal of work was put into the battlefields. Thanks to the lower troop density and omission of the fancy lighting effects, the graphical improvements haven't made the pop-in any worse.

Sound: 10/10
This time around, the developers decided to give the music a more oriental feel by combining traditional Chinese music with synthesized rock. It's a subtle change, and it may take some getting used to, but it fits the setting of the game better than the themes from DW2 and DW3. The peons sound very effeminate when they scream, but the voice acting for the playable characters has been greatly improved. A lot of the actors have a strong sense of character this time around. Listen to Sun Ce and Sima Yi, and you'll understand what I mean.

Controls: 8/10
Once again, the controls are smooth, responsive, and easy to learn. You can change your bodyguards' orders with the press of a single button, and the triangle button's usefulness has been greatly increased. Auto-targeting isn't as much of a problem as it was in previous games. I deducted points here because of a single flaw I've found: The controllers have a bad habit of malfunctioning if you keep the vibrations on while you play. I've had this happen with three different controllers so far, and nothing short of turning off the vibrations made the problem go away.

Storyline: 9/10
If you're familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you'll be able to appreciate this game's plot. However, the game takes several liberties with the storyline. The previous Dynasty Warriors games often had characters appear in battles that they didn't participate in historically. This game even changes the chronological order of some of the battles...something that not even DW2 did. It's not a game-breaking flaw, but it wouldn't have been very hard for KOEI to include most of the features that they did in the game while still remaining true to the source material.

Gameplay: 9/10
KOEI and Omega Force must have been listening to all of the complaints that players had about DW3, because DW4 fixes almost all of its predecessor's problems. Most of the goings-on in each battle are described by text messages, and you'll only see the intro sequence for an enemy general if you're being challenged to a duel. These two changes help keep events to a minimum. Stun attacks are much less common than they were in DW3; each character's stun combo has been replaced with a powerful combo that can break an enemy's guard and score increasing numbers of hits as you acquire stronger weapons. The battlefields are much more interactive, too; a lot of the obstacles that you'll come across can be destroyed. Have you ever cursed at archers as they shot you from the safety of their towers? In DW4, you can tear their towers down.

The new features of the game are nice concepts, but they could have been implemented better. Creating a warrior is as simple as choosing the sex of your warrior, choosing a costume color, choosing from one of three different head, limb, upper body, and lower body coverings, and choosing a weapon that, with only two exceptions, provides your character with the same moveset as one of the other playable characters. The dueling system saves you from having to worry about peons while fighting a general, but the 45-second time limit on duels, the difficulty of disrupting certain attacks, the vast amounts of damage that many enemy generals can deal, and the limited usefulness of blocking turn many duels into simple slugfests. There's a lot of potential in both of these systems that just wasn't realized.

Challenge: 10/10
The challenge level of DW4 is very well balanced. Enemies aren't as numerous as they were in DW2 or DW3, but their AI has been greatly improved. Peons are now more aggressive, more opportunistic, and more willing to retreat and regroup if the odds are against them. Enemy generals make good use of all of their different moves, and sometimes pull off combos that you'd only expect a human player to use. On the other hand, your bodyguards' AI has also been improved, and they start out very strong and able to defend both you and themselves. The game's learning curve is also very gradual, and you'll rarely fight in battles that are laughably easy or frustratingly difficult.

Replayability: 10/10
As in DW3, there are lots of reasons to replay the game. The story and the battles change depending on the outcome of the battles in which you participate, and there are several items and characters that can only be unlocked by fighting in certain battles. There are multiple endings for each kingdom, and if you liked playing as the unaligned characters in Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends, you'll still have that option in DW4. Each character has a unique weapon that you can only obtain by fulfilling certain conditions on the game's hardest difficulty setting, which may prove a challenge for even veterans of the game.

Overall: 10/10
With 42 different playable characters and dozens of weapons and items to find, Dynasty Warriors 4 is an excellent game whose strengths more than compensate for its few weaknesses. If you're even remotely interested in fighting action games, do yourself a favor and buy DW4. Even if these sorts of games don't normally interest you, I encourage you to rent this one. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/03, Updated 04/02/03