Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires

"One expansion worth a thousand?"

The running joke amongst the 'professional' game reviewers is that the Dynasty Warrior series presents the same material over and over and over again, yet manages to sell enough copies each time to warrant another release. The jokes intensified with the release of the Xtreme Legends games, and you can expect to see more with this latest installment, Empires.

But the joke's on them this time around. DW: Empires take the basic gameplay from Dynasty Warriors 4, strips it down a little, then adds in a new strategic element. Now, those players who come in expecting to find strategy on the order of Korsun Pocket or Phantom Brave are going to be disappointed. On the other hand, DW fans who always wished there was a little something more to their beloved series are going to find an addictive game well worth the $30 asking price.

The main goal (at least for many DW players) in DW4 was to not just go through each kingdom's story mode, but to take each officer (or at least your favorites) and build them up through repeated play. Find better items and build better weapons so that you could tackle the hardest difficulty setting with ease. This entire system is not present in Empires. Every new game of Empires starts you over with the same base stats, the same level 1 weapon and the same low level items. DW fans that haven't actually played Empires should have already cried "Blasphemy!" by now. But it ends up being much better than it sounds.

Empires has no free mode or 'musou' (story) mode. The single player game consists solely of Empire Mode. In Empire Mode, you take control of a province in China. You can choose to play either a Historical game, where rulers and officers start in areas approximate to where they began in real life, or a Fictional game, where all officers are randomized. You start with three officers, one of which is designated the ruler of your burgeoning empire. From there, you get to make choices which will affect the size, power and type of your kingdom. Will you tax the citizens mercilessly so that you can afford more troops and stronger officers? Will you promote the growth of trade in your kingdom, sacrificing gold for more powerful items? Perhaps you'll make an alliance (or two!) while slowly overtaking and engulfing smaller neighboring kingdoms. The choices you make during this policy phase can mean victory or defeat on the battlefield.

Yes, the trademark DW battles are still present, although most are scaled down from the original DW4. New to the series are stronghold points, which are similar to the control points found in Unreal Tournament 2004. Each side of a battle controls a number of strongholds starting off. Reinforcement troops spawn periodically from these points depending on the total number of troops the stronghold's controlling side has remaining. Your job is to clear out the stronghold's area of any enemy troops, which will make the stronghold come under your control. In addition, each side has one stronghold marked as it's Main Camp. Losing your main camp or taking control of the enemy's main camp will usually end the stage.

This model provides a couple of improvements on the DW engine that will hopefully be included in later installments. Gone are the days of simply charging into the heart of enemy territory and taking out the enemy leader to finish a stage. Although this is still viable in a few missions, more often than not it will result in the player being stranded in a sea of enemies. Officers, both friendly and otherwise, can respawn several times now. Rather than being defeated, they simply 'retreat' in order to regroup and return a few minutes later. Beat an officer back enough times and he'll challenge you to a duel. Win the duel to send that officer away for good.

After battles, you get the opportunity to either hire or release any captured officers. Capturing a high level officer from an invading enemy force can severely weaken an empire and leave the loser's kingdom ripe for invasion. A kingdom that loses a battle also usually suffers heavy troop casualties that can require two or three turns of healing to repair. This is just another strategic element that can help turn the tide of a game.

So now that we've seen what Empires brings to the table, let's look at the usual basics:

Graphics - 8
Nothing has changed here from DW4 or DW4: Xtreme Legends. They aren't breathtaking, but they get the job done well. Docked a point because of extreme (in some cases, nearly unplayable) slowdown during some stages. I couldn't tell if it was due to the huge number of enemies on screen or if it was a result of the extra polygons given to the strongholds.

Sound - 8
Once again, more of the same. The music used for the menus has greatly improved over the other DW games however. If you were one of the players that complained about the guitar-heavy rock songs used for the soundtrack of a game set in China 200 A.D., then your qualms still have not been addressed.

Controls - 8
Nothing new in this installment. Same as it ever was.

Replay - 7
Add a point (or two) if you're a hardcore DW fan (which is probably anyone considering buying this game). The Empire mode is fun, but once you've finished it, there's not much incentive to play it again. There are art gallery pictures to unlock along with different ending mini-skits for the various characters, but that's a lot of work for a couple of pictures and one or two 10 second clips. Also, as noted earlier, there is no character build-up or item power up. All of that now depends on the strategic part of the game, so no more building up a monstrous Lu Bu to fall back on in case you run into a difficult stage.

Final Score – 8
This is a “Must Try” for most people, but a “Must Buy” for Dynasty Warrior fans. Here's hoping that it does well enough for game companies to realize that maybe mindless action games don't always have to be so mindless.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/04