Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires

"Romance of Three Kingdoms, for dummies!"

Anyone who has played the Dynasty Warriors series knows that if there was ever an annoyingly fatal flaw in the game mechanics, it was that all you need to do to win any battle is defeat the enemy commander. Say goodbye to the days of easy victories, my friends. The tagline for the games of this series has always been a mix of action and strategy. Well, now it's true.

Graphics/Interface: 9
First, I have to point out the reworked interface. It hasn't been changed since Dynasty Warriors 2, but now that they finally got around to revamping things, it looks MUCH better. Everything is organized in more or less the same way as it was before, but the information is presented in cleaner outlines and brighter colors.
The graphics have been improved over the previous iterations of the game, as well. Sharper details and cleaner polygons, along with redone texture maps for the environment, add up to make a better overall gameplay experience.

Music: 5
The music is pretty much the same as it was in 4/XL. A few new tunes, but still (in my opinion) not as good as the music from DW3.

Gameplay: 10
Wow. The game has been totally revamped for this 'expansion.' Instead of simply selecting a battle and playing through, there's now a map of China which it is your goal to completely take over. You'll start off with three officers, and you'll be able to take over parts of the map to control more land and gain other officers, up to a maximum of 10 generals and 10 lieutenants. There's a LOT more to it than I'm explaining here, but that's more or less all I'm saying about the strategic portion of the game.
The other part of the gameplay is, of course, the action. Once you get into a battle, either by invading an area or being attacked and choosing to defend the area, you get to the good old game we know and love. Sort of. In the previous games, troops were almost infinite, officers would stay out of a battle once they'd been defeated, and there was a lot of emphasis on setting off events by meeting requirements like holding an area of the map for a certain amount of time or defeated an officer before he reached your front lines, etc. Now, however, each officer actually has a set number of troops, as low as 2,000, going up to 5,000. As long as the officer has troops still alive, they will continue returning to battles after each defeat. The only unfortunate problem I see with the combat of this game is that events are amazingly rare, and only happen in specific battles such as the alliance against the Yellow Turbans or Dong Zhuo. Koei has managed to mend this flaw by giving each officer special abilities (called skills) which allow them to set ambushes, gain reinforcements, defend strongholds, affect army morale, and a slew of other interesting effects.

Sound/Voice Acting: 5/8
Sounds are pretty much the same as in DW4, aside from the new voices for created officers. The voice acting is also the same, which would only be worth 5 points from me, except that there have been MANY new lines added for each officer, there are 4 more voices for created officers, and best of all, you can set the language to JAPANESE, more than doubling the amount of voice acting in the game.

Extras: 7
The archives got a revamp. You can now view all kinds of character art, view all the weapons at any level, and hear every single voice clip for every officer. There's even a voiced introduction from each playable officer in both Japanese and English. Unfortunately you can only view the 42 playable officers historical information, which was a bit of a let down.

Total Score (not an average): 7

Highly addictive, and more challenging than DW4. I can't say I want more Dynasty Warrior games to be like this, but I can say that for $30 it's a great buy, whether you own or have played any of the previous games or not.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/04