Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires

"I love it to death, but I want more!"

Dynasty Warriors has been around since the PS1 as a 3D one on one fighting game, but arrived in the form we know it with the sequel on the PS2. Since then, we're in the fourth installment of the series, which has also seen two "add-on" discs (the two "Xtreme Warriors" discs), a spin-off (Samurai Warriors) and now the first major change in the series' approach since the second game, all developed by Omega Force. Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires gives you a much more active role in choosing how you want to conquer China. It derives enough from it's sister franchise Romance of the Three Kingdoms to qualify it as a pretty large leap forward. Problem is, so much more could have been done!

The old story goes that late in the second century A.D., the Han Dynasty was going into ruin. Corruption was rampant, and a rebellion led by Zhang Jiao was creating turmoil in the land. Regional lords rose up to protect the Empire, when right under their nose a corrupt general named Dong Zhou takes the capitol at Huo Long for his own. Soon many of those same lords which defended the land split it up into warring factions, and war between these factions would give rise to three kingdoms. The Wei Kingdom, ruled by the ruthless Cao Cao; the Wu Kingdom, held by the Sun Family, most notably Sun Quan; and the Shu Kingdom, led by the noble Liu Bei. This story is filled with fascinating characters, too numerous to mention here in full, and it would go on until the founding of the Jing Dynasty under the descendants of Cao Cao's strategist Sima Yi.

Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, gives you direct control of up to twenty of these figures, including thirty nine of the most notable of the period, as well as up to four characters you can create yourself. The rest of them are represented by four generic models which up to this point in the series you could not play as in battle. Each game begins as you choose your difficulty level and mode of play. Historical mode lets you chose from the regional lords of the very beginning of the story, and build from there. Fictional mode lets you chose from any of the thirty nine distinct characters and the characters you created yourself as your lord, chose your starting region, and create your own history.

You can have as many generals and lieutenants as your territory base will allow, up to twenty in all. The game folds out in a turn-based fashion: first you choose from the policies presented by up to four of your generals. These range from raising money, hiring new troops and characters, expanding to create new items and more powerful weapons, and forming alliances with rival factions. Each policy costs money, except those which raise it. You also get a certain amount of money each turn, supplemented by the funds automatically produced by your territories. Once policy has been set, you can chose to invade a rival territory, defend one of your own if you are invaded, or help an ally with an attack or defense if they request your aid.

The battles are familiar territory to anyone who has played the series. You start by choosing which items you wish to equip to your character, and then it's off into a third person war with literally hundreds of troops on either side fighting for supremacy. The first major difference, though, is that you can't just rush in and attack the very heart of your opponents territory to accomplish your goal. Instead you have to slowly take over enemy strongholds, represented in the game by a circle of banners. Blue are those you control, red are the enemy's. You take it over by getting rid of every enemy troop and officer in the surrounding area. If there is a friendly stronghold in a direct path to the one you took over, the latter is added to your supply chain, and you can now grab healing items from it. Build a supply chain to the enemy's main camp, and you can take it over and win the battle. The morale bar from the previous games has also been replaced by a meter which measures how many troops your army and your opponents have left, as well one which shows how many regiments and officers from both sides are at a particular stronghold when you are at one.

Your generals all have a certain amount of troops based on their level, which rises as they gain combat experience and accomplish other goals, such as having a certain number of their proposals accepted. So long as they still have troops, if they're defeated in battle, they can keep coming back to rejoin the fight, albeit with fewer troops. If they run out, or are defeated in a one on one duel, or get too far into your own territory when struck down, they're captured. The only exception is the general you control yourself. If he's beat, the battle is over.

The game ends when you've either conquered all 24 provinces or 100 turns have expired and you failed to conquer the land. The only other major mode of play is Versus Mode, which features some new play modes to the series, some that are familiar, four in all. Vanquish is a one on one competition to see who can defeat the most enemies, and you can summon more dangerous foes to hassle your opponent. Pilfer puts you in a castle, and you have to get more treasure to a merchant than your opponent while avoiding other generals roaming the castle. Melee is a competition to knock enemy characters off the wall you're fighting on. Endurance just means staying alive longer than your opponent. All four of these modes are pretty hollow without a second player, really; the computer opponents aren't that much of a challenge. Even with a second player, though, these modes lack a lot of meat. Sadly, there is no option to play the main game with more than one player.

The exact same graphics and combat engine from the rest of the Dynasty Warriors 4 cycle is used again here, so those expecting a graphical upgrade or wild new combat abilities to use are going to be disappointed. At the least, though, a few new maps were created just for this game, though they're pretty basic and small. Control is still very responsive, and you're rarely fumbling around the controller to get the desired effect. In fact, the strongholds in the game give new life to the R2 button's function of zooming in on the map, so you can better figure out which enemy troops are being counted as part of the stronghold you are trying to take over. Before hand I rarely used that function, preferring to keep my eyes on the main map.

Most problems with the past installments of the DW 4 cycle, however, still remain. Troops will still appear and disappear out of nowhere when the area you're in is just too crowded. And officers on elephants will still stupidly charge into walls and just keep running. This is an especially cheep way to lose if you're between the elephant and the wall.

Almost all the voice actors who contributed to DW 4 have returned to lay down additional voice work to reflect the new game play features and also some new cut scenes. All except the man who voiced Zhang He, apparently, because he sounds even more like a bad stereotype than ever with his new quotes. Unless of course the old voice actor just decided to be more flamboyant than ever. Even worse, the old dialogue for the character has not been replaced, which makes the transition jarring more often than not. Only a few new songs were recorded for the game, none used in combat, but the new ones do a decent job reflecting the more strategic bent of this particular installment of the series.

My biggest problem, though, is that you simply are too limited in what you can do. Being chained to what your characters propose and not what you would rather do is often a hindrance, especially when you're short on troops and surrounded on all side while your generals are not suggesting hiring more troops. I'd much rather been able to set my two policies from a list of possibilities based on how much money I had, and assigning a general suited to the task to do it, such as having, say, sending Zhuge Liang, a wise man especially gifted with the ways of words, to negotiate an alliance, while Xiahou Yuan, a talented warrior noted for archery, helps train another of my characters. The same items are always at the same locations when you start a new game, too, and while in a few cases this makes sense, most of the time you'll want more variety.

Flavor wise, the game also gives some strangeness. A tyrant like Dong Zhuo suggesting you discharge troops to go back to their families just seems wrong, as does benevolent Liu Bei suggesting a harsh taxation policy. Characters also seem to have no loyalty to their own lords. You can recruit anyone out from under your foes, even people who in the stories were sworn brothers. Hopefully Omega Force will correct this the next time they return to this idea.

And hopefully they will. As much as I complain about these things, I found myself unable to get enough of this game for a long while. It's really the most open ended version of Dynasty Warriors yet, and probably one of the last we'll see on the Playstation 2. Fans of the series should get this without hesitating. People who have never played the series could do a lot worse for $30, though I'd recommend the original Dynasty Warriors 4 first.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/04