Dynasty Warriors 5

"Dynasty Warriors 5 is the best of its predecessors!"

Dynasty Warriors 5 is the 5th game (duh) of the Dynasty Warriors series (if you don't count DW1, which was a fighting game, then it's technically the fourth). Now, I know what you are thinking. “This is the 5th game? This series must be getting stale!” Well, I've written this to prove that statement wrong!

Game play-10/10 First let talk about the game play, the utter most important part of any game. Let me summarize the games core game play. Hack ‘n Slash. Now let me go in-dept into the game play. First off, I have to state that there is nothing better than picking one of your favorite players and charging into a barrage of enemy's. There can be up to nearly 100 enemies on the screen at one time, and there is rarely any slowdown, although you will hit the occasional snag here and there, but it only lasts for one second at most. Also, I said about picking a character earlier. There is over 48, yes, 48 warriors at your disposal, while 6 of them happen to be new characters added since Dynasty Warriors 4, and each character has their own story mode with a unique ending. Now, for controls of the game play. They couldn't be any easier to use, with an even easier learning curve. You basically have your normal attacks, using the square button. Then you can add charge attacks into these combo's of normal attacks, which happen to be stronger attacks, but take a little time to charge up. As you gain different weapons (4 different levels of weapon for each character) you can have more square attacks and have an even longer combo, with more charge attacks. Now, for the difficulty. This game has every setting for every player. Are you a casual player that likes to sit back after school and just plow through this game while absentminded? Then easy is for you. Normal is for those not yet familiar with the game or just want an easier play through than hard. Now hard, while a tad bit harder than normal, is not all that much more difficult. But that's just me; it all depends on the player. And then there's the final setting-Chaos. Let me warn you ahead of time, this is for EXPERTS, ONLY!! It is really hard, with little to no health drops, and even the little peons can kick your butt.

Some new things they've added game play wise, at least the biggest update, would have to be the stronghold system, in which you open up the gates of a castle that is either a supply base, attack base, or defense base, and then defeat the guard captain, in which the base is shut down and doesn't benefit the enemy any more. But watch out, as the same can happen to you.

Story-10/10. This game takes place based off old warfare in feudal China in the time set of about 100 A.D. to about 200 A.D. give or take a few years. This is based off of actual events, but most of the game is fictional (contrary to believe, people didn't use paper fans and nun-chucks to fight). The game actually is based more off of Romance of the Three Kingdoms books, which are a set of books that re-tell the old Chinese warfare but with a lot of fiction thrown in. The only bad thing with the story in this game is this story is getting retold in every Dynasty Warriors game. Not to say that's a major flaw, as it is a very interesting story to have a game off of.

Eye and Ear candy-8/10. This game looks absolutely gorgeous. The draw distance has been greatly increased since DW4, like being able to see enemy strong holds far off into the distance and the such. But the draw back is when you play co-op mode; the draw distance is so ridiculously reduced and pop-up in enemies is really common. The sound is also a little on the common side. Once you've heard one hard guitar rock in ancient Chinese warfare, you've heard them all.
Play time-10/10. This game will take you a LONG long time just to beat every characters story mode. That isn't including getting their unique weapons, every item up to maximum level, and every character maxed out state wise. I'd say to complete all of this would take you at least 100+ hours or more.

Replayability-10/10 With this game's amount of characters to be unlocked, plus seeing each characters story mode's ending, this will keep you coming back for a lot more. Plus you can amp up the difficulty, giving the game a whole new life.

Final Recommendations: I'd say if you've never heard of this game, rent it. But that's only if you are VERY unsure on whether to buy it or not. I'd really recommend buying it though.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/05