Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends

"Well its what we expected."

Xtreme legends is DW5's expansion disc. Being an expansion pack, you probably saying “why should I buy an incomplete game?” well, the new additions to XL mainly Destiny mode and the reasonable price make it a stand-alone game.

Destiny mode is basically a replacement for “Musou” mode. In this mode you begin by creating your warrior, you choose it a name, gender, weapon. Then you choose the officer you wish to serve under. This mode is extremely frustrating, why ? Well because you begin as a foot soldier, with no skills whatsoever. Yes no riding horse/elephant, no evolution attacks, no Musou attack, etc. You will only be able to perform a two-Hit combo, see for yourself how hard it is to have to kill hundreds of enemies with a only a 2 hit combo.

Don't worry though, you will eventually learn new skills and more powerful combos. How? Well, before each battle you can choose your “Objectives” accomplish these objectives and you will earn skill points, which you will use to obtain new skills.

For how long you will stay a foot soldier is up to you. Perform well during battles and you will get “Promotions” your goal is to work your way up the ranks. As you rise through the ranks additional skills and troops to command will become available.

New skills have been added such as “Ambush” and “Rally”, using these skills in battles will increase your ratings. There are two kind of ratings, “Military “ ratings and “Tactical” rating. Get high ratings and your commander might give you valuable gifts, like weapons or outfits.

An interesting addition to the series is the “Betrayal & Defection”, you may be asked form enemies to defect to their side, if you accept you will begin the next stage on their side. However if you refuse, your leader will ask you to accept their offer and pretend that you are on their side, then after few battles you will be asked by your leader to betray the enemy in the middle of a battle and return to your original master.

Well, then you have Legend mode. In this mode you are given missions to complete, each mission has certain objectives and they are well made. And the last mode is Xtreme mode, this is a hard mode, try and see how many enemies you can kill before you lose your life. Challenge mode is back, with two new challenges.

Everything else is exactly the same as DW5. The graphics are good, the character models are nice. Even with 20 dudes on the screen you won't experience slow down. If you hated the rock music in previous Dws well then too bad, cause the music is 90% rock. Voice acting isn't bad either.

If you have DW5 saved data on your memory card, then you can add the “Muso” and “Free” modes to you XL game. Plus you can transfer all of your weapons, items, characters stats to your XL as well.

+ Destiny mode
+ new skills & items
+ its only $30
- Same gameplay engine
- same graphics
- same sound/music

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/19/05