Dynasty Warriors 3

"A game with a few flaws that keep it from greatness."

When I first played this game a couple months ago at a friends house I was hooked right away. It was just so much fun beating the crap out of all those soldiers. It was so addictive I wanted to own it myself. I couldn't contain my excitement, when just a month ago I finally heard about this game's release on the Xbox. The excitement was well worth it, although I can't help but be a little dissapointed on how Koei didn't take advantage of the Xbox's power in the least bit, to fix some of the mistakes from the PS2 version.

Sound 7/10

The sound effects are pretty standard, there is footsteps, swords chiming as they smash into each other. Fire noises, bow noises, nothing really special. The voice acting though is pretty good. I have heard it is improved from the PS2 version, but it is still not perfect. While some characters sound great, some of the guy characters have voices like girls, and for some people, when you kill them they make these awful ''Awwwwww I..Is this the end?'' which can get very annoying after a while.

There is much debate over whether the music for Dynasty Warriors 3 is good or not. On the good side the music sounds great, it is pretty dramatic, and you should enjoy listening to it. On the bad side, it's Rock. Nothing against Rock music, except it doesn't exactly fit the theme of Chinese guys fighting over the fate of China. I personally think it's good. Sure it doesn't fit the theme, but hey it sounds good.

Story 7/10

The story varies on the character you play as, but here is how it is for the most part. There are 3 Kingdoms, Wu, Shu, and Wei (Pronounced Way) each of them wants to control all of China. Not that great, but not to bad either.

Each battle seems to have a story of it's own though, which is nice. There are usually a couple cutscenes for each mission too, which keeps the in-battle story's going. Also just with how the battle is going there could be a story out of it. For example you could be on the Wei side, chasing down Shu. You are doing so well Shu decides to retreat. Then when they have almost made the complete retreat reinforcements for them arrive. They push you back, and it looks like they could win. When suddenly reinforcements of your own arrive, and you tear Shu from limb to limb winning the battle.

Overall the in-battle stories can be pretty cool, but the overall story isn't really that great to me at least.

Graphics 5/10

Yes this is where all the major flaws come into play. Although the Movies have good graphics, and all the characters look nice considering how many of them there are in each battle. The other graphic things are horrible. The draw distances are terrible, from afar the horses, and elephants don't look to bad, but they look horrendous up close. The levels are pretty plain, not much scenery at all to look at, but maybe that's a good thing considering how bad the graphics are for just about everything else. The major problem though is when the enemies constantly disappear. They can even disappear when you are right next to them. This can cause some problems, especially when you run in, to attack not expecting much resistance, then 20 enemies appear right when you get there, and you get beat up.

Overall the graphics are definitely a lot worse than most games on the Xbox, and if this game had fixed some flaws it would have a higher score with most reviewers. Luckily the game isn't unplayable because of these flaws.

Gameplay 9/10

Good gameplay overall, except some people may not like the fact that it can be a button smasher. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of combos that can be used, but most of the time you will just press the X button. Luckily the game throws in enough officers, and high ranking individuals, where you will need to use more advanced moves to defeat a lot of people.

The controls are nice and simple. The X button does your normal attack, which is quick, and by tapping the X button you can do combos. The better weapon you have, the longer your combos will last. The Y button does a kind of attack that charges up for a second, then delivers a powerful blow to your enemies, doing this can leave you wide open to attacks for a couple seconds though. Amazingly just about every character has a different Y button move. (I believe there are 41 different characters) The Left Trigger puts you in defensive mode, where you can block attacks, this is also useful because it centers your camera.

The Right trigger makes you take out your bow, and you are put right into a first person view, and a targeting thing appears. The Bow is nice to use, because as soon as you can near an enemy while looking around, it auto targets, which makes shooting the bow simple. You can even do different kinds of attacks with the bow depending on which button you press (X,Y, or B) The B button uses your best attack, the Musuo attack! Once your bottom meter is full (you can fill it by beating up guys, getting beat up yourself, or by getting an item that recharges the meter) The Musuo attack is usually an extremely powerful combo that is great in a tight spot.

Yes there's more! There are two types of Maps, one that shows the entire field in the corner of the screen, and another one that just shows the area around you in the corner. You can change between these two maps by using the black button. The white button makes it so you can see little life meters above people's heads. Finally there is the A Button, which lets you get on Horses and yes, ELEPHANTS!

The game is not ever to hard or to easy, considering this is one of those great games where you can customize how hard it is. For you masters of this game there is also an unlockable Very hard mode now!

Replay Value 10/10

This game really shines here! There are so many different things you can do, that will keep you going for months upon months. You can first of all try and unlock, and then beat the game with all the characters, and then try to do it with every difficulty mode if you are up to it. Also you can try to unlock all of the 4th weapons (Very hard to do) The Co-Op mode should give it more replay value for when a friend comes over. Also one of the coolest things IMO is that after playing the challenge modes you can get a password, and enter it on Koei's website, and see how you rank against the rest of the DW3 players.

Overall 8/10
A great game, but those few flaws keep it from perfection. If you can look past those flaws though (and you probably will be able to) this is a great game.

Buy, Rent, Or Forget about?
I suggest a buy, but if you have never played a beat em up before you may want to try it out first with a rent.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/02, Updated 10/09/02