Dynasty Warriors 3

"An attempt at strategy, but really an action beat-em-up."

One day I came outside to do a little skating. My friend said, ''Hey, I got a new game, wanna see?'' So of course I said sure. I picked up his PS2 controller and we started picking characters. As we went into battle, I was amazed by the incredibly fun beating the other army game. I'll start with the review.

Graphics 9/10: This is a huge improvement over the PS2 version. The character designs are phenominal, and are in great detail. The enemies look different according to the rankings, and are also in detail. The bosses are also cool. Many look stupid but funny, like the fat guys, and some look evil, like Lu Bu. The cut scenes are also excellent. It's usually an interesting scene showing the strategy and story involved in the next battle. Their mouths actually move!

Gameplay 10/10: Here is the basic point of the battles. Start at your base, end at the other base. Choose to attack or defend. Then, when at the other team's base, you kill the boss of sometimes defeat him up to 4 times.

Now this may sound easy and very boring, but when you play there's no way it is. The are hordes of enemies to fight (Using swords, spears, pikes, axes, etc) and about 5-15 sub-bosses in each battle. The more points you get after winning a battle, the better the stats you get. You may also use arrows. There is one very special thing about this game. The mesou attack (pronounced mess owww or mes o) is like a special attack. By killing plenty of enemies (it is common to kill 500 every battle) you will get you mesou up very fast. The mesou is a cool looking attack where you are not hurt at all, and you kill many enemies with this powerful attack. The gameplay is the best part of the game.

Sound 6/10: Don't get me wrong here, the music is great. Even though heavy metal guitars may sound odd, it fits the game perfect. The voice acting, the grunts, and the screams are kind of ...uhh. The voice acting is unclear and hard to hear. The grunts by your player are the same every single time you do an attack. Hearing ''Hurr, Hurr, Huh, Huuuh, Hiya!'' everytime is so annoying, and they never change. The enemies shrieks when they die are different in every level. But throughout the whole 15 minute to 2 hour levels the shrieks are the same. This is the only downfall of the game.

Story 10/10: Although the story is very related to the Romance of Three Kingdoms series, it is great. A few turns and twists come along, but nothing special. Otherwise an enjoyable story if you have the patients to watch the videos.

Control 10/10: There is no problems here. A jumps, X attacks, Y is a stun attack which can be used with X to do a combo, B charges or uses mesou, The left thumbstick moves your player, the R buttons shoots arrows, (X, Y, and B to shoot different ones) and the L button adjusts the camera. Pretty traditional.

Replay 10/10: This game is so fun to replay. When only starting with 8 characters, it's a lot of fun to try to get all of them. It is also fun to get the most points in free mode (infinate enemies so you can get infinate kills I've gotten around 8,000). The levels are fun to keep playing, like the Reese's commercial, there's no wrong way to play Dynasty Warriors 3. This is where the game shines.

Conclusion Rent or Buy?: For normal gamers, rent it, it is very short and very easy. It sometimes gets boring to keep playing the same levels over and over. For gamers that are new to gaming and like a bit mindless gameplay with some strategy involved, this game is a buy. I give Dynasty Warriors 3 a 9/10 because of the repetitive sound and small graphical glitches. Otherwise, a great game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/02, Updated 12/02/02