Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires

"Deja vu..."

Is Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires one of the best titles for the Xbox 360? Does it bring anything new to the series? Are the graphics good? Is there an online mode? The answer to all these questions: no.

Gameplay

There is nothing like good old fashion button mashing. Back in the day when arcades were popular, button mashing was the thing to do. Remember Galaga, that game where you took control of a space ship and fought waves and waves of aliens? You would mash the "fire" button as fast as you could, though you knew that your ship's shots couldn't go any faster. It didn't matter though because it was fun. What about games like Final Fight? That game must have took a lot of quarters. In this game you took on the role of a hero who must help the mayor fight off a gang of criminals using nothing but your fists. There might have been some strategy involved but most of the game revolves around how fast you could press the "attack" button. The Dynasty Warriors series, created by KOEI, seems to follow in these classic footsteps.

Dynasty Warriors, a spin off of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, was created in 1997 for the Playstation, as a weapon based fighting game. The characters represented historical figures from the Three Kingdoms era of Ancient China. It turned out to be a good fighter with a little history thrown in for fun. However, with the sequel, the game design changed. Each Dynasty Warriors game allowed players to command a general in epic battles to take over China. The historical characters of the first game became the generals of specific kingdoms each with their own armies. After you've chosen what kingdom to represent and what character to play as, you're given the task of conquering all of Ancient China. Using your excellent button mashing skills, you would take down waves and waves of enemies in large scale battles. This formula for fighting created some wild moments in Dynasty Warriors. It's awesome to see nearly a hundred soldiers fly through the air with one swing of my staff. Although these games provided hours of button mashing fun, the Dynasty Warriors series changed very little over the years. The same formula was used for each sequel resulting in a "haven't I played this before" like effect. The same can be said for this entry, Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires.

In Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires, you take on the role of one of the afore mentioned characters in an attempt to conquer all of China. To be fair, however, I will say that the Empire versions of Dynasty Warriors did add a little strategy to the series. In these versions you have to execute diplomacy as well, not just brute force in order to succeed. The same thing holds true to Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires. Do you join forces with your rival in order to thwart a much tougher enemy or do you just let them fight each other and then attack the remains of the surviving kingdom? Do you tax the people heavily so you can have better weapons and risk losing their support or do you tax them less and risk not having the best weapons for your soldiers? There is a lot more to think about then just your next target. However, I found that your political decisions didn't affect the gameplay that much. It still boiled down to button mashing.

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires attempts to add something new to the series by way of commanding officers. Officers are the soldiers that follow you during your battles, separating themselves from the bulk of the army. Using the D-pad you can give commands to your officers such as: gather, attack, and defend. For the most part, the officers follow your commands pretty well. I did find problems with the AI when I gave the "attack" command though. I was a little angry when I engage other warriors in battle and my officers would be just standing around with their weapons drawn. It was as if they were waiting for me to "tag" them in. They would eventually attack the enemy but by that time there was not anyone left to attack. I found the same problem with the enemies I encountered. They would sometimes stand there while I wailed on their commanding officer.

OVERALL: 6/10

Graphics

Although the graphics for Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires on the Xbox 360 are the best in the series, they don't differ greatly from the graphics on the original Xbox. I am a little disappointed with that seeing as how it's on the 360. All the main characters are detailed well and are distinct from one another. The thousand of soldiers on screen, however, look like clones despite the fact that they are from different armies. In Character Edit mode, you can create officers for your character and even assign them different weapons. In the end though, they still look just like everyone else on the battle field. Then there are the environments in which these huge battles take place. They're bland. Even the bases attempt to conquer are nothing much than raised platforms with a indicating an enemy base. The houses and castles that you see in the game aren't very detailed either. The graphics just don't hold up to the rest of the Xbox 360's games.

OVERALL: 5/10

Sound

The sound quality in Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires is good to say the least. All the expected sounds are accounted for. There just isn't that much to them though. They all sound the same as they did years ago when Dynasty Warriors 3 came out. One thing I did notice is the voice overs this time around. Many of them don't match the characters they are assigned to. A big warrior wielding an giant ax shouldn't sound like a young man fresh out of middle school. I guess it's not that bad seeing as how the characters only say one or two lines during cutsences.

OVERALL: 6/10

Fun

I would say that Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires is a pretty fun game (if you're into button mashing). I always enjoyed the large scale battles in the series. However, one player mode does get rather boring after a while. A little more strategy would have gone a long way to make the single player experience more enjoyable.

OVERALL: 7/10

Best or Worse

This is a section which I hope is unique to my reviews where I pick the best or worse section of the game In this case, I picked the worst which is the lack of an online mod.

I don't understand why there isn't an online mode. This is one of the only muiltiplayer games for the Xbox 360 with no online mode. This would have given Dynasty Warriors a big boost in the replay department. Imagine a king of the hill mode where players would fight for the crown or an online empire mode where you could battle people for the control of China. Just think, you could form a truce with your buddy in Japan to help take out that guy from Canada who has been given you trouble lately. An online mode would do Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires a great service.

OVERALL: 5/10

Conclusion

If your a big fan of the series, you should pick yourself up a copy. Just don't expect a lot of new content or you will be let down. As for everyone else, I say give it a rental because by the time it's due back at the rental store you won't want to play it anymore anyway.

OVERALL: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/09

Game Release: Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires (EU, 06/23/06)