Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2

"The best Dynasty Warriors game yet!!!"

This is my first review. But I just want to say somethings about this game that seems to have been overlooked at GameFAQs. I'll just cover the things that the other reviewer did not focus on.

GAMEPLAY

This is where the main difference between this game and all other DW games appear.

-First of all, Vol. 2, to me, seems like what a Dynasty Warriors game really should be. Like the previous PSP DW game, the field in which you play is tile-based, in that you play in small subsection of the entire field at a time. This is far from a bad thing. In fact, combined with the time and supplies system, it really forces you to plan how you move around in the field. In the PS2 DW games, all I had to do to win, was run around, kill everyone, stay alive, and keep the main general alive. I didn't pay attention to my allies and I didn't pay attention to any strategies that the strategist proposed. And it was perfectly fine, even well into Hard and Chaos mode. But with Vol. 2, it doesn't work well anymore even in Easy mode. Normally, at the start of every battle, you're given 30 minutes or so. And every movement from a tile to another uses up a few seconds. And when you land on enemy territory, the fight to clear the area takes up even more of the time. So time becomes a really precious commodity especially if you want to clear a stage 100%, which unlocks new characters, officers, items, etc. Strategy becomes really important. You also have to backtrack often times to help your allies (unlike with the PS2 versions) since they will be the ones that help you clear out areas and protect your bases and supplies. The strategies that the NPC employs also greatly affects how you move. For example, often there will be landslides or floods that will cut off entire tiles of the field. Such things didn't really affect you in the PS2 DW games, but now, if you aren't careful, losing your path can force you to backtrack and waste your supplies/time. To regain time, you have to take over enemy supply bases. This works both ways, meaning that if an enemy officer takes control of your supply base, you'll lose that amount of time/supplies. So again, careful planning and strategies.

-The AI has actually seen a really big change. If you remember from the PS2 games, you could stand next to enemies for 10 seconds or more and they wouldn't attack you... if their morale is low or if you're in Easy mode. But not anymore. Now, since there is no more morale that affects the entire field, morale doesn't affect how often enemies attack. In fact, what the higher ranked NPCs would do (to me at least) was run up to me and immediately pull off a combo, so I was forced to react quickly or otherwise suffer. This is true in Easy mode, which makes me believe that Hard mode... would be, well, hard. Though I just haven't bothered to try yet.

-The officers system. I just love it. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, you can get any NPC under your command, and I mean any NPC. Like Guan Yu, Diao Chan, Zhao Yun, along with generals from Samurai Warriors. This is really amazing. I mean, you can have Guan Yu running around behind you and acting as your bodyguard. Of course, if you're playing as that character, you can't have him as your bodyguard. I tried with Zhao Yun. He just doesn't show up on the officers menu. I've yet to see if having that officer as your enemy/ally affects if you can select him as you're bodyguard or not. The officers system is based on command points. You character would start out with a certain number of command points, and this number is the max total level of your bodyguards. For major officers, like Guan Yu etc., they have levels of 20 or higher. This means that if you start with a command score of 27, which is what most characters start around with, you can only have Guan Yu and another level 7 officer, who isn't as beneficial. But every time as you clear a stage, you gain a command point or so which allows you to select an officer of a higher level. So you really have a choice: a few very strong beneficial officers/bodyguards or a lot (up to 4 or 5) weaker officers. Whichever. Though, of note is that the officers don't do nearly as much damage as you can do. But what stronger and more prominent officer do provide is ...well, stats and powers, which I will explain next.

-The leveling system from the PS2 games... is gone. Now instead of leveling your stats like attack, defense, speed, etc., what you level is the level of the officers you can have as your bodyguard. This... is not good in my book but it's not bad either. It just means that instead of being a one man army, you have to carefully choose who you have as your bodyguard, because they are the main source of your strength. Who you have under you, affects every single one of your stats. So the higher level officers can sometimes give you massive bonuses in every stat or just in attack or defense, etc. So ultimately, you, the commander has to rely on your subordinates... which I guess is how it should be. But it doesn't mean I have to like it though. I, for one, actually enjoyed being the one man army. As of writing this review, I don't know how the death of your officer would affect you but, so far, they haven't even come close to being somewhat hurt.

-The weapon and mount system. There's no more items that you equip anymore. Instead, the items were probably merged with the officers system. Anyways, you no longer find weapons in boxes anymore. Now you simply get a message saying you got a new weapon or horse or elephant whenever you defeat an officer or clear a certain "treasure trove" tile. Personally, I'm fine with this. Not having weapons lying around that you have to find means that there's that much less pressure on time/supplies.

-Also of note is that you never run out of enemies to kill. There's always a lot of them. With almost every stage, by the time I cleared it, I had over 1000 kills. So when I say clearing a tile, I mean you have to bring the enemy morale down to 0, done by killing a lot of peons, and also killing the major generals. This automatically finishes your role in the tile and brings it under your side's control.

Overall, gameplay is very nice. A lot more strategy than previous installments. And things are a lot more streamlined and purposeful, too.

Score: 9/10 (partially because of the leveling system and partially because like all DW games, it's repetitive)

GRAPHICS

Not as much to say as gameplay but still noteworthy.

-Gone is the 1/3 cutoff of the screen in the first PSP DW game. Now the view is a lot more like the PS2 versions, though some of the bars got switched around. And everything looks a lot more closer to the PS2 graphics this time around, including the look of the characters to the structures of buildings... like bases and depots you find in DW5, which means it's a lot better than in the first PSP DW game. Not much else to say about this that hasn't been covered. Btw, everything in the PS2 versions, graphics-wise, is in this game... including the freaky effects of Musou Rage.

-The map in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Now this is noteworthy. It's a lot less confusing than the ones in the PS2 versions. Most of the time, when you're in a tile fighting, what you see is a map of the whole tile. This means that you see everything on the map that affects you, which is really nice, plus you see them clearly. When there's an event anywhere else on the field, the map automatically switches to a view of the field grid and pinpoints (flashes) where the event occurred. This is completely adjustable, meaning you can also set it to manual, which I assume you change the maps with a button... though I haven't tried. And I won't bother with it because the automatic setting does a really good job with the maps. But there is a problem, but I know for sure that it's more me than the design of the maps. Sometimes, it seems that the switch to the grid field is too short, meaning I don't have enough time to see what's going on... or where I am for that matter. And other times, it seems that it's in grid mode too long... such that I lose sight of which direction in the tile I'm facing. Yeah, definitely me. I can probably fix it by paying more attention to the map but whatever. Also, there's the slight problem of differentiating the size of the group coming at you and who's the important generals. Enemies are a red colored dot, but higher ranked enemies other than the leader of the enemies, including captains, officers, and generals are all pink. Captains aren't nearly as important as generals and officers but you can't distinguish which one's which from the map. So I had to run around a bit to find the guy I gots to kill. Also a group of 5 enemies is 1 dot... a single enemy is also 1 dot, big dots but still the same sized dot. This is a problem when I want to kill as much peons as possible to drop enemy morale.

-There are some problems with the graphics though. Just as in the previous DW games, the enemies... sometimes disappears off your view... and I don't mean the map. They just disappear in front of you... Other times, they spawn out of nowhere, probably due to the small size of the tiles. Also, the elephant mounts... have very low polygon counts... which doesn't really mean anything but meh.

Overall, graphics are a massive improvement from the first PSP DW game, so it's a step close to DW5 graphics.

Score: 8/10 (good but not good enough compared to Monster Hunter Freedom graphics... that and I'm still not too happy about the lack of costumes)

SOUND

Nothing much to say here... well expect for what's next.

-A lot like the DW5 audio. Though there's no more voiceovers. Again this is both good and bad. Bad in that, I don't get to hear them talk... Good in that I no longer have to hear them mutilate Chinese pronunciations. Example: Cao Pi which should be pronounced Tsao Pee, but they pronounced it in DW5... COW PEE... I'm sure that if Cao Pi was in the previous DW games, they'd still pronounce it COW PEE. So anyways, this is a plus in my book, but probably because I'm Chinese and I can't stand the DW voiceovers.

-Also, if you are in a village tile and are fighting bandits, I've noticed that they're often female NPCs. Anyways, when you hit them (I do not condone hitting women) they make a grunt that sounds a lot like if they're guys, such to the point that, my character's grunting when executing moves is indistinguishable from their grunting... ah well.

Overall, very close to PS2 DW audio, just no voiceovers.
Score: 8/10 (for the above mentioned minor problem, and the fact that they probably could've done some voiceovers... I just wish that they would choose voice actors that KNOW HOW TO PRONOUNCE CHINESE... or at least teach them how)

STORYLINE

Even less to say here.

-Based on one of the 3 most famous novels in Chinese history, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the other 2 being Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West. How historically accurate is it... probably pretty accurate, but don't take my word for it. I never researched stuff like that. For some inexplicable reason, the story in this game is much more ...enjoyable than previous installments. Probably because of the back and forth (realistic) dialogue between 2 characters before each stage.

-Stages are a lot less linear too. Depending on how you do in a stage, the next stage is 1 of 2 possibilities. So there's a lot of different paths you can take for each character. And they do overlap. For example, for each kingdom, there a percent complete, which means that each character you play as in Musou mode, there's a pool of stages you play through for that kingdom.

Overall, less linear Musou mode than previous games. Famous storyline.
Score: 9/10 (not as linear but still somewhat linear... and it's based on one of the most famous novels so I can't give it a low score)

Final Note:
The best DW game so far... too bad it's on the PSP and doesn't have the graphics power of the PS2. Of course, they wouldn't have come up with the tiles field system if it weren't on the PSP, so meh...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/06