Dynasty Warriors

"Dead Bodies Everywhere"

The perennial Dynasty Warriors series sure has spanned a lot of systems, and it was only a matter of time before it hit the PSP. I don't really follow the Dynasty Warriors games all that much, but I think this was a PSP launch title.

The only Dynasty Warriors game I have played before was the crummy Dynasty Warriors Advance for the GBA. At the time I played it, I was hoping that the GBA version was not indicative of the rest of the series since it was rather repetitive and mundane. After playing the PSP version of Dynasty Warriors, I can say that Dynasty Warriors Advance is indeed quite a scaled down game, but it does have a lot in common with the PSP version of Dynasty Warriors, and that is that they are both incredibly repetitive and mind-numbing.

Now despite my cynicism for the Dynasty Warriors series, I gave the PSP version of Dynasty Warriors a try, and I can say that it was entertaining for a few hours, but after that I really lost interest with the story mode (Musou mode), and ended up screwing around in Free Mode instead, which let me explore the different characters.

Dynasty Warriors for the PSP follows the same setup as the Advance version, and breaks the large, Dynasty Warriors battles into small, digestible bites for gaming on the go. This is done by breaking the battles up into a large grid. Each turn, you can move your character to adjacent squares, and attack the enemy. Each of these smaller scale battles will last a few minutes, and they all add up to one large battle that may take 20 minutes to a half hour to complete. It's been said that this setup adds a bit of strategy to the Dynasty Warriors decorum. However, regardless of how the battles unfold, the game still feels pretty unilateral overall, and the battles all end up feeling the same.

There are only two main gaming modes to pick from in Dynasty Warriors. The Musou Mode follows the paper thin story of the three kingdoms of Wei, Wu, and Shu. You can choose to play as five different characters from each kingdom from the onset of the game. Each character looks a bit different and each one has a different weapon, but many of the fighting styles are similar, and picking a new character to restart Musou Mode doesn't necessarily mean that your experience will differ much.

Then there is Free Mode, which is the mode that I enjoyed the most. In Free Mode you can pick any character you have unlocked and play any battles that you have beaten in Musou Mode. This is a fun way to see all of the different characters and see how they fight. There are also multiple difficulty levels for the different modes.

There is not really a whole lot to do in the PSP version of Dynasty Warriors except fight in battles over and over.

Graphics 7/10

Things don't look all that bad in Dynasty Warriors for the PSP. It's not exactly on par with the PS2 versions, but it captures enough of the original game to retain the graphical style.

As the screen becomes clustered with enemy forces, things can slow down a bit, and movements can become somewhat imprecise. Even though there are some slow down issues, Dynasty Warriors still manages to put an impressive amount of characters on-screen for a PSP game.

Sounds and Music 7/10

For some reason I find the Dynasty Warriors games to have some catchy tunes. The hardcore style music does a great job of keeping the pace of the battles going strong and aids in the enjoyment of the game.

There is no voice acting to speak of, but the sound effects are fairly decent and sound pretty good for the most part.

Story 2/10

This game really doesn't even have a story. Aside from the generalized struggles of the Three Kingdoms, very little is explained in detail. Before each battle you will simply get a few lines of text, which feel more like objectives than a story. So this game doesn't really focus on the story at all, and it throws you into battle after battle. Even during Dynasty Warriors Advance there were periods during the battles where the enemies would momentarily talk to you and egg you on, but that just doesn't happen here.

Gameplay 5/10

Dynasty Warriors does have some fun gameplay at first, but slaying hordes and hordes of enemies becomes very repetitive, regardless of how many attacks you have at your disposal.

Since the game is broken down into individual battles of a larger war, your objectives in any given area will be to drive the enemies away from the area or kill them all. Usually there are far too many enemies to kill them all, so you are better off wearing them down and killing off as many as possible until they retreat. Each battle's outcome affects the overall moral of the enemy forces, and once their moral is depleted, your troops will get bonuses and advantages.

After you pick your Kingdom and character at the beginning of the game, you are given the misconception that you will be fighting with others at your side, but you will be taking care of most of the dirty work yourself. Later on you can utilize officers that you have captured in battle and have them fight alongside you. You can command up to four of them and use their special skills to aid you in battle. You also have the options to use horses to your advantage and level up your character to get more combos.

The leveling up aspect of the game is cool, but it gets cut short when you realize that you do not retain your levels after each large scale battle is over. Once the battle concludes, your character starts back at level one, with basic combos and a smaller amount of health than you had at the end of the previous battle. This kind of kills the whole growth aspect of the game and just makes everything seem routine.

All of the above is from playing the Musou Mode, but once I discovered Free Mode, I didn't go back to Musou Mode at all. Free Mode was much more entertaining to me for one reason: I could replay any mission I wanted to as any character in the game that I had unlocked. I was not restricted to playing an entire campaign as one character. Free Mode is great for short little bursts of Dynasty Warriors goodness, but even after you see what all of the character do there is little incentive to keep playing it.

Longevity and Re-Playability 6/10

There is a lot to do in this game, but since it all hinges on fighting similar battles over and over, your fun may wane long before you get to finish Musou Mode or see all of the characters in Free Mode. The main thing about this game that pushed me away was the lack of any attempt at a story. Action games are fun and all, but I kind of have an RPG mindset when it comes to gaming, and I have trouble getting into games without some kind of story.

Conclusion

Dynasty Warriors for the PSP is an okay game, and fans of the series may get their kicks from it for a short while, but it will not please everyone, and non-fans may not be pleased by the formulaic gameplay and repetitive battles.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/09

Game Release: Dynasty Warriors (US, 03/16/05)