Dynasty Warriors

"If you like Action & Strategy, this ones an underrated winner."

Dynasty Warriors for the PSP

Overview

As one of the launch games for the PSP any early buyer of the PSP has to think about whether this game should be a part of their library. Personally, I bought 5 games at launch including this one. Overall this game has received the most play by far so far. It is a very good, but often misunderstood game. If you like action and strategy, you will enjoy this game.

The Concept

Dynasty Warriors is an “Action Strategy” game. This is not the same as a “Real Time Strategy” game like Command & Conquer or Warcraft. The difference is in this game, you spend more of your time in combat, slicing and hacking your way through your enemy in almost arcade like gameplay. The action gameplay here is almost like Double Dragon or Gauntlet.

But whereas those games are fairly shallow action games, Dynasty Warriors takes it to the next level. In Dynasty Warriors, your goal is to ultimately win a war by winning a series of battles and missions. No matter how good you are with your sword, you cannot win unless you are able to plot things out strategically. This is where the game really shines. Overall I recommend this game if you like to think a bit strategically with you game playing.

Gameplay

There are two basic aspects to the gameplay – the strategic game, and the action game. Lets talk about the strategic game first.

When you start a new level, you are faced with a strategic map. Your goal is generally to occupy the enemies main camp. You lose if you die, get your main camp occupied, or if you run out of supplies.

Because the map is a grid, there are a variety of ways you can get from your starting point, to the enemies main camp. The things you need to think about are:

1. How much do I need to level up before I can take on the really hard parts in the map? When you start any new level, you are at level 1 in terms of power. As you fight your way through the map, you can level up to a maximum of level 10. You can bring up to 4 other generals with you who in turn will also go through the same process. The difference is huge. At level one you are a bit bumbling. At level 10 you are a one man killing machine who can march into a huge throng of enemies without fear. If you want to take on the really hard spots on the map, you better toughen up first. But there's a catch as will be explained next.
2. How much time can I afford to spend leveling up before I make a run for the real attack? As I mentioned before you lose the game if you run out of “supplies”. For all intents and purposes this amounts to time. You have a certain amount of time available to you and you have to win the map before that time runs out. There are ways to win more time (take over enemy supply depots), and there are ways to lose time (heal yourself, lose your own supply depots). But no matter how many enemy depots you go for, you will eventually run out of time so you can't just wander around the map going after easy battles until you are level 10. You've got to pick your moment to jump in to the tough battles before you are fully ready.
3. Are my supply lines secure? As mentioned with #2, you lose if you run out of supplies (ie time). If an enemy takes over one of your supply depots, you can lose your supplies right when you need them most. I lost the game once right when I was about to wipe out my enemy at their base camp because they had taken over one of my supply depots and the game ended right there. So before you decide your route through the map, you've got to think about where your depots are vulnerable. Do you spend time going in there to shore them up, or do you make a dash for the enemy areas before your supply depot is at risk?

Of course there are other things to think about as well. Some travel paths are rivers and can only be traveled in one direction. This means that you may find yourself forced into a situation where you are facing a tough battle, and you can't back up to level up higher. So you better think about whether you are ready before you take that river path. Other paths can decrease the morale of your units. The bottom line is that there are many things to think about on the strategic map and while it would be an overstatement to say that the game is won here, it is fair to say that once you are past the first basic levels, you cannot win without sound strategy no matter how good you are with the sword.

In terms of the action game, it is a bit more basic. You get to bring up to 4 allied generals with you. They have different skills that you can use in the battlefield, and strength levels (in terms of raw fighting power). Generally speaking you can bring a small but powerful team into battle, or a larger (4 person) lower level team into battle. It all comes down to what you feel you will need.

Once you are into the action game itself it is fairly straight forward. Your goal is to cut through the enemy as fast as you can while minimizing the damage you take (obviously). That's where people who pick this game up for the first time get it wrong sometimes. Yes, you are much much more powerful than the average enemy solider. Yes, you will cut through literally hundeds of enemies as the battle goes on. But that doesn't mean the game is “easy”. It is not enough to “win” each battle. If you want to win the game, you have to win fast, while taking very little damage. Losing health means you must heal yourself and that costs you either resources (time), or troop morale. Either way, it is painful and it will cost you in future battles.

The action sequence ends when enemy (or your) troop morale is brought down to zero. You can almost think of this as a troop count number. As you fight and kill enemies, their morale will drop. They will keep coming until it reaches zero at which point you win. If it is a hard fight, your morale will also drop. You can keep your fight focused on simply reducing enemy troop morale (and winning the battle) or you can also go after their generals. Taking out generals helps win over the loyalty of your own generals, which in turn makes you more powerful.

So the bottom line is that there is a lot of strategy even in the action sequences. That's good, because the “action gameplay” is pretty basic. People have commented that you can get pretty far by just mashing the basic attack button. Frankly that's true. This isn't as deep a fighter as you could get in other titles. But again, its an action strategy game, not an action game. You need to know what you are getting into.

Graphics & Sound

The graphics appear nice. Its hard to know what to say here because the PSP is so new and I don't yet know what it's really capable of. I'd say they appear to be a bit better than PS1 level, but not quite PS2 level. Draw distance is a bit disappointing at times but the characters themselves appear to be nicely modeled and textured.

The game sound effects are capable. There is a respectable hard rock soundtrack with the game which fits ok (but period Chinese music would probably have been better).

Overall

Overall I recommend this game. I picked up 5 games for the PSP at launch and by far have played this one the most. It has more legs than some of the other “arcade” style games currently available for the PSP. I give it a solid recommendation. 8 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05