Dynasty Warriors 5

THE BAD:
*New Weapon Wait System
*Boring Story mode
*To easy
*No Edit Mode

SUMMARY:
Dynasty Warriors 5

Dynasty Warriors is based off of a novel written by Luo Guanzhong, which was based off of a time in history called the Three Kingdoms Era. Also known as Sangoku, San Guo Yuen Yi, or other variations. This period marked the inevitable fall of the Han Dynasty and the land was eventually split into three kingdoms vying for control of the land. Wei, Shu, and Wu. In this game you become a warrior within one of those three kingdoms or even apart of a different kingdom and work to bring peace back to the land.

Many other reviews would have you believe this is not a very good game and that it is the same exact game with nothing new or interesting. Well, that's a whole bunch of lies as this game is a very nice addition to the series.

For those of you who have never played a DW game before, this is not a bad game to start with. There are about 48 playable characters, each with their own story and their own move sets and weapons, which allows a grand multitude of diversity. Another cool thing is that each character's personality is unique. There are of course some similarities, but you should find a very diverse variety of characters.

Anybody who remembers the Create a Warrior system should say farewell to that aspect. There is no option of creating your own officers in this game, however, there really wasn't much to that anyways in DW4 so it isn't really a major loss, however it is unfortunate if you liked creating your own characters and going into battle with someone who is unique only to you.

Game Play

I will admit that yes, it is basically the same game play, with the same move sets and same controls. However, isn't that one of the reasons why we like Dynasty Warriors? It's awesome game play? Sure, there are a few minor inconveniences, but those are easy to look past. And of course it will basically be the same. It is within the same series. Will Grand Theft Auto ever turn into a game where you round up panda bears and travel through a mystical land to rescue a princess? Will Mortal Kombat ever just have all their warriors cease viciously fighting each other? Will Final Fantasy ever give up their role playing system? Let's hope not, which is why Dynasty Warriors is fine just the way it is and will continue to be fine in later sequels.

What you're mainly doing is charging through an enemy army and hacking and slashing your way to victory It's not at all very hard, and not at all very hard to get used to. And there are always different levels of difficulty where you can practice.

Overall, I'd say the game play is very entertaining and fun.

Graphics

I don't judge whether a game is good or not based on their graphics, unless they hinder game play at all, but DW's graphics are really great and colorful. It makes it a whole lot more enjoyable to run around through the beautiful stage layouts. The graphics for movies and events and such have also improved and each or most characters look even better than they did in previous games. All in all there is nothing really wrong with the graphics as they are just great. Especially the opening movie.

Sound

I love the music in DW games. The music is very enjoyable to listen to although, you won't be paying too much attention as you go cutting enemy soldiers up through each level.

The only sounds that irk me are some of the voice overs for certain characters. This game as well as DW 4 have had many voices that were a little annoying and unfitting. For instance, Sima Yi was always my favorite. His voice added to the essence of an evil genius illuminating from him. However, the voice for him in this game makes him sound like an annoying, whiny fool, completely ruining how great Sima Yi was. Now this may not bother you depending on whether or not you like Sima Yi, but there are quite a few voices that aren't very enjoyable to listen to, as well as certain ways they pronounce names and such. However, there are a few characters with great voices, such as Cao Pi.

Replayability

This game has a fantastic replay value. The Musou Modes aren't very long or arduous so you won't be spending too much time on each character which works well especially if you don't like a certain character. And by playing with different characters you'll unlock even more characters, movies, items, weapons, and other features so there's a lot to keep you wanting to play. Along with the wide variety of characters comes a wide variety of story. So you also have that to experience. And with the many features you have a lot to keep you wanting to enjoy the full extent of this game.

Overall

My overall thoughts is why people would berate this game because of the few continuing elements that make it what it is. Whether or not there's much change to it, it is still the great game and any DW fan should pick up a copy of this game. And anyone who has not gotten into Dynasty Warriors yet, should also try this game out. If you're reading this review then something about it must have piqued your interest o I highly recommend this game to anyone.

My rating for this game would be a 9/10. Of course, there are a few downsides to this game, but the magnificent upsides really make up for them.

THE BAD:
1.Chaos is too hard and Hard is too easy there's no difficulty in between
2.Needs XL to be a complete game
3.Musou rage on 4th weapons makes game too easy
4.Not enough 4ths with light and heavy weapons
5.Still fogs with 2 players but not as much
6.Endings are kinda of lame
7.No Versus Mode and challenges are lame
8.No Caw System
9.Some weapon stats don't fit the characters or their move-sets.
10.Repeditive but fun game-play
11.Same move-set for every character
12.Needs more camp mode stats such as officer k.os gates sealed ect.

SUMMARY:
DW5 is great game for fans of the series and even better for new comers to the series. Graphics are as good as it can get for the PS2. The fog has been fixed for 1 player but for 2 the fog is still present.

The replay value is one of the main reasons I like this Series. With 48 characters to max out you could have at-least a month or more of game-play. New BG system is better and allows you to train your BG and they have useful abilities they can learn.

The new additions to the series are great such as the weight system, new bodyguard system, evolution attacks and musou rage. Even if I don't like the musou rage on the 4th weapons as it makes it makes the game a little too easy. I also think there should have been more 4ths with heavy and light that need it.

The musou mode was greatly improved from the repetitive DW4 musou. Eveyone now has their own unique musou improved from DW3's musou mode. Characters now speak before the battle from their point of view on things.

Orbs are much more effective than than they were in DW4 and don't require any levels. Almost all items are useful and better. The 4th weapons for every characters are much better than the weapons in DW3 and DW4, even if I don't agree with some their stats.

Costumes in this game have greatly improved there are now 4 costumes and 3 of them are unique and there's one color alteration that is most of the time better than the first costume.

In conclusion this game has as much good as it has bad but still a great fun game. I recommend buying this game and skipping the expansion XL unless you're a die hard fan.

THE BAD:
Chaos mode
Some characters have been nerfed
Too easy to complete

SUMMARY:
It's a great game for people who have never played the Dynasty Warriors series because of its simpler to read maps. Easy mode is rather easy, and it gives you time to sample a character's moveset to determine which is a character's best move to use. The caches of items/weapons are easy to find because they're right next to each other, and we're back to individual Musou modes, but with the characters telling the stories themselves.

Now for the bad. For those of you who have played the other games in the series, this is probably too easy for you. Even a 5-star stage in Hard mode is too easy to pass when you have a character with a 4th weapon, all the right items, and maxed core stats. Chaos mode just seems too unrealistic to me--you'd have to equip a character with Tribal Remedy and a fan bodyguard just to get a little health for every 100 KO's and health in between. Countering is required, so if you're learning how to counter, do NOT try Chaos mode.

There are a few characters who have been nerfed. Yue Ying, with her C1 and True Musou, is one of them. Her C1 doesn't have the auto-Ice anymore, so that move to me is considered worthless. Her True Musou's ender can leave her vulnerable to attacks from peons since she pretty much hops into the crowd that you haven't taken care of beforehand. Zhao Yun's C6 is another move that's nerfed him (although not badly) and so is the ender of his True Musou.

In short, if you're new to the series, you may want to give this a try. If not, you're best off playing DW1-4 instead.

THE BAD:
The voice acting isn't as great as the early Dynasty Warriors weren't and the music gets really annoying after a while.
some of the deaths aren't very realistic.
Gameplay gets repetitive.

SUMMARY:
This game is just like the other Dynasty Warriors games you've played (except for the original Dynasty Warriors game which is like the Tekken/Soul Calibur games). It's the same old beat-em-up gaming and it can get tiring after a while.

The game kept me glued for quite a while trying to max our characters, beating all of the characters Musou mode (story mode) and getting each of the characters fourth weapons kept me busy. But it was all very repetitive.

The game is set in China many many years ago and your job is to kill everything you see. To complete a stage (level) you have to beat the commander, but you can't always rush in to kill him. You may have to fulfill certain tasks.

You don't start out with all of the characters. You begin with 6 and once you complete someones Musou Mode you unlock 1-2 characters. Not all characters unlock someone... mostly the last few guys though. I like this because it gives you something to look forward too. A few of the new characters are towards the end of game and you really want to play towards the end because you've never played with the new characters. The feeling of unlocking them is great... you will then be able to play with a whole new character with a different move set.

Each character has a move set in which you can add moves (attacks) onto as you progress through their story mode. I like this too because it gives you another thing to look forward too... BRAND SPANKING NEW ATTACKS that will blow your mind.

If you get tired of playing with characters you can go into free mode and play with any character on any level! This takes some of the same old game play tension away.

The game is mostly you being a one man army but you also have allies. They don't do much work but it's fun trying to save their lives. You feel good doing it as well

There are 4 kingdoms that have characters. They are the Wu, Wei, Shu and Other kingdom. The other kingdom is a bunch of randomly selected characters that don't have enough officers to make their own kingdom. Each kingdom has an even amount of playable characters (except for the other kingdom which only has about 7 playable characters). This makes it difficult to choose which kingdom you like best. Once again it will keep you glued to the game because you want to decipher whether or not you like one kingdom over the other due to the fact they're pretty evenly matched. I like the Wu kingdom the best because I like most all of the characters move set.

Also on the main menu besides playing Musou Mode and Free Mode you can play a bunch of mini games that you play to get high scores in. You can play against friends and gives it a real competitive feeling that I like.

This isn't just a blockbuster game, it takes time and keeps you busy for a while no matter have repetitive it can get.

THE BAD:
The damage ratios are still not as they should be and that ruins most of the game
No CAW mode
No Lightning element
Still uneven morale

SUMMARY:
Yet another Dynasty Warriors game has been and gone and had an expansion pack announced. This game is a big improvement over Dynasty Warriors 4 in my opinion but falls behind Dynasty Warriors 3 for one fundamental reason and that's the damage done, which I'll get to later.

All the basic principles are the same as before, just different maps, new maps, new characters and new items. You control a famous warrior from 2nd-3rd century China and have to battle through maps filled with hundreds, sometimes thousands of enemy troops. You have allies to help you, but they usually do little. Most of the old items make a return which is good because there was nothing wrong with them in the first place. The weapon system has reverted back pretty much to the Dynasty Warriors 3 version, but a bit of Samurai Warriors mixed in too as well as a new attribute. Weapons are once again found in boxes or dropped by officers and contain item boosters just like in DW3, but instead of only being able to have one 1st, one 2nd and one 3rd weapon, you’re allowed to keep a maximum of 4 weapons, but you can choose any 4 weapons. When you get more than 4 you must choose which one you want to discard based on which properties you’d like the weapon to keep. 1st weapons can do a maximum of 4 hits in a row, 2nd weapons do 5, 3rd and 4th weapons do 6 or 9. If the weapon carries a blue icon with it, you can do an evolution attack. When your musou bar is full, instead of doing the regular 6 combo, you will do 4 different hits after the 5th hit. All 4th weapons carry the blue icon but 3rd weapons are random. 4th weapons also carry very high level items as well as having a higher base attack, so once you get a 4th weapon you should stick with it. A new attack is the jump charge, by pressing triangle in the air you'll do an attack unique to that character. They range from doing a combo on someone in the air, to slamming to the ground to even firing laser beams. Some work better than others.

The duelling system from Dynasty Warriors 4 is gone in favour of a new one. There's no actual "duel" per se, but if you run too far away from an enemy general they will taunt you and you’ll lose morale. Generally this will only happen with powerful generals such as Lu Bu. This is far better than being teleported to some isolated arena where your in game stats have no bearing on how the duel goes. Another massive improvement on DW4 is the fact that maps are now packed with enemies like they were in DW3. No more are you running around for minutes with no enemies in your way. Sadly the AI of the lower enemies is only marginally improved. They'll sometimes look like they're retreating but then do a group attack, either a jump or a charge attack. Otherwise you'll find them doing the familiar circle dance around you for ages without attacking. The bodyguard system has changed drastically. Now you only have one instead of 8 weak ones. This one bodyguard can turn out to be fairly powerful if you get a good starting one. A new bodyguard will join you after a stage if you did well enough. They can earn extra abilities as they grow more powerful and manage to actually last a decent amount of time unlike in previous games where they'd be slaughtered in an instant. The Fan Bodyguard even has the ability to heal you when you're on low health, which is excellent. But you may get a previously unencountered problem now, bodyguards stealing your kills, especially enemy generals since your bodyguards usually home in on the most powerful enemy in a group.

There are now bases included, attack, defense and supply bases. Taking an enemy base will temporarily stop all enemy gates from producing enemy troops as well as lowering enemy morale. Supply bases will constantly improve one general's morale, so protecting yours and destroying your enemy’s is important. Once a base has been destroyed, black smoke will appear from it to signify that it's been conquered. Once you take a gate by killing the gate captain, a gate captain for you will appear and start producing troops, which can prove very handy. But this is irrelevant when the morale is as unbalanced as it usually is. The minute you walk away from the gate it'll be destroyed by enemy troops if there are any nearby unless you've lowered their morale to about 0.

I never really had to rush back to save my enemy commander like you do in previous games because of the unbalanced morale, but there's a very bad reason for this. The amount of damage you can do with a maxed out character is borderline ridiculous. Even the final levels on hard mode pose little threat, you simply do so much damage to the enemy and they do so little in return that it defies the word "hard". But Chaos mode is the total opposite, you take stupidly large amounts of damage and give out so little in return, there's no compromise in this game. Either you deal a ton of damage out or your enemies do. Dynasty Warriors 3 had the best damage ratios, it took a fair while to kill a group of enemies on the final level but that's why it was called HARD mode. Because of this, it doesn't matter how many extra features they put in, the game will never be great if you don't get the fundamental things right. This is extremely fundamental yet it's either you deal tons of damage or you take tons of damage, there's no middle way.

In terms of elemental attacks, they've gone for the orb system again where you pick an orb and when your musou bar is full, that element will have an effect on your charge attacks, not charge 1 or charge 2 this time. But the lightning element is gone having been present from the start of the system. It was gradually getting worse with each game so I suppose it's not all bad but it's still sad to see it go. You have Fire, Ice, Light and Shadow. Fire causes damage to enemies in the air, Ice freezes enemies and lowers their defence while they're frozen, Light will make enemies unblock and Shadow is the Death element. But when you use it it drains your musou bar incredibly fast. This was probably to counter its massive power, but since evolution attacks rely on a full musou bar, using this element with a 4th weapon totally defeats one of the purposes of the 4th weapon. Bring back the cheap death element I say.

There's no CAW mode in this game, I don't really care about that but now they'll bring it back in DW5:XL and probably DW5:Empires and claim that it's new when it isn't. The morale is also still uneven but that doesn't matter when you can kill everyone in sight practically just by looking at them. If you have a character who has a wide attack range, then on Easy, Normal and Hard you will be unstoppable if your character is maxed out. All characters will max out eventually if you use them enough, so there needs to be a challenge when you get your character that far, but there isn't. You kill quickly or you die quickly.

Until Koei fix the damage ratios and provide a challenge which doesn't involve your character taking ridiculous levels of damage, then DW will not be as good as it should be.

THE BAD:
-Boring, Very Boring
-The same stuff
-Voice Acting

SUMMARY:
Will folks lets start off by saying DW5 is not that good of an addition to a series that has been going downhill the past few years. I will explain later on but lets continue with the basics, basically koei has delivered some pretty good options to enhance the gameplay slightly. Such as an enemy stronghold system that somewhat acts as part of the enemy's morale, as well as a system that allows you to only have one body guard. Yes you only get to use one body guard compared to the handful you could access in DW4, but this single body guard is a good fighter, and you can combine your musou attack with the body guard. Other than those two new features the graphics are slightly improved and you get to unlock 6 new characters out of 48 in all. Now on to the game modes, you of course have none other than the musou mode which allows you to play as one of the warriors from one of the three kingdoms. Basically you go through a certain characters storyline on how it began an ended, and you can unlock certain characters upon completion of it. Next in line is free mode which basically means you can fight in any course to get your stats upgraded, or to unlock new items/weapons. Third is challenge mode which allows you to basically do mini games and to set or break previous records. Last but not least is the encyclopedia, which basically gives you a brief history on one of the characters of your choice. That wraps up the game modes, now on to my overall opinion. I think this is the worst game in the series, first of all this game has the same stuff as in the previous DW'S with a few minor adjustments here and there. They did add some new features as well as characters but they don't help, also they have bad voice acting to go along with it. And lastly this game will get very boring after playing it for a while. That wraps up my review folks, I highly hope you rent DW5 before you buy it.

THE BAD:
Bad acting
Glitchy moments
No create-a-character
No create-a-bodyguard
Repetitive
No Versus Mode

SUMMARY:
This installment of the game has been greatly improved, the graphics have become more colorful, and detailed, making the game look that much better. Their clothes will flow around when you run, and since people expectations for graphics are rising, good graphics for games is needed.

The further visual range is from Koei removing the fog that the older DW games used to have, and in doing so you can see enemies way off in the distance, or far away structures. I believe that this really helps as it got very annoying in the other installments when you could only see around ten feet in front of you, so this is a big improvement. I can now freely enjoy watching hundreds of soldiers run at me!

Each and every character has their very own, unique story each with 5 levels, which all take around 30 minutes to complete, but compare all 48 characters at 30 minutes a level with 5 levels you get a lot of hours! Since each character has a unique story it will never be the same experience, unlike past installments. Each also have their very own ending!

Now the fun has been improved as you will be able to cut through even more enemies onscreen, nothing is more satisfying than pulling off a huge combo in a group of 50 soldiers and just decimating them! Which is now possible, though some enemies still just appear onscreen right in front of you.

Their is a newly introduced 9 hit combo called the Evolution attack, which can be obtained by having your general equipped with a special weapon. Its more of a longer combo stream, which adds up to 9 hits. This is very fun to use because usually after each combo set you open to attack, but if you have longer combo's you won't be open to attack, which is needed in harder difficulties.

Each and every character has 4 costumes, some look cooler than others, but all together they add diversity to the already diverse game. You can leave a character with his original costume or you can give them a costume which from older Dynasty Warrior games, choose which ever one looks best.

The new Musou Rage is from collecting a certain relic from the battle field which gives you this ability to become super powerful for a short burst. Your attack doubles, you defense increases, you Musou gage gets filled, and your allowed to use you True Musou when initiated, by pressing R3 and L3 at the same time. This is a very fun feature as it helps to take down some of the very difficult generals, or if your near death, so you can save yourself.

With an additional Co-op you and your friend can play together to beat each generals Story Mode. This helps a lot when you are playing on a harder difficulty as each individual can perform different takes, making it much easier. This is very fun! however, you can't compete against each other.

The 6 new characters adds upon the long list of characters to add the total up to 48, giving the game a huge selection to choose from. With the added list of characters you will always have time to level up each and every character.

While lots of the older items have been returned some newer ones have been introduced. One that I can think of is the Tiger Amulet, which gives you the ability to have a pet tiger follow you around the battlefield, which will fight and kill others for you. All the items are essential if you want to make your character the ultimate fighter. Their is four orbs with in the game, one which sets your enemies on fire when you initiate a combo, one that freezes them, one that kills troops while depleting Musou, and another that breaks opponents blocks. Their is also horse saddles that you can get letting you start the battle on a particular horse. Do you choose the speed of Red Hare, or the power of the Elephant?

You can have up to the maximum of 8 bodyguards, but you are only allowed to take one of them on the battlefield at a time. While upgrading your bodyguard they can gain certain attributes, such as raise the moral of the army, or heal you. Their is four different classes, and four different levels for each bodyguard. Some level up faster than others, while others can gain higher experience. Their is a mixture of boy and girl bodyguards, those who are warriors, archers, and magicians, each with special abilities.

The Chaos Difficulty is a step above that of Hard, it is a difficulty that we Hardcore gamers can enjoy. From the insanely powerful soldiers, to the even stronger generals, its a difficult difficulty indeed. You might find yourself being beat by a small group of soldiers at first, so a leveled up character is needed.

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Now to the bad parts of the game. The acting is probably one of the biggest draw backs to the game and always has been. To how odd the powerful Lu Bu's voice sound, or how much a simple female sounds like an 8 year old. Even the characters with good voice acting sound unrelentingly horrible.

Their is also a few glitchy moments within the game were the game freezes, but such occasions are very rare, and shouldn't be viewed as much of a distraction. I still have it listed because it is still however their, thou minor.

Probably the two biggest mistakes that Koei made was from removing their create-a-character and create-a-bodyguard. Not only did these modes add to the reply value of the game, they gave us gamers something more to do. You could select the weapons of you character, what kind of armor they have, even what they looked like. Though it wasn't the greatest, it was still fun, and yet Koei just had to remove. Hopefully the next installment will have this feature returned.

This game is very repetitive as you'll find yourself doing the same task every level, "destroy enemies on battlefield, help out allies, kill commander," which the game seems to hold true to that statement. However each and every level is still somehow different. Some require to break through castle walls, and go on the offensive, while others have you become defensive, and hold you ground. So their is some variety in that.

This one really disappointed me, and that's when they removed Versus Mode. I have always loved playing my friends using my favorite character, and just making them look like some sissy's. In the past versus, they had team versus, destroy/defend carriage, and fight in the dark. I just don't see why they had any reason to remove it from this game, I honestly find this very disappointing.

Rated: T
Use of Alcohol
Violence