[PS2] Dynasty Warriors 5 review

The Dynasty Warriors series by Koei, started on the PS1 as a simple beat-em-up with weapons, kinda like Soul Caliber. With the second in the series it changed to a more RPG style slash-em-up in big maps. This 5th version of the series has currently the most characters, stories, stages and weapons.

Cover art for dynasty warriors 5

STORY

The main story in this game is based upon the book Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, set in ancient China during the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the land is split into 3 main kingdoms: Shu, Wu and Wei (and technically the Nanman as well). The actual story progresses differently depending on which character has been chosen during the story mode, a change from the other games which mainly chose stories based upon the kingdom chosen. The character will then progress through 4-6 stages where the idea is to complete a main goal, although it is also basically killing as many enemies as possible .

With every completed stage the character will become stronger and gain new skills and weapons to use in the next battles. At the end of the story-mode the overall score is taken for the character and recorded, as well as opening new characters and stages in some situations. In total there are over 40 characters and over 25 stages.

GRAPHICS

The overall graphics of the game are as could be expected in the later part of the PS2s life. The essential textures of the world are very decent and character graphics are too, although they are nowhere near lifelike.

As for animation, the movements are very good and fluid, while some glitches do occur, the whole game is made very well. Voice acting is also really good and dubbing has been performed as well as other Japanese made games, you can decide if that’s good or bad.

GAMEPLAY

General gameplay starts in the preparation screen before the battle, deciding which weapon and items to equip on your character can be a vital turning point between victory and failure. There is also a change in the way bodyguards are included in this game. In previous games (except 1) you chose a class for your bodyguards and then chose how many to have depending on your characters class. In this game you only get one bodyguard, however you can choose them from a choice of up to 8 with many different classes and skills, making the choice more personal affair.

Some gameplay imaging, take note of the kill counter!

When all is chosen the battle begins, with the main idea to be fulfilling the victory conditions, usually killing the enemy commander, while making sure to not fulfill the defeat conditions (usually your commander being defeated). The game will also end if your character dies (or your partner in 2 player matches) and if the time runs out, which changes depending on the size of the map.

The game also tries to add an essence of strategy to the hack and slash gameplay by having different bases that help your team and hinders the enemy, while also having morale for officers which makes them harder to fight if they are winning. This usually will make very little difference as they will still eventually fall through button bashing.

Which brings me onto the controls. Attacks are easy, one button for fast attack, one for strong attack, one for jump and one for a musou attack, musou is a very powerful attack that you can only perform when the musou bar is full, this fills through your character being attacked, or it refils constantly if your character is in critical health, at this point your character will also perform a much stronger and longer attack.

There is therefore going to be an element of button bashing to do attacks that are effective, however this is particularly less effective at the harder difficulty levels and therefore more advanced tactics are needed, such as combos. These are performed by mixing fast and strong attacks, and the better weapons allow for longer combos, up to 7+ attacks for the best weapons. There are also other tactics that can be used such as blocking and counters.

LIFESPAN

The game essential storyline is a very short game, however taking into account the number of characters it all adds up to a long game. There is also other elements such as collecting all the items and also maxing out character levels and collecting the best items, this game offers quite a long playtime.

SCORE

Story: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Lifespan: 8/10

Overall 7/10