Review: Dynasty Warriors 4 - 02/06/2008 by Michael
Fighting
The Dynasty Warriors series of games is basically an example of when you are on to a good thing, stick to it. However they are now just going to far. What I mean by this is that having played numbers 2, 3, and 4, the game has not really evolved a bit. Of course each one is slightly more polished than the last, and you get to play with items and weapons a little bit before the battle, but then its the same battles and same gameplay. You don't even need to get up to scratch with new controls, it is the same each time. on xbox all you really need to do it press XXXY, and you will smash through everyone. .
To give the background to this game might help a few people confused by the mixed up story. The game is based on the 3 Kingdoms period of Chinese history, end of the Han dynasty, around the 2nd century AD, and largely sources its story from the The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the classics of Chinese literature, so in China and some other Asian countries it is a story they know from childhood, and the characters are like heroes from childhood tales, like King Arthur, Lancelot or Luke Skywalker. This is probably why they continue to remake these games again and again without changing much..
But despite the repetition, it is still fun. You are a cool looking general, and you tear off into the hordes of enemy troops and proceed to destroy everyone, which is kept track of with your KO count. It should be a kill counter. The way that you have to capture key points, defeat enemy leaders and muster your troops by improving morale is all really quite fun. But the game takes on it true form when you have improved you character to the stage where he is invincible and you just smash down whole armies single handedly.
So whilst each one of these games is very fun, its seems the designers are being a bit lazy. For a game based on 100 years of war with some massive campaigns and brilliant strategy, could so easily have many more dimensions to it. For starters the deployment of troops at the start of a battle, or accumulation of wealth and recruits. How about different scales of missions, some tactical others all out war. The use of war machinery, and the ability of the player to direct traffic on the battlefield, really easy stuff like advance, hold, retreat and call for reinforcements. None of these things are hard with todays engines and have been successfully used in other games. Just putting out a few idea into the ether, maybe some might become real, as despite the many failings I am still really into these games and hope they can improve in the future.