Malik
(4/20/04)
Dynasty Warriors 4
Koei and Omega Force
This review originally was
presented on lazy.GEEKS (5/26/03)
Ok, first off, if you don't
know what a Dynasty Warriors game plays like, I can sum it up as a
modern Gauntlet. To be more precise it is a 3D style hack and
slash in which you play a general during the Three Kingdom era of
China (around 250-350 ACE...give or take, I have using exact numbers
when I'm too lazy to look it up) and must go around and defeat
certain enemy generals as your peon troops and the oppositions peons
run around giving you extra cannon fodder and things to kills.
I know I may sound cynical, but this game is really quite fun in its
simplistic approach.
Gameplay
This game is split up into
several different parts...actually two parts. There is the
general hack and slash part as you and (if you choose to invite
them) your bodyguards run around wasting peons and taking down
whatever generals get in your way. This handles pretty smooth.
You have only a few options of what to do, but they all fit together
quite well. First, you can do the standard of blocking,
moving, and jumping...yeah!...you also get two primary melee
attacks. You have your quick attack that can easily be used in
a combo, and then you have your charge attack that you usually use
to finish a combo. Depending on how many quick attacks you use
before your charge attack will determine what sort of combo is
performed (did you fire some energy projectile, did you concentrate
on one foe, did you lay waste to a whole platoon, did you...you know
the deal). Next you also have a ranged attack...this is hard
to grasp but you fire a...bow! Ok, if you didn't see that
coming, this is based around the 3rd century A.C.E...use some common
sense people. The bow serves mainly to take down archers that
are in towers or on walls, to lay down a few peons as a squad tried
to rush you, or, best of all, to knock a cocky general off his
horse. No there has to be something else since every game
needs a magic style system now-a-days. This game has Musou,
which consists of your character charging a bar by fighting and
killing enemies (or just pressing the button that charges the meter,
but why do that when you can kill to do the same thing). When
the bar is full, you press the musou button and your character goes
crazy with a series of slashes, flute playing (I did not make this
up...really), or firing laser beams (I swear I am not making this
up...someone believe me). On top of all that you can also
mount horses or elephants (yes...big slow elephants) and fight while
mounted and even try to trample the opposition.
Now comes the second part of
the gameplay...the duels. Sometimes a general will have a
grudge against you (if you play as, for example, Cao Cao and you
keep killing Guan Yu, the game will remember this and Guan Yu will
have a score to settle when he meets Cao Cao) and will challenge you
to a one on one duel. You can refuse if you want, but when you
first start, why would you do that?. Dueling seems so cool in
theory, but...sadly the game of non-stop action and insanity becomes
rather crappy here...at least in my opinion; I have friends who live
for a good duel, but to me they are weak. In the duel, you
have 45 seconds to win or even if you have more health left, it will
only count as a draw. 45 seconds? That's plenty, right?
Right?!? No. Since the computer loves to block (and is
quite good at it) and you take no damage when blocking, the computer
likes to try to force a draw out of you. Also, the camera is
horrible and most times the general you're dueling will simply stand
just off the screen and take you down with a cheap shot. Then
if you lose a duel, it is game over...if you got into a duel at the
end of, say, a 30 minute level in which other than the duel you
kicked arse...well, too bad, you lost, you suck, you're gone, and
you probably just broke a control as you throw it at the wall.
The only fun time to duel is with a kick-arse general against a
pathetic newby general (take a guy who you beat Musou mode with and
duel someone on one of the first levels), but that's only fun for a
few minutes. Anyways, to war up the game play, you find cool
(and lame) items to equip, you get orbs to give your attacks
elemental powers (just like in ancient China...wait...that's not
right), you gain stats by beating generals (kill the peons for fun,
the generals are all business), and you go crazy in good old-school
hack and slash while you refuse every duel you encounter.
Story
First off, this is a hack and
slash, so no one should expect a deep plot full of intrigue and
suspense (if you expected this from a hack and slash, you are a
fool), but DW4 does a pretty good job. The plot is based, like
I said above, on the real events of the Three Kingdom era of China
following the fall of the Han Dynasty (Han Solo? Magical
Kingdom? Cow Cow? I hate you all) and the emergence of
the Wei, Wu, and Shu Dynasties (the three kingdoms). The story
does a good job of keeping with enough fact to not piss me off (I
know I'm not alone in being intrigued by this era of history), but
breaking away enough to have an enjoyable game with plenty of chance
to break the rules (like by making your own general and having him
fight along side Cao Cao). The story is presented in well done
cinematics that help to give you some idea of the personalities of
the major players (the game has 42 characters...it's hard to give
them all a good plot). The key players are all introduced in
true style and DW4 shows their natures with some dramatic flair for
your entertainment. Long story short, lots of characters and
lots of of campaigns to play through equals lots of entertaining
story sequences; at least for a hack-and-slash.
Visuals...
(All you people who play just
for the eye-candy, and you know who you are...I hate you all for
corrupting the game world...this is for you)...plain and simple,
they are mind blowing. The cut scenes look gorgeous as you see
rain falling on your generals as they ride their horses through a
battlefield while their mouths moving in close to synch to their
dialogue as in the background some peon just got laid to rest by
some mounted soldier. Well done, Koei. Now, as for the
combat scenes, they look almost as wonderful as the cinematics, even
when playing in two player split screen action. Trees look
like trees, horses like horses, that soldier flying through the air
after being tossed by Lu Bu...well, you get the point. Also,
the character movement is pretty much flawless. As you move
from combo to combo to throwing a soldier to jumping on a horse,
your character doesn't suffer from poorly transitioning positions.
He/she moves like a person should move. My only complaints
with visuals are these; One, the duels have lame graphics. The
characters look good like in normal combat, but the backgrounds look
rushed. This I can easily forgive since it doesn't affect game
play and duels already are lame. Second problem; a couple
generals look stupid. Not like they were just rushed or the
guy is ugly, but rather they look stupid...play the game and you'll
see...the thoughts of these generals hurt my mind and make me
sick...
Sound...
...it
is what you'd expect. Good action sounds (swords and
explosions and all that are good), horrid voice acting (everyone for
the most part sounds descent, but no character sounds great...my
kingdom for Japanese voice actors), and for some weird reason hard
rock/punk sounding music...Koei, couldn't you try to find some music
that matched the period of the game...I guess not. Oh well.
The sounds are not bad, but they are nothing new, so no real
comments from me here.
To wrap this up, the game is
fun if you want to shut off your mind, take out some frustration,
and kill hundreds of soldiers in only a few minutes. If you
want to think, look elsewhere...BTW, this does not mean the game is
bad, you just need to be in a kill everything mood. I
like this game despite how I can bitch about it and would have to
give it a 8/10.
Malik
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