Dynasty Warriors 5 (PC)

Published by: KOEI
Developed by: Omega Force
Genre: Third-Person Action
Number of Players: 1-2Release
Date:US: March 29, 2005
Japan: February 24, 2005
ESRB Content Descriptors: Use of Alcohol, Violence
Media Size: 1 DVD

KOEI is putting out its 10th Warriors game on consoles if you include the Samurai Warriors titles. It's been a crazy amount of hacking and slashing and the relentless pace has by no means stopped with this title. The gameplay has been tweaked and refined just a little further to make this a new enough experience even if the core game hasn't changed all that much. Yet even with all of that it still feels all too familiar.With an over-the-top reimagining of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era in China, developer Omega Force has become quite adept at cranking out the titles where one fighter can make a tremendous difference. There are 48 characters to choose from this time, six of which are new to the series, and each one has a specific storyline in the Dynasty Warriors universe. Each story has a set of missions where the time between beginning and completing the requirements involves taking out several hundred soldiers, captains, and officers along the way.While there are some new changes that add variety to the formula, DW5 can't help but feel like over-familiar territory. After fighting through countless hordes in previous titles, doing so again with some small differences is an experience of diminishing returns. With action that is all too similar to what's been so heavily trodden before with dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of gameplay, DW5 is a title that's not quite enough for those who enjoyed one or two earlier titles and wanted more. Instead this is best recommended for those who absolutely love it, almost pathologically (like Steven Ng) or those who are completely new to the experience.Having said all that, the new additions here help to make this the most refined game in the series. Omega Force has had a lot of practice in making Dynasty Warriors games and this is their latest fullest incarnation of it. The most striking difference is that the game has been optimized even further to make the graphics more satisfying. The fog of war has been pushed back much, much further. The effect of enemy soldiers magically appearing has been drastically reduced and is now exclusive to the two-player experience. More than just being able to see more of the people in the nearby area, players can now see more of the game as a whole. The framerate holds up at a consistent rate for the large majority of the game. Slowdown that has brought previous titles to a crawl has not appeared here. The visuals have become smoother all around and makes you wish that this had been how it was done all along.On the gameplay side there have been a couple of other large changes. The bodyguard units from the previous games have been changed to singular bodyguards. This helps keep the framerate moving along nicely and makes the game easier to understand in the middle of a large fight. It makes the game even better that the bodyguards are smarter and more effective in the fights. While in battle, it often happened that I would be fighting with an officer and then my bodyguard would rush in from the side when my combo was finishing up. At other times my bodyguard would be doing his own combo on an officer and then I could run up and start doing an attack of my own. Rather than having a swarm of bodyguards do some light attacks, the single person guard has been much more useful and fun to fight with.

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