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Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires Review for Xbox 360 |
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| Tuesday, March 28, 2006 |
| | Title:
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
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System:
Xbox 360
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Genre:
Action/Strategy
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Publisher:
KOEI Corporation
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Developer:
KOEI Corporation
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Release:
3/28/2006
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
Teen (T)
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Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires is the latest release in Koei’s Dynasty Warriors library. Contrary to the numeral in its name, it has more in common with Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires than it does with Dynasty Warriors 5 or Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends. But does bringing back the Empires mode help Dynasty Warriors from overstaying its welcome? Or is this game helping nail the coffin lid shut on Koei’s most popular franchise?
Wait…what’s “Empires” mean?
If you’ve never played or heard of a Dynasty Warriors: Empires game, it plays slightly differently from the original titles. Unlike the original Dynasty Warrior games, Empires places more of an emphasis on strategy and planning rather than pure hack’n’slash. When you start up the Empires mode, you’re given a choice between several nations, each with its own starting generals and lieutenants. You’re then placed onto a map with the computer-controller opponents, and the game begins.
The best way to describe an Empires mode is to say that it is very similar to Risk, or for you Sega Saturn fans, like Dragon Force. When you decide to attempt to conquer a neighboring nation is when you go into the normal Dynasty Warriors action. Between turns, you’re able to purchase upgrades, recruit new soldiers, fortify defenses, create alliances, demand surrenders, build items and train your officers. There are also other options available, ranging from increasing taxes to make more money to donating money to make your citizens happier. Including battle-related policies (such as making troops faster for a turn), there are 75 policies total in Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires.
Koei did make slight changes in regards to policies from Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires. For starters, there are 25 completely new policies. You are also given a wider selection of policies you can actually choose on your own; instead of having most of them selected by the computer (you can now control 10 of the 28 battle policies).
But that isn’t the only change from the previous Empires game. Using the d-pad, you can order your officers on the field to defend, return to you or rally for an ambush. While playing, though, you most likely won’t utilize this feature as often as you would think—I rarely used it.
In the Empires mode, you start out with a limited number of officers you can employ. For each region you conquer, the number increases. Like Dragon Force, when you conquer a region, you can also hire any enemy officers you defeated. Of course, sometimes they refuse to work for you, in which case you “release them” which, I guess, amounts to banishing them, since they never show up again. In my opinion, it would make much more sense imprisoning them (a la Dragon Force) or executing enemy officers rather than letting them go—especially when it’s the leader of an enemy group.
The Empires game will last for 100 turns (but it rarely takes that long). Sadly, during those turns you will most likely not really care why you’re attacking people, because the story is sketchy at best. Unlike previous Dynasty Warriors games, this one has no storyline with it. The story in Empires basically amounts to this: everyone wants to be king, so I’m going to kill everyone until I’m in charge. When you beat the game, you get a little cut-scene showing your general and his most important officers doing various things throughout the empire, but it makes little sense.
The Gameplay
Besides Empires mode, DW5:E includes a Free Mode (which is like a skirmish mode where you fight a single battle), Visual Database, Encyclopedia (which is a good way to catch up on Three Kingdoms lore) and a Character Edit mode. While the Edit mode is a fun idea to create your own warrior, it’s very limited. There aren’t many appearances to choose from, and most look stupid unless matched with the other pieces of that set.
When you get into the actual game, you’ll notice little (if anything) has changed. The game still features the same attack and combo methods, and you’re still able to plow through enemies like nobody’s business. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still fun. But after playing 10+ Dynasty Warriors titles, it would be nice to have some sort of big change in gameplay.
There are still items to equip (in Empires mode each item only lasts for one turn), mounts to ride (elephants are back!) and computer-controlled troops who are supposed to be your bodyguards. However, this title—like all of the previous DW titles—suffers from horrible A.I. The enemy officers are actually a challenge on higher difficulties, but the normal troops continue to astound in their simplicity. For instance, you can stand in the middle of twenty or more enemy troops, and not attack them; they’ll rarely attack you. I lost count of the amount of times I would run around the map to capture a point, only to see my troops and the enemy troops just standing there loitering, waiting out front of 7-11 for the officer to return with Slurpees.
Koei slightly increased the number of main characters; there are now 48. Old favorites such as Lu Bu, Cao Cao and Sun Jiang return, although some of them seem to be less effective than in previous Dynasty Warrior games. Every officer and created character in the game keeps their own experience points throughout both Empires and Free mode. This is both a benefit, and a bad move by Koei. At some points, you may realize you’ve relied on two or three generals in your Empire, so you can go to the Free mode to increase their experience and level them up. However, enemy officers also gain the experience. At times, you may find yourself wanting to play as one character, but not doing so because it would only make your enemy stronger.
Graphics
For an Xbox 360 title, Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires doesn’t look next-gen. Besides a few smoother textures, you’ll be hard pressed to see any difference between the PS2 version and the Xbox 360 version. One area where the 360’s power does come in handy is displaying the action on the screen.
In previous Dynasty Warrior games, a constant problem was having enemy troops disappear if too many were on screen at once. On the 360, I’ve only had this happen once in the hours upon hours of time I spent playing the game. There’s also no drop in framerate when you’re attacking a large group of enemies with your special Musou attack, which is another problem plaguing the series in the past.
Although not strictly a graphics issue, I would have liked to see more appearances and clothing options in the Edit mode. As it stands, while they claim 20,000 unique combinations, this includes weapon styles. For appearances, there’s somewhere between 7 and 10 faces/tops/bottoms. They also come in sets, meaning there are less than 15 original sets of clothing in the Edit mode.
On the plus side, the cut-scenes look good. At least that’s something…right?
Sound
First, let me begin by saying the English voice acting is horrible. It’s reminiscent of a B-movie, and in no way fits the characters. While a few of the voices at least sound well done, a majority of them will make you shake your head. One of them even has an accent which slightly resembles an English accent…
The music is also an issue in this game. Like the previous games, it just doesn’t fit with the theme and environment. Thankfully, since it’s the Xbox 360 you’re able to play your own custom soundtrack during the game. While the music struggles, the sound effects themselves are done fairly well. When you kill enemies, you can hear them yelling. And the noises of weapons clashing are fairly realistic compared to the previous Dynasty Warrior games. Plus, it can be played in Dolby 5.1, which is a benefit if you have surround sound.
Overall
In the end, Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires is fun, but nothing revolutionary. With a friend in a co-op game, it remains a blast; alone, it can get repetitive. The Empire mode and achievements in it will keep you playing for a while, but after a few matches you realize that there’s nothing really unique to make the gameplay stand out from previous Dynasty Warriors games.
Is it still fun? Yes. Can it be boring if played too often? Definitely. I also would have liked to see more effort from Koei towards making this a truly next-gen game, rather than a port of the PS2 version with a very slight graphics upgrade, a cash-in on a franchise name for a next-gen system.
If you’re a fan of the Dynasty Warriors series, you’ll like the game—especially at its price. If you’ve never played an Empires game before, give it a try. However, if you wouldn’t consider yourself a hardcore fan of the DW series and have played or own Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, you won’t miss out on much. Like the last few Dynasty Warrior games, Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires is fun, but Koei is beginning to stretch itself thin when it comes to this series.
| The Core Score |
Overall
7.2 |
| Fun |
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7 |
| Gameplay |
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7.3 |
| Graphics |
|
8.5 |
| Audio |
|
6.5 |
| Replay |
|
8 |
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