The previous title, the originally named Dynasty Warriors, was released at the same time as the launch of the PSP last year. It didn’t really bring anything new to the series, but it brought along virtually the same game. The major difference was that the levels were made a bit smaller, so that it was more portable. Otherwise, you were presented with the same button-mashing fest that has been ever present on the consoles for the past few years.
For those who are uninitiated with the series, the Dynasty Warrior titles have been set in Ancient China, and you play as one of a few factions who are fighting it out for control of the land. In Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2, you will play as one of the three factions available, and each character within the faction has their own story. Unfortunately, no character has a particularly endearing story, as you’re treated to a series of talking heads, bland writing and uneventful sequences. It's basically an explanation of their place in the game. Still, no one was ever playing this for the story, right?
We've been here before, more than once.
What sets Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 apart from the first title is the addition of the Musou mode. Just like in Samurai Warriors: State of War for the PSP, your campaigns cover an area that has now been divided into a grid. You pick yourself some subordinates, equipment and other customisable variants, and throw yourself into battle. You have an overall objective of conquering the grid. It’s a turn-based system, where you’ll pick the grid that you want to go to next, then your opponent, and so forth. When you end up on the same grid, the battle will begin.
In each little area or scenario, your objective is to take you character up against the enemy forces and pretty much mow through them. Once you have defeated a couple of the higher-ranking soldiers, officers or other primary characters, the forces will retreat from that area. Sometimes, you’ll get objectives that include capturing certain areas, such as shrines, but for the most part, you’ll be doing the same thing over and over again. The upshot of this mode is that you can save after each area that you’ve fought in. Given that each won’t take more than a minute, it makes for good portability.
Unfortunately, the gameplay is pretty much identical to previous incarnations. In a way, this is a bad thing, because it can get mind-numbingly repetitive. However, given that these games keep getting churned out, surely someone likes this style of gameplay. For the most part, you’re hacking and slashing through seemingly endless hordes of enemies, though they have now been broken up by the smaller areas (which are actually much smaller).
You have three attack buttons. You have a standard attack button, a charge attack button and a musou attack. You can wipe through 95% of enemies with your standard attacks, though if you want some variety, you can throw in your charge attacks to knock away a bunch of them if you’re surrounded. Your musou attack can only be used if one of your various meters has been filled and you’ve also got the option of musou rage. It’s too bad that the game is so easy that you will only need to rely on these in absolute emergencies. That, and you can use one of 48 characters that will eventually be unlocked by playing through the game.
This is your Musou map.
Sounds alright so far? Well Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 is still virtually the same game that it was last year, sans a few new modes. However, it’s also just like virtually every other Dynasty Warriors, with a bad camera, lifeless AI and very repetitive action. You can fix the camera behind you by pressing R, but it gets stuck very easily and you’re left open to many an attack. Apart from the main characters, enemies pretty much struggle to put up a fight. That, and the 'action' can really drag after you’ve killed your 1,000th enemy, especially since there's not much thought involved behind it.
At least Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 has more modes than its predecessor. The musou mode alone is actually quite substantial, and has a lot of playthrough time. You've also got a Free Play mode this time and a bunch of multiplayer modes. The Free Play mode allows you to play though the stories and scenarios that you encounter in the Musou mode. There are actually quite a large amount of scenarios to play through and you can choose virtually any of the 48 characters in the game.
There are also a couple of multiplayer modes that weren’t in the previous game - Battle Royale and Bombs Away. The first has you facing off on top of a tower, and you win by knocking other players off. Bombs Away is basically a game of tag where the player with the bomb must kill officers to pass it on. There are also Sudden Death and Time Attack modes that have you racing your opponent to the set goal. These modes aren’t much but the game is better off having them than not.
There are... How many enemies?
In terms of graphics, the game doesn’t really do anything that wasn’t done by its predecessor. In fact, it’s pretty much identical. Even though the action is relatively smooth for most part, the framerate will take some severe hits when in very, very large groups, or if you let off a more powerful attack inside an enemy horde. However, some of the smooth running can probably be put down to the fact that the levels that you play in are utterly tiny, and usually take less than a minute to run through. Otherwise, the game isn’t quite up to its console counterparts. It does at least have a rather good-looking art style and decent load times.
The sound effort here is quite disenchanting. There are no voices in the game, meaning that you’ll have to sit through text-driven conversations. Furthermore, since you are mainly going to be playing through levels that last less than a minute, the music fails to make an impact, while the rest of the sound effects are a mish-mash during that period. It sounds primarily like previous titles in the series, but we're disappointed that there wasn’t much tried to make it any more memorable.
Even though it's not much of a leap from the previous game, or any other Dynasty Warriors game, the best thing about Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 is that it provides a style of gameplay that is ideal for portability. Even though the game is still the same thing that you’ve played for five years now, this fact alone makes the game at least passable. Most players will prefer a more engaging form of entertainment as opposed to hacking through thousands of soldiers, but given the fact that these games are so regularly churned out, someone is bound to like it. At least there is one reason for this edition.
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