Overview
Yes, there’s been storm after storm of games in this series, and I’ll admit, I thought Dynasty Warriors 3 was pretty good... at the time.
"Same graphics. It’ll slow down a lot of the time with the big battles going on, or for no reason..."
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Then came the “Xtreme” version, and the fourth, and its extreme version. I honestly thought this was going to be another bore-fest of pure hack and slash. Well, I’m semi-wrong. Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires actually has a decent feel to it. Rather than button mashing the whole time, they added a little thought to it this time. They should have made it this way in the first place. Not to mention stopping all the rehashes.
Story
Same ole’, same ole’. If you’ve played Dynasty Warriors 4, the same maps and characters are here. There’s two modes of play - historic, and free play. Historic will be somewhat accurate on what happened in China (unless you use your character named “MAXpower” and take control of China) for the most part. Not much story for this sort of game play.
Graphics
Same graphics. It’ll slow down a lot of the time with the big battles going on, or for no reason as I’ve found in some levels. Everything is decent. Not a lot to say, levels are very plain in some respects, the draw distance is very short for some of the details, and they didn’t do much to improve the clone-wars this game can feel like. Many clipping errors, most noticeable with custom characters that have any flowing garments.
Sound
Music is a high point of this game. I like hard rock, so it may not be for everyone. Although not exactly on-par with Dynasty Warriors 3, the music is pretty good in general. The sound is not different to what I’ve noticed. The English voices aren’t god-awful like in the third installment, but I tend to switch the game over to Japanese and pretend it’s Chinese. The game needs more sound channels, as with all the sounds that occur, sometimes the game quits for a few seconds on audio.
Gameplay
"Yet, even though it does make an impact, most of the battling will be done by your main general."
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Slash slash, slash slash, slash power strike. Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires is mainly button mashing, but not so much as the last games. See, this time, you have to take over territories of China, and manage troops/officers/proposals. Troops are important, because if you get all of them slaughtered and never draft more soldiers, you’ll get outnumbered quickly in battle. Yet, even though it does make an impact, most of the battling will be done by your main general. Battles are now heavily reliant on officers and strongholds. It’s a nice switch, as there can be some strategy as how you beat the level, but for the most part, it’s still going to be killing some officer. Officers now have abilities that either improve troops or involve ambushes. While your officer can’t actively use one, all others can. I think this is discrimination. I should be able to say some stupid one-liner and improve troops. Bah.
Equipment is very different from the previous games. Now instead of killing officers for them, you have to create them in specific territories. Not only that, most can only be used once every 5 turns (battle or no battle), which can put the player in a hot spot to decide if he’ll need it this battle, or if he should save it for the next. With this, players aren’t as super-powerful as the last games, which is refreshing. Not to say that they aren’t powerful, but I’ve been defeated more times in this game than in the previous ones.
The last to note is the create-a-officer option got reworked a little. Now you can choose: one of three voices per sex, one of three base models per sex, from three changeable accessories per base model, base stats, weapon, officer power (only computers can utilize this), and one of six colors for the pallet of the model. Not essentially ground breaking from the last game.
"In summation, this game is just a large war with nothing to do..."
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In summation, this game is just a large war with nothing to do, and a lack of different ways to smack your enemies.
Overall
This game was a nice step over the last pile of trash Koei has made. I was getting awfully bored with the rehashes, but this is pretty much a Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms (well, the super-diluted version) combination. Interesting, but I’d rent it first if you have any interest in it. You may find that it’s just too much of a rehash to warrant purchase.
