Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires X360 review

Personally, the Dynasty Warriors series has always been a bit of an enigma. Although not due to the concept – a strategic en masse fighter with dozens of characters scrapping simultaneously on-screen. Neither does the puzzlement come from its appeal – the idea of engaging in such battles is intoxicatingly wonderful, especially when added to the design of each skirmish having territorial importance in the overall goal of conquering sections of ancient China.

No, the bafflement of the Dynasty Warriors franchise so far truly comes from the fact that we have an impressive concept wrapped in some engaging gameplay which has somehow yet to fully achieve its full potential of triple-A greatness, regardless of countless sequels.

Irritatingly, Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires has only deepened that enigma in the most needlessly predictable ways.

Nothing to do with the Carringtons

If you're familiar with the title (and indeed the series to date) on PlayStation 2, then you'll know the deal here. You choose a section on the map and then proceed to develop and maintain your territory via a combination of building troops, expanding industry and creating policies. Naturally all these decisions affect not only your war mongering but also your people, meaning you can't be nasty to your population and not expect a revolt somewhere along the line. Conversely, refraining from any tyrannical urges makes them more likely to help out with your more aggressive tendencies when it comes down to defending against any attacking forces or invading enemy territory.

Which is what Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires inevitably comes down to; fighting. All the diplomacy you spend in turn-based strategy is pretty basic, as it's built around the real meat of the game: taking take a commanding officer from your battalion and thrusting them into the breach. There you control your chosen combatant while either guiding your important generals/lieutenants (and thousands of their assigned troops) to attack or defend certain posts, or let them do whatever is deemed best for the success of the operation.

Despite all this preparation, the battles themselves are typical Dynasty Warriors fare. Mainly, a button mashing hack-slash job. You run around, sometimes with a large gathering of your soldiers, run into an equally large gathering of soldiers and hit them with your large death wielding implement until they fall over and die. Sometimes you come across their bosses and are then forced to alter your strategy (e.g. block a few times, and then hit them till they fall over and die), but the results are the same. This is similar across all six scenarios in the game, where victory hinges on you either holding out till the end of a time limit, capturing a main base or defeating a commanding rival general. Once the parameters are met or failed, you lose, gain or hold territory and do the whole shebang again until you've defeated all the warlords or you've become worm food.

The Empire Strikes Back

The funny thing is, Empires manages to be both dauntingly complex and unbelievably stupid all at once. Proceedings initially aren't new gamer friendly and can easily lose anyone not familiar with the Dynasty Warriors set-up. Placing officers wrongly in territory for defensive stations, creating unwise alliances, blundering into conflict without a full idea of who you're facing - these are all things that can happen to the novice player. There's just so much going on, and that's before you get on the ground with the armies of people all fighting each other.

But before long, things click into place. Policies are used to maximise weapons and defence, your warriors improve in their stats and thus maiming power, and the long drawn out battles are no longer confusing as you march from base to base wiping out swaths of sword fodder. It all starts to get very involving as plans are devised to take advantage of your gained land, abuse your territorial neighbours and recruit powerful unknown heroes. Fans of the franchise will undoubtedly get to this place of gaming bliss far quicker than those new to it, but when that point is reached, it's compelling stuff.

Alas, like an errant British summer, things start to change. Not in one fell swoop, mind. But the faults and problems of Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires begin to emerge, and akin to the game's enemies they come in droves. The flaws of the prequels bloom into view as they always have, while the developer apparently refuses to fully address them. Which is where the earlier mentioned 'unbelievably stupid' part truly comes out to stab you in the gut.

Dishonour Before Death

The first thing that draws blood is that after a while, like its forefathers, the game becomes terribly tedious and almost one-note. The scenarios tend to boil down to the same elements of gameplay, and while there are random factors that pop up (such as the ambition of your rivals, the weather, and natural disasters that can affect the ease of conquest) there's still very little variation. Worse, this drips into the fighting part of Empires too. Your character has limited attacks that make for some very familiar battles all too quickly. Even use of special moves doesn’t change things enough, and one-on-one confrontations are often a matter of smashing the same button over and over, unless you want to suffer frustrating unblockable juggle assaults by your opponent.

Yes, the AI is still cheap and mostly stupid. Despite throwing around 50-100 independent characters in one area, most of them are content to just stand around and not do anything. At all. They'll happily be attacked without moving to evade or fight back. The ones who show a glimmer more intelligence tend to rely on cheesy tactics to prevent you from being able to block or get away. What provides even more aggravation is the fact the Homer Simpson like qualities of the AI isn’t restricted to your foes but also your own lieutenants, sometimes forcing you give them direct orders or having to directly help them to rectify their mistakes.

Outside of the flawed battle engine, the strategy elements have moments of idiocy as well. Stalemates can be all too easily fallen into, where three uneven rival forces will refuse to attack each other or you for dozens of turns unless you make an act of aggression to force things. The apparently lack of gumption can make scenarios seemingly last forever without event and then provide an insurmountable difficulty because you're hemmed into a situation just so you can actually play the game further.

These niggles come with a driving disappointment that as a next gen conversion Empires is pretty stunted. Not only is the potential comparative AI leap of Xbox 360 over its PS2 equivalent neglected, but it also misses a visual kick. The textures are clean and sharp when combined with the High Definition factor, yet still maintain some fogging that has plagued the series. Slowdown is far rarer, but as a consolation it's hardly a selling point given the game hardly breaks the look of a glossy Xbox title. Further, additions like Gamer Points from Achievements almost seem as if they were thrown in as an afterthought.

That's not to say there's a total absence of pleasant touches in Empires. The use of an encyclopaedia to flesh out some history of the warlords and historical events is a welcome idea, the Edit option allows some decent character creation, and the Free Mode is a set of predefined battles that works well as a more action oriented alternative to the main game.

Better yet is the two player co-op option that's satisfying and fun, limiting some -but far from all- of the AI's blundering. Not many games of this genre can boast a competent multiplayer, so battling side-by-side with a friend certainly add much to the whole experience. It's a shame that Live couldn’t have been used to really up the ante though, as the lack of any true online features is disappointing.

Losing the Battle, but not the War

Which ever way you look at it, Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires is a last/current generation game and not even in next gen packaging to boot. It certainly has its moments of fun, but there's no getting away from that feeling of familiarity leaking from a franchise that has been milked dry and now bleeding from its cash cow teats. Koei desperately needs to provide something new and improved, and this PS2-in-Xbox 360 casing conversion has only highlighted the increasing necessity.

Despite its annoying flaws, Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires isn’t a bad game. It's just a pitifully bare improvement over its predecessors when it should be hitting its oft-teased promise. How much longer Koei can continue to charge money for its mistakes and only offer minute differences is still a mystery. But it's doubtful that next time even hardcore fans will be so forgiving.