"Old content, but new presentation. The presentation is all that matters."

This game is a stand alone spin-off of Dynasty Warriors 5, and doesn't contain much of the story elements of it. This game, however, introduces many new strategic gameplay elements, as well as many extras such as the Dynasty Warriors 2 to 5 music collection, and official artwork. If you're judging this game by it's conceptual content, there's not much new, but if you're looking for a new way to play this game, this is a good game to look at. It's cheap too!

Story (2): The least important point about this game as it is least relevant to it's purpose. Given certain requirements are fulfilled, a story battle will occur which will give you a little idea of what went on in the novel, but since I last checked, requirements are bad. Also, there is no new take from it's parent game "Dynasty Warriors 5" so you're definitely not paying for a new presentation of this story.
- two point for having a story

Music (10): You're a warrior worth a thousand on a battlefield. You're about to kick the butts of about 300 people, usually juggling 10+ at a time while setting them on fire. Who wouldn't want some hardcore progressive rock to set the mood? It's music that makes me want to kick butt!
- 1 point for music being available
- 2 points for being able to select any song from the Dynasty Warriors 2 to 5 series in any battle
- 4points for having very good music in the first place
- 3 points for music fitting the mood.

Graphics (8): For a game that allows 30+ people to appear on the screen at once in lieu of a decent background and much improved draw distance, they're pretty damn good. The main characters are well detailed with a very graceful match of colors and style. The battlefields you have to play on are very suitable and interactive at times with a house here and there, some grass, some shrubs, hills, and bridges. They aren't very intrinsically done...but who cares? They are well colored, and they don't distract you from the action. The wind was a great touch as well. Imagine running through a thin wind of dust toward the enemy general, as you knock several peons to the side like they're nothing. Just plain cool!

One problem, however, is that, the cost of making things look good is system resources. The PS2 isn't very strong like the Xbox, so slowdown occurs during very intense crowd fights, usually in 2 player mode. This is minimized by reducing some of the soldiers on the screen but this feature wasn't well done. Why? I don't want enemies disappearing the moment I try to hit them and then reappear to take a couple shots at me. Instead of making guys disappear at random, the game should only remove your allies since you don't have to fight them. It makes the game a little harder, but no less fun, as ridiculous as it may seem.

- 4 points for ornate and unique character design showing their personalities
- 4 points for a good background, interactive objects, draw distance, and number of characters onscreen at once.
- +0 points due random removal of enemies.

Sound Effects (6): The battle sounds are great. I love hearing the pathetic whelp of a peon who was smashed from behind by a horseman's long stick! All the better the cumulative groans of 15 guys being chopped in mid-air! Aside from the combat part, all the other sounds were great too in notifying you of something good, bad, or nearby combat occurring.

The voice-acting, however, was good, bad, and ok. There were only a few who had excellent voice-actors like Cao Cao, and the DW5 voice actor for Sun Jian, but some voice actors changed to a worse one, and many kept the same decent or crappy voice actor from the last game. A lot of people say the same line as well. For example, when killing an enemy general, most people say "Enemy Officer defeated!"...that sucks! There needs to be more uniqueness, and effort to filter out poor voice acting.
- 4 points for great in battle sounds.
- 1 point for using sounds to notify the player of events occurring
- 1 point for some diversity and decent dialogs in voice acting
- +0 points due to mostly mediocre voice acting and dialogs

Game play (9): The moves controls are responsive, quick, and smooth. The game play is easy to learn, and there is a lot of freedom in-game. In-game you can also, send order to other units to perform certain actions. I like the Empires idea of fighting to dominate a base, as bases are required to gain battle ground for your advance. Without a strong chain, you or officers out of the chain of ally territory is in danger of being defeated and captured easily as there is no supply of men, nor is there an escape route. Not only are you a participant in the battle, you can also navigate the battle to your will.

some complain there is a lot of square and triangle in this game well....it's the same all other action games as well. But like others, there are other functions that are required to play like, block, musou, jump, change map info, etc. Of course square and triangle are most frequently pressed as they are the main course of attack, but no action game fails to have this in common.

This game also may sometimes cause you to sweat as the harder the difficulty, the more resourceful, careful, or strategic you need to become especially on Chaos mode, which is much more difficult than Hard. If you find it easy, chances are you've play too many video games...

This game also has a diplomatic side to it too. This screen takes place on a map of China in which each ruler's territories ( as well as your own) are color coded on the map. You can execute policies suggested by your officers or manually execute policies of your choice. You can make or break alliances as well as aid allies who are in trouble. You need to draft troops for your generals, improve weaponry, prepare tactics and strategies to execute in battle to give you the upper hand. After you perform your diplomatic actions you can either pass the turn or go to battle, whether to invade, defend, or aid ally. This system too is not very complicated.

- 2 points for smoothness and quick response
- 4 points for being very fun while easy to learn in every respect. An innovative system is what combines the two.
- 1 point for a high diversity of difficulty from Novice to Chaos
- 1 point for an effective variety of items, policies, tactics, and strategies to help you out in conquering China
- 1 point for battle freedom and ability to participate and give orders.
- +0 for oddities like the confusions of getting used to using the map

Longevity (4 or 8): You've got scenarios, items, policies, tactics, strategies, and artwork to unlock as well as continuous leveling up of all the characters in game (which carry over to later games). You also have edit characters to play with, and different difficulties to try. This game is great to keep, not to play constantly forever, but to play for while every now and then. No two plays through are exactly the same, unless you make it so, and it's actually the most fun if playing with a friend.

- 2 points for several unlockables
- 1 points for edit characters
- 1 point for diversity of difficulties and unpredictability
- 4 points for 2 player mode.
- 0 points for not being completely new content

Overall (8):
- 2 points for Great action and strategic gameplay set to your desired level of intensity
- 2 points for easy to learn gameplay and quick response controls
- 1 point for 2 players ( a plus for any game) and longevity
- 2 point for great music
- 1 point for well done graphics (not magical, but not to their failure)

Buy or rent? This game isn't very expensive. I say, buy if you have a buddy to play with after playing one player for a bit or if you plan to play an action-strategy game every now and then. I say rent, however, if you don't have a buddy to play with, or if you're only looking for a game with in-depth story.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/20/07