Whoever said “evolve or die.” never worked at Koei. The game that everyone picks on for never changing is back yet again in Dynasty Warriors 5. And while the game sticks to the tried and true formula that has made this franchise increasingly stale, there is still a bit of fun to be had with this new installment – at least for the fan boys.

For the gamers who don’t know the background, Dynasty Warriors takes place in feudal China during the second century, called The Three Kingdoms period. The player takes on the personae of an officer in the army of one of the three kingdoms. Depending on the character chosen, a unique story for that character will unfold. Initially a handful of characters are available with more unlockable as the player advances in the game. In all there are 48 characters to play. Six of them are new to a Warriors game. Wow, a whopping 12.5 percent of new characters! Don’t expect too much from these characters’ stories though. They are neither deep nor interesting. The slow dialogue that moves each story along ranges from the silly to the ludicrous – and that is a pretty narrow range. I’m surprised the stiff, budget actors they got to read this stuff could do it with a straight face. I’m betting it took multiple takes to get anything useable.

Once a character is chosen, the gameplay is all pretty much the same as previous installments: mow down a field of enemy infantry like a scythe through summer wheat. General George Smith Patton once said, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.” Well Dynasty Warriors takes this simple axiom to heart and has the player literally kill hundreds of opposing soldiers per battle for their country – or in this case, their warlord. No matter what character you choose, the player still has just one basic weapon and one basic tactic: wade into enemy formations and kill everyone in them, move on to the next enemy formation, repeat. Only occasionally will this cycle be interrupted by some bigger, meaner enemy character that will offer a test to your fighting skills.

Naturally there have been some small refinements to the gameplay system. The player bodyguard units that were close to useless in previous games have been replaced by single bodyguards that stick closely to the player character and are of some real use in a fight. They actually gain experience and level up in their own right too. There are human bodyguards as well as other types. Did someone say “tigers?” The stronghold system that first appeared in the spur game Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires is making its first appearance in the main Dynasty Warriors branch of games. The strongholds are buildings on the map that grant an advantage to the army that holds them. While capturing an enemy strongpoint does not allow the player to turn it to his own use, it does boost his army’s morale and deprives his enemy of the use of the strongpoint.

Unfortunately the gameplay refinements do not change the fact that it all becomes repetitive very quickly, especially by the time you’ve killed your 900th enemy in a single battle. I suppose some gamers might enjoy the feeling of being the baddest mother in the valley indefinitely, but it wore thin after only a little while for me.



Enemy AI is problematic in the game too. Most enemies attack aggressively in groups, but every once in a while they will just stand there like a post while you come up and swing on them. Not the brightest bulbs out there.

Added to the paper-thin gameplay is presentation that one might generously call mediocre. Close in the game looks pretty good. The fighting animations are really quite good. Where the graphics break down are at a distance. Enemy units often seem to pop from the ground like prickly weeds. Terrain feature draw-in is very noticeable. Weird graphic anomalies also abound. One of the stranger looking was when I got off my horse near a building and the horse’s head ended up buried in the wall. I won’t even get into the numerous problems with the camera. Suffice to say that I wish I could have seen what I was moving toward a large chunk of the time.



Audio is only okay. The clash of battle sounds are good but the music seems completely out of character for a feudal-China game. Yeah, I know that is the norm for a Dynasty Warrior game.

I realize that the Dynasty Warriors series has some very devoted followers and they are surely going to buy Dynasty Warriors 5 now. For anyone else who might be interested in a Dynasty Warriors game, I strongly recommend that you not shell out the $50 to get this game now. Wait until next year when Dynasty Warriors 6 comes out, buy Dynasty Warriors 5 then at the Greatest Hits price of $20, and then comfort yourself realizing that you’ll still be playing the same game the jokers who just shelled out another $50 for Dynasty Warriors 6 are.