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Review: Dynasty Warriors |
Hmm…. doesn’t Koei make Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Answer: yes. Koei made a fighting game!? Answer: yes. Believe it or not, Koei, makers of many a fine Far Eastern strategy title, enters the gigantic ocean of fighting games, and floats.
Upon turning on the machine, you are treated with a nice intro. Granted, it’s not a Namco intro, but few things are. It’s also apparent from the intro what the angle is on this game: Ancient China. All the characters in this game are taken from the Romance series, directly or indirectly. An interesting concept, but not incredibly original. Simply put, Dynasty is a polygonal weapons-based fighter. The moves and combos are mostly Namco fare. (F+Button… tap Button) It has a “super” move not unlike Soul Blade’s, mainly just a sequence of thrusts. You can attack while people are on the ground, and throws are performed by hitting two buttons at the same time. In other words, this game plays, for the most part, very similarly to many fighters before it.
I’ll put it very blatantly: the graphics in this game just didn’t really excite me. The character animation seems a smidge on the rigid side, and the backgrounds range from woo hoo to whoop dee do. However, this is mainly due to the fact that I’m spoiled by Tobal 2 and Soul Blade.
The sound fx and music are above par. The voices are humorous at times, but they’re absolutely nothing to complain about. The background music is mildly amusing. It sets the tone, but never really makes you wanna go buy the soundtrack.
In the end, there really wasn’t a whole lot to say about this game, as you can tell. Koei made an excellent first attempt at a polygonal fighting game. One problem really seems to pervade all through out this game: it just doesn’t show the player anything he/she hasn’t seen already. That doesn’t make it a bad game. Oh no… by no means. However, what it does mean is that the veteran gamer will probably pass on it due to lack of originality.
Bottom Line: Give it a try. You may like it… you may not. However, don’t expect a whopping brand new idea, cause you’re not really gonna find it here. (Unless you dig deep!)
- Dark Schneider
