Dynasty Warriors Next Review
Game: Dynasty Warriors Next
Developer: Omega Force
Publisher: Tecmo Koei
Available on: PlayStation Vita Only
Dynasty Warriors is a tricky topic for me. After so many iterations, I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the series. Admittedly, I don’t find anything truly exceptional about the games. For this reason, it was always somewhat of a feat to sell a customer on the game when I worked in retail. People, in their infinite neediness, want clear, concise descriptions as to why something is fun. I never could address that concern with Dynasty Warriors. I enjoy the games thoroughly, I just don’t know why.
This is what makes the series hard to grow. On one hand, I want to fault them for their lack of innovation over the years. But in all honesty, are they going to pull off the perfect changes and make a game that everyone clamours for? Probably not; Dynasty Warriors is never going to be the next Call of Duty. The die-hard fans of the series are people like me that enjoy it for what it is. It will never be perfect and if you keep striving for perfection, you risk sacrificing the game’s X-factor; you risk alienating the fans.
Dynasty Warriors Next feels, fittingly enough, like nothing more than the next title in a well-established and hardly innovated series.
STORY: The story is the same as it has always been; a retelling of the popular “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” fiction. The game opens with the Yellow Turban rebellion and follows the timeline from there, as Shu, Wu and Wei duke it out for conquest. If you’re familiar with the story at all, you know to expect a convoluted mess surrounding royal families and everyone that they’ve ever so much as met. It helps to keep a notebook handy.
GRAPHICS: Since this is Dynasty Warriors, you will be fending off your foes scores at a time. I was impressed by how many characters were rendered on that tiny little screen. While I enjoyed watching the hordes of footmen get tossed around, I can certainly understand those who complain that the screen is too crowded. There is a whole lot going on, after all.
SOUND: The voice work seems better this time around, not inducing cringes or laughs with every line delivered. The story is conveyed through cutscenes strewn around the missions. It’s a refreshing break in the repetitive action. Certainly more refreshing than the minigames but more on that momentarily.
GAMEPLAY: The combat is enjoyably simple. You have your light attacks, which can chain into one another, and you have your heavy attacks which can’t. If you finish a combo with a heavy attack, the effect will be different depending on which hit of the chain you inserted the heavy. It was a nice change of pace from the copy of Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus that had been destroying my ego moments prior.
At the start of the levels you are thrown into an open environment and, more often than not, tasked with eliminating bases and generals. In order to do so, you must invade and fend off enemies until an on-screen counter depletes. Once a base is captured, you will gain access to various power ups. I particularly enjoy when an artillery strike is launched on far away troops in reward of my efforts.
My main complaint with the game is its insistence on using all of the Vita’s extra features. There are launch titles that use the touch screen and motion controls extremely well. There are certainly innovative and enjoyable ways to implement these mechanics, but they should never be forced. Developers seem to have this tendency to cram the features into their design, even when they aren’t a necessarily good fit. Dynasty Warriors is a shining example of such.
As you trek across the country side, base to base, weapon ready, you will be randomly interrupted with one of these banal and infuriating minigames. You will have to swipe arrows out of the air, you will have to aim your Vita at enemies and subsequently tap them too, you will also have to participate in swipe based duels that don’t quite work.
Furthermore, the duels forgo the typical health bar in exchange for a shooter style “bloody screen” approach. It just doesn’t feel natural and lacks the precision you would hope for in a conceptually tactical exchanging of blows.
These minigames ,which I imagine were added with the intent of making the game more fun, only managed to break apart the action and detract from the overall experience. Developers, listen: If the motion controls aren’t fun, don’t include them.
MULTIPLAYER: Included in this version are ad-hoc multiplayer modes that can be played with up to four players. Deemed Coalition mode and containing 4 styles of gameplay, this actually turned out to be the most fun I had with the game. Players can choose from protecting bases in Sentinel mode, rushing an enemy camp in Blitz, capturing bases in Marauder and capturing all bases with one-hit kills enabled in Sudden Death mode. Dynasty Warriors has always been more fun with a friend and I look forward to trying these modes with three or four players instead of the standard one.
I would’ve enjoyed seeing a co-operative campaign and was surprised to see the absence of any online play. In this day and age, it’s just a surprising element to see lacking from the game.
LONGEVITY: With a ton of unlockable officers, completionists will have their hands tied for quite a while. Factor in a good selection of modes, multiplayer fun and the ability to create your own characters and you have quite a bit of game for your money with Dynasty Warriors Next.
VERDICT: Dynasty Warriors Next is a fun portable experience that has a surprisingly true-to-series feel. Despite its flaws, this title has me hopeful for the handheld in general and I could easily recommend it to fans of the series. If you haven’t enjoyed a Dynasty Warriors game in the past however, this won’t be the title to change your mind.
