Dynasty Warriors 4 Reader Review

If you don't know what Dynasty Warriors is - there is the door, please don't be alarmed if it hits your backside on the way out as I kick it to do so. We all know what this series is I hope - a beat-em-up on a grand scale, simplistic but somehow, still fun, with a touch of the Dallas about it. It's about beating up lots and LOTS of dopey AI soldiers with sometimes ridiculously silly weapons. About simple mission goals and the like.

Now, the PC may not initially seem like the best choice to port such a game to. Dynasty Warriors isn't exactly an epic masterpiece; it is more about a couple of missions which take anywhere up to an hour (if you're really bad, most people will lick missions in a good fifteen to thirty minutes), quick gratification and the like. And yet, oddly, the PC version of what is arguably the best title in an aging and complacent series, also ends up being the better version... there is a little more spit and polish than before, a few more tweaks which work to its advantage. Far from perfect, but there is some light at the end of the tunnel...

We could go into depth here about the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" novel on which this game is based, but lets break it into a nutshell: if you're expecting a slushy romantic epic, hit your back button now. Instead we welcome a bunch of superhuman Chinese killing machines waging war on other said superhuman Chinese killing machines. From the likes of Sun Shang Xiang (Cutesy girl with large metal rings. Make your own jokes up.) to Lu Bu (Kickass warrior with a big pike. Again, insert your own joke here.), each warrior has a weapon of choice, differing stats, and varying strengths and weaknesses. Not that any of this matters much though. Because you'll ignore all of this and go straight into the almost-genocidal killing of masses upon masses of soldiers.

This is actually one of this games fundamental weaknesses though... The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a very interesting tale, but this game is only very loosely based upon it. It's an excuse for said mass slaughter, and very basic it is too. If you don't use a PC gamepad, scratch this one off your list - the combat is far too much for your keyboard. And if you have a decent PC pad, you'll notice that there is very little skill involved in the combat... it's very basic and not really all that challenging. There were no major improvements from its predecessor, Dynasty Warriors 3, bar the duelling system (which doesn't work as well as it perhaps could have). It IS the largest of the gripes, that it is simple and basic, but that shouldn't put you off entirely.

Because this is the HYPER! Edition, and there are some subtle touches that actually put past gripes to rest. We're not talking major changes though that affect the game, that would be daft - this is Koei, masters of complacency - and yet, surprisingly, they have tweaked a couple of things quite nicely...

Of course, you cannot talk about a PC port without going into detail about the graphics. Usually, graphical details don't change from console to PC, it is often very similar to the console versions. But not so here. It never really looks perfect, but cranking up the resolution and tinkering with the filtering can work wonders... silk shimmers in the sunlight, shadows are cast much more cleanly and more vividly, and yes - that claim about having even MORE enemies on-screen is true, though I wouldn't recommend maxing it out. Though my PC could handle it, I got the odd touch of slowdown at times which rather spoiled things.

My personal favourite touch comes in the form - finally, thank you - of being able to have the original Japanese dubbing, and then to turn on subtitles. Yes, wave goodbye to that Crossroads-esque voiceacting which always sounded as if it had been done on the cheap, by a bunch of desperate people who would do anything to get off the minimum wage, and hello to some surprisingly decent voiceovers. It's a simple change, it's an obvious improvement, but it changes the feel of the game quite dramatically. We are always banging on about how the original voiceovers are often better than the English versions. Believe it. This game offers a lot of weight to that argument, and it's a great feeling to have it as an option.

Problem is, this is as far as it gets on the improvements side. The camera still sucks; it is terribly sloppy, often confusing and never does as you want it to. The controls, even on a good gamepad, feel bland and more evidently make you realise there isn't as much strategy to this game as they would lead you to believe. The difficulty is still a bit limp, a little lax where it counts. Stages aren't all consistant in design, some feel great whilst others just reek of slopppy workmanship. There is no online mode, so scratch that one off your list. The enemy AI hasn't been that vastly improved, although enemies attack more it's not exactly something to shout about. The music is still as horrid and as brain-achingly bad as it's always been. And there is very little variety in missions, although there is plenty to search around for you do have to realise that only the true fans will have the patience to earn it all. The rest of us will cheat...

So it's not really the perfect version it perhaps could have been. But it is the best version of a title which is still the best in the series. Bi-lingual voiceovers and the graphics aside, it really depends on how much you love the series, or which way your tastes lie. If you are a die hard fan, it's an easy 8. If you like a good beat-em-up, 7. Most of us indifferent people, a six. If you don't go much on the series, or don't like beat-em-ups in general, then just ignore this section and set it to a big fat zero.

There was a lot that could have been done... while the changes to this version are welcome and set it quite highly from the other versions, there still isn't enough happening to highly recommend it. Although for £15-£20 it isn't that expensive, this is still a series which needs much more than a few tweaks to make it worth the asking price... it needs a massive size-12 boot up the backside. If Koei really want to cut this series on the PC, it's going to need to deliver far, FAR more than it does here...