Dynasty Warriors 3

THE BAD:
it needs more cheats

SUMMARY:
i like the fields and the way you get to do battle like running towards the enemy instead of having to walk only sideways like in tekken 1,2,3,4,and tag battle.this game is so awesome the only thing wrong is it needs more cheats you can put in with no shark code only controler

THE BAD:
• Straight port graphics from PS2 version.
• Frustrating and average artificial intelligence.
• Terrible voice acting.

SUMMARY:
Brief Overview

A hack 'n' slash game by the Japanese producer KOEI. This game is set in China in between the second and third century when the three kingdoms [Shu, Wei, Wu] are conflicting.

Gameplay

In this game, your main objective is to kill the commander of the enemys' forces. This is usually a well known General from history. Once you start off, you will notice a KO Count at the bottom left hand corner of the screen, a map and morale gauge at the top right hand corner of the screen, your life and musou gauge at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. It takes almost a few hours to get use to the controls; the X button is for your basic attack and pressing X frequently will cause your character to do combos (a chain of attacks); the Y button is used to initiate a charge attack, these attacks are more powerful than your basic attacks. You can use the direction pad or the left analogue stick to move your character around a battlefield. You can toggle the enemy display (red bars over the enemy) by pressing the black button, this will make it easier to find enemy troops and generals. As you kill troops, your KO Count will start increasing depending on how much enemy troops you have killed. When you successfully kill a enemy officer/general, they will drop either an item|weapon|attack up|defense up that you can collect to improve your character (bold - permanent.) As you make contact with your enemies, your musou gauge will start to fill up, when this is full, you can use your A button to initiate a 4 - 15 second non-stop attack on your enemy(ies). When your life is low (in the RED zone) your musou gauge charges up automatically. When you initiate your musou attack this time though (called true musou), there will be a 360° turn of the camera with everything else still and after that, you will initiate an improved version of your normal musou attack with the FIRE element that burns your enemy.

Interface

Interactions with the interface will only require your A button and direction pad/analogue stick. In the main menu you can select from:

Musou Mode - Campaigns for each character.
Options - Settings within the game.
Free Mode - Play any stage with any character you want.
Challenge Mode - Play any of the two challenges available.
Database - To view the history of each character and information of your collected items and weapons.
VS Mode - To compete with another human player.

Before you start a level, you can change your personal settings for your character. Such as what weapon or items you want to equip and how many bodyguards you want. You can select what kind of bodyguard you want such as [Yellow Turbans; Nanman; Common and so on] And what they equip [Spear; Pike; Bow; Crossbow; Sword]. You will also see a map of the battlefield and where all the enemy/ally generals are. You can also check the 'victory conditions' and 'defeat conditions' so you will know what your main objective of the game is. Further more, you can listen to interesting facts about the battle.

Sound and Music

The english voice acting is dreadful. It's a little bit better in the game movies but the game cinematics are seriously out-of-sync. This still hasn't been fixed from the PS2 version. The reason the sound is out-of-sync is because the game is originally japanese and they haven't programmed the lip-syncing for the english dialogue. Luckily you can select the Japanese dialogues if you cannot stand the English dialogues. The gameplay sounds are quite good and some sounds have been enhanced from the PS2 version, making it sound more interesting and powerful. The music (I find it OK personally) does not match the ancient China setting. Most of the music is Rock and Techno. Some sounds have been updated, when riding on horses, the galloping sound is much more realistic and the same for shooting arrows and the true musou attack.

Graphics

The obvious disadvantage you may notice is that the scenery has not been improved from the PS2 version. But, the graphics are sharper and much smoother than the PS2 version. The most impressive graphical moment is when playing co-operation (2-player) Free/Musou Mode and both do their musou in a close distance at the same time. This will do a Matrix effect (360° turn of the camera while everything stays still, the whole screen darkens) and then both hacks people with the lightning element. When you initiate a musou attack, there will be impressive blue halos of light around your character. Every character is detailed and each character has two costumes each, whereas the PS2 version only has one costume. The fire in some stages don't look realistic and the terrain is very jagged or too 3D like.

Gameplay length

Large battlefields will allow you 90 minutes to play and small battlefields will only allow you 30 minutes. When the time runs out, you will lose.
This game can last for a very, very long time. This is because you have over 30 characters to unlock; over 20 campaigns to complete; over 60 endings to unlock; 13 items to max out; 12 unique items to collect; 41 characters to max out and 1 difficulty to unlock.

Conclusion

This game is definitely worth getting if you don't own it already. This game is unique and there's not one game as interesting and fun as this.

- Alan L [29-12-02]