DYNASTY WARRIORS ADVANCE
Original Release: Koei, 2005, Game Boy Advance
A very rare attempt at musou in 2D (and probably the first), this title didn't manage to capture the appeal of its bigger polygonal brothers
Dynasty Warriors Advance (GBA, Koei, 2005)
Where to Buy: Amazon
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
This pocket-sized Dynasty Warriors installment is one of the extremely few attempts at doing a musou game in 2D. On the whole it actually adapts pretty well, but the central feature — the combat — ends up actually being what snooty reviewers usually accuse the bigger mainline games of being.
By that I mean it actually is too simple and repetitive. The sprawling battlefields of the original games are shrunk down to one rather limited rectangular playfield. The enemy squads you encounter number from about 25 to 50 total, but they come at you in waves of six or so. There really isn't much in the way of variety in dealing with them; 90% of the time your A button M. Bison Psycho Dash is the best option, in some cases you'll want to use a B+B+A combo to deal damage more quickly, and when tough bosses pop out you break out the musou. No matter what character you pick or what battle you're fighting, it's the same experience every time.
The core combat being more tedious than usual is a pretty significant weakness, but that aside DW Advance is actually a pretty well-made adaptation. I thought it was handled much better than the later DS game at least. It follows all the expected Three Kingdoms beats, starting with the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Hu Lao Gate and moving on from there, but obviously the GBA isn't up to rendering the sprawling battlefields full of thousands of individual units.
So what do? Well, it's moved to a turn-based movement system with the action taking place only when your squad meets an enemy squad. And by "your squad" I mean just you by your lonesome, no bodyguards or ally units or any other added niceties in this one. DW Advance is solely about your personal choppings and hackings.
Though you are technically free to move about maps as you wish, the turn-based system trades some of the lack of focus of the bigger games for a lack of ability to tackle maps as you wish. Each map gives you few ally units versus a ton of enemies. The way things are arranged, you don't always have tremendous amounts of freedom to move; you're kinda funneled a certain way to protect a vital character or your main camp. These scenarios arose in the other games, of course, but it was easier to work around them by hopping on a horse or just having a pumped-up superfast character.
On the upside, I felt like this "god's eye view" kinda gave you a better sense of how the story is supposed to play out. The game looks nice enough, plays smoothly and has a nice chiptunes soundtrack that manages to capture the flavor of the iconic butt rock of the series.
Maps and characters are pared down from the main games as well; three per faction, each with one expected "leader" unlockable and then The Beast Lu Bu when you get all of those. Only about 10 maps in total after playing through each of the campaigns.
With even the very best of the musou games, the issue I tend to run into is that I'll enjoy building up one character and running them through the campaign mode, maybe two or three if the experience is different ... but after that I feel like I've seen pretty much everything and don't feel like grinding up any more characters. I hit that point after just one trip through this one thanks to the more-repetitive-than-usual combat. It's an interesting little curiosity piece for Dynasty Warriors fans, though, taking a different angle on things than usual and doing it with a reasonable amount of polish and care.
Comments
Post a Comment