Caltrops - Reviews - More of the same! But that could mean you'll love it.

Forum Overview :: Reviews

by curst 04/04/2005, 9:17pm PDT

I rented it, and I'm in danger of falling in love again, but there's always an initial rush of "hell yeah" followed by me realizing I'm still playing the same damn game Koei released back in 2000. I blame this phenomenon on the new soundtracks. They always rock.

Anyway, DW5 definitely feels like an apology for 4, and I guess it's an improvement upon 3, but it's an incremental one at best. I seriously doubt Koei will make any significant changes to this franchise until the next gen consoles hit the scene.

I can't think of any real negatives besides... "no Japanese voiceacting". That means you get to hear people mentioning Cow Cow repeatedly, which might be the most annoying mispronounciation in all of gaming history. Otherwise, it's mostly tiny improvements.

There's more enemies running around than ever. I can't recall the last time I won a level with less than 400 KOs, and in one stage I've routinely racked up over 3,000. Once over 6,000. I only lost the chance to go to the max of 9,999 because an ally killed the guardian of the reinforcement point I was camping at. But despite this, there's still too many moments where you'll clear out areas, then wind up having to backtrack through those huge emptied areas to get back to the action.

Randomized weapons are back, but unlike DW3:XL (where you could often find third-level weapons that are better than a particular character's unique fourth and fifth-levels), the fourth-level hidden weapons are vastly more powerful than I bet any third-level weapon could hope to be.

There's around six or seven new characters. No idea what Zuo Ci is like since you have to beat the musou mode for everyone else to unlock him. I'm tempted to just use a cheat, because give me a fucking break. But Ling Tong and Pang De are awesome, while Cao Pi is annoying (cool weapon, but a weak moveset that's like Wei Yan's except with less reach), and Ling Cai/Guan Ping look totally uninteresting.

The level design is better. More huge open areas, none of Samurai Warriors' annoying "you can take one of three long, winding paths to get to this area, oh but wait, two of them are cutoff even though you can't see it on the map" crap, none of SW's even worse castle levels. Best of all, the Siege Of He Fei Castle makes a welcome return. You could argue the beach area is too small but the castle part is enormous and allows for an epic finale. If you don't rack up 1,000 KOs then you're not trying.

The graphics engine was beefed up noticably. It looks like DW4 all over again, but there are definitely more guys running around on screen, with less pop-up and instances of slowdown.

No joke endings during the credits. Too bad since some of those were mildly funny.

I think I'll wait for a price drop and the release of the inevitable XL expansion pack before I buy it, because the XL packs always add worthwhile content to the basic game. Maybe I'm being unfair here, but somehow I don't view Dynasty Warriors as the kind of game where you have to invest twenty hours before you can form an informed opinion.