The long running Dynasty Warriors series finally gets a PSP exclusive, but is this just another hack and slash game from Koei or does it offer anything new?

 

For the unfamiliar, the Dynasty Warriors series has been around for quite some time with many different sequels and offshoots. The main premise is always the same, with the game having you play as one of three kingdoms trying to unify the old China. All of the games have a huge player roster, loads of maps and a rock solid difficulty.

 

 

Initially Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce is no real different from it predecessors on the larger consoles, you choose from with Wei, Wu or Han and then select one of over ten characters from each faction and then you fight in a hack and slash fest. This game however has quite a lot of differences to make it easily my favourite DW title. First off you have lives in each level, that's right, no more getting to the boss, dying and having to start all over again, this time around you have a set amount of lives stated at the start of each level. Rather than shown a map and then getting straight into the action you start off in a small village, here you can wander around and use the numerous shops on offer like blacksmiths and material shops to prepare for the fights. Starting a mission involves visiting the noticeboard at the back of the village. The first few missions are small with only a few enemies to take out but later missions gradually get harder, each mission is

graded by up to five stars so you can choose what difficulty you are comfortable with. Missions have the usual pass, fail and an additional bonus quest to complete, with a successful mission you earn cash and also plenty of materials that you pick up as you take out enemies.

 

The fighting is very fast paced and the PSP handles the action well, the controls also work well on the fiddly PSP layout with only the camera at times getting a bit lost. Each character has two weapons that you can switch between on the battlefield and you can choose from a huge range depending on your style as swords, axes, maces, bow and arrows and staffs all make an appearance. The ability to switch weapons really opens up your defensive and offensive skills as if you are getting a beating a swift retreat whilst using covering fire will no doubt save you on more than one occasion. With the large amount of baddies on screen it can get confusing so you now have a target, with the L button you can lock onto an enemy and whilst doing this you can jump or even rush and slash at your enemy, creating a martial arts ballet like Crouching Tiger where you can even jump onto roof tops and battle mid air with the camera cleverly zooming and swinging around to give you the best view.

 

 

Away from the slash fest there is also a lot of customizing, meaning you can fuse weapons and characters with orbs that grant additional powers and also use player cards that upgrade the shops. DW Strikeforce also allows for up to three other friends with copies of the game to join your side, enabling you to team up to rank up your characters and defeat some of the harder bosses. As with the single player the PSP handles the action well with my only niggle being that it is only over local ad-hoc.

 

Koei have approached the slow PSP disc read times rather cleverly with two very effective solutions, each map is quite large so to get the most out of the on screen action the game is split into zones, as you cross into each zone it will load for no more than a few seconds, allowing the fighting to be almost seamless. The other genius idea is a small optional 300mb download onto your memory card, making the loading even faster.

 

Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce is a positive departure from the classic DW gameplay without sacrificing too much and staying loyal to fans, this game is just another excuse to switch that rarely used ad-hoc button on and convince friends to purchase a copy.