The best parts of the Dynasty Warriors series were lost in translation to the GBA

The Dynasty Warrior series were some of my favorite games back when I had a PlayStation 2. I played and finished DW2, DW3, and DW4. I now own an Xbox, but haven’t played DW5 yet. The fact that this series has spawned so many sequels is a good indication of how popular these games have been. When I heard that there was now this Dynasty Warriors Advance game available for the Nintendo GBA, I simply had to have it. I expected the gameplay to be sort of like the original games, and was looking forward to playing it. Too bad it turned out to be rather disappointing. This is still kind of a good game, but nothing like the console games upon which it is based.

What made the console versions of the Dynasty Warrior games so great was the wide open feel to them. You played a warrior on a huge battlefield and ran around fighting soldiers and generals. At any given time you could have dozens of enemies surrounding you, and your warrior had special moves and abilities that could send them flying. To me, it was the end-all of fighting and action games and really pushed the PS2 hardware to the max.

System hardware is what really holds this game back. By comparison, the GBA is very weak system versus the PS2. That’s like comparing a push lawn mower to a farm tractor. Because of the GBA’s limited technical ability, you can’t have dozens of bad guys coming at you. In fact, this game won’t let you fight more than a half dozen or so enemies at any one time. All of the fun in the original games was being able to fend off swarms of enemies and see how many you could take out at once. In this GBA version, you basically just play the same kind of action games you would on other titles. In short, all the best parts of the original DW titles were lost in translation to the GBA.

This game is based on the feudal Asian warlords from centuries ago, and the names used are based on those people. I am not going to bother looking up the historical significance of the figures, but I think the battles you fight in these DW games are based on real combat from way back when. The point of the game is rather simple. You choose to play as a general and you must defeat all the other generals and their armies. You go from map to map fighting off countless enemies and defeating the officers, while along the way gaining powers and levels. This can be fun, but also quite repetitive.

Each battle is presented on a large map with many different waypoints. This part of the game is turn-based where you move from point to point going after armies. There is a little bit of strategy in this part and it takes the place of being able to have a free run of the map like in the console versions. If you land on a waypoint that is occupied by the enemy, then you fight them. If two enemies are there, you can choose which one to fight first. Naturally, you want to fight your way to the officers because you’ll get more experience and special items from defeating them. It’s also how you win the battle.

During the actual combat stages of the game, your character must fight soldiers in groups of 6 or 7, including an officer if he is around. There is nothing difficult about taking on a handful of guys like that. In the console version, that many enemy soldiers was a waste of time. It is kind of cool to be able to hit all of them with one swing, but it gets very tedious after a while. The officers can be tough to kill sometimes, but you have special attacks that can help even the score. There isn’t much strategy to the combat besides presses buttons real fast and never stop moving. At least the controls are very responsive.

The graphics are pretty decent for this game and utilize the same kind of top-down view in most action GBA titles. The characters are all animated like fat-headed samurais from something off the original NES. During the cutscenes, the boss faces look just like the guys from the original, but during combat you can’t really tell them apart other than having nicer armor. The animation during the special attacks is quick and fun as your guy bounces all over the place swinging his weapon like Yoda did in Episode II. For the record, I hated that Yoda scene.

The music in this game is a direct copy of the cheesy but fun pseudo-metal stuff from the original console games. I was impressed how it sounded just like the original stuff instead of being some lame keyboard music. The in-game sound effects are pretty standard for these kind of action games, but at least aren’t as repetitive as in the original series because you don’t get to fight as much in this game.

Had I not played any of the original series that inspired this, I probably would have enjoyed Dynasty Warriors Advance more. It really isn’t a bad game, but given the source material, it should have been a lot better. I was wanting something where I could run around on a large map fighting whoever whenever however. Instead, I got this fairly uninspired action game that quickly gets boring.