| Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires uses the same characters, graphics, and gameplay style as Dynasty Warriors 4. However, in this expansion set, there is no Musou Mode, as there was for Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends. Instead, Empires has a new mode that is similar to a Story Mode: Empire Mode. In this mode, you create an empire with the regions and cities of Ancient China and unify the chaotic lands. The best part, in my opinion, is that you can use anyone in the game, including the generic officers like Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Liang's brother who served Wu, or Guan Ping, one of Guan Yu's adopted sons. There are two modes of Empire Mode: Historical and Fictional. Historical Mode involves using leaders like Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao, Dong Zhuo, Liu Bei, Sun Jian, Cao Cao, Meng Huo, Zhang Xiu, Zhang Jiao, Tao Qian, Liu Zhang, Ma Teng, Yuan Shu, etc. When you start a new game, you can choose to join a region and use that team to unify the land, or, if you have created officers, you can make that officer the ruler of another region and you can have two random officers join you from the start. At the beginning of each turn, each officer will give you two proposals: Some may be good, some may be bad...All of the policies do something different. Some may let you tax the people. Some may let you recruit more soldiers for your army. Some may let you give money to the people, some may let you ally with another region, and some may let you recruit officers. At any rate, after you choose a proposal (or not choose one at all), you can decide to attack a neighboring region or not. If you do, you will be able to choose who you will control and who will support you in battle.
The stages are the same as they were in Dynasty Warriors 4, but there are several tricks that have been added to gameplay. First, there are bases that you must capture in order to make the enemy ruler to come out, as well as providing morale boosts for your allies. Unlike the other games, the amount of morale your officers have in this game makes a huge difference between victory or defeat. Second is the officer skills. Each officer has a certain skill, including Ambush, Hawkeye, Negotiate, Taunt, Rally, Support, Shield, Encourage, and Charge. Each one does something special. Defend, Encourage, Charge, and Rally improve morale and increase Defense or Attack for a limited time. Ambush creates an ambush when an enemy officer nears the officer with the Ambush skill. However, if an officer that is approaching an ambush has Hawkeye for his/her special ability, then he/she can defeat the ambush and then kill the ambushing officer as well. Taunt does exactly what it says: It taunts the enemy, forcing he/she to come out and attack. However, it either works or fails. When Support is used, allied peasants come and help the officer that used it. Negotiate works in a similar fashion, but instead of bringing allied peasants, it converts enemy soldiers and they go to your side. Note that an officer that you are controlling cannot use these skills. Only the AI-controlled officers can use it.
The gameplay, all in all, is very well done, but it tends to get rather boring after a while. Versus Mode is a tad dull as well, but there is also a single-player mode as well. There are very few minigames that are in Versus Mode, making that a bore also. The best part about Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires is the Create-A-Officer option. First introduced in Dynasty Warriors 4, the Empires expansion has even more options! You start by naming your character, of course, and after that, you will start to make your new officer. First, you can choose from six different models. Second, you can choose from five different hairstyles, five different clothings, and five different fashions for the arms, legs, and body. There are also six different colors you can choose from: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Purple, and White. You can then choose the voice for the officer. There are three different voices for each gender. Then you can choose the moveset of the officer. The best part about choosing the moveset is that you can choose from any officer in the game, including the moveset of Fu Xi and Nu Wa from Dynasty Warriors 3! Then, you get to choose the different stat variations and the officer's special skill in battle. Then you save your character and use him/her in battle!
For those who absolutely disliked the dubbed voices in English in the Dynasty Warriors series, fret no more! Koei has given Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires players the option of switching the English voices for the Japanese voices! The Japanese voices are excellent, might I add, and it makes the gameplay very enjoyable.
Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, overall, is a splendid game, and a must-have for anyone who enjoys playing Dynasty Warriors games very much.
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