Dynasty Warriors (Shin. Sangoku Musou) is one of the well-known games from KOEI based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms epic. For several years, many detractors have criticized that Dynasty Warriors series are rather meaningless and boring kind of hack-n-slash action games. They were actually very wrong without judging and rating the games carefully with their own eyes. Although there weren't loads of improvements being made, especially from Dynasty Warriors 4 to Dynasty Warriors 5, but it's clearly proved that every Dynasty Warriors series did have the improvement if you rank it carefully from the first Dynasty Warriors until now.
BB? What's BB and What's Dynasty Warriors Online?
Dynasty Warriors Online (also known as "Shin. Sangoku Musou BB" in Japan) has the greatest evolution with many new features, improvements added. BB stands for Broadband, this also means that Dynasty Warriors Online is an online game that allows you to make your allies, fight against your enemies, and create your own exquisite stories to conquer the world. Dynasty Warriors Online is working on PC which Windows 2000/XP is the best choice but it does need a high requirements, such as minimum Pentium 2.4GHz CPU, 512MB RAM and 1MB broadband speed in order to run the game perfectly. One bad news is you need to pay for playing this game.
Dynasty Warriors Online is totally different from the past Dynasty Warriors series, not just because it's an online game. First, you have to login with your username and password. For Dynasty Warriors Online, you're not role-playing any of your favorite characters, such as Ma Chao, Sun Ce or Zhen Ji in Romance of the Three Kingdoms era, but to create your own character is everything that must be done.
This game is more concentrating into Liu Bei (Shu), Cao Cao (Wei) and Sun Jian (Wu) forces and also some other forces like Dong Zhuo and Yuan Shao. The story is actually followed by the timeline, so if you're in the year 204 in the game, some events that happened in that year might be appeared.
Character Customization
There are many possibilities you can customize your own character, like the hairstyles, faces, eyes and the skin colors, you can actually choose and adjust any color as you like. What makes it sound even better is the voice acting! There are over 20 kinds of accents from different states you can pick up for your character.
After you've done with your character, you will start the game in your own room. There are weapon cabinet, cupboard, desk and bed which enable you to check on your weapon, costume, contact with your team members and quit the game.
The graphics of the town are very well polished. The scenery, lighting effects and shadow look exactly like a real one. Every NPCs (Non Playable Characters) in the town are new and different designed. The buildings make you think that you're exactly in the ancient China period.
New Weapons & Movesets?
Well, it'll have 50 original weapons and movesets which 48 weapons and movesets are from Dynasty Warriors 5 and another 2, they're Fu Xi and Nu Wa from Dynasty Warriors 3 as an extra. But there aren't 50 in total! There are more movesets depend on what weapon you've obtained... Just to let you know that there's some new weapons and movesets, so don't worry too much about it!
Battle System
When you're in the town, you can actually walk around, like going to market (if you got money) and even the pub. You can actually talk to the citizen (NPCs) in the town and know what they're doing and you're able to meet some online friends and make a team.
When you're ready, just go and talk to the general so he can register you to join to the battle. You can actually go into the battlefield as many times as you want as training but when there's an event, you'll be automatically assigned to participate in the mission. Most of the officers, like Zhao Yun, Xiahou Dun can only be seen in the mission, they don't appear when you're in your own training.
In the battle, you fight whatever as you want, but team work is somehow important although you won't die or being kicked out from the game. When you failed the mission, all the points you collected in battle will not be counted, that means you're not able to level up!
The various items you collected from the battlefield usually enable you to upgrade yourself, sometimes you can even upgrade your face look, make it even unique, some weapons and new costumes can be collected as well.
Level Up in Battlefield like DW PSP? Rank System? Tips..?
Yes, you choose your favorite weapon and best outfit then you go to the battlefield from Level 1 on everything in the beginning everytime like Dynasty Warriors PSP. But, don't worry, it's actually better, cause you can pick up those stones from the battlefield and it'll level up your ability, so it's more fun actually... The rank is based on your performance in the battlefield... If you followed the mission like luring Xiahou Dun to one location as ordered, and you achieved most of the mission, it'll be actually easy for you to obtain the rank S. Well, if you have low life point, just head back to your own camp so you can get your life recovered (maybe +10 points per second). But the bad thing is if you want to defeat the enemy as they're in their own camp, then it'll be hard to defeat them because they will get their life point recovering every second while they are in their camps.
Mission?
Well, missions are actually based on the funds that your force got. If you're under Liu Bei (Shu) and you keep failing the mission, your force might be lack of funds as it won't allow you to join the battle, even the training.
Graphics
As mentioned, the graphics are very well done! If you feel bored in the game sometimes, you can actually walk around and enjoy the scenery, like going to the seaside. The game makes you feel that you're really at the seaside with the very neat sound effects.
By clicking the right mouse key and dragging around, you're able to see all the views in 3D. You can even check on your character's face in very close dimension and you'll see how neat and how beautiful the graphics are.
Music and Sounds
AMAZING, MARVELOUS and AWESOME! Besides there are many remixed tracks from the previous Dynasty Warriors series, Dynasty Warriors Online has the best DW music after all. Dynasty Warriors music is often rock style but in Dynasty Warriors Online, it's different! They're most to the rock style when you're in the battlefield but it'll be more to dramatic a bit alike the music in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games when you're walking around in town.
So by playing Dynasty Warriors Online, it actually makes you feel like you're playing both Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the same time.
The battle rock music are somehow addictive and they make you feel you're in the mood to hack-n-slash all the enemies, like "I'll kill y'all and y'all gonna die!" But, then you're in the town, walking around and you'll feel yourself actually start humming with those tunes already.
The sound effects as I said is fantastic, but overall there are no voices when you're in the conversation with the people in your town because the dialogue is in text mode. Also, if you want to communicate with your team members, you have to use your keyboard to type, like you're chatting in Windows Live Messenger.
My Thoughts
I've played all Dynasty Warriors series and some series of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I believe that Dynasty Warriors Online is going to be one of the very kick-ass online games because KOEI has really put so much effort to it as you can see it's so well-designed. What you might think the bad is you have to pay monthly for the game, but if you're a true fan of it, you should go and have a try, and I'm pretty sure you'll discover something fun from Dynasty Warriors Online.
*Please note that this review is based on my experience and thoughts on "Shin. Sangoku Musou BB" (Dynasty Warriors Online in Japanese version)... |
