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probably still the best, but getting stale...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The fifth instalment of the game that has earned some $500 million for Koei is quite a good version, and will definately impress anyone who hasnt played any of DW5's predeccesors. Its a easy to pick up action game in which you slaughter endless foes in pretty awesome graphics (though theyve gotten stale over the years) and an awesome story to boot.

Dynasty Warriors 5 is a certain improvement over DW4, returning to the 'choose a character'/musou mode which made DW3 such an fun and lasting game to traverse. The graphics as mentioned are improved a little, but the gameplay even less.

The strongholds that can be conquered in the games are a cool addition over DW4, but the story and the way of progressing through the game has all been done before. Level design is also inferior since DW3.

As a game by itself, its really in a class of its own, and I would love to play it like the millions of others - no doubt, but the way they just keep recycling the gameplay it would otherwise only scrape in with 3 stars.

If you arent a die hard fan (like me) and you want to save some money - DW3 or 4 are possibly better purchases OR get the Romance of Three Kingdoms Ebook (the infamous story the game is based on) FREE from DW Three Kingdoms (website is dw3k,com/newrotkebook).

Their new color version of ROTK makes the book almost as interesting as this game itself!

BORING!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 22
Date: August 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Ive never been a big fan of dynasty warriors. But this game is just bad. First off on easy mode you can defat an entire army by yourself. This is because the enemys never attack. once i ran into the center of a group of enemys and i stood still. I didn't get attacked for ten minutes. Also all of the soldgers look identical. there are about three enemys that dont look the same.and there are only 4 hard fights in the entire game. Also THIS GAME IS REPETTATIVE. you have 6 attacks per character but they all do the exact same thing. And one hit kills petty much all enemys. Now this game is long but so what. If you have a huge pile of garbage, is it really any better then a small pile of garbage. and either way it is still garbage. just like this game.

Fun, but Love/Hate continues

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Now I'm probably one of maybe 200 people on the continent that has actually read the entire unabridged "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by Luo Guanzhong, Dynasty Warriors really messes up some of the history and the characters and yet I own 5 of the games. Why? Because they are fun as hell and they got most of it right, right enough anyways.

The Japanese makers have really "animade" the Three Kingdoms and seriously over-exagerated things but that is part of the charm.
I do wonder who decides which people to add, Guan Ping was a nice addition but Guan Xing and Zhang Bao(Zhang Fei's son, name sounds just like the yellow turban) are more important. Xing Cai was news to me, I never heard of her until this game and it sent me into a research frenzy. Suffice it to say, she never would've picked up a weapon(much like all the female characters with the exception of the daughter of Sun Jian, she actually did know her martial arts and put the fear of God into the generals that tried to stop her).

This game does a good job on the Sun family, in that unlike the previous games they actually include that Sun Jian dies before returning home from the (failed)attempt to remove Dong Zhuo from power.

Cao Cao is great, Xiahou Dun, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all look perfect, just like the ancient paintings.

It may also bring joy to fans to know that Lu Bu did actually have the antenna-like feathers coming from his head. They did ruin him in this game though, they made him the "peerless samurai only searching for a challenge" similar to Musashi when he was opportunistic, petty and a total traitor(he killed his adopted father to join Dong Zhuo then killed him). Honor wasn't high on his list of priorities an dby the time of his capture(and execution) either Zhang Fei or Guan Yu were already strong enough to beat him.

Kudos for having the right Kanji(literally "written characters from China", in Japanese) for the names right.

If you know your Chinese history(which you probably don't, which is okay as few do) you might be bothered, but not enough to stop playing.

Oh, and his name is pronounced T'sao T'sao(Cao Cao) not Cow Cow, I'm almost at the point of murdering that French Voice Director, you'd think that since Koei has a branch office IN CHINA they could at least get my favorite professor's name right.

Yea its a lil different. But its the BEST in the series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: March 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'ma keep this real simple. Dynasty Warriors 5 is better than the rest. YES, if you've played 4 than you'll notce some changes. I suggest you accept them {u may even come to like alot of them} that way you can actually enjoy the game for what it is.

Pros - Better graphics
Bodyguards who actually save that'az for a change
Stronger Allies {if the moral is high, they can pretty much take care of themselves}
Folk DIE {every officer is not in every battle. Remember they all have their own story. Example- Cao Cao is dead before the battle of Hei Fei castle. When you beat the game, the speaker tells of your characters LIFE, not how many enemies he killed per battle. {Story is superp this time around}

Cinemactics {EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER has a brief {fully} cinemactic scene when you complete the game. The game saves them for you and you can watch em anytime. Thats MUCH better than DW4, where the endings were the exact same things with different colors or officers.

Cons - You find weapons via DW3. I used to like DW4 level up system better.
No more duels. ......{personally I think its a plus}

Difficulty - This games HARD. I'ma DW vet and I play on easy. {Unless my character has been seriously built up} They ain't playin wit'cha.

Overall it does what it should. Its the best yet. Same old with minor upgrades. If you have DW4 and are still unsure, heres a thought. Wait for DW6 .....we KNOW its comin.

So Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: November 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

it is very fun even though it is rated teen it is still good for ages 8 and up. it is very fun (perfect Christmas present)

It's not bad, but how much more can the fans take?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: October 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

We all know about Dynasty Warriors. It's gameplay is pretty cool, and while a lot of people say it's the same thing over and over (and they're right to an extent) they never seem to notice the quirks in gamplay (Dynastay Warriors 3 is a HUGE step above number 2 and there are a lot of people who--for God knows what reason--didn't see that). Dynasty Warriors 5, on the other hand, is a step down from Dynasty Warriors 4. Dynasty Warriors 4 was not much above number three anyway, so seeing number five take a step down from it is pretty daunting. I warn you now, if you've never played Dynasty Warriors, this review won't help you out as much. If, however, you've played previous installments, you'll really be able to decide on number five after this.

First, let's go about the things that are different. There are more characters, one added to each group. Not as rewarding for those who went from Dynasty Warriors 2 to 3 (in which you were rewarded with 22 new characters), and those who played Dynasty Warriors 4 first won't notice at all. The maps of course, are also different, and there are a few new missions.

But let's talk about the step back. The thing that hurts Dynasty Warriors 5 the most. First of all, there's no complexity in raising your characters. There never was in Dynasty Warriors, but number four did incorporate a level up system, and KOEI had something going with it. Unfortunately, they decided not to experiemtn with it again in number five, and that's a damn shame because it made raising characters much more complex and much more exhilirating. You know, you felt like you were actually getting something done! You were hacking and slashing for a reason! Now you're just... hacking and slashing.

Second thing that takes them back; the musou mode. Each character now only has five levels, and they're short. In previous installments some had ten levels, and they could take you a while. Some missions have also become one sided. If you need to say, get a fire attack going, you have to do it. If you don't get it going it's almost an instant loss of the mission. In previous installments it was not a problem. It helped your morale, but if they somehow managed to thwart your plan, it didn't mean you were sure to lose the battle. In this version it does, and it's particularly annoying. Likewise, if you actually do the mission as they specified it makes taking down all the enemy generals (save for those who have like two bars of health and an insane defense, which I'll talk about later) severely easy. The only exception are the playable ones.

In addition to that, the maps are terrible, and to an extent, difficult to read sometimes, such as when there's a river in front of you, and it isn't depicted on the map. That, and there's not much free roam anymore. There's always a path you must take instead. So you can't cut through the level anymore by running across the map in a battle field fashion. In order to run around a fortress, let's say, you have to follow a path around the fortress. In previous Dynasty Warriors, you didn't have to do this!

The new "weight" system introduced by the weapons is also a setback to this game. Heavy, weapons, for example, make some characters useless. Characters that are already slower than a snail, are reduced to seeming like statues! Take a character like Xu Xhu (if you've played previous installments), who is already slow and already carries a fairly heavy weapon. Now give him an even heavier weapon and he's slow as all hell. It's annoying, time consuming and makes you reject what could be a better weapon because you want to get a mission done quickly. In other words, this make some characters nearly useless. Even speedy characters (Lu Xun for example) have a tough time with heavy weapons, and it leaves them open for attacks. It's embarassing when the soldier you're trying to kill gets a cheap hit in there because your weapon is too heavy to carry.

Likewise, enemy generals do a ridiculous amount of damage to you! This takes the fun out of DW5. The playable generals not only have an insane defense, but an insane attack. And they've gone back to era of DW2. If you happen to knock a general on his back he'll gain some sort of power up (and it could be the dreaded musou for ten seconds, even!). Most of the time it's an Attack X2 and that surely means you're in trouble. It's no fun with that kind of rule in place.

Not being able to switch generals didn't bother me too much, but you'd think they'd keep up with it after how well it worked in number four.

What I'm trying to say is, what was working for the series they neglected when they created this game. The gameplay remains unchanged, and that's a good and bad thing. The gameplay is fun in Dynasty Warriors, but I just can't help but admit it's the same hack and slash we've played a million times. Dynasty Warriors 3 was a huge step above number three. Dynasty Warriors 4, however, was only a babystep above number three. Now, sadly, number five seems to think moving in the opposite direction seems best.

The music is also not great. Dynasty Warriors always has mixed results with music, but I think in this one we can all agree that the music is nothing above sub par. The series hasn't had the best music, but it has had tolerable music. This one doesn't have as much. The voice acting, as with every KOEI game, sucks the big one. And you can't switch to more emotional japanese voices either (again, something that only number three did).

Graphic wise, it looks no different than Dynasty Warriors 4. However, I will say that they did manage to do something about the "pop up" enemies and how the game slows down when the screen becomes overcrowded with people. However, when the screen does become over crowded, you can barely even find yourself.

The extras are also not worthwhile. How many more games do I have to suffer through that have "Sound Test" as an unlockable secret? Whatever happened to the days when you could find "Sound Test" under "Options"? When did "Sound Test" suddenly become an unlockable secret in video games? At least we're saved by some tunes not being worth listening to anyway.

The Challenge Mode isn't very exciting either. Endurance isn't much fun. You must defeat each and everyone who comes at you looking for a fight. The goal is to last as long as you can. Until you die. In Dynasty Warriors 5 that death will be pretty quick. This is simply because when the enemies crowd around you, they all begin swinging at once. The moment you're lifted off the ground, you know it's over. Generals, as noted above, do incredible damage to you as it is. In Endurance, generals are the only ones who drop health, and that's if you're lucky enough to survive. Time attack is no better, being just like Endurance, only you must kill one hundred enemies as fast as you can. This would be fun if there were enemies. And when there are, it ends up being just like Endurance.

So here's the big let down of Dynasty Warriors 5. The gameplay mechanics take a step down from previous ones and at some point in time even sink lower than Dynasty Warriors 2 (which really IS just nothing more than "tap square", at least in the ones following we got to raise characters). At the same time we're faced with terrible maps and mission objectives; generals that are way too strong to take down, and more additions that were taken away from the game rather than added.

The new characters added are hardly worth it and only seem to be there to mock other characters. Speaking of which, the characters aren't all that unique anyway. Almost every character who uses a sword for example, has the same basic structure to his attack. Likewise, many of the musous (special attacks) look the same for many characters

If you have Dynasty Warriors 3 (which is the best one in the series) stick with that. If you've got Dynasty Warriors 4, stick with that. If you don't have a Dynasty Warriors game at all, I'd suggest you get number three or number four. Number three was, by and large, the best in the series. Dynasty Warriors 5, however, should be the end of the series. There's nothing more you can do with it, and it shows because instead of moving the series forward, they've begun moving it backwards.

Don't waste time with this game. Unless you really haven't played Dynasty Warriors, and you're looking for an intro. Otherwise, it's better to leave this on the shelf and shop for a different game. Dynasty Warriors 5 was it, there's nothing more to do with the series than put it in the recycling machine. It produces something that looks different, but it's virutally the same thing. Dynasty Warriors 5 is no different than the three before it (Number one was actually a Street Fighter like game), and unfortunately there aren't enough tweaks to make it better.

A boring addition to a boring series

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: September 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There was a time where I was a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors series. That time has long past. I didn't actually buy this game, instead played it with my friend who did purchase it.

While I was unable to see every feature there was to see and experience the game as an owner, I was far from satisfied. It's the same, boring button smasher from a long line of games exactly the same. True, there are more characters, the graphics have improved somewhat, and the voices are less pathetic, but it just isn't enough to buy it while there are 9 other games which are pretty much the same as it.

Your allied generals do pack more of a punch and their AI has improved noticably though, a big plus in my rating system. But the idea of being in an army is completely stupid. You might as well just be your own character versus the entire enemy army. Your allied peons do virtually nothing. When they actually do fight, they attack every seven seconds and half of those attacks are parried, and those that do hit are noticable but insignificant.

I was a huge fan of the series for a while though, and had some nice experiences. I really liked the third dynasty warriors, especially the Battle of Hu Lao gate which really did require some allied help if you were playing as the allies. It was quite spectacular to have 8 grizzled, elite soldiers in shining armor as your bodyguards for some players, but it also took out what little challenge the game had. In a few of the games, which I can't remember the exact titles, you had no bodyguards which I heavily disliked though, and it's nice to have a bodyguard with respectable AI in this game.

While this game has it's appeal, especially for people who enjoy pure action with no strategy whatsoever. I don't mean to be sarcastic, this game really is quite enjoyable. It just isn't for people who want a videogame that has more realistic and laid back action, where you aren't so invulnerable, where it actually means something to kill a soldier, where your allies do make a difference. DW4 certainly was entertaining, DW4XL had it's positives but was certainly not worth it's price, and DW4 Empires was just a horrible game where the 'strategy' involved meant absolutely nothing and where the one-man army hack-and-slash gameplay was greatly reduced. The first Samurai Warriors was entertaining and the replay value was quite high. The second was a pointless waste of time that added nothing to the game.

In short, this game is quite entertaining and will be enjoyed if you're someone who likes to mindlessly cut their way through an army to kill the enemy leader and win the battle with virtually no strategy. The officer battles are an exception, but with the duel feature missing, it's lost much of it's challenging nature. I personally am just waiting for Spartan Total Warrior to release where your health is significantly limited and where the common soldier will be of actual value to the army. I hope Koei either makes significant changes to the many Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms games to come, or crashes and burns. Both of my hopes are unrealistic and probably will not be fufilled.

Boring! Worse than DW4 Empires.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: September 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty much the same as Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4 but without the lag. DW4 Empires dont have lag either and is a much better game than this Dynasty Warriors 5 IMO.

In Dynasty Warriors 5 each character goes thru about 5 stages then you see the ending. The stages are boring, small, and all look the same. The strategy of capturing bases is pathetic, DW4 Empires's design is better. To make things worse all stages are available from Free Mode. After awhile I got tired of playing the same stages, geez all the characters share stages, a big let down. There are NO witches, soccresses, battering ram, catapult, fire breathing cart, etc.... I was expecting all this and more. The stage design is truly sad.

Overall I don't recommend buying this game. Get DW4 Empires instead or Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.

A droning and lifeless series continues

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 18
Date: May 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Koei has made several games for the series Dynasty Warriors, 7, if I remember correctly. The games in the series and Koei's new Samurai Warriors series have all been very fun games. However, so many games in this line have been made, the series is becoming stale.

The entire game is some linear button-smashing killfest where you run to enemies for them to attack you, such horrendous AI. You fight along an army, however the soldiers rarely attack and are quite stupid. It is impossible for your allies to really do anything and to win the battle, you seriously have to design some quick, blitzkrieg battle 'strategy' to kill the enemy commander by cutting a thin line in the enemy troops. True, killing masses of enemy drones around you is fun, but it just gets old rapidly.

In each series, there is a sort of graphic improvement and is a large factor in my favor of a game. There is a better storyline for your character, another major factor for me. There are also many bodyguard options, that is rare for this series. You can also learn some history from the events which this game is based on, but there are several inconstincies in the story and I found it much better if you want this information, to buy a cheap book, this story is popular in China.

Still, this game is a complete disappointment. The sound is awkward, the gameplay is old, and there is little the preivious games did not have. Someone who continuously buys the games in this series and still is addicted to this game has a very weak taste in gameplay.

Dynasty REPEAT

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 16
Date: May 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

DW. 2, 3, 4, all great. But this is the same hack n' slash gameplay we've seen! I'm sick of this game! I could buy DW 4 and save some damned money!!! I'll leave it at this. It's like watching the same movie over and over and over and over and over and over and over again! The camera angles sometime get annoying. If your a DW fan, pick it up, otherwise, this game isn't going to turn you into one.

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