dynasty warriors-esque. if you like moving one character around killing everything in sight, you'll love this.

User Rating: 8.3 | Devil Kings PS2
Too bad I got this game so damn late…only had about 2 ½ weeks to play thru it cuz my old man won’t let me take my ps2 to university. Oh wells, got it before i went to uni, started writing this thing shortly after, and it’s now the end of my second term here, exams are boning me and i’m finally done.

Devil Kings has got to be one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played on the ps2. Hate me all you want, but I think this is a kick-ass game. The game is basically a hack n’ slash dynasty warriors-type of game. The setting is pretty simple: there’s a whole bunch of generals leading a whole bunch of armies who want to conquer the known world. You get to choose one of 6 starting generals to lead your almost-useless army to battle against another general and continue to rampage across the lands until you reign supreme. I say almost-useless because your troops (and even allied commanders and generals) do little to no damage at all, and if you are thinking of letting your troops do all the fighting then you are an idiot. The generals are diverse as the lands they occupy, including a little girl who fights with a hammer bigger than she is and speaks in a southern accent, a shotgun-toting, sword-swinging tyrant who supposedly sold his soul for power, and a one-eyed samurai who can pull out and wield six swords simultaneously wolverine-style. Each general has a certain number of starting lands and rules over a certain territory, which is their main battle stage which you must plow through in order to beat them. After smacking the other general dead, you will gain any land that they have acquired. Continue the slaughterfest and you will eventually find yourself king of the hill, having achieved “total conquest”. Beating the game with one of your 6 starters will unlock 6 other generals, all of which you should be familiar with by the time you’ve beaten the game that many times. An interesting note is that you will find that some armies have multiple generals (eg. devil king, red minotaur), and that some armies have only one general (eg. azure dragon, puff). This doesn’t affect the gameplay too much, but there’s always the safety of running the enemy general into your allied general to give yourself a bit of an edge. That and the annoyance of having to kill multiple generals before going on to slay the final one to end the stage.
Each and every general (with the exception of 2) has a unique set of normal attacks, special attacks (known as ‘primes’), and fury drive attacks. Normal attacks are exactly what they sound like – fairly normal attacks. Primes are special attacks that do less damage than normal attacks, but are used to temporarily ‘stun’ enemies and prepare them for more devastating attacks. Priming serves two main purposes. First, primed enemies take more damage than normal. Second, to build up your fury drive (more on this later), you must hit primed enemies. With just these two attack buttons, you can conjure up many different kinds of combo attacks, the longest of which are well rewarded. If you can manage to chain up 100 hits, you get a double; 200 hits, a triple, 300 hits, a quadruple, 400 hits, an immortal, and anything over 500 grants you a master. If I’m not mistaken, finishing a 400+ hit combo will earn you a treasure chest which can be opened after you finish the level. Anyways, once your fury drive is filled up, you will be treated to a small ping sound, alerting you that the drive is full. Once it is full, you may choose to unleash a devastatingly powerful fury drive attack which not only allows you to deal monstrous amounts of damage to enemies, but also renders you completely invulnerable for the duration of the attack. The fury drive also fills if your health bar is dangerously low (ie. glowing red), which becomes particularly useful when dealing with difficult enemy generals. Most (if not all) armies consist of your bread-and-butter swordsmen, polearm wielders, archers, riflemen, suicide bombers, and the pansy chest carriers and horn blowers, who make up the bulk of the army and are easily dispatched, although archers and riflemen can become VERY annoying, so I would advise taking them out first whenever possible. Some stages also include numerous ninjas who are slightly more annoying as they are more skilled in blocking your attacks and jumping onto you while swinging various sharp objects. Mixed in with the batch are varying numbers of elite swordsmen and polearm wielders who have a knack for blocking your combos then counterattacking when u finish. As mentioned, each group of soldiers (including your own) are led by individual commanders/lieutenants/sergeants, identified by large dots on the minimap (red for enemy, blue for allied). These commanders can be mini-bosses in their own right, as each have their own health bar which must be depleted. These commanders are a crucial aspect of every battle, as they determine the attitude of the troops they lead. once their commander/lieutenant is defeated, troops will lose morale and stumble and fall, making them easy targets to pick off while offering little resistance. Also, commanders defending troop-spawning points must be defeated in order to “capture” that point and stop enemy troops from pouring out. In each stage there also contains a variety of hulking brutes that either throw large rocks, swing around huge poles, or slam gargantuan maces/axes on to the ground for an area attack. None of these attacks are blockable and only the pole swingers’ attacks can be interrupted, which makes these foes particularly annoying. Defeating them requires either a large portion of your health bar (from being smacked) or guerilla tactics and frequent running. a few stages also contain a sort of mini-boss in the form of a large quadruped machine that resembles an AT-AT from star wars. these hulking brutes of mass destruction hail arrows at you with a ridiculous rate of fire from a distance and when u get too close to the legs (the only place to you can hit them), an enormous pendulum-like axe drops down from the belly and swings around, cleaving anyone unfortunate enough to be standing within range (yes, that includes enemy troops) and multiple bombs are lobbed from the body in a random fashion to blast anyone who escaped the axe. If you do manage/choose to destroy said hulk, you are rewarded with a health & fury restore as well as another large explosion. Speaking of restores, there are multiple restores placed in every battleground, usually placed inside treasure chests or rewarded after defeating a minor commander/lieutenant. There are two types (health and fury drive) and they both come in two sizes (small and large) or a combined restore. Each will restore a portion of their respective bars. These become VERY useful in some battles, so I highly suggest NOT opening chests until you absolutely need them (or at the end of the stage, since some contain treasure chests).

The game looks great and the detail put into each character is equally impressive. Even the run-of-the-mill army soldiers look different, depending on the army, which is a welcome addition. I personally like the devil king’s and reaper’s troops the best (ahh, there’s nothing fiercer than an army of armour-clad demonic-looking soldiers wielding weapons that look wickeder than your own). Each individual general’s attacks, primes, boost attacks, and fury drives all look awesome, to the point where you’ll be tryin to perform some yourself with makeshift weapons. There isn’t any noticeable lag, although loading times do get in the way of the action sometimes. There’s the occasional slow-down when you, for example, pull a flashy fury drive in the middle of a huge army. Other than that, the game runs smoothly. A nice bonus is the anime and CG cutscenes they put at the beginning of each character’s campaign and at before some battles with specific characters. Many don’t make much sense (*cough*scorpio*cough*devil king*cough*) but they’re nice to look and give a few laughs. In fact, the game includes an anime opening that you may choose to watch; I don’t believe you need to have unlocked anything previously.

Sound is a little disappointing, but hey, it’s not like we’re expecting a symphony or anything. The music in the opening movie and other subsequent CG/anime movies is pretty good, and offers some form of intensity, but the battle music gets to you after a while. It’s not horrible, it’s just…umm…I can’t quite find a word for it, but it’s not the best thing in the world. There are random character interjections from the generals, commanders/lieutenants, and the common soldiers, although most are heavily recycled to the point where you just want to turn them off.

The premise is quite simple, and probably becomes repetitive very quickly, but there’s something about **** hundreds and hundreds of disposable meat shields and collecting new and more powerful items and boost attacks that makes this game continue to appeal to me. i have beaten the game with most characters now and still not bored of it.