Let's face it- killing hundreds of soldiers is just plain fun.
The graphics aren’t that great. Especially for an Xbox in 2006. It was originally released in 2001 for the Playstation 2 and even then the graphics were not asounding. You don’t notice it as much in gameplay with all the things going on around you, but compared to other games, the graphics are pretty bad especially in the cutscenes when graphics really matter. Water effects, so advanced in modern games, are simply the same tile of animated water texture repeated over and over again. Battle effects are cool though- attacks, especially strong ones, create big, flashy effects. They’re not bad considering how massive the battles are, but they are bad considering modern graphics capacity. 13 out of 20.
Gameplay: 20/20
Generally, there are easily a few thousand soldiers total in any given map. You control one of the 40 characters(officers) and you can either have 1-8 bodyguards or 1 officer who are computer controlled that follow you around, or none. Then you can chose six unlocked items to bring with you. Battles are incredible. On a map, you can win the map by just killing the enemy general, which does not result in a lot of experience, or kill everything that comes close and work your way to the objective, which really gives you a good step in EXP. Killing in numbers like 1000 can usually boost your character incredibly. Each character has unique and elaborate combos and moves and each has a Mousu attack that can wreak havoc once you fill your Musou gage. Each character also has 4 weapons- you start with one, but you unlock more as you go by killing enemy officers. The genius of Dynasty Warriors 3 is its Action-RPG style. You gain expirence and your stats increase by fighting like an Action game- in reality, its a Fighter-Action-RPG since the combos and number of characters are like a fighting game, the massiveness of the maps are like an Action, and the stat system is like an RPG And then there’s Free mode, where you can level up any character in any map that you’ve gotten to in Musou mode. You should definitely try this game. No words can express the greatness. It’s usually a hit or miss game, but if it’s a hit for you as it was for me, you’re going to have a great time. 20 out of 20.
Playability: 19/20
There is Musou mode which is the campaigns of nearly all 40 playable warriors who belong to one of the three factions except for some who are not in the Wu, Shu, or Wei factions. You start out with only 3 characters in each but once you beat the Musou mode of one character(Not hard, considering there are technically 40 of these) you unlock more characters to play from. Sometimes you unlock characters different ways- for instance, to unlock Lu Bu, you must beat him in a certain map. The Musou modes for each factions’ characters are the same except for minor changes like map starting positions and sometimes side maps for some characters. Then there is Free mode, where you can play any map that has been gotten to in Musou mode with any character, including those who do not belong to a faction. And the, there are around 30 items to find. Between unlocking everything, beating every Musou Mode, and maxing out every character, there is a lot to do here, provided you like the game. 19 out of 20.
Tilt: 18/20
Dynasty Warriors gets super extra points for making this purely unique game. The blending of a Fighter, Action, and an RPG are blended smoothly into one great game. Absolutely outstanding. 19 out of 20.