I enjoyed Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires.
Surprisingly, this game has a V.S. mode in which you can compete against another player or a CPU which playing against a CPU wasn't possible with Dynasty Warriors 3. The games within this mode are actually interesting, probably not as interesting as Empire mode which is the actual meat of the game but relatively more interesting than the V.S mode of Dynasty Warrios 3. You can either see who can kill the most enemies, who can knock the most enemies off stage, who can collect the most items, and who can last the longest while being attacked.
Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires also has an archive where you can see a lot of artwork and get detailed information about officers and even troops. There is so much to be seen and read here, its awesome. You could actually spend a great deal of time here, that's how much content it has. You can hear your favorite officer's voice, see them in various uniforms/outfits, see their moves, see artwork of them, and view background information about them. There's also plenty more than that to see.
Overall, Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires was a great game that I enjoyed. Although one thing I think it lacks is once you finished the game, everything you did has no impact in the future. It's as if your finished and everything's done unlike Dynasty Warriors 3 when once you finished Story Mode, which I liked, your officer is at a higher level and has better weapons and you can use it in future battles. In Empire mode, when you go to start a new game again, you have to start all again over from the very bottom, novice level and novice weapons. This cycle of finishing and starting all over again get's fairly tiring as once you finished Empires mode the first time, you feel as if you've beaten the entire game and to start all over again would feel like playing the same thing all over again, even though the officer's positions are switiched up in the next new game, unless you choose Historical mode which presets the same officers in their same positions/land area.