A beat-em frenzy which storms onto the PS2
The game allows you to take part in epic battles, controlling a character with a set of bodyguards if chosen and running off into a battlefield filled with 1000 of enemies per stage. That's right, the power of the Playstation 2 is shown well in this game.
Set in the romance era of China, where 3 dynasties fight to take over and control the mainland. The story is inspired by the Romance of the Three Kingdoms book. The Musou mode allows you to choose your character and dynasty and set off into a story mode for that particular dynasty, with full animated CG cutscenes.
Before you begin the stage, you get an overview of the entire map, which is useful, as you would be needing it, during battle in later stages. This is where you plan and learn your characters and allies and set bodyguards. Once you start, you enter the battle.
You control your character in third person view, running around with you're weapon, tapping Circle and Triangle allows you to attack surrounding enemies, which has you hitting up to 5 to 6 enemies at a time, this is the main gameplay of the game.
There is also a powerful Musou attack, which unleashes this attack which can knock around 15 enemies back and cuase a lot of damage in an area.
You are also armed with a bow, which allows you to shoot arrows, however there's a limited on arrows unfortunately, which you will end up finding around in levels or after defeating archers.
The strategic part of the levels comes into play as events occur during the battle, these events effect the morale for both armies, good or bad. The bad effects needs to be sorts out which has you running around one location to the other, in order to sort these problems correctly. Hopefully travelling on a horse will ease this problem, as other general use them and knocking them off and hi-jacking there horse gives you this advantage.
Most of the time, you end up defeating generals in order to advance the battlefield, this giving a positive higher morale for your armies, which allows them to grow stronger in order to challenge the foes later one.
There are items which are found around the level in pots or from fallen enemies, which help you recover item or give you a power up to temporary boost your performance in a certain area.
Once you defeat generals, you collect items which upgrade your stats, from the power of your weapons, better health and Musou, by the end of each stage and at the end of the story mode, you would of levelled up your character to be extremely strong and earn a lot more bodyguards in different styles.
You will end up unlocking a lot of content over time, there are a total of over 25 general for you to play as well as well as re-playing the 8 stages from the Musou mode in the single play mode, giving you an easier time making your character grow stronger.
There are a few flaws in the game, sometimes other soldiers on the field disappear and you end up getting attacked by those invisible troops, as there would be too many troops on screen at one time. Also the fighting gets boring over a while and unlocking and leveling up those generals adds no other rewards and value to the game expect out of interest. Also some characters are flawed or overpowered compared to other characters.
The presentation is really good and does give the game a good look and feel, everything from visuals to soundtrack and music. Everything from the levels to the character meshes really do show how great the game is.
Overall, this game really shows off the Playstation 2 hardware and you'll be able to enjoy battles on an epic scale, thanks to its well thought out battle system and strategic placement. You will have fun with this game and would last you for quite some time.