A new look, but not. A new set up, but not. DW5 is a new spin on old-school fun.
STORYLINE:
A Dynasty Warriors game just wouldn't be a Dynasty Warriors game without a confusing story and cheesey diologue. They could have improved it over time, I guess, but somehow it would be just wrong. It has become a cliche to turn this game on and laughed at the voiceactors. Without the cornyness of it all...it just would not be Dynasty Warriors.
As expected the tradition of bad diologue and confusing one-liners was continued in this addition, but the concept of a solid story...If Dynasty Warriors ever intended to have one...was almost disappointingly thrown out the window due to the free-for-all map-like structure in the way DW5: Empires was set up. Campains are set up as chapters and, because the player can literally play as anyone in the game (and thats a LOT of characters, not includeing ten that you can create on your own). If you play a chapter as the wrong character or characters, you can totally miss the overall story. It doesn't matter much in a Dynasty Warrior game, but for those looking for that laugh they might get frustrated searchng for it.
GAMEPLAY:
The game play is pretty basic, not to hard, easy to learn, and expecially fun if two players co-op. It's a little more than disappointing that there isn't any online capability for this game yet, but chances are that you'll still play it over and over.
You can begin by ether creating your "custom" character first or just diving strait into the Campains or "Empire mode" . I suggest creating your custom character(s) first because this is the ony way you can add the "Broadsword" and "Rapier" weapon styles in the mix, when you play the campains later. You can also copy the styles of already created chracters, but this isn't really that nessasry unless you feel like having a Lu Bu clone with a fro running around. There aren't many choices in customizing your character's looks, but, like I said, there is a fro hairsytyle option. Hard to pass that up and not use it for a laugh.
Anyway the real meat of the game begins in "Empire mode" the goal being to start a campain as any of the territories (even the ones you can make up yourself) and take over the rest through brute force and, in VERY rare cases, actual cunning. How the stratigy part of this works as a whole is entirely up to you due to the downtime between battles and the way you set your prefrences in a campian's begining. Most of the downtime can be spent organizing troops, upgrading items, hiring mercinaries looking for work (including your custom characters) and making "alliances". It's fun to mess with but most of it really isn't needed until you change the settings to hard or beyond. After getting all that stratagy stuff out of the way you proceed and can invade another territory of your choice...or defend...or whatever...it's all pretty much the same thing.
GRAPHICS:
I was expecting a lot more. It looks just like the second gen platform verison. It doesn't even look like they tried to beef it up for the third gen concules, like the 360.
SOUNDS: The music wasn't that great. I expected that the voice acting would be just as terrifically bad as it usually was, it was quality bad voiceacting, but I thought that the would try a little harder on the music the music seemed recycled.