A great game, a little repetitive but its still a worthwhile gaming experiance
Game play:
The Game play in this expansion to Dynasty Warriors 5 is more or less the same. Kill lots of soldiers and officers as well as fulfilling certain tasks to trigger special events. The Legend mode has 18 new unique maps with a different sort of play to them. You have to choose a character that is recommended to first complete the stage. Once you’ve competed the stage, you can then reply it as any character you want. Legend mode is the main mode because it’s closest to the real ancient Chinese history. You can unlock the new 7 items as well as the old ones that you may have missed in Dynasty Warriors 5 too by completing certain tasks. This also includes any 4th weapons.
The Xtreme Mode is pretty much the same. You survive as long as you can by using your skills as a warrior and by buying meat buns in the shop through the levels you choose as you go along your path of conquest. Of course, you can recruits a maxium of 6 officers to help you but you can only bring out 3 at a time and leave the other 3 in the reserves. They can also recover in the reserves if they have lost any health.
The shop is still the same except with a few extra items you can buy to help you but of course, you need points which serves as money. You can receive points through doing certain tasks such as helping out officers in battle if they request help and as well at the end of the game depending on how you fought.
There’s a new blacksmith feature they’ve added so you can customize your own weapon but instead of using money, you need iron which can be acquired as you beat certain officers or even bandit leaders and officers. They have taken out the fortresses and defence of them but have replaced them with full scale battles which I find better as they bring the feeling that your not just going through random short levels since that’s what you do for most of Xtreme mode.
There are 2 new challenges in the game as well as the 4 old ones. These are just for fun to test your might, there’s also a ranking too you can aim for. Its pretty easy for me.
Now, the reason why I bought this was for the new unique Destiny mode they’ve added and I must say, I loved it and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. The point of it is, you create your own character and then choose an officer to serve under from the three main kingdoms. Each kingdom has a different story mode which follows the story of the Three Kingdoms. The game play in this is much different and I personally think that the main game play should be kept this way.
You can command your own set of troops whether you can send them out to fight or leave them in one place and not only that but you can do your very own tactics such as ambush. You set the ambush in an are by using the order button and your men then hide, it takes a few minutes but once its set, a green square appears on the map where you lead an officer into. You do so and to activate it, you press the order button again they appear leaving the officer panicking and they most likely retreat. There’s even more tactics you can do in the game. The levels are from the main story mode in Dynasty Warriors 5. There’s 8 stages in total you play through which follows the story of the Three Kingdoms. You can obtain skills through the points you earn in battle by setting your own objectives and depending on your performance in battle. Your commanding officer sometimes asks you to do tasks which can also earn you points as well as his respect. You can also receive costumes to dress your officer in as rewards from your commanding officer.
As you go along with the story, you sometimes receive letters from other enemy generals requesting you to join them. You can choose yes or no or even pretend to join them then defect to your own kingdom again in a ploy. Once you complete Destiny mode, you then get an ending explaining your life and what you did. You then get the choice to register him in Edit mode which is where created characters go.
Graphics:
The Graphics are more or less the same as Dynasty Warriors 5. The scenary in Legends is pretty good and the screen can still allow quite a lot of soldiers whether they’re your allies or enemies. The arrows you fire are still a bit dodgey. You can hit a soldier even if your arrow did not exactly hit him but its not too noticable since you dont use arrows that often mainly because your asked to do stuff and its funner just going of and killing soldiers and officers.
Sound:
The sound in this game is the same As Dynasty Warriors 5 but, I’ve noticed in Xtreme mode that they have included music from Dynasty Warriors 2 –Dynasty Warriors 4 which can bring back some old memories for you Dynasty Warriors fans who’ve been playing it since Dynasty Warriors 2. The game music is pretty cool, it stretches from old Chinese music to Rock Music as well as a few metallic sounds in with beat. The Lu Bu theme music is a mix of the old Dynasty Warriors(2 and 3) introduction movie.
Value:
If you don’t have Dynasty Warriors 5 then this game is not the best since you don’t get
Musou(Story mode) with it. The game is aimed at those who own Dynasty Warriors 5 so if you have it I suggest you buy this to go along with it. The new features and Legends are good enough but with Destiny mode, you wont get bored with this game for quite some time since it’s a completely new mode with its own element of game play.
Reviewer’s Tilt:
Overall, Dynasty Warriors 5 Xtreme Legends is a brilliant expansion pack mainly because of Destiny mode. You can also continue to upgrade your own characters from Dynasty Warriors 5 since you can mix them together. I’ve also played Xtreme mode and replayed Musou with some charcters using the new items which is pretty cool. The features are good enough for you Dynasty Warriors fans because I’m one myself, loved every Dynasty Warriors game.