Dynasty Warriors 3 (U)

New: Brand New and Sealed games available

Product Description

The popular Dynasty Warriors tactical action series is back. Dynasty Warriors 3 (U) has tons of new features and environments, adding 10 levels to the original eight along with new troop types, including the terrifying elephant cavalry. You can command your bodyguards with squad-level commands, and take advantage of the improved Musou attacks. The game also features brand-new two-player cooperative and versus modes, along with endurance and time attack modes. And now, if players are caught in a combo, they can evade attacks midair. The greater variety of play modes and moves means this version moves past the kill-or-be-killed approach of past incarnations, giving you more freedom to explore and pursue a wide variety of goals. And where in the past many scenes were available only with subtitles, the entire dramatic content of Dynasty Warriors 3 (U) has been dubbed in English, with an ear to psychological realism.

Review

A great showcase for the PS2, Dynasty Warriors 3 (U) makes both a great hole-up-for-the-weekend title and a good multiplayer party game. The developers must have been busy with many a user test and feedback survey form: most anything you could complain about with DW2 has been overhauled or tweaked, and the combination of these improvements and the addition of the two-player option makes this a truly great PS2 title. If you liked the last version, you will be enthralled with this combination of a compelling story and complex martial arts action.

Parents (and anyone else interested in something a little more socially redeeming than some of the games out there) take note: this game is loosely based on remarkable Chinese legends. The violence is well done and subtle, and playing this game could cause your child to pick up a book (something other than a strategy guide).

Here's what's changed:

• new characters--and more characters--all with more unique personality traits
• great new cinematics (improved visually, and providing a more compelling storyline)
• RPG-style weapons-management and "found items"
• two-player games, as cooperative Musou and Free mode and combative single games.
• fewer life buns, which means players must be more judicious within big battles (and you can no longer think of officers as food sources)
• important updates are now spoken aloud, instead of just flashing by as screen text
• more balance in the powers given each character--people other than the big bruisers--including women characters--have their own advantages
• archers are now even more of a threat, and reasonably indestructible
• for many maps, you now have to be a general before even thinking of climbing on a horse
• elephants

• sparse maps that cause a fair amount of retracing steps
• that stupid, Limp Bizkit-meets-Yes soundtrack
• the controls remain the same, which is nice for those of us who built up callouses on the last version

--Jennifer Hauseman