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With the new NintendoDS going
from strength-to-strength you’d have thought that new titles for
Nintendo’s
Game Boy Advance wouldn’t be worth bothering about; but I ask
you to take another look at what you could be missing-out on, in
the form of Koei’s release of Dynasty Warriors Advance.
Having been a series to have received much critical acclaim and
commercial success on both the PlayStation2 and Xbox, it’s quite
clear as to why Nintendo jumped at the chance to publish an
exclusive edition of the title on their currently most
successful console. Based on the usual Japanese samurai
storyline of warring factions (in this case three) with three
different characters to choose from in each, the player must
attempt to dominate over each other in the kill-everyone
premise, as the AI has entirely the same intention; if you can
be bothered to read through all the text. Being part Turn-Based,
part Hack-N’-Slash Adventure you could be dubious as to exactly
what it’s trying to pull-off.
Going straight into the game you
have three gameplay modes to choose from, there’s Mosou,
Free and Challenge. Mosou brings you into the
Dynasty Warriors world and is also the name for your
character’s Special Move. Free Mode simply drops you straight
into the action, while Challenge Mode beefs the games replay
value with
 Endurance,
Time Attack and Battle Luck Modes. The main game is not a
pick-up-and-play affair by any means, if you’re one of these
gamers that dismisses Tutorials I’d advise you to take a look
first as you may find yourself throwing it across the room. The
amount of moves on offer isn’t expansive; your main moves are
controlled via the B Button with Power Moves on A and your Mosou
Attack is executed with a combination of the L Trigger and A
Button - when you have sufficiently killed enough enemies to
fill the Mosou Meter - and looks impressive when implemented
with flashy blue flames and results in your character becoming
pretty-much impervious. You’re also provided with six extra
abilities to improve your attacks further, but their actions
simply don’t seem that notable.
The game sprites themselves are
animated very nicely. Characters and enemies look colourful and
detailed and the encouraging level of detail is retained through
the hectic battle sequences. The backgrounds look suitably lush
and have nice depth to them. While the title displays nothing
amazing or that hasn’t been done before on the Game Boy Advance,
at the same time you won’t be disappointed
with any graphical bugs.
There’s the usual Heavy Metal
Guitar-based Soundtrack that’s as popular as ever, but
reproduced nice enough through the Game Boy Advance’s speaker
with the sound effects trying to add a bit more solidarity to
your
 moves each button press.
While you may not be immediately
taken with Dynasty Warriors Advance, with it appearing
little more than frustrating a first, and some controls didn’t
seem as responsive as an accurate level of acceptance (having to
retreat at certain points for the story but getting massacred
instead), but with some perseverance the title hooks you, and
with the Challenge Modes to satisfy going against hordes of
enemies in different scenarios it simply gets more and more
difficult to put down.
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