When it comes to products of entertainment and leisure, be they media or otherwise, there’s very little historically that stands up in terms of tangible quality when followed by the number ‘5’. Police Academy 5, Halloween 5, US 5, Maroon 5 and the Sinclair C5. Bearing that in mind, how do videogames compare when an individual series reaches the infamous number? Do they crumple beneath the weight of gathered expectation, or do they merely build on their established roots and provide a polished and honed adventure? With Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends, it’s a case of success and failure in equal measure amid a hack-and-slash genre that’s fast becoming more prone to stagnancy than gaming’s saturated first-person shooter department.
In Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends, players are given an admirable multitude of game modes to choose from, all of which involve huge sways of carnage amid oriental-themed battlefields. Newly included Destiny Mode sees the player assume the role of a simple foot soldier with initially limited attributes, which are gradually honed and improved through in-game combat performance, acquired weaponry, limited tactical execution, and ranked military progression. Destiny Mode also contains an intriguing narrative thread that weaves constantly around the player and offers the opportunity for tempting acts of betrayal as well as standard heroism.
In Legend Mode players can experience 18 all-new game maps, which include historical as was as fictional battle scenarios. While progressing through the ever-challenging maps, players are able to grow more accustomed to various characters, and learn more about them and their specific viewpoints and relationships. In its entirety, Legend Mode feels somewhat like a battling soap opera, though certainly one too violent for a regular daytime slot.
Also new in Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends is a 2-player co-op option to its Xtreme Mode, where the player or players face the ongoing challenge of clearing as many game missions as possible - with healing only possible through store purchases between stages. Though it sounds relatively two-dimensional in principle, Xtreme Mode also allows for the recruitment of troops to aid your cause (a maximum of 6 officers can be aligned, 3 of which can be taken into battle). And the collection of taxes and relentless expansion of territory also play important roles in your bid for success, especially in furthering the reach of your economy. Completed deeds and received items accrued in both Destiny and Legend modes are converted into game currency, and can be used directly for item purchase while in Xtreme Mode.
Gamers recurrently keen on bite-sized portions of frantic action can still delve into the established Dynasty Warriors Challenge Mode, which presents six separate challenges, including the new ‘Gatekeeper’ and ‘Speed Strike’ missions. In Gatekeeper, you are charged with defending a gate position from hordes of onrushing enemies, and Speed Strike exists as a time-attack styled mission where players will quickly find themselves knee-deep in corpses while eradicating everything in their path during a set time limit. Beyond the direct gameplay facets, Xtreme Legends also contains an in-depth Edit Mode, where individual playable characters can be lovingly crafted with access to everything from face, hair, clothing, and headgear. Players can also adjust the sex, height, weight and even the in-game voice intonation of their created characters. Those characters formed in Edit Mode can be freely used in both Legend and Xtreme modes.
Graphically, Xtreme Legends looks good from the off; its opening rendered sequence, which foretells of dramatic conquests to come, is suitably gritty while also exuding a defined sense of emotion and class. In-game visuals, including characters, environments, and special effects are also thoroughly well produced—though in no way groundbreaking. Environments are expansive (thankfully accompanied by a small on-screen navigation map), and never fail to portray an accurate sensation of faith to the oriental themes running through the entire game. Narrative plot twists and explanations between missions are relayed via pleasing but static 2D character pop-ups that play through acted dialogue and text blocks. Character animation is always fluid and believable, but the sheer on-screen weight of numbers during battles can occasionally lean toward slowdown, and always leans toward confusion when it comes to attacking with assured targeting. Moreover, the game camera is not open to the player for swinging around the action to glean better angles; only a single centring shoulder button exists, which jolts both the camera and the eye directly behind the character and grants zero advantage while being hacked from all sides.
The sound in Xtreme Legends is, by turns, well implemented and painfully misplaced. The musical score suffers from a sporadic identity crisis as it swings from grating guitar-based rock anthems to gloriously elegant oriental compositions. Trying to please differing tastes is perhaps not the best way to go developmentally when a game really needs to rely on a themed soundtrack for its atmosphere. The voice acting, (specifically mission preambles), which occupies a considerable chunk of Xtreme Legends’ aural offering, often slips into the realms of laughable melodrama and hammy delivery - something all too common in modern videogames. Weapon clashes, war cries, character reactions, and general peripheral battle sounds are all solid and well executed, and also manage to draw the player further into the relentlessly frenetic action.
Gameplay runs, as you’d expect from a hack-and-slash title, at a singularly frantic pace, with unrefined button mashing and the timed release of stored ‘Musou’ (a charged attack) being the order of the day; little player effort is expended on anything other than another willing corpse-in-waiting. And here’s where the rot sets in. Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends is a thoroughly satisfactory representation of its genre: it is killing to excess from the get-go with marginal shoehorned secondary objectives, directional prompting, and tactical elements that have no great bearing on success. But while amassing mountains of defeated enemies is the game’s obvious driving ambition, it is also its greatest point of detraction. Those players bred on the Dynasty Warriors series will find nothing exceptionally new to further whet their already dulled appetites, and new players are unlikely to be attracted to a game that struggles to compare to the likes of God of War, Spartan: Total Warrior, or even Devil Kings. There’s little genuine sense of character progression, and the game’s wafer thin RPG longings fall flat amid narrative dialogue that offers no directional input from the player. Furthermore - and Xtreme Legends isn’t the only guilty party to this - the lack of environmental interaction (beyond crate smashing to uncover items) is unforgivable in terms of extending gameplay opportunity. Why have such beautifully rendered buildings scattered throughout a level if they exist merely as inaccessible window dressing? The already fast-paced action would take on an air of cloying claustrophobia when placed in close quarters… but sadly we’ll never know.
Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends accomplishes set genre requirements with the air of assurance established throughout its long-running history, but it creates no new elements or even attempts to convincingly reinvent the old. It’s a by-the-numbers experience, and that number is 5. Xtreme Legends is yet another example of an entertainment franchise resting on its laurels and being far too reliant on past achievements.
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