During the dawn of the PlayStation 2, Koei realized something that would make it a lot of money: as fun as it is to vanquish bad guys, it's even more fun to vanquish dozens of bad guys. Even hundreds. And so Dynasty Warriors, formerly a one-on-one versus fighter for PlayStation, turned into an epic battle royale on a scale theretofore unseen in video games. Of course, we've seen this done plenty of times since then, whether in the numerous Dynasty Warriors sequels, Koei's own Crimson Seas, or countless other imitators. Now, Koei's dusting off the formula once more for a sortie on the PSP. While it's a fair re-creation of the tried and tested franchise, a lack of polish and some extreme repetition take this one down a few notches.

As in past Dynasty Warriors games, you get to choose from dozens of player characters, spread between the three kingdoms of ancient Chinese history and a pool of unaligned warriors. Each group gets its own little story to play through, but the story elements are little more than a few screens full of text between each battle. The knock-down, drag-out brawling is the somewhat tarnished star here.


Fun on the (Silk) Road

That's not to say there aren't a few innovations. A nifty revamp of the Officer System allows you to take up to four bodyguards into battle with you, which give you stat boosts or access to special abilities. There are over 200 officers in all, which'll require a lot of time -- and patience -- to acquire. Luckily, you can trade them with friends, if circumstances permit.

A more important new feature is the Battlefield Area System, which splits each epic battle up into more playable chunks. You get to choose how to proceed to the enemy camp via a grid-based map, and every time you make a move and engage in battle the various friendly and hostile CPU generals do so as well. This system adds a small bit of strategy -- mostly concerning the capture of valuable, time-granting supply depots -- but more importantly makes the game more travel-friendly. You may not have the time to play a full battle while on the train to work, but a few squares? Sure. More portable game developers should be thinking like this.