Dynasty Warriors Next

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a fictional novelization of the story of the Three Kingdoms warring for control of China after the fall of the Han Dynasty.  Few people have read this wonderful tale, I highly recommend it if you are an avid reader and are looking for something different, but most gamers on the planet have heard of Dynasty Warriors; the seemingly never-ending game series spawned by the story.

There are so many Dynasty Warriors games it's mind-boggling.  Not only are there seven games from the main series, but there are countless spin offs:  Dynasty Warriors Xtreme, Dynasty Warriors Gundam, Samurai Warriors, Warriors Orochi, and the list goes on.  Today we're going to focus on one of the newer titles, and one of the few games of the series to be created specifically for a mobile device and it's also the game that I first purchased when I got my PSVita.

Dynasty Warriors Next doesn't really differ from the rest of the series too much.  The game pits you as one of the notable warriors from the Three Kingdoms, based upon whichever campaign mission you are currently playing, against the other kingdoms and their armies.  The moves are basic button-mashing combos, just simple things like square, square, triangle.  Each one hits a different range of enemies and has some specific uses like block breaking or status effects.  Once you've defeated enough soldiers your Musou gauge will fill up and you'll be able to press circle for your special attack.  This hits a large area of enemies and deals considerable damage, but the changes to it in Next versus the other games is that it can be adapted to a secondary type of attack.  If you tap the touch screen with two fingers when your Musou is full, you do a different type of special attack that involves touching one of the touch screens in some way or shaking the PSVita.  These touch attacks do a bit more damage and last longer than the normal Musou attack so using the latter is basically worthless.

Other changes to Next involve the Break gauge.  Once you fill the bar you can tap the map and instantly capture the base that you're currently in.  Bases are capture points that can affect the battle in a variety of ways such as giving items or calling reinforcements, so as you may think, they are vital to the success of any battle.  Normally the bases are captured by lowering the base's defense to zero, which can really take some time on the harder difficulties.  Noting that, you can tell how helpful the Break gauge can be.

The duels break up the monotonous combat.

Another of the PSVita's adaptations to this series is a series of touch mini-games.  Not only do these occur intermittently throughout the campaigns, but they are also available to be played whenever in the Gala mode.  These range from a duel with officers to a game where you trace calligraphy using both touch pads to uncover and then fill in the characters.  Honestly, these could have easily been left out of the game.  All they really do is break up the game and try to cater to the more gimmicky aspects of the Vita.

Edit mode has too few choices to be really great.

A few other notable aspects of the game are Conquest and Edit mode.  Conquest allows you to play a custom game with or without friends and using any characters that you've created in Edit mode.  I feel like both of these could have been more robust, there are limited options in Edit mode, and Conquest leaves a lot to be desired in it's risk-like, turn-based game play.

Dynasty Warriors is a wonderful series, and I can never get enough of it.  It's great to be a warrior in the Three Kingdoms era and stand against the ebb and flow of destiny while you cut down thousands of soldiers.  The odds are always against you as you struggle to end the conflict and bring peace back to the land.  The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, hence your epic legend, begins with the fall of the Han.