Dynasty Warriors: Strike Force Hands-On

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce is Koei's upcoming strategy action game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game is based on the PSP game of the same name released last year. While the title carried the Dynasty Warriors name, it had an experimental feel to it due to the addition of some role-playing elements that were a departure from the typical Dynasty Warriors formula. Chief among the role-playing additions were items to craft, a town, a leveling system, and, most significantly, online play for up to four players. The tweaks to the formula wound up striking a chord with fans of the series whose positive response has led Koei to bring the game to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We had the chance to visit Koei's offices in Japan to get a look at the work-in-progress version of the game on the PlayStation to see how it's making the leap from portable to console.

The console incarnation of Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce builds on the already promising work done in the PSP game. You'll play as a soldier in one of four factions. As always, three of them will be based on historical dynasties out of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel, with a fourth that isn't tied to history. Each faction will have its own story and perspective on the events that will serve as fuel for the various missions you'll undertake. While this all sounds by the numbers for a Dynasty Warriors game, Strikeforce introduces the notion of a town hub that will serve as your home base. The town will feature several locations, such as a blacksmith, a shop, an armory, and a new fortune teller who willl let you play a roulette-style minigame. In between missions, you'll spend time in your town and review the various loot you've collected on your missions, sell what you don't want, use certain types of materials to improve your weapons and armor, and even do some work improving various aspects of the town itself. When you're ready to head on out, you'll make your way to a board in town and review the various available missions to choose which you want to take on, and then you'll head to the gate.

Missions will work a bit differently on the consoles than they did on the PSP. Whereas you would take missions on solo in the PSP game unless you got a friend to hop on via Wi-Fi to help, the console game will pair you up with three AI buddies if you're playing solo. Though the AI will control your partners, you'll be able to call up an in-game menu and offer them direction, such as attacking a specific target, attacking anything at will, or defending, if you see fit. The missions will be a mix of content from the PSP and new material. The two missions we tried were based on those in the PSP game and played as we remember them, although in the case of the Kowloon gate mission there were a lot more tigers around than we remember. In addition, Koei plans to make extra missions and content available for download into the game once it has shipped, free of charge, which is a nice touch. When playing online you'll be able to play versus or co-op with a friend and use text or voice chat to talk smack or coordinate, depending on the mode you play.

As far as leveling goes, your character you will grow in ability and skill based on performance in a mission. Your ability level will affect your attack, defense, movement, and power, while skill will impact how much you can use certain weapons in the various classes and what level weapons you can use. In addition, you'll be able to enhance your character's base stats through the use of the various weapons, armor, and items you'll come across in the game. While it may sound complicated, the various leveling and loot systems work as well as they did in the PSP and are easy to pick up.

The gameplay is solid and has seen some console-specific enhancements in the form of the new fury transformations, which you can trigger once you build up enough energy in combat and which add a superpowered twist to the action that hasn't really been seen in the series before. While the powerful musou attacks are still on hand, the fury transformations power up your fighters to a superhuman level for a short time and allow them to perform some over-the-top attacks. The game controls just fine on the PlayStation 3, with the controls mapping smoothly to the PlayStation 3 controller. In fact, if you've played the PSP game, you may find the game handles better thanks to the additional buttons and analog stick.

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce's visuals have been given an appropriate face-lift from the PSP game. The level of detail is on par with, if not higher than, the console Dynasty Warriors games, even in the work-in-progress game we saw running on the PS3. The character models are highly detailed, the environments are nicely done, and there are bucket loads of special effects all humming along at a high and consistent frame rate.

Based on what we played, Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce should take the Dynasty Warriors series in a positive direction. While many of the core gameplay mechanics fans have come to expect from the series are on hand, the new RPG elements and cooperative online play bring some fresh ideas to the action. The game is due for release this November in Japan, but Koei hasn't set a firm date for the US beyond early 2010. Given how thin both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are for this type of online game, fans should stay on the lookout for more on the game as Koei firms up its release plans.