X-Play Season 3 Episode 37 Dynasty Warriors 5, Kessen III, Dungeon Lords and more!

On tonight's episode of X-Play, we review Dynasty Warriors 5. There are two different philosophies when designing sequels to successful games. One approach is to use the first game as a springboard to try something new, something more ambitious, like recent entries in the Jak and Daxter or Grand Theft Auto franchises, which risks disappointing the target audience. The safe approach is to add more features without altering what made the original a success. Dynasty Warriors 5 falls into the latter category, which should be as surprising to fans as discovering puddles after a thunderstorm. While there is certainly more here to savor for those who love clanging steel for hours at a time, Dynasty Warriors 5 is a safe sequel that won’t lure in a new audience to the series. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to play.

While Koei isn’t the first company to invent the action-strategy genre, the Japanese publisher has milked it for all its worth, releasing a slew of console games designed to appeal to those who like to use their grey matter as much as their thumbs. The Kessen series began as a traditional war game, where players issued commands and watched as epic battles unfolded in real time, but thanks to the overwhelming success of the company’s Dynasty Warriors series, the tactical phase has now taken a back seat in favor of more sword-swinging, pike-piercing, smoke-swirling action in Kessen III. The slickly produced cinematic sequences are still here, and players are still able to issue orders and plan out their strategy before each battle, but once the horses start galloping, you will be an active participant in the war instead of a patient observer.

Mention D.W. Bradley to your fellow gaming friends and you’re bound to get nothing more than a bunch of puzzled stares. But anyone who fondly remembers the heyday of DOS gaming knows D.W. Bradley should really be a household name. He’s the person behind the best trilogy in the long-running Wizardry series (which includes the excellent Crusaders of the Dark Savant) as well as the overly ambitious Wizards & Warriors. Now Bradley is set to take center stage once again with Dungeon Lords, a re-imagining of what PC RPGs are all about.

Only the hardest of hardcore gamers will remember the past adventures of flame-haired Adol Christin in the Ys series. The TurboGrafx-16 CD-ROM Ys: Book I & II won acclaim in 1990, but other installments were essentially also-ran RPGs. The games were so dated the main character didn't have sword-slashing animation. Even with the genre's present-day popularity, it's still a surprise to see the series make a comeback, but Adol can still hold his own in the action/RPG arena.

Plus, a Weird Games segment. Tune in tonight!