Strategy/Sim

Game Description: As a young Buddhist monk in China, you’ve never had much cause for adventure in your sedentary life. Your life becomes very exciting when Lady Kannon, one of heaven’s six guardians, suddenly contacts you. Journeying through immense 3D maps, you’ll meet up with a host of amazing personalities in your search for the remaining five guardians of heaven. The object of the game is to bring the entire group to India; you’ll need all of the magic, weaponry, and reflexes you can drum up.

Saiyuki is at it's a heart a turn-based strategy role-playing game (RPG) similar to games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Vandal Hearts. Whether or not this genre is appropriate given the source material is debatable, but it's an interesting route the developers choose to take nonetheless.

Since Im not going to attempt to tackle the meta-issues or any cultural relevance here, Ill focus on the nuts and bolts of the game itself, irrespective of its historical background.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Violence 

According to the ESRB, this game contains: Use of Tobacco & Alcohol

It is unfortunate that the simulation genre as it is known in Japan is not more popular in America. For years the Japanese game industry has enjoyed the success of many titles that define the term "simulation" with eccentric literalness.

Chi has already touched on this in his main review, but I feel compelled to emphasize it even more. The amount of detail, especially historical detail that has gone into Dynasty Warriors 3 is simply mind-boggling. I can think of no other game that offers a database of information about people and events in the game as an option to select from the main menu screen. During the briefing before every battle, one of the options you are given is to read a brief historical context of the battle you are about to fight. The characters and battles in Dynasty Warriors 3 are based on a famous Chinese historical novel, The Romance Of The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. (It is worth noting that those of us used to the Yale translations of the characters names will be confused at first, as Dynasty Warriors 3 uses a more modern translation (Cao Cao instead of Tsao Tsao, etc.)) Not only are you offered an incredible number of characters to play with, but no matter who you choose, you will be playing as a historical figure from one of the most interesting periods in China's rich history. Quite simply, Koei has created a game that is not only addictively fun, but educational.

Dynasty Warriors 3 is, at its core, what many old-school gamers call a beat-em-up. In the tradition of coin-op classics like Double Dragon and Final Fight, a beat-'em-ups most distinguishing characteristic is usually the endless hordes of computer opponents a player must combat (usually with fists, weapons and anything else a player can get his hands on) and the repetitive nature of the gameplay which is usually tantamount to a wholelotta button-mashing.

Game Description: The popular Dynasty Warriors tactical action series is back. Dynasty Warriors 3 has tons of new features and environments, adding 10 levels to the original eight and new troop types, including the terrifying elephant cavalry. You can command your bodyguards with squad-level commands, and take advantage of the improved Musou attacks. The game also features brand-new two-player cooperative and versus modes, along with endurance and time attack modes. And now, if players are caught in a combo, they can evade attacks midair. The greater variety of play modes amd moves means this version moves past the kill-or-be-killed approach of past incarnations, giving you more freedom to explore and pursue a wide variety of goals. And where in the past many scenes were available only with subtitles, the entire dramatic content of Dyanasty Warriors 3 has been dubbed in English, with an ear to psychological realism.