Lawrence.com

Devil Kings could best be summed up with this sentence: If it were a college term paper, it would ensure a charge of academic misconduct for plagiarism. Yes, it really is that similar to Dynasty Warriors. Fortunately, it manages to take the formula and slightly improve every aspect of it to at least some degree.

The insane opening CG video should give gamers some idea of what to expect. It's filled with ridiculous amounts of flashy attacks, chaos, and flying bodies. There are six initial characters available, and one more gets unlocked each time you beat Conquest mode. Each character's fighting style is wildly different. The Devil King wields a sword and shotgun, while Lady Butterfly brandishes a huge chaingun. Like Dynasty Warriors, characters are split into multiple factions. Conquest mode consists of a map with 14 countries to capture. Playing like a poor mans' Risk, you can attack neighboring enemy countries to take them over. It's possible to take over several countries in one battle, so it's not guaranteed that each run-through will consist of 14 battles.

Just like Dynasty Warriors, once you choose the mission, your character is placed in the middle of a monstrously huge battle. Your ridiculously powerful character then roams the map, slaughtering hundreds and hundreds of enemy warriors. One of the only real changes to the Dynasty Warriors formula is the different types of enemies. While DW generally stuck to standard human enemies, Devil Kings features Empire Strikes Back-inspired walker enemies, robots, and winged demons. It also features an exact replica of DW's musou meter, only renamed the "fury drive" meter. Once you've slaughtered enough enemies to fill the meter, you can press the circle button to unleash a huge attack. Some of these attacks are automatic, such as swinging a huge cape around in circles, clearing the battlefield. Other characters will go into berserk mode, and their speed and attack power becomes greatly increased. Fury Drive refills automatically when your life gets into the red, which will save your life on many occasions.

Combos are crucial, as they increase your experience points substantially. Getting a 100-hit combo doubles the experience gained, while 200 and 300 will triple and quadruple the amount. As you level up, weapons become more powerful and new special moves become available. These moves can be assigned to the R1 + square and the R1 + triangle button combos. Additionally, you can equip up to three items before you go into battle. These items have varying effects, and can increase your life capacity, experience gained, and attack power.

One of the bigger improvements it makes over the Koei games is purely visual. Characters and terrain are generally crisper and smoother, and animations are far more interesting and fluid. While the DW games were completely flat, Devil Kings features plenty of hills to keep the terrain interesting. The 'story', if you'd like to call it that, is told through an odd combination of CG cutscenes and anime sequences. As can be expected, voice-over work is terribly overdone and corny, and the music is purely cheese-rock riffs. Battle sound effects are neither superb nor terrible.

Yes, it's an extremely short game (expect it to barely take over an hour on your first run-through). Yes, it completely rips off every single aspect of the Dynasty Warriors games. Yes, it can get repetitive. Despite these complaints, it's still a very fun game to just pick up and play to kill some time. Levels aren't nearly as large as the DW maps, so there's significantly less wandering. If you've ever owned or enjoyed a Dynasty Warriors game, it's certainly worth your time to try out Capcom's take on the genre.

Graphics: B+

Sound: B-

First Play: B+

Last Play: B-

Gameplay: B

Overall: 84% B