With PlayStation Vita, the Dynasty Warriors team tweaked the well-established one vs. one thousand formula. A playable demo at E3 demonstrated how Dynasty Warriors will utilize the PlayStation Vita’s hardware. "It’s a new game," a Tecmo Koei representative started before handing me the Vita. He must have read my mind because I was going to ask if this was a port or remixed version like other Dynasty Warriors titles.
The demo put me in control of Zhao Yun and the first thing I noticed were moving dots on the screen. These were actually my fingertips; Dynasty Warriors tracked the points I touched on the rear touch panel. I mowed down a wave of enemies and charged up a musou meter. Before I send Zhao Yun into a frenzy, the Tecmo Koei rep stopped me and explained the Shadow Musou feature.
Trigger this attack to make Zhao Yun shove his spear into the ground. While Shadow Musou was active, I tapped the rear touch panel to make explosive magma sear enemies. I think the developers were playing with the idea that the rear touch panel was underground and that’s kind of thoughtful.
Dynasty Warriors for Vita has another touch screen attack. Tap the front screen and you can use a burst move to send enemies flying. This seems like its designed as a crowd control maneuver. Moving forward, I triggered a scripted ambush event. Three soldiers leapt in the air (in bullet time) and I had to tap them to attack. This part of the demo utilized the front touch screen and the Vita’s sixaxis controls.
The demo concluded with a Lu Bu duel. Instead of mashing attack, I swiped the touch screen to strike and tapped the rear touch pad to block. You can still move around to strike Lu Bu with the analog stick, but the battle was more like Infinity Blade or perhaps Monster Hunter: Dynamic Hunting than a regular Dynasty Warriors bout.
Tecmo Koei plan to have Dynasty Warriors (temporary title) ready for the PlayStation Vita’s launch window.
