Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is the latest in a long line of Warriors games, but it’s a bit different from any of them that I have played before. This game has the same characters and uses the historical place, but rather than the hack n’ slash games where you fight your way action-style or the strategy games where you manage all aspect of the kingdom, Godseekers is more a combination of the two. Godseekers is a turn-based strategy game where you will be fighting your way through the continent, one turn at a time.

In the cut-scenes, the characters are realistic and look very well done, but if you make the faces look that real, you need to make the hair at least move a bit. When the hair stays put, no matter how much they move, it dissolves the illusion of reality. But even still, the characters are quite well done. Some of them have slight changes from the previous games. When you first start up the game, it unlocks "historical" costumes if you have other Dynasty Warriors games installed. The new characters are quite interesting. Lixia is extremely colorful and vivid. She’s definitely unique.

Godseekers is in Japanese with subtitles. Normally in these games, I have a problem with that since you miss so much stuff while you're fighting, but since you have unlimited time on these turns, you won’t miss anything that is being said. The background music fits pretty well. On the world map, it’s a soothing piece that sounds faintly Asian. During battle, you will get more fierce music that fits the mood of the battles.

Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers starts you off in a pretty familiar time, right after the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Zhou Yun and Lei Bin (a new face) are in the turban’s area looking around when they find a woman sealed away. Lei Bin is a scholar who can’t resist the find. Luckily, Zhou Yun is a fighter. A few of the turbans come back, so it’s the perfect time to teach you how to play the game. The tutorial does a pretty good job of teaching you how to play the game relatively quickly, but comprehensively. After that battle, Lei Bin manages to unseal Lixia, a being of such power that she was sealed away to make sure she couldn’t be used for evil. She goes with the men, directing them to take her south. Funny enough, they listen without hesitation and thus begins your journey across China.

Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is a turn-based strategy game. You have different types of units: Attack, Defense, Technique, Speed, and Spirit. Each type has its own strengths and weakness, so you will need to get familiar with all of them if you want to master the game. You have short-ranged attackers and long-ranged attackers. Once again, these are useful against different enemies in different situations. You will be controlling several units and you can choose where to place these units before battle. Just remember that some officers can’t be moved, usually because they are central to the story in their proper locations.

Once your battle starts, you will trade off turns with the enemy. You will need to move to the right places so that your attacks will hit the enemies and so that you aren’t exposed. You don’t have to worry about friendly fire. If you fire through one of your units, it does not hurt them. After you move to where you want, you then select what you want your units to do. You can also tell them which direction to attack. If you find that you cannot hit what you want, you can back up and move again. Your moves are not final until you click Confirm Attack. You can also choose to defend on your turn. Be careful though because you cannot defend from rear attacks. Make sure to turn your units so their backsides are covered! You will also want to attack the enemy from behind if possible. If not, go for their sides. It’s much easier to strike when you’re not head-on. Your musou attacks can really come in handy, after you fill the gauge. You also need to keep an eye on morale. The morale can make or break yours and the enemy’s units. Synchro can also help you once the gauge is full. It basically gives you double the turns and a lot of bonuses. You can only use Synchro if there is an enemy in range. Battle objectives will give you rewards if you can pull them off. At the end of battles, you may earn items and even chests with good stuff inside.

As you progress in the story, you will unlock more and more cities and areas. They will usually have more than one scenario that you can play. You will unlock more characters as you go, giving you more options of units to use. Just note that some will be locked based on the story.

Before each battle in Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers, you can choose your difficulty level. You’ve got the choice of Easy, Normal, or Hard. Since this is a strategy game, those difficulty levels really just make it so that you don’t have to have as much strategy to survive. If you want it harder, bump up the difficulty. If you really just want to see the story, then there’s nothing wrong with playing through on Easy.

Your weapons and the items you take into battle can make your life a lot easier. Obviously the stronger your weapons is, the easier it will be to defeat your enemies. You will also need to remember to take food into battle with you, if you happen to want to heal. You will have to use the items on your turn, so make sure to play in your healing if you need it.

Given that Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is turn-based, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting the hang of the controls. Use the D-pad to move your cursor to select a square. After that, you are simply using (X) to select the options you want to choose. You use energy to attack the enemy and you can use attacks until you run out of energy. You will recover energy each turn, but you still need to be careful how much you use at times. If you choose to defend, it will not use any energy, so you’ll be able to bank it up. You can have your units attack in any order that you want. (L1) and (R1) will switch between your units and (L2) and (R2) turn the camera. The right stick will tilt the camera up and down and you can use (O) to skip the battle scenes, speeding things up quite a bit. I got tired of watching every single unit attack, so I used (O) a lot. (Options) brings up your in-battle Menu. You can see various things from there, some of them quite helpful.

I really like this version of the Dynasty Warriors series. It’s kind of like a Dynasty Warriors series game, but done in a similar gameplay to Disgaea, but not quite as complicated. It’s a well done story based on history that lets you put your strategies to the test. If you’re looking for something different from the Dynasty Warriors series, but still with the same overall characters and scenarios, check out Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers. It just might be the game for you!