This game along with all previous Dynasty Warriors games are all about diving headlong
into swarms of enemies and carving a bloody swathe through them.
Not exact matches
The main mechanics
of stealth rely upon are Dracula's ability to distract guards with a
swarm of bats, his power to possess
enemies for a short period and his slightly odd skill
of being able to transform
into a rat, allowing him to pass relatively undisturbed and fit through grates, granting access to otherwise locked off areas.
It's cumbersome enough fending off
enemies as they
swarm you from all sides, but once you run
into levels with traps like clusters
of bombs and sawblades flying through the air, it gets downright frustrating.
To top things off, there is a challenge mode that has players going
into arenas based on the game's stages and facing off against
swarms of enemies in order to get top scores.
While all these additions breathed some life
into this tired formula, I still felt completely bored while I was actually on the battlefield, hacking away at a seemingly endless
swarm of enemies using the same exact attacks, over and over again.
You'll come across many scenarios where you will be in an area that is
swarming with
enemies that are unaware
of your presence, and you have to hack
into cameras to scope out the area, hack
into objects to set them off and temporarily distract your
enemies and doing everything you can to remain out
of site.
The areas are all laid out very well and double jumping to a higher level to unleash a
swarm of daggers
into an
enemy felt rewarding.
It bleeds
into the game itself,
of course, not just background trimmings — the Kojima attention to detail comes in how a guard will notice a rifle on the ground, dropped by his formerly - conscious comrade; it makes for a smelly Snake emerging from his hiding spot in a bin, flanked by a
swarm of flies (and able to be discovered easier thanks to his stench); it comes in the form
of the utterly ludicrous boss
enemies you face.
Part 2 is the action stage and sees ever increasing
swarms of enemies pitch
into view and make their way crystal - ward.