Genre: Strategy
Publisher: Koei
Developer: Omega Force
Release Date: October 24, 2006

Samurai Warriors. Dynasty Warriors. Two Untold Legends games. X-Men Legends 2. Bounty Hounds. I'm probably forgetting a few more titles, but I think the point I'm making is clear enough: A lot of bad guys are dying on the PSP these days. En masse. Not a good time to be a henchman on a portable system, is it?

It's also much harder for another game like this to really stick out. These titles inherently demand massive amounts of playtime, often somewhere in between spending 25 hours with a simple Japanese-style RPG and dedicating all of your waking hours to a Nippon Ichi strategy RPG. Thankfully, Koei has changed around enough aspects since the first game, so don't let the "Vol. 2" part of the title scare you.

Those who played the first Dynasty Warriors for PSP may remember a certain much-maligned "feature": an on-screen map took up about one-third of the screen (giving DS users something to gloat about!). This move was ostensibly made to stress the fledgling PSP hardware a little less than a full-screen game would have, although you wouldn't have noticed any power-saving being put to use. The draw distance was inexcusably short-sighted, slowdown was rampant, and the polygon count seemed out of place from the launch lineup. The worst affront of all was that this on-the-cheap package retailed at $50 in the U.S.!

For Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2, all but that final mistake will be rectified. While it may not be worth another 50 bones, it does improve on a number of aspects from the get-go. Full-screen gameplay is finally available. The graphics, while still not fully up to par with the PS2 versions, especially Dynasty Warriors 5, are improved enough to make one wonder why one-third of the screen was obscured the last time around, especially when there is much less slowdown in this edition.

The most important feature of all is the new branching stage system, reminiscent of the Empire Mode in the Dynasty Warriors Empires line, albeit not as fully featured. Depending on what occurs in the battle, namely who dies and whether or not victory is achieved, different battlegrounds open up for the next go-around.

There is no micromanagement to speak of, except for the new mount management features, allowing players to customize the appearance of the horses and elephants (which also gain experience this time around, mind you!) in the stable, which can hold up to eight mounts. Mostly, it is just simple manipulation of color options and armor types, which doesn't seem to affect gameplay too much, although you'll look pretty snappy in multiplayer battles.

The A.I. is far more challenging in this iteration, too. While previous Dynasty Warriors games relied mostly on the A.I. of generals, Vol. 2 takes advantage of advances made in Dynasty Warriors 5. You'll actually have to look out for the little guys, who will gladly flank, surround, and peck away at your general's health until it's far too late. This means no more mindless tapping of a single button; you'll need to learn proper combos to be successful. When these combos are learned and mastered, lowly infantrymen do become a much lesser threat, but think – you actually have to learn them this time around! If you haven't played Dynasty Warriors 5 yet, just imagine that you'll press X, X, O, and X again, instead of just X, X, X, X, X, X ....

With 300 generals available, there should be quite a few of the aforementioned branching stages to play through. Vol. 2 could easily have dropped the Vol. 2 and simply been the sequel to the original, because, at least in terms of Dynasty Warriors titles, that is the type of release this has proven to be thus far. Again, this definitely isn't Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires, graphically or gameplay-wise, but it's close enough that it should satiate fans who have a severe hankering for portable Dynasty Warriors action, at least until the next iteration rolls around. I'm sure the pain of long plane rides for Dynasty Warriors nerds everywhere will be alleviated by the availability of four-player ad-hoc matches in Vol. 2.

The audio seems par for the course so far. Samples and songs are mostly ripped from other Dynasty Warriors games, so expect to hear the same gruff yelps for support about 600 times until you lend that jerkstore general some assistance, all to the beautiful soundtrack of straight-up butt rock (as the gaming journalists seem to like calling bad '80s metal sounds). Perhaps this stuff pumps up somebody to charge into battle, but me, I'd prefer generic MIDI orchestral music to generic guitar rock.

Expect a full review soon, and look forward to Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 on October 24th.