The Good & The Bad - Dynasty Warriors 2 Review 

You never knew you wanted a DW review till you got it

DW2 gave birth to one of my all time favorite game series!

Best opening , best gameplay, best difficulty, hasn't been topped since. A true classic

Heeeyyy my first member video!

My first member video, about my first Dynasty Warriors and that opening really brings on the nostalgia as I've seen it so many times and love it to this day. Zhou Yu playing the flute and throwing it up to show the fire arrows hitting Cao Cao's fleet🤩 I still remember playing as Dian Wei and getting sniped off a horse I'd stolen and dying by an archer on the yellow turban rebellion stage 🤣

love it, night, still here. i just work often

Dynasty Warriors 2 such a charming little game. I didn't play it until after I played DW3, so DW2 really felt like a demo or a first draft of what 3 could be. DW3 isn't perfect but it is my favourite which really means there isn't much of a reason to play DW2 unless you're curious or nostalgic.

OMG the review series has started!!!!! I've never been so hyped for a NightOwl video! Been requesting this since the beginning and I can not wait to watch all the upcoming reviews! Never played DW2, but I was surprised by the positives you stated in the game. If i find an old copy ill give it a go

More compliments for wuuuuuuu I seeeeee 👀

There's not enough content on DW2 online. Thank you for this deep dive!

Now this is the series we’ve been waiting for!

I would give this game a 7/10 because this was my very first game in the ps2 and i would definitely play this again if I could

This new microphone is a breath of fresh air

If any DW were to ever get a HD/Remake it's gotta be 3

i never play dynasty warriors 2 on the ps2 amazing video 100% and this game is the bluepaint for the later dynasty warriors that we know of today

I might try this game out again can't wait for more of this video.

Oh nice looking forward to these

Love your videos dude this really brings back the memories and got me back into playing the warriors series!

I've been replaying a bit of DW2 (coincidentally with Sun Shang Xiang as well) and I largely agree with your view here. There's a real sense of proceeding and fighting alongside your allies, even your normal troops can help support you greatly. If you go into a battle and just rush forward without support, the enemy will surround you and make you pay. By DW5 that sense is lost and its a real shame. It is still present in DW3-4, but by 5 the ally AI has become so... watered down, for reasons I'm still not sure of. In DW2 you feel like a general leading troops here and there. More powerful than most, but still needing the support of your team to make it work. Morale was definitely at its best here. Being able to see not just the stars, but the bars and watching it tick down as you take out more troops is so satisfying that it boggles my mind that they never brought this back, ever.

This game is my all time favorite game from my child hood.

Generic units not feeling like background paper is my preference

I'm so glad that this game has opened the door to the sixth generation of gaming to me along with Midnight Club.

This was my first game ever and the only game I played over and over again because it was just that damn good. Granted my next Warriors game was Samurai Warriors and then Warriors Orochi. So I didn't get to play much of the older games as a kid

I remember i had a chance to buy DW3 or DW5 since i played 4 i was like 5 will be better still happy i went with my choice!

So there's one thing about DW2 that I've not seen mentioned and maybe because it's so rare to pull it off (Idk how I did back in the day either) but there was a thing that I guess was like a precursor to the storm rush ability in dw8 but instead of furiously attacking, you were blocking and parrying attacks from multiple directions. It was awesome when it happened rarely (last I recall I think I triggered it once on yellow turbans and once on hu lao gate) and I have no idea how it's done to this day.

love this series

I love this game! My 3 main favorite DW games are 2, 3, and 8. Each has their own unique feeling to it. Dynasty Warriors 2 honestly feels more like a 3D beat-em-up compared to a hack 'n slash like the later games. I loved the difficulty and it has my favorite Guan Du in the series. The biggest negative I have is that Yellow Turban Rebellion and Hu Lao Gate are boring and you run into them with every character. The rest of the stages in the game are really good and fun, but when 2/5 of a character's Musou Mode is the same two stages you can't really marathon a bunch of characters at once.

officers getting back health every time they get knocked down ruins the game.

THIS is the game that made me Beg my mum & dad for a Playstation 2. I saw in a playstation magazine a deal you got a PS2 & DW2 in a bundle. As a little kid I just wanted a game where I wasn't alone fighting baddies. I Loved the fact I had a whole army on my side and even Named generals with me. Was one of the best Christmas's ever when I found out they actually got me it! It was a whole year until I got past Hu Lao Gate! I didn't realise I could change the difficulty! and that I didn't HAVE to beat Lu Bu! But I was more than happy with the 2 levels lol. Also I ended up learning all of the guitar from the OST :D DW4 was the peak for me though WHAT A GAME :D

Yeah i dont know... a lot of quality of life improvements (all the ones you mentioned) were missing from this one but i still remember vividly stumbling upon it at my friends house and getting instantly hooked. If it werent for 2 idk that i would have ever discovered the series so it would probably be an 8 or 9 for me, also considering that it was like unheard of at the time to fit that many characters on the screen at once. Awesome review though man, great watch

it may be lacking replayability by modern standards, but i remember sinking hundreds of hours into this back when it was new. i've rarely been as hyped for a game release as i've been with this one after i played the demo on one of those ps2 demo discs we had back then. good times for sure. also the spelling mistake at 5:43 made me chuckle.

This was the only DW game where the peons felt somewhat of a task to kill not just you feeling like a zero turn lawn mower and they where all a blades of grass.After 2 they were easier to kill up to 4 but after regular soldiers gradually almost where pointless might as well ran to the officers and beat the map 10 mins .which to me making the solders weaker made the whole massive battle immersion disappear.

After playing DW2 again years later it really hasn't aged that well. It felt more like a demo due to the lack of stages. You can definitely tell they were still trying to the formula down for future games. I do miss peons being aggressive and actually mattering. If you advanced without your allies you would really be in trouble.

I really hate the fact that if you send a general flying they restore health, it made me so pissed when I was a kid

The peons actually being a threat is good. The fact that they can stagger you out of a combo is not. Officers being dangerous is good. The constant healing and buffing is bad

WuuuuUUUUUUUUUUU

The save icon for ps2 will change color when you complete the game idk the exact trigger but it swaps from brown to blue

Modding has come a long way for this game, pretty much all your issues mentioned in this are fixed with mods now. If you'd like to check them out I have a link to our dscrd server in one of my recent vids.

I never play Dw2 when i first played it. I played Dynasty Warriors 1 then i started loving it when i bought Dw3 then i bought Dw2. I lovr Dw2 bc all soldiers atk you so bad n wants to kill you😂 But one thing i hate is that they only get like 3 atk n in Dw3 they got same char imagine if Zhou Cang, Xu Sheng from wu relewse in Dw8 then Dw9 a brand new character same w Dw6 they took out Xio sister n Jiang Wei.......

The enemy heals are for sure the most annoying thing in this game!!

I know some people have asked for remastered versions of old DW games mostly ive heard is 3 and 4. But.. why would they do remastered old games? When every DW games basically has the same story with each entry adds new things and/or continues more of the story where the last entry left it while counting the same story. Wouldn't make sense to remastered a old version with old stories IMO. Is the only entry I see not to have a remastered or remake. After all each entry is basically a "remake " pf the last entry putting more stories.

Dw10 we will have 100+ char to play😂✌️i counted Dw9 char n its 90+

Bro I don’t get you lol the point of 2 and 3 were to make the games challenging… I hate that you can change weapons in the new games… for example, pang tong in #3 had such a crappy weapon/move set that when you beat his story, it made you feel good because of the grind… why would I put guan yu’s spear with pang tong?? It’s stupid

make more reviews but go more in depth