Dynasty Warriors Advance is the long-awaited handheld conversion KOEI's PlayStation 2 action game. The series is known for being the first game to cram more than a dozen fighters onto one screen at the same time. Few games have been able to compete or top that number since.

Converting an adventure like this to the small screen meant that a few changes would have to be made. For starters, the polygons have got to go. Game Boy Advance can push a few polygons, not several hundred thousand. Second, the third-person view that the series is known for had to be changed. GBA is good at doing top-down adventure games like Zelda so you might as well apply that as your new view. Third, the constant battling can be very chaotic on PS2. That could be left alone for this version, but another change could make the experience more interesting, giving players a new Dynasty Warriors challenge.

And just like that Dynasty Warriors Advance was born. Built like a turn-based strategy game (though including very few strategic elements), DWA separates battles with an interactive map screen. Players can navigate the map by moving to designated places, which are indicated by red circles and a thin line that connects them to your current location. It's the most basic turn-based strategy setup possible. The battle begins when you land on a circle that's being occupied by an enemy. If more than one enemy is on the circle then you have the option of choosing which one to fight (picking the weaker of the bunch is not a bad idea during your first few battles).

Defying the words of love songs that tell us two become one, in DWA one becomes many. The enemy you decide to challenge is just a marking point. Battles are fought away from the map screen, occurring on special areas that differ by location. The enemy you saw on the map joins up with several others to attack from multiple locations. Ah-ha! Dynasty Warriors play mechanics.

To defend, button mash! Or learn the ropes and within a minute or two you'll be whipping out easy combos that rely on the depression of one or two different buttons. That sounds (and is) a bit simplistic, but no one said this would a complex game.

Battles come down to who can move and attack the fastest. They're not particularly hard, though they can be quite frustrating. It looks and sounds like Dynasty Warriors, but it isn't quite the same. Graphically and musically it shares the series characteristics. Several of the DW characters have been brought to the small screen, and things along those lines.

The core gameplay, however, is not a perfect match. Battles are extremely repetitive. I know I'm saying that as if this was the first time repetition struck the series. The whole world knows that's not the case. But for DWA they hoped that if they broke up the battles via a map selection screen, the tiresome act of pressing two buttons wouldn't seem so bad. Maybe it wouldn't even appear to be tiresome at all. In a perfect world that would've been the case; in DWA it's just a distraction; a little something extra to do in between enemy attacks and button taps.

Another apparent battle distraction is item searching. Players will watch their health die pretty quickly, and without an inventory of healing items to get you back on your feet, death is ready to take a soul. Scary thought indeed, but there's a way out. Instead of advancing to circles where enemies await, use your turn to explore the area for items. You'll be transported to the same locations where you first lost your health: the battle arenas. During an item search these locations are free of pesky enemies, allowing you to search openly for a limited time. Items are typically found in boxes and other destructible items. Once you're healthy again, leave the premises and wait for your next turn.

As with the wait in between battles, the wait in between searches is too long. There should be a skip button that lets you bypass the "enemy turn" nonsense. Do we really need to know that he/she is in the process of moving? I think it goes without saying that when I'm not moving and my ally's not taking a turn, my enemy is. Truthfully the ally data is also unnecessary. If the game must it can say it, but always let us skip it.

Gameplay: 6.9
Hack-n-slash madness. “Madness” meaning “it’s a shame my Game Boy doesn’t have an auto feature.” You’ll press the same buttons repeatedly to defeat the same enemies in the same generic fashion. Amazingly this repetitive experience can be entertaining, but not to the point where its repetition is forgotten and all is well in the land of warriors. Proceed with caution. Even the most loyal Dynasty Warriors fans should be weary.

Graphics: 6.5
Average 2D animation with few special effects. The map screen isn’t very pretty, and the battle arena lacks the visual details that made other GBA games stand out.

Sound: 7.5
Dynasty Warriors-style music and sound effects that have been taken down a few notches to run on the GBA’s sound processor. Mostly good, but not even close to the phenomenal sounds of Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and other GBA strategy games.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Button mashing isn’t going to get you great success, grasshopper. Though I’m sure you’ll end up doing it anyway since there aren’t enough combos to keep things interesting.

Concept: 8
The hack-n-slash hit that saw countless sequels on PlayStation 2 is now a Game Boy Advance game. Top-down 2D gameplay replaces the 3D interaction; a turn-based setup has players select where to go and who to fight before each battle begins.

Overall: 6.9
In spurts Dynasty Warriors Advance is a decent time-killer. I enjoy the game for five minutes here and there, 30 at most. It is not enjoyable to play if I force myself to stick around for any time period longer than that. The developers didn’t have many options with a game like this, one that’s so dependent on technology. But if you hate the thought of putting a game down because it might get boring, it doesn’t matter what you think of technology and how it’s implemented because you won’t like this game.