The first part of the series i played, and what a good start it was!
Instead of just you against a huge army like in most games, you also have an army on your side. A very weak army, and it's your job to help them, if someone is in trouble, go to him and help him win the figth, if an ambush appears hury to it an stop them.
You can also just walk ahead of the rest and kill everything you see, but you can easily get beated up when there's noone around to help.
Also each character has his own stats, you raise them by picking up items like 'Atack Up +1', you get these items out of crates or of enemies you defeated.
A good and hard game, but lacks multiplayer, if you haven't played it yet, and love Dynasty Warriors 3 or 4 get this, if you've never played a Dynasty Warriors before, start out with Dynasty Warriors 4.