I normally start my review with a little bit of in-game story, but with Devil Kings I'm at a complete loss, because despite having completed several of the characters' stories, I've established that there is no story to the game. The Sherlock Holmes saying, "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" has come true for me, because however improbable, the game really does have no main story to it.

To fans, and loathers, of this anime inspired gaming style, it is instantly recognisable as a Dynasty Warriors clone because, quite simply, it is. To be more specific, it is a clone of Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires with a few tweaks that improve gameplay, but with the loss of multiplayer and tactics, plus the game's painfully small size. The cult fan base of the Dynasty Warriors games appear to be the target audience of this game, but whether or not imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery will have to be determined on how well it sells.

The aim is clearly to become the Devil King and ruler of the world, which is supposed to be Japan, despite it looking nothing at all like Japan. It's like someone got a jigsaw map of Japan and gave it to a duck, and then gave the duck some LSD, and then it ate some pieces... well I guess you can tell where this is going. You play as one of a dozen (six to start and unlockables later) leaders with distinctive playing styles, yet they are all playable by hitting a single button for the best part of half an hour.

The gameplay is a mix of feudal-era Japanese sword fighting and the Wild West's gun fighting, with a sprinkling of magic and combination moves all rolled up into arcade style combat. Every province you fight in has its own level design based around the character that you're attacking; this can be anything from Q-Ball's Cathedral City, where the fighting takes place in open garden areas, to the foothills and steppes in the Red Minotaur kingdom.

Aesthetics aside, you battle through hundreds of identical soldiers, occasionally coming upon a gateway that you have to beat a door guard to get through, which is still abysmally simple to do. Sooner or later you come across a henchman who is the tricky customer on the battlefield, but compared to the boss they are still relatively easy to defeat. Eventually you get to your ultimate target, the leader of the army and owner of the province you just obliterated like it was a stroll in the park, although of course most parks don't have a thousand men armed with pikes.

As I've already said, you can play through entire levels by only ever hitting a single button, and I actually completed the game with Lady Butterfly without figuring out that combo moves even existed, partly because she's impossible to perform them with and partly because she's powerful enough not to need them - making her an ideal beginners' character. When you do discover the combo moves, they're just a combination of button mashing and are only really of use to the weaker characters.

You then get your boost attacks - these aren't anything great and some are downright stupid to use, as you can open yourself up to attack from everyone around you, especially when there are archers nearby. Despite these being able to hit a dozen or so units at once, they can quite often be surpassed by simply jumping out of a crowd and then some good old button mashing to kill everyone. The final move is the Fury Drive Attack, which is a powerful special move that is excellent for use in those tough spots, but they take time to charge up through uses of combo moves and so they are sometimes best used to take out the boss at the end of the level.

The final part of the gameplay is the unlockable features, which can be used in the game, such as new characters, moves, weapons and items to wield, plus some additional unlockables such as graphics, videos and sound files that are only likely to interest the hardcore fans of the anime style.

The A.I. for the soldiers is abysmal; they are the minions in James Bond films, throwing themselves onto your blades or into your barrel, leaving you essentially no need to move except to collect experience points. On the other hand, the bosses are incredibly difficult and you have to use a clever combination of running and attacking to beat them; these two extremes don't compliment each other and can wind up wasting hours of your life fighting through levels, only to die at the end without even being able to save.

The music is good, but nothing spectacular, with the most impressive being saved for the character introduction movies and when you complete the game. These range from classical Japanese to modern rock, depending on who you're playing as, while the in-game music depends on who you're attacking. There's a significant lack of voices in the game, but that's typical with this style, so this likely won't appeal to anyone from outside the usual market for the genre. Graphically it isn't raising the bar much from the competition, although it does handle a hundred enemies on screen at once. However, the best graphics are saved for the main characters and not the minions. The penalty for this is putting up with a lot of pop-up anime style character announcements for events, such as a henchman arriving to open a gate, and these can stack up, so in the middle of a fight you can find yourself watching three or four announcements happening. It does however use a brilliant mix of CG and anime throughout, but be prepared for long opening movies - I would suggest getting a cup of coffee before starting it up for the first time.

Devil Kings is an unashamed Dynasty Warriors clone, which is great news for fans of the series, as it improves on many of DW's flaws. However, it isn't likely to garner any support from outside the already existing fan base, meaning that only those DW fans are going to lose hours of their lives to the addictive if repetitive gameplay and frustratingly hard boss battles. As for the story, well, if you can figure out what it's all about, answers on a postcard are welcome!

Reviewed by Nik Gregory for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).