Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle

In the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China, three new commanders step forward to unify the land under their own banner: the Azure banner of the Dragon, the Crimson banner of the Phoenix, and the Gold banner of the Chimera.

The player's goal is to conquer China with one of these three commanders. To do so, the player has to control a majority of territories by the end of a series of encounters between the chosen commander and one of the two other available characters.

In order to gain control of a region, the player must fight through the multiple zones of the battlefield and seize enemy bases, supply bases, armories and finally the enemy's main camp. All the while, the rival character tries to do the same thing. In each of the zones, there is a quota of soldiers that must be defeated before being able to move on, or even leave that field. After reaching the quota, an enemy officer must be routed to gain control of the base. When all enemy bases are under the player's control, the main camp can be attacked.

When both Commanders are in the same zone, a duel between the two is activated. When either of them is defeated, he is pushed back to one of the starting points of the battlefield.

The battle system is a combination of normal attacks and charge attacks, mixed to perform different combos, as well as the classic Musou attack, a power attack unleashed when the Musou gauge is full. The game also features a new obstacle attack. The obstacle attack can be used when the player collects five coins, dropped by enemies or boxes. There are many types of obstacle attacks, such as freezing the enemy, stealing coins, stealing Musou energy, or dropping boulders.

Instead of being able to control the usual characters from the Dynasty Warriors series, characters are available as cards in the Battle Deck. Each player's deck is set at the beginning of each battle. These cards will determine which obstacle attacks will be usable and which officers will defend the bases. Each card has different stats, and either give obstacle attacks or skill boosts (or in some cases, both). Cards can level up at the end of battles, and when the player is victorious, new cards can be obtained, with more being awarded for a higher total number of KO's during the battle.

The game also features a wireless multiplayer mode, which allows up to three players to compete against each other.