Dynasty Warriors Advance is basically the GBA trying its best to cram that classic musou chaos onto a tiny screen. You still get the same "one warrior vs. a thousand dudes" vibe, but everything's scaled down—smaller battlefields, shorter combos, and chibi-fied officers. Surprisingly, it kinda works.

At first I thought the controls would feel cramped, but hacking through waves of peons with Lu Bu still has that satisfying rhythm. The morale system’s here too, so if your allies start getting wrecked across the map, you’ll actually feel the pressure to bail them out. Just don’t expect the flashy moves from the PS2 versions—this one’s more about quick, bite-sized battles.

It’s janky in places (good luck telling some officers apart at that resolution), but for a portable Dynasty Warriors in 2005, they made it weirdly playable.