Dynasty Warriors 6

For those who don't know what the Dynasty Warriors series is, or have only heard of it in passing, its an interesting story. Basically all of the games in the series have followed the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which follows a period in history where three rival factions fought over China. While the novel is historically inaccurate to begin with, the game takes it to a whole new level. Your character, whichever one you choose, can kill hundreds of enemies and turn the tide of a battle on his (or her, despite no female ever fighting in the actual war) own.

The game series itself has been plagued by reviews claiming a lack of originality between titles and this is, for the most part, true. Games 2-5 were essentially the same with more characters, horses and moves added (and a few "innovations" which did little to gameplay). It followed a rigid combo fomula of pressing two buttons (we'll use X and Y for this purpose) which were a quick attack (X) and a strong attack (Y) and you used these in combination. Dynasty warriors 6 doesn't meander from this too much but instead switches it from concentrating on going "XXY XXY XXY" to instead going "XXXXXXXXXXXXXX". This might sound a bit repetitive (the only reason i haven't given the game a 5 star rating for fun is because it will eventually get repetative) but characters pull off a variety of spectacular looking moves with each press, making the game surprisingly enjoyable as you watch your character destroy armies with simple button presses. The heavy attack still exists and its sole purpose is to break the opponents block, then follow up with a more powerful strike.

But its not *that* simple. Dynasty Warriors 6 introduces the "Renbu" system to the mix, which allows you to build up a gauge that, when full, will make you do even more spectacular attacks with each press of the X or Y button. This is one of the defining changes of the game system, and works so much better than the aging system the previous games used.

As mentioned above the series used to claim it had put "innovations" into the game to improve the gameplay, but these did little to help it along (for example the implementation of siege combat in Dynasty Warriors 4 affected about 3 battles). This tradition is continued with the addition of swimming. Its pointless if i'm honest but it does make the battlefield more open, and i can't take points away from it for something that ultimatly affects the game so little.

One innovation that does work though is the "Skills System". This basically is freedom to build up your character along a certain path after each battle, adding a feeling of an RPG to the mix. These allow you to increase the size of your renbu gauge to get more spectacular moves or to just increase your stats. Its a nice addition, and is preferable to the games previous system of enemies dropping stat increases. The game always had a leveling system, but a new one actually affects the gameplay in a noticable way and you may have to go through a battle on Free Mode before starting a new Musou mode on Normal difficulty to ensure you can win.

Which brings me on nicely to the difficulty level of the game. Dynasty Warriors is notorious for getting very easy very quickly, with quite frankly appalling AI and easy wins over more powerful opponents just by juggling them in the air. With the implementation of the Renbu system, you have to be much more precise in your use of your attacks, particularly against officers, otherwise if you miss you could be on the end of a VERY long combo from a more powerful enemy which can wipe you out. The AI still needs improving, but it has improved since Dynasty Warriors 5, which is nice to see.

Fans of the game will get a bit of a shock i'm afriad. Several characters have been cut from the roster (Meng Huo, Zhu Rong and Zuo Ci are the biggest casulties) and others have been given the same Renbu attacks as others. There are 35 characters in all, and about 19 styles, with only 17 characters having a Musou (Story) mode of thier own. However the dialogue has significantly improved (those who have played the previous titles will know just how utterly dire the dialogue was) and story mode now includes a more immersive story for each character.

Free mode is still avaliable, and some fans will be disappointed that this is one of only 2 modes where all the characters are playable. Challenge mode is also still in the mix, with the regular line up of "kill as many enemies as possible" and "Destroy as many items as possible" etc.

Fans at this point are probably going "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE!!" but I assure you, having a proper story mode with proper dialogue, a good combat system, a good leveling system, a good unlocking system that isn't just finishing each characters story mode(which combined with the Xbox Achievements makes getting all the characters a real task), and a complete change of look makes this game feel like a reviving of the series, one that was desperatly needed.

Well I've just written one HUGE review, but I genuinely think it deserves it. Its enjoyable to the last and while many may find it repetitive after a while, killing hundreds, even thousands of enemies, never gets old.

So overall its a 8.9 out of ten, just missing out on the 9 because of a few little things like the eventual repetiveness and lack of some characters story mode. Buy this game if you want a good hack and slash around ancient China!

...of the series. I bought it for my young son, we both fans of all series of Orochi etc. warriors. Really good fun, mechanics and visual side of game much, much better than old ones. Everything moves smooth. I expected a wee bit more new, different solutions, so it will be probably last part I've bought (third after Orochi and Samurai), cos too much (almost)the same stuff can makes you sick. Generally very good, 10/10 for game, 3/10 for Koei inventions department.

If you want to chill out and kill loads of enemys this is the perfect game. I have followed the series from playstation to xbox360! It has been such a success for me and i do recommend for any1.

Hoping that the next game will allow you to play online with people and maybe a weapon upgrade scheme? or even bodyguards like the previous games that was cool!

5/5 for the game tho!