Dynasty Warriors 6 Review / Discussion

[Rumiа]

[center]Name: Dynasty Warriors 6 - Empires
Published by: KOEI
Developed by: Omega Force
Genre: Action
Number of Players: 1-2
Release Date:
Europe: March 7, 2008
Also Available On: PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PC


Dynasty Warriors 6 is an easy-going hack and slash game; produced by Omega force, the heart of the dynasty warriors games, having produced just about every dynasty warriors game there is.
So, if they have this much experience why is it is easy going? In the Teen rated genre I feel that there should have been room for a lot more gore and blood. In fact one drop of blood would have been nice as when you find yourself hacking up a bandit on a mercenary mission with your ‘Cao Ren’ he simply dies without a trace of blood.
Unfortunately Omega force have brought nothing new to the table and kept near to all of the aspects of the game the same and maybe even made it worse. In the worst case scenario all of the narrative would have been lost, but don’t worry; Omega force cut out virtually all of the narrative throughout the playing experience, just so that you can sit and wonder what on earth is going on within the plot.

This is a game for button-masher haters to be wary of, as the latest edition of the dynasty warrior games brings back a few aspects of their familiar button-mashing ways which help the game in some senses but in other exploit it.

For any first time dynasty warrior players this game would be an absolute nightmare as all it does is spew foreign countries and eras at you and gives you what could be reffered to as a ‘crash course’. This means that it doesn’t go into any real detail about that countries history, past, present or why you should even decide to venture into it.
Knowing that the story isn’t the focus of the game I ventured further into it, although it would have been nice to know something about the countries and eras I had decided to enter in detail. I myself thought the concept of having as many characters as possible was a nice idea at most, but in the end Omega force just went overboard and complete demolished your motivation to stay on one storyboard and start a new one as there are so many different characters to chose from.
I would trump this being a bad thing over being a good thing as you never really get a chance to play the game, perhaps focusing on a select few characters would have been a more effective way to hold weight to the story as well as letting the player keep motivation to play on.
You end up playing most of the game in Musou and free mode; the only difference being is that in free mode it lets you replay previous battles with unlocked characters and in addition you can gain levels as experience points are vital across the board.

Fighting is exactly what you would expect it to be; running around mashing every button possible killing off bandits, soldiers and all sorts off one by one. This becomes an extremely tedious task and one may question whether it is worth even having that aspect of the game, why not turn dynasty warriors into a simple conquest board game as that is what it has proven to be so far.

Your chosen warrior may execute a power attack which will utterly shatter your enemies guard, although it proves to be effective within the game, there is no climatic build up or even a climatic release to this attack, you simply do it, which is another aspect I feel Omega should have focused on.
I found the entire landscape of the game to be flat and lifeless and although you can move in places that may have been restricted in previous dynasty games such as bodies of water, they have failed to catch up to where other games have been for years.

This game performed even worse on the PS3 then it did on the Xbox 360, PS3 multiplayer mode is virtually impossible to play as you will experience a major slow-down in the game. Challenge mode is available to those who love to banter in their high scores, however, most of the challenges are tedious and dry such as ‘Speed run’ which is racing from one base on a map to another, trying to get there as quickly as possible.

On the whole I found dynasty warriors to be a pointless and tedious game with no real motivation to continue playing. If you are a die –hard dynasty warriors fan, then you should go out and buy a copy; if not, I highly recommend that you do not. To be honest I think we would all like to see something a little different out of the dynasty warriors franchise as it has so much potential.

Discuss your views on Dynasty warriors. [/center]

[El-Rrey]

As a fan of the DW series, this game was the worst one! Even though it got better at a graphic level, the game had several characters cut, many clones and few history modes (although some were epix such as Lu Bu's).
That Renbu system pretty much screwed the concept of those "DW" games, it was a whole other thing: all you had to do is to press Square like 3 times, roll on the floor, press 3 times Square again, use a Charge attack then rool again! Seriously, i was dissapointed and almost regretted having bought this game.
DW 6 Empires was a bit better since there were less clones and they got ride of that Renbu system but the lack of relationship between characters and the lack of modes were its biggest defaults.

Hopefully we have DW 7 coming out (1st April for Europe and 29th of March for NA) soon, this game seems to be the best of the series! Definatly buying and i'm almost sure i'm not gonna regret it since this game gets back to the old system (pre-DW6), we get a new kingdom as well as a huge roster!

[King of Nothing]

I'm surprised you don't like Dynasty Warriors, seeing as how God of War stole the combat system. Do you think God of War is tedious and pointless too?

[The Amazing Avian]

DW is pretty good, but I detested 6. My favorite DW game was Strikeforce for the PSP since it made the characters a bit more flexible in terms of customization and it reminded me of the overly difficult Monster Hunter games on the PSP. I hope 7 has the same gameplay style.