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Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires Review (PS3 Version Reviewed)
Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is one of the latest in a long line of games in the Warriors series. Dynasty Warriors started as a 1-on-1 fighting game on the PS1, and evolved into the true hack-and-slash type game it has been from then on when they made the transition to the PS2 with Dynasty Warriors 2. Based on the book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Dynasty Warriors games attempt to portray the unification of China.
The Empires spin-offs in the series are designed as a slightly more tactical approach to the hack and slash genre of gaming. You take the role of an ancient Chinese warrior, of which there are many to choose from, and start the game as a vagrant (unattached, moving around the land), officer (serving your liege) or ruler (controlling an army), with the ultimate goal of being part of the faction that controls the entire landmass. There are 5 scenarios to choose from, each with it’s own default land distribution and placement of officers and rulers.
To conquer land mass you must invade it, this involves either waiting for your liege to instruct you to do so in council, or being ruler and choosing to invade. Being under someone as ruler can always be a bit irritating as a council only gets held every 3 months and unless you want to go through the mercenary missions, it ends up merely just breaking up the playing part of the game, which is irritating. Once invading you must defeat the enemy commander, after luring him out by linking the allied main base and enemy main base through smaller bases that can be captured and lost throughout the course of battle, then attacking the main base thoroughly. This can get a bit tedious but is generally an improvement, as it prevents the old kamikaze strategy of running to the enemy commander at the beginning and defeating them immediately, a strategy that I have used many times in previous installments.
During campaigns, you can see the different personalities of the officers come through in different parts of the game. Dong Zhuo is the only leader who will appear on the map anywhere near before the end of the battle, Lu Bu will generally defect to the other side, given the chance, to prove his disloyalty, and this is a nice touch, especially to those familiar with the book, knowing these traits to be fairly accurate, albeit sometimes maybe overpronounced slightly.
The gameplay is basically what has come to be expected from the Dynasty Warriors games, except with the new, slightly modified fighting engine that was introduced in Dynasty Warriors 6, it becomes even more relentlessly repetitive, as most maps in the game can be conquered by mashing the square button, and scarcely touching anything else. This is due to the new renbu system, which has been modified for Empires so that a certain number of KOs in the battle isn’t needed for the harder hitting combos.
Graphically, the game stands up quite well for the amount of characters it allows on screen, and very rarely suffered from any noticeable frame rate drops. The character models are decent enough, and the bodies that you have dealt with will stay on the floor long enough for a very nice looking body count to be created as you wipe out the enemy ranks. However, the scenery and surroundings on the stages does look a little dated at times, and the darker stages have extremely bad visibility problems when trying to get from place to place
The background music for the game is very similar to that of the previous games, slightly energetic, music that can possibly drag the gamer into a very aggressive method of playing. Other sounds of the game tend to be fairly mediocre, groans of death from the weaker soldiers appear far too often and the blocking of attacks give a very unsatisfying ‘ting’. Surprise attacks on bases lead to a ridiculous amount of “what’s that?” being exclaimed from the troops, both laughable and annoying. Voice acting is also inconsistent, with some characters sounding less than convincing in certain situations.
As a person who has played the Dynasty Warriors games now for many years and several iterations, I can’t say that I care much for some of the newer character models and weapon choices that were implemented in 6. Many of the weapons are far too slow to be well usable in the earlier stages of the game, and seems to have removed some of the originality characters had earlier in the series.
More than this though, the lack of a quick play mode hurts this game quite considerably. It would be nice if there was the option to just hop into battle, and be able to have a game started up quickly. As it is, Empire mode is the only game mode that is available, and the campaigns do tend to get off to a fairly slow start, so it’s not ideal for those moments where you just don’t have enough time to be able to commit to playing for a while.
Local split-screen multiplayer co-op is available, where a 2nd player can take control of another general on the map to help take over the map, but only when the 1st player has gained generals as friends, and means the 2nd player has a very limited selection of generals to use. Online is not available, but I am generally of the opinion that the transition to online for the Dynasty Warriors games would not be a particularly smooth one.
In conclusion, a very typical addition to the Dynasty Warriors series, one that seems to continue to suffer from the transition to the next generation combat engine, and is very much lacking in new ideas and originality. That being said, it is not awful, and fans of the series are likely to still enjoy this iteration, albeit a certain yearning for that little bit more in the way of ideas from the Warriors team continues to be an issue. Not brilliant, but definitely not awful.
6.4/10
Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is one of the latest in a long line of games in the Warriors series. Dynasty Warriors started as a 1-on-1 fighting game on the PS1, and evolved into the true hack-and-slash type game it has been from then on when they made the transition to the PS2 with Dynasty Warriors 2. Based on the book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Dynasty Warriors games attempt to portray the unification of China.
The Empires spin-offs in the series are designed as a slightly more tactical approach to the hack and slash genre of gaming. You take the role of an ancient Chinese warrior, of which there are many to choose from, and start the game as a vagrant (unattached, moving around the land), officer (serving your liege) or ruler (controlling an army), with the ultimate goal of being part of the faction that controls the entire landmass. There are 5 scenarios to choose from, each with it’s own default land distribution and placement of officers and rulers.
To conquer land mass you must invade it, this involves either waiting for your liege to instruct you to do so in council, or being ruler and choosing to invade. Being under someone as ruler can always be a bit irritating as a council only gets held every 3 months and unless you want to go through the mercenary missions, it ends up merely just breaking up the playing part of the game, which is irritating. Once invading you must defeat the enemy commander, after luring him out by linking the allied main base and enemy main base through smaller bases that can be captured and lost throughout the course of battle, then attacking the main base thoroughly. This can get a bit tedious but is generally an improvement, as it prevents the old kamikaze strategy of running to the enemy commander at the beginning and defeating them immediately, a strategy that I have used many times in previous installments.
During campaigns, you can see the different personalities of the officers come through in different parts of the game. Dong Zhuo is the only leader who will appear on the map anywhere near before the end of the battle, Lu Bu will generally defect to the other side, given the chance, to prove his disloyalty, and this is a nice touch, especially to those familiar with the book, knowing these traits to be fairly accurate, albeit sometimes maybe overpronounced slightly.
The gameplay is basically what has come to be expected from the Dynasty Warriors games, except with the new, slightly modified fighting engine that was introduced in Dynasty Warriors 6, it becomes even more relentlessly repetitive, as most maps in the game can be conquered by mashing the square button, and scarcely touching anything else. This is due to the new renbu system, which has been modified for Empires so that a certain number of KOs in the battle isn’t needed for the harder hitting combos.
Graphically, the game stands up quite well for the amount of characters it allows on screen, and very rarely suffered from any noticeable frame rate drops. The character models are decent enough, and the bodies that you have dealt with will stay on the floor long enough for a very nice looking body count to be created as you wipe out the enemy ranks. However, the scenery and surroundings on the stages does look a little dated at times, and the darker stages have extremely bad visibility problems when trying to get from place to place
The background music for the game is very similar to that of the previous games, slightly energetic, music that can possibly drag the gamer into a very aggressive method of playing. Other sounds of the game tend to be fairly mediocre, groans of death from the weaker soldiers appear far too often and the blocking of attacks give a very unsatisfying ‘ting’. Surprise attacks on bases lead to a ridiculous amount of “what’s that?” being exclaimed from the troops, both laughable and annoying. Voice acting is also inconsistent, with some characters sounding less than convincing in certain situations.
As a person who has played the Dynasty Warriors games now for many years and several iterations, I can’t say that I care much for some of the newer character models and weapon choices that were implemented in 6. Many of the weapons are far too slow to be well usable in the earlier stages of the game, and seems to have removed some of the originality characters had earlier in the series.
More than this though, the lack of a quick play mode hurts this game quite considerably. It would be nice if there was the option to just hop into battle, and be able to have a game started up quickly. As it is, Empire mode is the only game mode that is available, and the campaigns do tend to get off to a fairly slow start, so it’s not ideal for those moments where you just don’t have enough time to be able to commit to playing for a while.
Local split-screen multiplayer co-op is available, where a 2nd player can take control of another general on the map to help take over the map, but only when the 1st player has gained generals as friends, and means the 2nd player has a very limited selection of generals to use. Online is not available, but I am generally of the opinion that the transition to online for the Dynasty Warriors games would not be a particularly smooth one.
In conclusion, a very typical addition to the Dynasty Warriors series, one that seems to continue to suffer from the transition to the next generation combat engine, and is very much lacking in new ideas and originality. That being said, it is not awful, and fans of the series are likely to still enjoy this iteration, albeit a certain yearning for that little bit more in the way of ideas from the Warriors team continues to be an issue. Not brilliant, but definitely not awful.
6.4/10
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Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires Review (PS3 Version Reviewed)
Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is one of the latest in a long line of games in the Warriors series. Dynasty Warriors started as a 1-on-1 fighting game on the PS1, and evolved into the true hack-and-slash type game it has been from then on when they made the transition to the PS2 with Dynasty Warriors 2. Based on the book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Dynasty Warriors games attempt to portray the unification of China.
The Empires spin-offs in the series are designed as a slightly more tactical approach to the hack and slash genre of gaming. You take the role of an ancient Chinese warrior, of which there are many to choose from, and start the game as a vagrant (unattached, moving around the land), officer (serving your liege) or ruler (controlling an army), with the ultimate goal of being part of the faction that controls the entire landmass. There are 5 scenarios to choose from, each with it’s own default land distribution and placement of officers and rulers.
To conquer land mass you must invade it, this involves either waiting for your liege to instruct you to do so in council, or being ruler and choosing to invade. Being under someone as ruler can always be a bit irritating as a council only gets held every 3 months and unless you want to go through the mercenary missions, it ends up merely just breaking up the playing part of the game, which is irritating. Once invading you must defeat the enemy commander, after luring him out by linking the allied main base and enemy main base through smaller bases that can be captured and lost throughout the course of battle, then attacking the main base thoroughly. This can get a bit tedious but is generally an improvement, as it prevents the old kamikaze strategy of running to the enemy commander at the beginning and defeating them immediately, a strategy that I have used many times in previous installments.
During campaigns, you can see the different personalities of the officers come through in different parts of the game. Dong Zhuo is the only leader who will appear on the map anywhere near before the end of the battle, Lu Bu will generally defect to the other side, given the chance, to prove his disloyalty, and this is a nice touch, especially to those familiar with the book, knowing these traits to be fairly accurate, albeit sometimes maybe overpronounced slightly.
The gameplay is basically what has come to be expected from the Dynasty Warriors games, except with the new, slightly modified fighting engine that was introduced in Dynasty Warriors 6, it becomes even more relentlessly repetitive, as most maps in the game can be conquered by mashing the square button, and scarcely touching anything else. This is due to the new renbu system, which has been modified for Empires so that a certain number of KOs in the battle isn’t needed for the harder hitting combos.
Graphically, the game stands up quite well for the amount of characters it allows on screen, and very rarely suffered from any noticeable frame rate drops. The character models are decent enough, and the bodies that you have dealt with will stay on the floor long enough for a very nice looking body count to be created as you wipe out the enemy ranks. However, the scenery and surroundings on the stages does look a little dated at times, and the darker stages have extremely bad visibility problems when trying to get from place to place
The background music for the game is very similar to that of the previous games, slightly energetic, music that can possibly drag the gamer into a very aggressive method of playing. Other sounds of the game tend to be fairly mediocre, groans of death from the weaker soldiers appear far too often and the blocking of attacks give a very unsatisfying ‘ting’. Surprise attacks on bases lead to a ridiculous amount of “what’s that?” being exclaimed from the troops, both laughable and annoying. Voice acting is also inconsistent, with some characters sounding less than convincing in certain situations.
As a person who has played the Dynasty Warriors games now for many years and several iterations, I can’t say that I care much for some of the newer character models and weapon choices that were implemented in 6. Many of the weapons are far too slow to be well usable in the earlier stages of the game, and seems to have removed some of the originality characters had earlier in the series.
More than this though, the lack of a quick play mode hurts this game quite considerably. It would be nice if there was the option to just hop into battle, and be able to have a game started up quickly. As it is, Empire mode is the only game mode that is available, and the campaigns do tend to get off to a fairly slow start, so it’s not ideal for those moments where you just don’t have enough time to be able to commit to playing for a while.
Local split-screen multiplayer co-op is available, where a 2nd player can take control of another general on the map to help take over the map, but only when the 1st player has gained generals as friends, and means the 2nd player has a very limited selection of generals to use. Online is not available, but I am generally of the opinion that the transition to online for the Dynasty Warriors games would not be a particularly smooth one.
In conclusion, a very typical addition to the Dynasty Warriors series, one that seems to continue to suffer from the transition to the next generation combat engine, and is very much lacking in new ideas and originality. That being said, it is not awful, and fans of the series are likely to still enjoy this iteration, albeit a certain yearning for that little bit more in the way of ideas from the Warriors team continues to be an issue. Not brilliant, but definitely not awful.
6.4/10
Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is one of the latest in a long line of games in the Warriors series. Dynasty Warriors started as a 1-on-1 fighting game on the PS1, and evolved into the true hack-and-slash type game it has been from then on when they made the transition to the PS2 with Dynasty Warriors 2. Based on the book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Dynasty Warriors games attempt to portray the unification of China.
The Empires spin-offs in the series are designed as a slightly more tactical approach to the hack and slash genre of gaming. You take the role of an ancient Chinese warrior, of which there are many to choose from, and start the game as a vagrant (unattached, moving around the land), officer (serving your liege) or ruler (controlling an army), with the ultimate goal of being part of the faction that controls the entire landmass. There are 5 scenarios to choose from, each with it’s own default land distribution and placement of officers and rulers.
To conquer land mass you must invade it, this involves either waiting for your liege to instruct you to do so in council, or being ruler and choosing to invade. Being under someone as ruler can always be a bit irritating as a council only gets held every 3 months and unless you want to go through the mercenary missions, it ends up merely just breaking up the playing part of the game, which is irritating. Once invading you must defeat the enemy commander, after luring him out by linking the allied main base and enemy main base through smaller bases that can be captured and lost throughout the course of battle, then attacking the main base thoroughly. This can get a bit tedious but is generally an improvement, as it prevents the old kamikaze strategy of running to the enemy commander at the beginning and defeating them immediately, a strategy that I have used many times in previous installments.
During campaigns, you can see the different personalities of the officers come through in different parts of the game. Dong Zhuo is the only leader who will appear on the map anywhere near before the end of the battle, Lu Bu will generally defect to the other side, given the chance, to prove his disloyalty, and this is a nice touch, especially to those familiar with the book, knowing these traits to be fairly accurate, albeit sometimes maybe overpronounced slightly.
The gameplay is basically what has come to be expected from the Dynasty Warriors games, except with the new, slightly modified fighting engine that was introduced in Dynasty Warriors 6, it becomes even more relentlessly repetitive, as most maps in the game can be conquered by mashing the square button, and scarcely touching anything else. This is due to the new renbu system, which has been modified for Empires so that a certain number of KOs in the battle isn’t needed for the harder hitting combos.
Graphically, the game stands up quite well for the amount of characters it allows on screen, and very rarely suffered from any noticeable frame rate drops. The character models are decent enough, and the bodies that you have dealt with will stay on the floor long enough for a very nice looking body count to be created as you wipe out the enemy ranks. However, the scenery and surroundings on the stages does look a little dated at times, and the darker stages have extremely bad visibility problems when trying to get from place to place
The background music for the game is very similar to that of the previous games, slightly energetic, music that can possibly drag the gamer into a very aggressive method of playing. Other sounds of the game tend to be fairly mediocre, groans of death from the weaker soldiers appear far too often and the blocking of attacks give a very unsatisfying ‘ting’. Surprise attacks on bases lead to a ridiculous amount of “what’s that?” being exclaimed from the troops, both laughable and annoying. Voice acting is also inconsistent, with some characters sounding less than convincing in certain situations.
As a person who has played the Dynasty Warriors games now for many years and several iterations, I can’t say that I care much for some of the newer character models and weapon choices that were implemented in 6. Many of the weapons are far too slow to be well usable in the earlier stages of the game, and seems to have removed some of the originality characters had earlier in the series.
More than this though, the lack of a quick play mode hurts this game quite considerably. It would be nice if there was the option to just hop into battle, and be able to have a game started up quickly. As it is, Empire mode is the only game mode that is available, and the campaigns do tend to get off to a fairly slow start, so it’s not ideal for those moments where you just don’t have enough time to be able to commit to playing for a while.
Local split-screen multiplayer co-op is available, where a 2nd player can take control of another general on the map to help take over the map, but only when the 1st player has gained generals as friends, and means the 2nd player has a very limited selection of generals to use. Online is not available, but I am generally of the opinion that the transition to online for the Dynasty Warriors games would not be a particularly smooth one.
In conclusion, a very typical addition to the Dynasty Warriors series, one that seems to continue to suffer from the transition to the next generation combat engine, and is very much lacking in new ideas and originality. That being said, it is not awful, and fans of the series are likely to still enjoy this iteration, albeit a certain yearning for that little bit more in the way of ideas from the Warriors team continues to be an issue. Not brilliant, but definitely not awful.
6.4/10