Dynasty Warriors 6 review (X360)

KOEI’s Dynasty Warriors series divides opinion more than any other series I know. Fans love its simplicity, its larger-than-life battles and the superb setting and story that Luo Guanzhong’s epic ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ classic piece of Chinese literature affords it. Then there are those (quite possibility in the majority) that can’t understand what all the fuss is about; the combat-scheme is too shallow, the larger-than-life battles are spoilt by slowdown and re-spawning enemies and the story is convoluted and uninteresting to westerners. Of course the fans think that these people are heathens. These heathens think that the fans are deluded and can’t cope with anything more complex than button mashing. Children, the lot of them!

Call me a fence sitter if you want (or worse, my skins thick enough to take it) but I’m not in either camp. I can see why some people love the series, but I can also see why some people detest it. I enjoy it but at the same time appreciate that there isn’t really a whole lot of depth to it and that it could be so much more than it is. I can’t wait for the day when a Dynasty Warriors game comes along to change my opinion, one way or the other, as the wood is starting to chafe now. Sadly, Dynasty Warriors 6 just isn’t the game to do that.

Aside from a few minor additions and a bit of Hi-Def spit and polish, Dynasty Warriors 6 is fairly indistinguishable from any of the previous releases. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is entirely dependent on what camp you fall in (oh look at them, they’re still squabbling over there in the corner) but either way it’s unlikely to change your opinion and make you want to switch camps.

Dinner tonight is sausages and a big dollop of button mash

Button mashing is still all you need to play through the entire game. Pressing square does a standard attack, while pressing triangle unleashes a stronger attack that will break an enemies guard. Then there’s the circle button that unleashes a Musou attack. This attack obliterates most of the enemies within range, which can be quite a number due to the huge amounts of enemies that are all on-screen at once. Musou attacks look very fancy and cause mass-carnage, but they’re nothing more just another button press. Building up your Musou meter only takes a bit of button mashing and the opportunity to use them arguably comes about far too frequently. That is pretty much it for the control system, with no advanced combos to speak of, but there is the new addition of the Renbu gauge.

The Renbu gauge automatically levels up your basic attacks when you have filled up your Renbu meter, which is achieved by, and you’ll be shocked to learn this, mashing the buttons and chaining together as many hits as possible. If you stop chaining hits together your Renbu gauge slowly depletes, until such time as you open up another can of whoop-ass on a screen-full of willing enemies. This is a shame as with a more in-depth control-system, Dynasty Warriors is the type of game that could really have mass-market appeal.

There are 41 characters in total (17 of which can be used to play through the story mode, while the others can be used in the challenge mode), each with their own style and moves, but again all are limited by the control system. The story is undoubtedly worthy of a fantastic game to accompany it, but then it’s also worthy of a better delivery. Characters could do with more of an introduction and more back-story should have been provided for those that are new, not only to the series but to the excellent story as well. There’s not even a tutorial for newcomers to get to grips with what they have to do and instead they are dumped straight into a large battle in the opening level. There is an informative encyclopaedia that details the history of some of the characters and the era itself, but it expects the player to do an awful lot of reading when it could have presented all of this information in a much more user-friendly manner.

Less of a sequel, more of an update

None of the above criticisms are likely to matter to the fans, though, who are undoubtedly by now eager to find out what additions Dynasty Warriors 6 makes to the series. Well you can now go for a swim and you can climb ladders (I said the additions were minor). On top of that you are now able to smash through most fort doors and take Strongholds by using similar force. The multi-branching skill tree is a much better way of handling the levelling-up process compared to previous versions, although still doesn’t perhaps have any major affect on how you will play the game. However the annoyance of pop-up is still present, despite the power that the Xbox 360 has to offer, although the Xbox 360 game does prove to be the better version and doesn’t suffer from the horrendous slowdown that plagues the PS3 game. Unfortunately there’s still no online co-op, which really should have been included by now and will surely have to be included should there be a Dynasty Warriors 7 (which is highly likely).

But where will KOEI take Dynasty Warriors 7 from here? Does it simply release yet another relatively minor update? And if it does will the fans be happy with that? Or will it update the control system to be more inline with other games of this ilk and deliver an experience that has all the potential to attract a much wider audience? There’s no denying that inside Dynasty Warriors is a fantastic game screaming to be given the tools that it needs to succeed and I sincerely hope that it starts to receive them soon, otherwise even some of the fans might start to bicker amongst themselves. As it is, Dynasty Warriors 6 is a hard game to recommend to anybody that hasn’t enjoyed the series before or expects a bit more depth from their gaming, while at the same time unlikely to disappoint those wanting more of the same.