Dynasty Warriors and the tale of the Three Kingdoms returns to the 360, but does this title bring anything new to this on going series?
Since the 360 release, we have already seen quite a few of the Warriors series from Koei, however all of those incarnations had been using the previous generations engines, and whilst the graphics where improved it was still a small step to the next gen. Dynasty Warriors 6 has been built from scratch for the Xbox 360 and it really shows, the previous titles look really basic if compared directly. The character models look amazing, with their specific weapons and special moves darting across the screen, the enemies are also well-varied, large blokes with clubs, officers, the occasional boss and thousands of soldiers await for you to cut a path through. The amount of characters on screen at once is also simply amazing, there is a real feel of being in a running battle with your allies clashing with the front lines of the enemies. At points there is just nothing else on the screen other then people, whilst this is a good thing and technically impressive, there are times where you just lose your character in the mess of people.
The main part of this title is the Musou Mode, where you can choose a character from one of the Three Kingdoms, Wei, Wu and Shu. Your goal is to battle thousands of soldiers and officers to gain victory and progress through the story to its not always happy conclusion. The Musou Mode has the function of two players, which really makes the screen congested but also makes the game loads more fun.
The main aim of each level is detailed in the preparations screen, here you can change weapons, horse and also find out the conditions of battle. Most of the time this is to defeat a certain officer or ensure certain people or groups survive long enough. Each level has small garrisons that you can take over if you choose, these really help as they have regenerating health that can assist you on some of the tougher bosses. The difficulty is worth a mention here, it is really hard, with so many ways to lose a game you really have to be on the ball and listen and read all of the text that flashes on the screen, because before you know it one of your main officers will be in trouble and you will need to drop what you are doing and go and assist them. Even on easy you will die a few times, which can be annoying, especially near the end of a long battle.
The battlefields look a lot more detailed than before, there are loads of small villages to fight through and forests and canyons. On some levels there are huge castles to take over, requiring you to climb to the battlements and take out enemies to allow your allies to gain access to the doors and break them down.
The game also offers a Challenge Mode, here you have a selection of scenarios to complete like Rampage, where you have to kill as many people as possible in a time slot, as well as sudden death and Havok, where you have to destroy as many items as possible. Though this will not take long to defeat, the inclusion of Live rankings make this a fun challenge against other Live users.
Finally for you DW fan’s out there, there is also a detailed encyclopaedia, which offers info such as timelines and info on the Three Kingdoms and the stories around it.
Though there are a lot of positive notes on this title, they also bring a few problems, I mentioned about the amount of characters on screen, at points of the game the screen will be full of action, at the same time you will have a message that blocks half of the screen and also a flashing marker on the map telling you where they are talking from, there is so much information to take in that you are bound to miss something, be it a block resulting in you getting hit, or a vital message from an allied officer asking for assistance, however although this can really affect you, thankfully this does not happen too often.
