Dynasty Warriors is a real fan favorite, those who play it will end up loving it's unabashed hack and slash gaming whilst others scoff stating it's just button mashing, (what isn't?) but have never really played it. The Dynasty Warriors games are base in ancient China, when three kingdoms were striving to unify their great lands into the country we know now. Where Dynasty Warriors is an all out action game, the Empire off-shoot adds a large amount of strategy and tactics to the play.

 

 

There are five scenarios in the Empire mode, you start the game as a loner, taking on mercenary jobs and the occasional protection mission for locals and after a few battles you will gain the attention of the local lord, who may either see you as a threat or ask for your assistance. If you join his ranks he will offer cash and jewels for your services. The missions here offer more cash than the mercenary games and will involve taking over large areas of China for your chosen faction. The more fights you take part in and successfully complete the more you climb up in the ranks with offers to join in Council. Seeing as you are a essentially a mercenary for hire though you can change factions as and when you please, so if you feel that you are not getting paid enough, don't agree with the leaders or your current faction is on a losing streak you can just move on.

 

As you take over land more shops become available to spend your fortunes of war on. There are four to select from including the stables which have a huge selection of steeds to choose from, each one will have differing strengths and powers like dodging arrows and stunning enemies with their hoofs. The horse is a good early purchase as maps are huge and maze like and if an ally calls for help you can make your way to them quickly rather than on foot and lose the game. The abilities shop allows you to upgrade your character with better attributes like a larger musou gauge and speed up and the blacksmith is used to combine materials with weapons to make them even more powerful by adding abilities such as elemental attacks.

 

Empires is essentially split into two games, the making allies and ruling is a little light with not an awful lot to do other than expand and conquer, the action side is as ever, hard core fun. Each battle map has bases for both allies and enemies, the main aim on most missions is to take over these bases, protect your own and eventually take down a boss. Other missions require you to protect characters, repel an invasion and even run as a messenger through a battlefield. The maps are saturated with enemies to slay and you have plenty of ways to dispose of them, on top of the mean looking weapons on offer there is also the standard Musuo powers, combos and a new special power that can be allocated to a face button and triggered with L2. There are also in game bonuses that you earn points for, these can be used to purchase cards that run for a set period of time and offer extra powers like earning allies, attack increase and setting fire to bases plus new character voices and clothes.

 

 

The graphics are what we expect from a PS3 Koei title, large colourful characters swinging their numerous types of weapons through screens of hundreds of baddies. The characters available to play from the start are well over 40 plus there is also a pretty cool create a character mode which allows you to unlock even more styles during gameplay. Musically you are treated to hundreds of tracks from pretty much all of the Dynasty Warriors games.

 

I still have niggling problems with these titles that do take a little away from the overall experience, if you die mid mission or even right at the end you have to start over, with no save points during battle you have to be very wary of your health and allies, the map can still be a pain to navigate at times and finally the camera could do with a zoom out function as at times you are too close to the action to see what you are doing. These are things that have been a problem with Dynasty Warriors games for as long as I can remember so I just accept it as the norm now.

 

With the element of strategy on the battlefield and backstabbing rulers this title stands out as one of the better Dynasty Warriors games to date and worth a look if you have never even considered a Koei title in the past.