Review: Dynasty Warriors 6 (360)

On the surface little has changed. Select your character from a range of ancient Chinese warriors and then do battle in a variety of scenarios in the Musou mode. Starting each mission you can equip your character with weapons, as well as view the battlefield and what your objectives are. From here you jump into the war zone accompanied by your allies. These allies being the only ones that actually do anything worthwhile. In typical Dynasty Warriors fashion the regular soldiers are useless and often just stand around whereas the main officers will actually aid you. They’re not invincible though and will quite often call for your assistance.

It’s strange because there are many problems we found straight from the first battle. Despite on the back of the box boasting about a “breakthrough” engine there is nothing really here that really takes the advantage of the hardware. There is often some horrendous pop-up particularly with the enemy soldiers, the camera can often become quite erratic and graphically the game is only slightly better than the last Koei hack and slash game we played. There is also the laughable English voice acting though this was inevitable. Yet despite all this we actually found ourselves having fun. A first with the series.

You see Dynasty Warriors 6 is perfect anger management. It’s not a game where you play for hours and hours completing mission after mission. It’s a game that you dip into after a rubbish day at work and just hammer army after army. Block and evade buttons do mix up the combat, but the easiest strategy is to just hammer the X button. You can also now climb ladders to invade enemy forts, control rowboats and swim, which proves that at least Koei want to add new stuff to the series.

The Musou mode is massive with multiple characters to choose from each with a different perspective on the battle. Free mode is also a welcome distraction if you just fancy jumping into a battlefield or want to level up your characters. Challenges and a two player co-op (though unfortunately not online) add to the games already decent longevity.

Dynasty Warriors 6 is best summed up as a mild distraction. We didn’t find it as bad as previous games in the series yet there isn’t really anything here that’s worth paying full price. DW6 is a budget game but without the cheap price. Though if you’ve remained a fan of the series then this is probably the best version to date.

Rating: 5 / 10

Words by Adam Gulliver