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Dynasty Warriors 6

Written by DM on Tuesday, April 01 2008

If there are any among you who have never heard of Koei’s Dynasty Warriors series, then let this be the absolute last time I explain the premise. Dynasty Warriors 6 is the latest in the long, long, line of games which follows the exploits and adventures of the famous warriors from the rich tapestry that the Asians call their history. The game is a button masher, for the most part, with a heavy RPG element added, as are most games in the franchise. In this, the sixth official installment, but the nth game in the franchise in reality, Koei and the game’s developer, Omega Force, promised a total revamp of the game’s mechanics, graphics, and gameplay dynamic. All we ended up getting in reality were a few slight modifications and tweaks, as well as a favorite feature or two that got re-added from some of the older games in the franchise.

The story of this game is far too complicated for anyone but an Asian history major to fully explain, but as with the bulk of the series, the game’s backdrop is more or less lifted directly from Luo Guanzhong's epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms.Each warrior that you pick to use as your main character has his or her own storyline, but they are all linked. In other words, there are three factions, but at least nine playable characters. This means that if you pick the second character in the first faction, you end up fighting the same battles as the first character, just from a different point on the map. Sometimes you even have the same objective as the other characters did, which means one thing – repetition. This should not come as a great shock though because the game is, after all, a hack and slash type title, which comes with an understood amount of tedium and repetition. That is why fans of the genre enjoy the genre, but I digress. The story is engrossing if you really want to get into it and actually look up the principal players online and read about their individual histories, etc., but frankly, you may even skip the CGI cut scenes after one or two – the game is all about the mashing, plain and simple.

The bulk of the game is played in the Musou and free modes. The free mode is more or less identical to the Musou mode except you can return to previous won battles and use different unlocked characters to help boost experience and stat points. Koei and Omega decided long ago that the experience points in the DW games would be cumulative more or less across the board, mode-wise, which was a smart decision.

The actual fighting in DW6, or really any DW game, is the heart of the title. This makes it surprising that the actual combat in the game is one of the simplest and least deep features of the game. You run around, and use light or heavy attack until your Musou (special) meter is full. When the Musou meter is cranked, you use the special, bowl 50 or 60 enemies out of your way at once, rinse and repeat. That is not to say that the special attacks are not fun to use, by any means. It is extremely amusing to find the densest concentration of enemies in your immediate area and then unleash your Musou attack and watch them all fly like ragdolls. Now would be a god time to mention (for those not fully familiar with the DW games) that your friendly forces never take damage from you. Your attacks pass right through them, friendly fire is definitely off in the DW games, if you will, which makes the Musou attacks just that much more fun. The Musou meter fills up rather quickly as well, so you can execute those specials at least once every time you hit a cache of enemy forces.

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