Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires Review

I was sitting with a friend recently having a bit of a nostalgic moment and wanting to play all our old games when I stumbled across a few old copies of my dynasty warriors games for PS2. Then to my surprise and excitement I saw that Omega Force and Tecmo Koei are back with a new instalment of their button-bashing classic. That’s right the latest instalment of dynasty warriors is here with the more strategic take on the series, Empires. This time however the game only comes available on the PS3, meaning fans of the game who own an XBOX 360 will be missing out. But for those of you who can still enjoy this definitive game, there is a lot of fun to be had with a couple of new features to entertain you.

Now I know a lot of people criticise the series for being too repetitive because all you have to do is keep bashing away at your buttons repeatedly, go through the same storylines over and over again and just walk through levels easier than a knife cuts through cake, and in fairness on an easy difficulty setting people are right. You can however be a real gamer and adjust the settings for a higher difficulty setting that changes the game completely. This works better on hard, however you can even see a difference in normal mode too, which stops the ease of just going through levels swinging your weapon round and racking up the numbers on your kill count. The higher difficulty settings not only make it harder to kill opponents in battle, it also forces you to be more tactical minded which is the whole point of the Empires games in the first place, being a combination of both action and strategy.

Anyway on to the game; the latest in the Empires series has lots to offer Dynasty fans with more freedom than ever on how you choose to play the game. You can select your favourite characters, or the new character Xu Shu, and follow their individual stories, or select free officers to go about the land as they choose whether it be to just wander aimlessly looking for bloodshed or to turn on the kingdom you serve and battle to rule the Three Kingdoms. If you don’t want to choose a premade character there is also the option to enter Edit Mode and create your own, with characters more customisable than ever, select everything from facial features, outfits, weapons and your musou attacks. Then you can upload your personalised officers online for others to use and likewise download the creations of others. One thing I do miss from the older games though is when in edit mode you could customise your own personal bodyguards picking their weapons and colours because it was better than just having the generic army behind you as you march into battle.

When actually in Empire Mode you can choose to go alone drifting through the districts of the Three Kingdoms as a mercenary, serve under an existing ruler or rise up and form your own kingdom to take control of the land. As you go through battles and make political choices off the field you’ll gain points for fame and other areas such as brave or will. The higher your fame level the more influence you have over people and the more people will want to battle alongside you instead of against you. As for the other abilities such as brave, will, evil etc. again the higher the levels the more benefits you’ll receive, but make sure you keep taking actions to raise certain areas because if you neglect one section it’s level will decrease and the benefits that come with it will disappear. The benefits I’m talking about of course are one of the games new features, Stratagems.

Stratagems are strategic options that are available during battle, some may cost money others will not, and the higher your levels the better the benefits you’ll receive. These stratagems offer you special abilities such as boosting your chance of victory or having negative effects on the enemy. For example if defending an invasion you can place traps in bases, or set an ambush up which causes damage to enemy troops. You can also spawn small battalions known as Elites for back up when you are surrounded by enemies or launch a volley of arrows to damage those around you, which provides  a good example of how levelling up increases benefits because you can upgrade from a normal volley to one with fire arrows which dish out extra damage. Another useful ability is to be able to set enemy bases alight making them easier to take, or to affect enemy’s characteristics lowering their attack, defence or speed.

Another new area to the game is the extras mode where, as mentioned earlier you can upload and download other created players as well as other features. One being that you can form teams with one character as the ruler and the option to have a few subordinates that you can use in one of the scenarios in Empire Mode known as “A Gathering of Heroes”. The main new feature in extras mode though, one that I love a lot and have been waiting forever for is the online co-op play that allows you to play with friends or random people online to clear stages. Now if you’re player two you’ll not be able to use the stratagems just mentioned and your abilities and weapons will be limited to the profile of player one. So if you’re with someone who has only just started it will pretty much be like you’re starting again too. Never the less the fact you can play online is a great addition and like I say something fans have been hoping for.

One thing I disliked about the game though is that between turns you only get to make one choice, whereas in previous releases of the empires series you could complete a couple of actions at once buy asking one of your officers what to do. This would usually mean in one go you could heal troops and maybe get some revenue to spend on building defences of your territories, but now you can only affect one thing at a time. The positive side is there are a lot more options of what you can do whether it be to gather support which increases fame, donate to the poor to enhance your kindness, create alliances or even invest in your land to increase income. You’re also less likely to find items in battles now and instead have to go to town to purchase new weapons, items, animals and clothing. But it does make the game more difficult because like I said earlier when on harder difficulties it forces you to think tactically and plan out how you’ll play your game.

So to conclude there are a couple of new features to the game and some enhancements of old features like edit mode; but nothing has changed much meaning fans will not be disappointed as they get another chance to be badass warriors conquering the Three Kingdoms. My favourite part of the game is the online co-op play because now on rainy days I no longer have to drive over to a friend’s house if I want to play and instead can say in wrapped up warm. However I also enjoy the new stratagems which allow you to switch the tides of war in your favour by placing traps, gathering reinforcements and ordering all troops to advance like a swarm on to the enemies’ main camp. That said the game is only really enjoyable if you’re going to put it on the higher difficulty settings because on easy you’ll easily become bored after a few minutes, I’ll still give it a high mark though but I am a Dynasty Warriors fan boy at heart so probably a little bias.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.