Mon Apr 25, 2011 8:34 pm by KENT HAMMER

DYNASTY WARRIORS 7
a KOEI game, Reviewed by Kent Hammer

In the words of the peerless Lu Bu- "I respect your courage for coming this far alone! However, you are still going to die!"

For those of you not aware who Lu Bu is, you should be ashamed of yourselves you pitiful worms!

But on a positive note you are very lucky humans as you get to play through an entire decade long back catalogue of the greatest gaming series ever produced on a console.

Dynasty Warriors 7 is the latest release in the series and is easily the best so far. Its far more polished and well designed than before. In fact its much easier for people new to the series to get into the swing of things, with a well designed and balanced training mode to hack and slash things off with and gain your first 10G on your epic journey to 1000G *-)

Fans of the series will also be pleased to hear that our masters at KOEI have seen finally fit to include an auto-save system in this version! So gone are those constant manual save sessions after every mission. Also the general speed of all loading screens has been vastly improved and even the manual in mission saves you might do yourselves are uber fast and don't slow up the action in anyway.

You can complete the whole game on the beginner difficulty setting if you so wish, but is much more fun to play on at least normal and enjoy the challenge. You even have the option of split screen co-op or online co-op in the epic conquest mode.
Playing online with a friend is a right laugh and can often become a race to claim the scalps of the most prestigious generals before your buddy does.

You even get to employ tigers and elephants to help you in your tasks and the inclusion of siege weapons really adds to the fun!
Its a very powerful feeling when you are raining down your large fiery balls on the battlefield.

Dynasty Warriors is KOEI's take on the Battle for the three kingdoms, which takes place around 184AD and is a much written about period in China's history. It is a time when heroes were made and legends were written into the history books.

The Three kingdoms are Wei, Wu and Shu, but in DW7 were are spoilt as they have included Jin too for the first time as a playable faction. I truly enjoyed conquering all comers with my Wang Yuanji and you will too!

Story mode has been greatly improved with epic cut-scenes and a greater storyline than ever before. In fact this time you don't just pick a warrior and battle through the storyline with him, no this time you play as a different warrior or general in each section of the story as its now much more historically correct and much more fun playing as warriors you would never normally pick yourself. So plenty to keep you busy playing as each of the 4 factions before you are done with story mode.

Conquest mode is much more open and free, where you pick who you want to play as. This only changes when play each characters legendary battles where of course you use the general in question each time across 3 battles that set in stone his or her place in the history books.

This time around you can switch between any two weapons you like from your ever growing weapons haul. This is an awesomemungous addition and it never gets old as you also have the option of range weapons such as bows, crossbows and arm cannons plus you can dual wield if you like too! Basically an endless amount of combo's to satisfy even the most demanding of beheading specialists amongst you.

There is a basic RPG element included in that you are constantly upgrading and unlocking better weapons, armour and health. Plus each officer now has his own “EX” move that once learned will unleash a whole new level of hell on the enemy.

Button combos are used to create multiple different types of killing animations on the unsuspecting minions your battling against. Then finally there is your ultimate musou mode which you unlock by filling your kill meter and then unleash by simply hitting B, this is an unstoppable force and should be used wisely to kill the more hardy generals you face on the battlefield.

Basically Dynasty Warriors 7 is my game of the year so far, they have improved upon all that came before in every way. This is the game that will convince naysayers of the true addictive power of the warriors series. Join me on the battlefield and help me take down that bastard Lu Bu one last time.

This game is awarded an unparalleled 9 out 10 and puts the E into EPIC.

Comments: 15