Dynasty Warriors 7

"Quite possibly the worst review of the Series"

The Dynasty Warriors series has always been a sort of "hit and miss" series of games, you either don't like it and don't understand why others do, or you do like it and don't understand why you do either, simply because the gameplay is highly tedious and each game is just a repeat of the same story with only a few minor changes to gameplay.....but i love it.

The story of Dynasty Warriors is based on the Chinese historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" which covers the events of the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Wu and Shu) which took place between the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD up until the unification of the Three Kingdoms under the Jin Dynasty in 280 AD, however the games only ever followed the story up until after the Battle of Wuzhang Plains in 234AD.

These events are known as one of the most bloodiest periods of Chinese history and i can't think of a better setting for a game really.

Gameplay wise Dynasty Warriors 7 is similar to the other games of this series and is a very "hack and slash" game, you play as an officer of one of the kingdoms and progress through a series of levels, each level representing an important battle during the Three Kingdoms period, gameplay is in third person and mainly consists of the character engaging enemy forces on the battlefield, defeating other officers and completing specific objectives in regards to the battles strategy. Although i have to point out that the battles are incredibly unrealistic as characters can wipe out legions of troops with a single sword swing.

Unlike the previous installments of the series Dynasty Warriors 7 makes a major change to it's story telling, previous games of the series would have you pick one of the many historical characters and take part in the battles they were involved in, sometimes the series would try and alter history and have your character take part in a battle that they weren't in originally. Dynasty Warriors 7 however lets you chose between the Wei, Wu, Shu and even the Jin kingdom (which has never made an appearance in previous installments) and play each battle as a character who played an important role, the major battles are split up into several stages and in between each level there are various cutscenes and narration telling you the story of the Three Kingdoms....it's all very interesting if you care about this sort of stuff.

The art designs have once again changed with everything in the game once again getting a makeover with new character, weapon, outfit and map designs which all look a lot better then previous versions.

 Some of the new features of Dynasty Warriors 7 involve each character being able to use every weapon and not just their primary ones (doesn't sound like much of a new feature but seeing as the main advertising point of Dynasty Warriors 6 was the "new" ability to swim and climb ladders i think this is a vast improvement.......). Another new feature is the conquest game mode; this involves picking a character and forging your own path through Three Kingdom era China, (another amazing breakthrough of Omega force's development team was online Co-op for this game mode).

Now I'm going to keep this review short and summarise here, simply because there isn't much to say about this game. Dynasty Warriors 7 is quite possibly the best game in the series and a must buy for any fans of the series so far, the story telling and the flow of gameplay is greatly improved; the larger battles being split into several stages also adds to this. Also if your new to the series feel free to pick this game up as rental to try it out or buy an older version and see what you think...this game isn't everyones cuppa tea but if you can get into it you will have endless fun.