In the Warriors Orochi review I did not too long ago, I bashed it for
being a formula that was done over, and over, and over again, with no
new changes at all.
Well, Koei has finally produced a new Dynasty Warriors game, that finally starts to break out of it.
To anyone who's followed and played the DW series, you can instantly
feel the change as soon as you get to playing in Dynasty Warriors 6, it
simply seems to breathe a little more life. It takes the DW engine, and
gives it a fresh new coat of paint.
You'll notice a little more freedom, being able to jump over (most)
cliffs, and being able to swim through rivers, as well as your horse
being able to swim them too. Another new addition, is the attack that
never stops. Generally in DW games, you hit the normal attack button
about 5 times, and the combo is over. In DW6, you can basically mash
the button without end. A little tweak that makes things alot easier
than hit, hit, hit, hit, rest. Now it's just hit, hit, hit, hit, hit,
hit, hit, repeat infinity.
But also with that feature, comes an odd defense, that allows boss
enemies to somehow be able to block every single attack you throw, even
if it's behind them. Yes, apparently chinese legends had a magical
ability to hold their weapons directly in front of them, and that
enabled them to block from sneak attacks from the back as well.
Although this is easy to combat, you just let off until they take their
attack down, and just start mashing the attack again.
One small thing that bugged me was the view distance and spawn rates in
this game, as overall, it's a black eye on this game. People appear and
dissapear in front of you in the blink of an eye. An exceptionally bad
example of this is when I was fighting a boss in a horde of enemies,
when I unleashed an attack that sent them all dead and flying.
Literally, all around me, directly in front, back, and sides, brand new
ones spawned EXACTLY where the ones I had just killed had stood. There
was no attempt to kayfabe it, they just appeared. It was certainly an
odd moment, and it happens all the time in this game.
The difficulties have also improved somewhat. For example, no more
cruising through modes in Easy. Easy now makes the enemy health bars
smaller, and also decreases their AI a bit, but Bosses remain almost
unchanged in Easy mode. For example, I blew through a horde of enemies
with no sweat, only to meet Lu Bu and have him strike me down and kill
me in literally 2 hits. Bosses must be feared at all times, even in
Easy now.
Overall, this game is a definite improvement in the Dynasty Warriors
series, perhaps the best since DW2. If you love the DW series, you
should very much pick this up.
