PS3 Fanboy review: Dynasty Warriors 6

As soon as you read the subject line, you probably reacted one of two ways: you snorted/coughed/rolled your eyes and may fast-forward to the score, or you thought "oh, cool, they're reviewing Dynasty Warriors 6" and will read this review with interest. That's sort of how the audience is segmented in the Koei universe -- you either enjoy their games or abhor them to the point where you won't even give them a chance (whether or not you ever did is your personal secret). Dynasty Warriors 6 is no exception to this rule.

Koei brought their DW franchise onto the PS3 at long last, boasting several improvements over the previous titles in the series. But can a new level-up system, the ability to swim, climb ladders, and more change the formula up enough to merit calling the game fresh?

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Our answer to that question is what this review will help you decide for yourself. We're torn, honestly. The game is still just as simple as it always has been and should receive a simple review, but we need to go over what's changed and how it stands up to the other Dynasty and SamuraiWarriors games. Because when you pretty much own the button-mashy-battlefield genre (let's not talk about Ninety-Nine Nights, please), it's only proper to grade the game based off of how it performs compared to its brethren as well as the usual criteria.

Let's start with the obvious things. New character designs are in and guess what? They're a sight for sore eyes. We applaud Koei for changing up weapon choices and character models for many, many of the characters. However, this comes at a price and any fan of the franchise will notice it right away when they start up the game -- you have 9 characters to choose from at the outset of the game. Most characters you unlock don't have a Musou Mode; they're only usable in Free and Challenge modes. What does this mean? It removes a lot of the drive to level up a character when they have no story or stage progression to dive into -- Free Mode sort of acts as a place to power up characters if you run into a snag during Musou Mode. So, a lot of characters are limited in availability in that respect, but are still available if you don't mind only using them in Free Mode.

The Renbu system replaces the old button-mashing system. It's still button-mashing, though, but this one features a more simplistic, evolving attack pattern that is meant to chain incredibly large combos. The more times you successfully attack enemies, the more your Renbu gauge rises and as it rises, your attack lengthens. For a lot of the game, you will mash the square button for the standard attack relentlessly, but your charged attack (the triangle button) is still effective with certain characters. It breaks the enemy's guard and is slightly more powerful. In addition to those two attacks, you can dodge with one shoulder button and block with the other. While blocking, you can unleash a powerful move against a single opponent if you are near them. It's hardly ever mentioned, but it's there and it's cool.

These fighting mechanics come into play during battle in a few ways: first, standard attacks get you through pretty much any wave of warriors that foolishly jaunt your way. Second, the charge attack is great against powerful officers who tend to guard against all your attacks. Third, and most interesting, the guard attacks are useful when you get trapped in a circle duel with a powerful enemy officer. See, randomly, if your army and an enemy's army are clashing while you try to take out their leader, they'll stop fighting amongst each other and trap you in a circle where they force you to duel the officer one-on-one. It's really interesting to watch but even more fun to take part in. If you try to leave the circle, you'll get pushed back in. It's entertaining, but rare.

Several new additions were put into this game. The skill tree, which is similar to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X and the system from Xenosaga, is a very good improvement over old styles of leveling up. Now you can choose your growth path with any character -- each character has a different skill tree. It's probably the best addition they made, next to climbing ladders. Why is ladder climbing such a big deal? Because with it, a whole new concept was born: castle sieges. Most gates you can break open with conventional weaponry, but some require a major effort on your part. You need to defeat guard captains and defend your engineers so they can run up to the castle wall and place ladders for you to climb. Then, you ascend the castle wall and eliminate the enemy catapults and ballistas that impede the construction of your army's gate ram. Finally, you return to the ground and defend the ram until construction is complete and it successfully destroys the enemy gate. It's a very cool experience that definitely freshens up the formula a bit.

Oh, and you can swim. It doesn't have much implementation outside of an alternate path through a battlefield or wading through a flooded castle, but it's still a cool addition we're glad to see finally put into place. A couple more additions worth mentioning: you can slide down the side of cliffs. This is really convenient if you need to descend a mountain quickly to assist someone at the base, and it looks cool. Every battle has "Targets" now, which are like sub-objectives to keep you on your toes and give you some direction in the battle other than "kill everything". A few of these targets are very challenging to achieve and a worthwhile addition to the game.

One major gripe on my part, personally: no Officer Edit mode. You can't create your own character to wreak havoc with. The opportunity is there -- craft a character with any kind of weapon and assign them a skill tree that flows in a certain way. For example, if you build an officer with a heavy sword, you could assign him a skill tree that emphasizes attack strength, but sacrifices defense and speed. Or you could force that character to balance out by adopting a tree with less attack growth, but more speed and special skills.

Some more gripes: the disappearing soldiers are still around. It's not as apparent in single-player, but as soon as you get a friend to play, you will have enemies vanishing pretty often. Slowdown is a problem in co-op mode, too. A quick fix is to jam your cameras into an overhead position, but it shouldn't be like that in the first place. I said it once before, but the lack of Musou Mode characters is depressing, but not the end of the world. The gameplay remains the same as always which for some is just fine, but for others is another reason to avoid the series again. You're missing out on some casual fun, though.

This brings me to my final point and please, Koei, I hope you can take this to heart. This game could benefit greatly by microtransactions and downloadable content. Adding characters to Musou Mode doesn't require the release of an Xtreme Legends; just a dollar or two. Patching in a fix for the aforementioned slowdown or disappearing enemies is possible instead of letting it go. Adding an Officer Edit mode is possible down the line -- heck, the entire reason for Xtreme Legends is nullified. If Koei wanted, they could unleash an Xtreme Legends expansion for a low price on the PlayStation Store that addresses these issues and adds even more good stuff.

The bottom line is that this is Dynasty Warriors for the PS3. The graphics are decent but nothing special, the gameplay is mindless for the most part, but satisfying, and the story is the same as ever. Luckily, the narrator and voice actors got a few lessons in how to pronounce Chinese names, but their acting abilities are mediocre at best. The new additions are great, but when weighed against the sacrifice of characters and the Officer Edit mode, it's just like adding weight to both sides of the scale -- there's more, but no change. Hopefully downloadable content is on Koei's itinerary and we'll have the definitive Dynasty Warriors game over time. But for now, it's just a polished up and decent version of something we're familiar with.

PS3 Fanboy Score: 7.5