Same battlefields, same people, still fun.
Following the same formula as the previous titles, players choose a hero and are slung into a campaign spanning vast battlefields and many a poor soldier to hack to pieces. The usual factions are here (Wei, Wu, Shu) and of course like in dynasty warriors 5 the players are given the option of playing through the story of Lu Bu and some of his officers. In the way of new features we have the ability to swim which in some cases eliminates the horrendous scenic routes you used to have to take in the older games when you wanted to reach a certain point on the map where something important may be happening, we also now have the ability to climb walls during sieges using ladders which isn't really that innovative as such but its still a nice little feature.
The musou mode plays pretty much the same as it has done on the previous game, allowing the player to pick up new weapons through meeting certain requirements or picking them up in the game, same with horses. The player still has the ability to level up their characters in musou and free battle and add certain skills and upgrades using an easy to use skill tree. The musou mode came across as a little disappointing in the way that DW 5 have a story for just about every character where as in this title your limited to around 5 officers in each force which leaves the game feeling a little lack luster. The developers brought in motion capture technology when creating the move sets for all the characters and whilst it still runs fast you will notice the standard to strong combos you could perform in the previous games are now lacking, and that the move sets just don't look as visually impressive as they used to which initially was one of the things that disappointed me the most when i first played it.
A lot of the characters come back for the Free mode, and a lot of characters seem to be abscent and unplayable which is a let down. Another thing that made me a bit meh when first playing was when i noticed a lot of the characters weapons had been replaced, and with the DW series i always found the over the top weapons to be a very important feature into the likability of certain characters, Xihaou Duns ridiculously big machete type thing for instance which has now been replaced by a stick with a mace type thing on the end which just isn't as fun. The graphics are visually impressive as with the older titles, and the game runs as smoothly as ever with more enemies being able to fit on the screen at once than before.
In summary, Dynasty Warriors 6 still manages to entertain just like its predecessors, but the storyline is all to well known to people like me who have played at least 1 of the older games or all of them and it is beginning to drag a little now. Although DW 6 will manage to satisfy any need you have to hack and slash your way through entire armies, it just doesn't add anything new to the series apart from the swimming mechanic, thats really worth shouting about. As a fan of the DW series perhaps talking to someone who hasn't played one of the DW games and wishes to, i would tell you DW 6 is a good game, but buy DW 5 instead.