Is Dynasty Warriors 7 the best game in the series? No. But is it better than Dynasty Warriors 6? YES!!!
To start, let's talk about the game play. For those of you readers that played Dynasty Warriors 6 and hated the Renbu system that it introduced, you will be pleased to know that it has been removed entirely and replaced by the traditional Square-plus-Triangle combo system. The method that characters unlock abilities has also improved, rather that have it based on the character's level (as it was in Dynasty Warriors 6,) when players defeat enemy generals, they get "Skill Points" to put towards purchasing certain skills, such as unlocking the 5th attack combo, unlocking a second musou attack or giving your character a permanent stat boost. However, one decision that Koei made that I can't understand is with the weapon system. While it's great that almost any character can equip almost any weapon, one of the biggest complaints about DW6 was the lack of unique move sets, (if you remember, several characters had the exact same move set.) This has been alleviated somewhat by Koei keeping musou attacks unique to characters and also allowing characters to possess EX moves when a certain combo is performed, but it doesn't matter if the player is using Ma Chao, Lu Bu or Sun Shang Xiang, if the player equips a sword to all of them, they will pretty much all do the same combo with it, which is a bit of a letdown.
Next, let's talk about the Story mode (yes, it's no longer Musou mode.) You have your choice of kingdoms in Wei, Wu, Shu, and for the first time in Dynasty Warriors, Jin. Unlike most Dynasty Warriors offerings, The story mode is kingdom based rather than character based (I say "most" because Dynasty Warriors 4's musou mode was somewhat kingdom based,) I found this to be both good and bad. Let's start with the good, it avoids having the player go through the story mode 15 different times for the same kingdom, there's more battles than the traditional 5, 7 or 10 stages, and it also forces the player to use different characters with different skill sets so the game play is slightly varied. The bad part being that players no longer have the option to choose what character they want to use in story mode, and it really only centers on 8-10 different characters, nearly falling into the same pitfall as Dynasty Warriors 6 by having a majority of characters in the game with absolutely no incentive to actually use them. Also worth pointing out is that there is no musou mode for "Other" generals in this game such as Lu Bu or Meng Huo, which I believe is the first time they've done that since Dynasty Warriors 3 (at least until DW3:XL came out) this decision does puzzle me a bit, but there's an alternative that we'll get to a little bit later. Overall, Story Mode is fairly well done as it does go more in-depth into the kingdom's story than the previous games, but the fact that players are no longer allowed to choose their characters may put some players off.
Now let's get to the Conquest Mode, which is essentially picking a character, go through random battles and take over China. The mode itself is well done as there are many stages to choose from and certain stages unlock useful things like weapons and guardian animals, and players also get to see scenarios they may never have imagined seeing, such as Xiahou Dun fighting for Wu against Wei's Xiahou Yuan. There are some minor things that can take away from the enjoyment however, such as there are really only four to six different scenarios, such as chase an enemy commander or help an ally defend a fort, and the grid used to select a mission really is huge, there's at least 100 different grids to complete, but this really does add to the longevity of the game as each grid can take 5-15 minutes to clear (longer for the legendary battle grids as there is either two or three of them inside one grid,) and players that are fanatics for 100% completion of games will keep busy at Conquest mode for hours. Overall, Conquest mode could've used a little more variety in the missions, but it's still a decent addition to the series as players can find ways to play this for hours.
Let's take a little time to compare this game to its predecessor, Dynasty Warriors 6. For those of you that have spoken to me, or at least seen some of my responses to threads on numerous forums, I have called DW6 "the worst Dynasty Warriors game imaginable" for some reasons I have stated above (Renbu system, half the roster had no musou mode, removal of tiered weapons, for those of you that have already forgotten,) but nothing really irked me more than to find out they had cut some characters from previous games in DW6. Well, a good portion of them are back, such as Jiang Wei, Da Qiao and Zhu Rong, but we're still missing Pang De! (Yes, he was one of my favourite characters in DW5, and then he disappeared forever.) Also, we got some of the old weapons back, such as the Chakra's for Sun Shang Xiang and the Claws for Zhang He. That being said, we also got some new, and ridiculous weapons, such as the Harp for Cai Wenji, the Spinner (it's a Yo-Yo) for Bao Sanniang, a Paint Brush for Ma Dai, and even more obscure, Flying Swords for Zhong Hui (picture 4 swords floating in mid-air…yeah.) So overall, in regards to characters and weapons, it's an improvement from DW6, but there's still some content in the game that makes the player wonder why it's in the game.
Sound wise, this game is a tad hit-and-miss. The music is pretty good as it keeps with the metal theme that has been constant throughout the Dynasty Warriors series and the music during the cutscenes is fairly well done, most notably during the sorrowful times, such as Xiahou Yuan or Sun Jian dying. (If you're calling this a spoiler, you really haven't played these games before, have you?) On the negative side, in true Dynasty Warriors fashion, the voice work still needs work. Here's the thing, I'm convinced Koei have used the same voice actors for the characters ever since Dynasty Warriors 4 (with some minor changes here and there) and it really is time for a voice actor switch as for whatever reason, their voices lack the depth and intensity of the current situation. Granted, they have gradually improved on the pronunciation of the names during the course of the series, but it has been a constant complaint throughout the series by numerous people that it should've been improved by now. Overall, music good, voice work not so good.
Now we come to the graphics, and if you've played Dynasty Warriors 6, you're not going to notice a lot of improvement here, if any. The view that the player has during the course of a battle looks about the same as it did in DW6 (although the camera controls have improved somewhat) and some of the stages even look the same, only darker, (see Hu Lao Gate as an example.) The cutscenes are animated pretty well, but then again those have been decent since DW5 and I didn't notice all of the meters (life bar, musou bar, kill count, etc.) disappearing when there are a lot of enemies on-screen like they did on DW6 but at the end of the day, the graphics look untouched from DW6, I mean, the characters have updated outfits and the weapons look decent, but other than that, it's pretty much the same thing that players saw in DW6.
When most people play Dynasty Warriors games, they're generally tired of it within a week, the diehards will play them for quite a while, and non-fans of the genre will avoid it like the plague. Dynasty Warriors 7 unfortunately falls under this rationale as the Conquest mode, while lots of missions are present, will take at most 10-15 hours to complete. And each story scenario (four in total) take about 5 hours each so for a hardcore gamer, they'll be done everything this game within a week. Keep in mind that there is DLC, such as weapons and missions for Conquest mode coming, but whether these will keep players coming back to play this game remains to be seen. However, comparing it to similar titles like Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, players will be playing Dynasty Warriors 7 a lot more than they will play that game because the Conquest mode makes the game not feel like a grind as quickly.
So in conclusion, is Dynasty Warriors 7 the best game in the series? No, as it would take quite a bit of effort to top Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4. But we can also ask the question "is it better than Dynasty Warriors 6?" And the answer to that is yes…very much yes! The story mode was enjoyable, the skill progression was better overall, Conquest mode was immerse and overall fun to complete. But then the game does fall into the usual Dynasty Warriors pitfalls like it quickly becoming a mindless hack-n-slash game, terrible voice acting and characters not having much uniqueness to them. Is this game worth buying? I'd suggest renting it first as some players could be done with the whole thing within a week, but if you are a fan of the series and are willing to throw down $60 CDN for it, you should enjoy it.
Quick Review:
Pros:
- Story mode is kingdom based, longer, and more in-depth
- Characters that were cut from DW6 are back
- Conquest mode will keep players playing this game for quite a while
- New Bonds system is interesting
- Renbu system is gone, combo system is back!
- Any character can equip almost any weapon
- Music is catchy
- Skill learning system is better than in DW6
Cons:
- Not able to choose your own character in Story Mode
- No unique move sets, except for certain attacks
- Voice work, in traditional DW style, still sucks
- Only 4-6 unique scenarios in Conquest Mode
- No musou mode for "Other" warriors
- No Create-a-Warrior mode