A surprisingly good and well presented story and good mission designs and new gameplay features make it the best DW game
The story for Dynasty Warriors 7,just like with the other DW games is based on the novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'.The story has megalomaniac emperors who might care for the common man but believe it's essential they rule the land,romance(that builds up over time and the story shows heartwarming love stories),important alliances being made that can change the course of the war,clever strategies that can turn the tide in the war,revenge,beautiful women offering to marry powerful people to increase the strength of their kingdom,battles fought over territory of high strategic importance,the story has a bit of magic(literally)and royals having to deal with the death of family members and royals who want to prove their worth to their kingdom even if it means risking their life.
The story has 4 kingdoms fighting for control of ancient China and you'll play through a story campaign for each and you'll see the story from their perspective and the fact territory is gained and lost so frequently when the 4 kingdoms are fighting adds to the tension and suspense.
The mission objectives can make the gameplay exciting because your main base and ally officers will be under threat a lot and not only do you need to prevent your main base from getting captured and certain allies from getting killed,you will need to travel across the map and defeat enemy officers and destroy machines of warfare such as catapults and ballistas as well as breaking down castle walls using catapults and occasionally you can use ballistas against enemy units and you'll need to find past hundreds or even thousands of enemy units in most missions.
What makes the gameplay in DW7 better than it's predecessors are new weapons and better and exciting mission designs.DW7 has a huge number/variety of weapons,I don't know which weapons are new because it's been years since I've played DW5 and DW6)but I'll say there's a huge number/variety of weapons you can use including swords,spears,staff,long bow and cross bow,sickles,3 bladed weapons,cleaver swords,pikes,winged shaped weapons with many blades attached,nunchaku,fan blades,giant drills,axes,hammers etc. as well as weapons with elemental abilities.
Bladed weapons are faster to swing.Big powerful weapons such as axes or giant mace-like weapons pound enemies which do lots of damage but are slower.Spears have good reach but do less damage than a sword,mace,hammer etc or you can use a bow which has good range but is weaker than a melee weapon.
The core gameplay is still hack n slash/beat em up that's in previous DW games and for people who don't know,much of the gameplay in the DW games involves capturing enemy camps and defeating enemy officers/generals in the environment the mission takes place in because when you capture a camp you will receive reinforcements which are basic units that are not characters in the story but they will follow you wherever you go and will help you capture other camps or defeat enemy officers/generals.
Basically the more camps you capture,the bigger your army is,however there is often many things happening on the map at once and sometimes you have to protect certain allies from getting killed and they will be far away from camps or castles you need to invade and you will need to rescue them and it makes the missions feel like they're at a frantic pace as you'll be trying to capture bases,defeat enemy officers.generals and rescuing allies when they're under attack.
Also,enemy officers/generals like to sneak up on your main base where the ally characters you need to prevent from dying may be and you'll need to protect them from the enemy officers/generals.Sometimes your allied officers/generals will follow you but sometimes they won't which means you'll have to rescue them sometimes.
The gameplay becomes very fun when the character you're controlling and lots of units and fellow officers fight alongside you against lots of enemies and enemy officers because there will be so many people on the screen fighting it's awesome to watch.
The controls feel smooth and you can unleash combos easily and for more skillful players,they can perform longer combos with longer but harder to perform button combinations.It's satisfying laying waste to lots of enemies and fighting your way to a showdown with an enemy officer/general or arriving in time to save an ally or capturing camps to increase the numbers of units fighting along your side.
For mission variety,besides trying to attack enemy camps/officers and defending yours,sometimes you'll be on a ship that's being shot at by archers and you'll need to survive that and then trying to take control of a city that has narrow alleys.Or defending a palace or trying to stop someone from escaping.
Each character can perform a powerful attack called a 'Musou' which does a lot of damage to enemies around them and you can charge up your musou by defeating enemies.
The game has two main modes which are Musou mode and conquest mode.Musou is the story mode where you'll follow the story of the Kingdom you choose to fight for.Conquest mode doesn't focus on story but allows you to try to conquer China by selecting which areas you want to attack(after you select a character)and you can play with other people online(but I haven't tried doing so).
The graphics do look dated but are passable.I like how one of the cities looks when it's lite up at night because it has a nice atmosphere.The game has beautiful artistic effects for it's cutscenes such as showing beautiful cherry blossom leaves and beautiful sunrise/sunsets over a city and marriage ceremonies and some of the women characters are beautiful/cute and some of them are quite busty and dress revealingly,even when they're in battle.
The way the cherry blossom leaves and beautiful scenery are used for romantic scenes makes them more heartfelt.
The heavily electrified rock music adds a great,over the top style of atmosphere Japanese games can bring but the same dialogue is used over and over during battle and it gets annoying although the dialogue during story scenes fits the story quite well.
Overall,this is the best DW game I've played because it's story is epic and presented very well and it's gameplay is more fun than that of the previous DW games even though I found the gameplay for those games fun too.