The latest installment in the on-going series still shows to bring good old button-mashing fun despite technical issues.
As with past games in the series, you take control of one of the many different characters (41 total main characters) based off of the Chinese classic novel "Romance of the Three Kings" in which you would go through a few eras of Chinese history in war. If you have played any of the previous games, you will instantly get into the core mechanics. However, the game does feature some new content. In the Empires version of this game you can now create and edit your own characters. You will also be given the choice to select background music featuring tracks from a few previous titles.
Gameplay is all about mashing buttons until your enemies are dead. You will be fighting a lot of enemies and most of the time they will attack you in mass. It still remains so satisfying to attack a large crowd at once with a lot of combos and finishers. You will be capturing enemy bases in order to decrease their defense. Ultimately, your goal is to kill the main enemy leader. Little to no strategy is required here, it's all about slashing away. Besides main missions you are given side objectives as well. The game is actually shown to be rather challenging, even on the normal difficulty. The core gameplay has also been given a few touches. For one, you now have something called the Renbu System, which allows you to pull off big combos, heavy damage, and a powerful finishing blow. There are different forms of this based on what type of weapon you have. The Renbu gauge increases over time, as you kill enemies, or you can fill it up yourself. Another new addition is the ability to climb ladders and swim. One of the best returning features is the ability for you to play co-operatively. This makes the battles a little easier and overall it is just a lot of fun to kill things with a buddy, as with any good game with co-op.
The more you defeat enemies, the more your character will level up, increasing their attack power, health, and Renbu gauge. As you level up you will also be gaining more troops for your army. This is important since the sides with the most troops have the biggest advantage since they are stronger. The more battles you win the more money you will also earn. Money is of course needed to buy new weapons and do certain tasks based on your rank. You also have special cards you can earn which can add on different effects like more money or not having your enemies attack you for a month. Of course, you only have a limited number of resources for the cards.
Controls are rather simple for this game. It only requires the use of a few buttons which makes it an easy game to instantly pick up and play. There are, unfortunately, some camera issues. At time it likes to get finicky and it doesn't always give you a good view of the action.
As good as the gameplay is there are some technical issues to be had. For one, the graphics are ugly. We have bland, lifeless environments with ugly textures, poor character models, jittery animations (mainly from enemies), lots of pop-in and pop-out, a few glitches, and some loading issues. Making up for the crude graphics is the sound. We have the series' trademark awesomely cheesy voice acting and kick-ass heavy guitars pumping you up in the heat of battle.
To sum things up:
PROS:
-Good old button mashing action
-Great music
-The cheesy voice acting
-Nice new customization options
-Decent controls
CONS:
-Poor camera in spots
-Ugly graphics
-A few glitches and technical problems
So really this game is only meant for fans of the series, hack-and-slash games, and button mashers. If one wants to get into the series, I would recommend some of the earlier titles instead. But for what it's worth, Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires is worthy enough to be a part of the series.