Customer Reviews

Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

DW6 Empires offers a big step forward from DW5E, as it should being the first next-gen programmed title in the series. It uses the same maps (though in some places less detailed) as DW6, which brings the elevations and tactical positions back into play. What's inexcusable is the game lag at times, which is not too bad in single-player, but awful in co-op.

The game has a few weirdisms (getting married comes front-of-mind), but while they don't add much to the game, they don't detract, either, which is handy. Of course, like most 360 games, you can dispense with the generic game music by streaming your own in the background. This means epic battles to anything from Holst's "Mars" to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger". Without further ado, here's some of the run-down:

Pros:
* Create-a-warrior!
* All your faves from DW6 (you know you'll start with Lu Bu).
* Cool weapon-improvement scheme uses the best of DW5 and DW6.
* More intuitive card system.
* Use your own soundtrack.
* Conquer as emperor, or step down and try some new roles.

Cons:
* Really bad lag on co-op.
* Disappearing/reappearing enemies (a la DW5 on PS2).
* Awkward menus layout in places.
* You have to "buy" the ability to start a new game with your previous weapons et al. Not cool.

So pretty much the gist is, if you liked DW5E or DW6, you'll dig this. If you're not a fan of previous installments, this isn't going to fix anything you didn't like then.

Dynasty Warriors has come a long way. Every DW that came out, has improve somewhat but the fans still buy the game and play it. There are pros and cons of the Dynasty Warriors series but DW6 stands out somewhat.

To much as my surprise, the game is good. I've played the game numerous times and i've wrote down the pros and cons. It could have been improve so much (ex. glitches). Here is my honest review of Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires.

Pros-

* Create your own officer. Change the tone of your skin, hair, voice.

* New weapons. You can customize your weapons and make your officer powerful.

* New power skills. You can have your officer use fire, ice, rockfall, recover by simply holding a button and hitting the button that you wish to use. Ex. if your officer has the ability to use blizzard,(using XBOX 360) hold down the left trigger and hit either A,X,Y,B. The special powers recharge and you can use them as many times as you can.

*Oath,Friends,Married. You can bound an oath to any officer. When you are playing as an officer, you can have up to 3 friends that you can deploy them in battle. Getting married is somewhat fun.. Your spouse can raise your lvl or give you items to help make your weapons powerful.

*The officer mode is great. You can now serve a ruler and have he or she boss you around. You can join whomever ruler you please. Also you will be risen higher rank if you complete a task. The ruler can assign you missions every time there's a war council. You can suggest rules and also who to attack if you disagree. The mercenary mode is where a list of officers and roaming officers placed missions for you to complete if you wish to do so. If you complete them, you can be there friend and have great benfits. Random events will happen in the game too.

*Surprise attacks. When your in battle, you now have the change to do an surprise attack meaning that you can take a base with ease by setting the base on fire and the enemy will be confuse. The downfalls is that you can only do it once and if you get caught by an officer, The countdown will stop and you will have to do it all over again.

*Clothing and BGM (Background music)> If you don't like your created officer clothing, you can now change it with ease. You can change the BGM when your free and when your in battle.

Cons-

*The glitches are a pain! Sometimes I see my foot literally in the ground and my hands not holding my weapon. Once in a blue moon, i would die because of the glitches. In one battle, i sent my officer to defend a base and all he did was walk outside and not move. I ran to him and when i did, he went to defend the base.

*The acting can be improve soo much! The people who did the voice acting for the created officers did such a bad job that some of the voices just wants to make you put your head in the wall.

*When in ruler mode, Officers can freely join your army. Whether you like it or not. I had one time Yuan Shao join my army seven times and i dismiss him. So if your looking for a certain officer to join your army, your percentage of he or she joining your army is low.

*No more ambush cards, netraul bases etc. Koei took out the cards like that and gave you similar cards but it doesn't really do much expect for the fire attacks.

*Limited seranios. The game only gives you The yellow turban rebellion, Chi Bi, Guan Du, Three Kingdoms and A Land in Chaos.

*Over time when you don't battle, the surrounding armies will increase their lvl making them stronger. So if your army is around lvl 20's and you haven't battle for a long time. The surrounding armies can be in the beginning 30's or so. Invading is important when in ruler mode.

*The difficulty. Easy, Normal, Hard, Master and Chaos. Easy and Normal is like in regular Koei game. For beginners. Hard is a tad challenging and is for intermiate players. Master and Chaos is for extreme hardcore Koei fans. Master is BEATABLE! Chaos on the other hand is almost impossible. I died everytime in a battle and it's extreme hard to survive!

*Missing musuo officers and no new officers. Jiang Wei, Da Qiao, Pang De, Liu Chan, Guan Tong, Zuo Ci, Zhu Rong, Xing Cai.

*Lag. Playing co-op can be a challenge. The lag is unbearable and can kill or save you in battle. The appearing and disappearing officers and troops is also a pain and can kill you if you are not careful.

*Level 1 again? When you beat an seranio and you want to play a different seranio, You can keep all the weapons and horses, but your lvl is reset and your training abilities is reseted.

*When in ruler mode, you can only have up to 15 officers. Think of it as Dynasty Warriors 4 Empires.

Overall-

I rate the game 3.5 out of 5 because the game can be improve. It felt like the game was made in a rush and i felt like koei didn't take the time and really look in the game. Think of this game as DW4E and DW5E combine into one. If you still want to play this game, i recommend to rent the game before buying it. The game is great but has it's flaws.

I'm a hardcore Koei fan. I have about 50 koei games including all of the Dynasty and Samurai Warriors series. I was looking forward to this game all year.

First of all, they did manage to make an improvement. Playing as an officer now is much different than playing as a ruler. That's about it for the improvements.

Now for the problems. This game is hard. It is easily 5 times harder than the last. Normal difficulty is about like hard on the last one. Hard, master, and chaos difficulties are impossible now. Your officers now do nothing for you in battle. I watched as my generals Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Mi Zhu were all routed by a base with no enemy officers in it. There are so many enemy troops, I easily get 1 to 2 thousand ko's in the average battle now.

I was hoping for a new officer to be made unique in this game. Guys like Deng Ai, Zhang Ren, and Yan Liang sure deserve to be made unique. I was extremely disapointed to find out they actually removed some unique officers from the game. My favorite general, Pang De, is gone. Many other officers like Zhu Rong, Xing Cai, Zuo Ci are also gone.

They completely got rid of all the items you used to be able to produce and equip. Now you have to pay all of your officers a salary, which keeps you broke. I always have to dismiss officers I can't afford. They ruined the card system. Now you draw one card each turn, instead of choosing what cards you want. When an enemy officer sets fire to a base, it instantly becomes theirs. In some battles, I lose two or three bases this way. The enemy always cuts you off from your main base, making you halt your advance.

Probably an end to a great series.

I couldn't be more pleased with the seller and Amazon.com for the great price and speedy service. Unfortunately, the gameplay wasn't quite as fun as I'd hoped.

The game stopped working three days after i got it. It was an amazing game to play, you can swim jump up cliffs and choose whoever to be your subordinates. :( i miss playing it.

now i've played DW since the begining so when i first played empires as DW5 i was not Impressed ...i could save anything or Replay as my warrior to take on the enemy at a stronger level BUT DW6 OHHH yeah it makes up for that mistake allows you to play as a Solider or Ruler even Allows you to once you complete the game keep what weapons and horse even give you more resources and actions ...the only down side only 5 Acctual Battle Stories but playing as a player made Warrior OR as one of the warriors of history can Still Open up Many fun ways to play if your looking for a game to kill time while being enjoyable this is the game for you so pick it up and play i promise if your a DW fan you'll enjoy this addition to the Series

This game is one of the funnest I have ever played; The way the combat is so detailed, the way the weapons are so specific; its just down right fun.

Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires underwent some radical changes from its predecessors, Dynasty Warriors 4 & 5: Empires, for the better. With the new game engine used in DW6, there's a lot more options the player has readily available in the game. The obvious pros are improved strategy in battle, TONS of Custom Officer slots for your creation, Ruler Mode and Officer modes, and a more streamlined campaign map. An important note is the addition of more unique characters; Zhang He, Ling Tong, Yue Ying, Cao Pi, Ma Chao, and Taishi Ci now have their own movesets, and a new character Meng Huo has been added.

In previous additions you had to place officers throughout your territories. In DW6: Empires, you have a large list of officers that can be called to defend any of your territories or attack any location that connects to your territories, so there's no more worrying about being attacked with only 1 officer to defend.

In Ruler Mode, the cards you can put into play depend largely on the officers in your employ. Most officers come with a card that can be used to give you an advantage in battle, or give you more gold in the campaign map. This gives the player an incentive to build up a diverse officer base to get the most out of the game.

While the game has plenty of great changes, it is still a primarily "hack'n'slash" game. Don't expect the strategy elements of the game to greatly help you win, but they certainly add a nice touch to the gameplay. With the game's new engine you can count on getting around 1000 KOs for most battles, which is more than the average amount of previous Empires installations.

A small gripe I have is that although the game has a good amount of scenarios to play (Yellow Turbans, Guan Du, Chi Bi, Three Kingdoms, and a Fictional Random scenario), there was no Hu Lao Gate scenario, which was a pivotal event in the series. Other than that, the amount of rulers and ways to play the various scenarios will keep the player coming back.

If you're a Dynasty Warriors fan, you'll find every reason to enjoy this game. It won't give newcomers a reason to love the game, but it's bound to be an enjoyable experience for any KOEI fan.

My son loves this game, can't get him off the X-Box 360 since we bought it.

In most respects, this is what you would expect from an Empires title. It's got the same battlefield action as DW6 , but instead of story-driven "musou" campaigns, you go about unifying China your way. It's got familiar additional features like create-a-warrior, the ability to command officers on the battlefield, and troop strength management.
The strategic and character-building options of this Empires, though, are far below the ones presented by SW2:E. No battle formations, no competitions to increase stats, and AI officers seem to have much less competence compared to SW2:E. Also notably absent and sorely missed is SW2:E's Free Mode, which let you set up dream matches featuring anyone in any battlefield. Character progression is shallow. There's basic experience and skill levels (which reset every scenario), your customizable weapon, and your stable of horses. That's it.
What I like most about the new Officer mode is how you can (sort of) freely switch between being Officer and ruler status. You can start as an Officer, leave your ruler, go somewhere else and choose a new ruler, defect to another ruler in the middle of a fight, rise up against your new master to become your own, step down from the throne, become an officer again, etc. The real Three Kingdoms heroes had to go through steps like that before establishing their respective kingdoms, so this lets you experience their journey in a similar manner.
I don't like the new ruler's card system. It severely limits your policy options because you can only use the ones known by your current officers (they only know one each and your officer count is limited). Only like two guys in the game know how to forge alliances and draw assistance from them. You can make your own officers and give them any policy you want, but you can't even target which ones you want to recruit; the game picks them for you.
Last gripe: all contextual relationships between characters are erased. The idea is to let you make your own version of the Peach Garden Oath, but even biological relations are gone. Even the Sun family are strangers to each other. They should have made it an option to keep the historical versions intact, as in ROTK XI.
All that said, I still keep coming back to this game because I still dig the action, there's untold options for making custom characters, and the campaign unfolds a different way each time.