21.4.2011

I hesitated about getting this game, because it's new, and expensive, and I thought I play maybe just a bit too much of three kingdoms (DW5, DW6, Strikeforce in the DW series alone). However, the reviews are amazingly positive, so I bought it. And it is a great choice indeed. Before the review, I would like to say, I am actually not yet half way through Shu storyline alone, and of course haven't started conquest mode, so this review is somewhat limited for now. But here it is anyway.Graphics in this game is quite nice in my opinion. The intro is especially splendid, and cutscenes are so much fun to watch. Obviously, it's NOT God of War and quite far from that. But still, good enough for me.Of course, I haven't played that many PS3 games, so my words aren't worth much in that aspect. Also, I am having a lot of trouble tuning the contrast and colour on my TV just right for this game for some strange reason. The default all 50 setting gives a waaaayyyy too sharp contrast and way too saturated colours, so.In game motions are generally smooth and fluid, very comfortable. My PC version of DW6 lags quite a bit (and results in my frequent death, really) when there are too many enemies on screen (of course, it might be a PC version issue? But my laptop is I5 core and by no means too old school to play DW6). Haven't noticed any frame rate issue with DW7 though.Camera, as in all DW games (or, I would venture to say, as in most hack and slash games), is the one true headache in this game. Sometimes too quick a motion will result in really bizzare and "are you f***** kidding me" camera switches. But I did notice that it's actually a lot better than in DW6 and DW5. So there is improvement on that front certainly.Combat system is VERY fun and I really like it. I started out on DW6, and for the longest time I only like the combat system in DW6 and bemoaned the lack of infinitely strung combo in all other DW games. (Shows that I am really just a button smasher, yes I know). But the system in DW7 actually really made me like it. Jump attack and movement+attack are so much fun. And all those different combos you can pull! And the best part, learning those combos is uber easy. Even a casual gamer and your novice button smasher like me can pull off fun things. Also, every character has SUCH unqiue combos and attacks, which makes it even more fun. And all those creative musou attacks! So far my favourite has to be Pang Tong. That fire phoenix skateboard KILLS, literally and figuratively. (My only complaint yet: why is Guan Yu SOOO difficult to use and his attacks so boring, totally does not seem to register with his God of War status! Tears.)A little more on combat and weapon.I am beginning to think that the second weapon is the most fun piece of DW7. Definitely USE your second weapon; even if the character is as designed into his primary weapon as Zhuge Liang, the switch attacks can be very useful. For others, a high-level, three stars non-ex weapon can be even more useful than primary weapon in some situations. Jiang Wei with Guan Yu's pike is just splendid, and I use that heavy pike for smashing ballista and siege engines; it's that faster. And the switch attacks are highly interesting.Now the best part of this game---- no, I wont' say "story"; I will have to say: RHYTHM.I am a hardcore Three Kingdoms fan; read all existing primary histories of that period, and I know the stories like the back of my hand. I am actually slightly less familiar with the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, mostly because I really don't like the novel. (This is a complaint common to history buffs and fans of historical characters; that novel just doesn't do people justice, even thought it is very entertaining.) Of course if you are a Chinese it's kinda hard to NOT know stories of ROTK well; they are everywhere. So I didn't get the kick out of finally learning about and understanding the whole story from DW7. I was only surprised that it is actually THAT true to the novel.But the method of storytelling, the rhythm of that game REALLY knocked me off my feet. You are dropped right into the conflict, and it unfolds there, with only pauses for breath and nothing else. The seamless flow of animation to gaming is already discussed quite a bit, so I won't labor that point too much. But even load screen narrations flow wonderfully well in this game, and I am actually reluctant to skip them (haven't skipped one as of yet)!! (Even though, the translation can be strange. If I get one more line about Liu Bei's "purity"...) It almost feels like that you are living the story, going from one battlefield to the next, with no end in sight (even if you actually know where the end is). People come into your field of vision and exist, as they do in real life. Basically, you get thrown into the world, and it's hard to exist. There is, literally, no place to stop. A river of actions, drama, romance, and very exciting to ride through. A final goodie about the rhythm of this game: it's fast. Even for someone who knows all the twists and turns of the story, this game moves at a vigorous pace, and very exhilirating, so it should be even more so for those who don't know the story. I am playing Folklore at the same time, and my biggest complaint is how insanely slow the story moves.Finally, after all those good things, my major complaint: as usual, voice acting. I have NEVER figured out why the English version of DW can't use Japanese character names. (For example, Ryuubi Gentoku instead of Liu Bei Xuande, Sunsaku instead of Sun Ce.) Most Japanese names are a lot of a less mouthful to pronounce. But at least "Cow Cow" is gone, thank god. Nothing can beat the atrocity that is DW5's voice acting, but this is still bad, IMHO.In conclusion, I really liked this game, and consider it totally worth my money. I know this game is grilled for repetitively mindlessly killing thousands of men (without shedding blood), but I think that's actually not quite true. Because when you play a campaign, you are assigned different characters in different levels, it's actually not that repetitive; you get to see different characters and different moves. The conquest mode might get a bit repetitive for people who don't have that much interest in the source materials, I would hazard to guess.So, if you never played any DW game, I recommend this. It would be fun. If you played DW before and didn't think much of it, then probably not for you. If you are a DW veteran and hasn't gotten bored or hasn't figured the story, this is also for you, lol.

31.3.2011

Allow me to start off by saying that I have played just about every Dynasty Warriors title (with the exception of Dynasty Warriors 5) available and keeping that in mind, I always thought that the third installment put forth the best effort.More recently, Dynasty Warriors 6 was released for the next generation consoles, and while it was great to finally be able to play as our favorite warriors in HD, it just seemed to me that things were "lacking." Now Dynasty Warriors 7 is released in all its glory for the world to see, and I must say...I am very pleased with what this game has to offer.So with all of that in mind, let's narrow things down a bit shall we?The Good:-Graphics.This is definitely the most visually appealing entry in the Dynasty Warriors series of games (though should that really surprise anyone)? All of the costume designs and character models prove that some actual work and effort were put into this release, and this can only be a plus for any video game.-Online Multiplayer. I have yet to test this feature out and once I am able to play the game a little bit more, I will edit my review and "fill in the gap" on this portion. However online multiplayer hasn't been available in past titles, so obviously something is better than nothing, right? Again, even if it ends up being horrible, at least we can finally be able to button-mash online with friends. Oh, and according to the case, the game is headset compatible. Yet again, I will update this portion soon.-Story Mode. I'll be honest, at first, I hated the first few battles I tried out within the newly developed "Story Mode" because they were different and unlike any of the past titles. Yet as I kept on playing, I realized I enjoyed it better. While you are able to choose between various kingdoms (Wei, Wu, Shu, and Jin), you aren't able to choose a warrior to progress through the story. Instead, after you select your desired kingdom path, you're forcibly put into the shoes of an officer. Throughout various battles in the storyline, the character whom you play automatically changes (often after being introduced to/encountering new warriors that decide to join your kingdom). In addition to the actual gameplay of the Story Mode, the narrations before each battle are actually quite informative and in many cases (at least for me) you may feel like you're actually learning something. Imagine that?-Roster. I haven't even begun to unlock even 25% of the characters made available in this game, but one thing I know for sure, there is a vast quantity of them. Many of the old favorites and staples of the series (such as Lu Bu, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian) are all here, as well as many other characters (both old and new). Each character offers a different set of attacks and special moves that the player can learn and control, and if you're one of those players that likes to unlock and play as everyone, you will definitely find hours upon hours of fun and entertainment here.-3D. If you're into this sort of thing, and you have a 3D-ready television, then you are capable of playing this game in 3D. I actually didn't even know this would be a feature of the game until the moment I saw a notification on the case when the game arrived; it truly was an added bonus! Again, 3D isn't for everyone, but if it is your "cup of tea," then put on those glasses and step into the world of your favorite characters!The Bad:-Camera. Now I hope I don't get scolded for this one, but honestly, there are many times while I'm playing that the camera just doesn't seem to be showing me what I need to be seeing. In other words, many times, I'll just be swinging towards an enemy officer blindly, hoping that I'm actually hitting him because he is out of sight from the camera (in other words, he is on the other side of the camera if that makes sense). I don't know if this is just a small oversight that can be fixed through an update in the future or if they meant for this to happen, but I don't recall this being an issue in past games. It's not necessarily a big deal cause it doesn't really take away anything from the game, but just sometimes it looks stupid hitting something...yet seeing nothing.-Sound. Now don't get me wrong, the voice acting in this is the best in a Dynasty Warriors game to-date (at least in my opinion), and they really stepped up in that aspect of the series. The problem I have is with other sounds. In particular the galloping of a horse as you ride it. Unlike past Dynasty Warriors games, the galloping just sounds...artificial rather than natural (if that makes sense). I don't know what they did, but it just doesn't appeal to me as much as in past games...yet maybe I'm just being picky? There are other quirky sound moments, however they can easily be overlooked due to all the non-stop action that is taking place.There really isn't much wrong with this game (so far that I've discovered) that I can pick out. The developers really stepped up and did a remarkable job with this entry into the Dynasty Warriors series. Again, I'm going to edit my review somtime within the near future as I am able to play it a bit more, but thus far, here is my overall summary:Fun: 5/5Graphics: 5/5Sound: 3/5Controls: 4/5Replayability: 5/5Conclusion: At the very least, rent the game, try it out, and see if the new style appeals to you. Like I said, at first the story mode might take some getting use to, but aside from that, you will be in for a great gaming experience!:)

23.6.2011

To me, this title is the 2nd best of the series, tagging slightly behind Dynasty Warriors 2 for the PS2. The Story mode is far superior to the Musou modes of the previous versions because it has considerably less logical fallacies. In other DW games you'd play the same character from the beginning of the story right up to the unification of the land. DW7 has a far more realistic and historically accurate way of telling the story. This makes the game way more enjoyable when you've actually read the Three Kingdoms books. I love the fact that for example when you're playing the Wei story and you get to Chibi, you lose the battle but instead of just losing it you have to make sure you retreat to safety and defeat all the generals on your way out.It made no sense whatsoever in the other DW games to have Wei win this battle, which was one of history's most devastating defeats.The only gripe I have with the new story system is that you can't switch difficulty at any stage. Which brings me to probably the worst thing about DW7, which is the difficulty gaps. This has plagued the DW series since its first incarnation in varying degrees of severity. Normal difficulty is way, way to easy, I don't even want to know what it's like to play on easy or beginner. But then the flip-side of this is that hard and chaos are often too hard unless you've spent a lot of time powering up your character in conquest mode. I did not have this issue in the last game, DW6, so I was a little disappointed with it this time around. The problem isn't that generals hit too hard, hell even Lu Bu is a joke now. The problem is archers and cavalry units that hit you harder than a general's musou attack. I can't stand playing normal mode anymore on my under-developed characters, but hard mode is just too frustrating when a squad of puny archers mows you down like you're nothing.I was really happy to see that KOEI finally, after like 20 years or making these games have decided to add Jin to the equation. They've never really been featured much in older "Three Kingdoms" games because of the controversy regarding the legitimacy of the Jin Empire. KOEI has always tried to follow the popular part of the story, mostly revolving about Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, etc. I think it's a good sign that they finally added Jin's officers and thankfully they're not just copies of other characters, they actually gave most of them unique weapons and play-styles.What really shocked me though was that other than Story and Conquest mode there are no other play styles. I personally don't really miss the other play modes much but I can see why others would and I'm not sure why KOEI did this. Don't get me wrong I am very happy that they spent a lot of time making the Story Mode good, but I see a lot of people complain about the lack of features and I think it's justified.Conquest mode, while fun, seems to consist mostly of completely random battles and superfluous RPG elements. I don't really get the point behind the weapon crafting/buying system, or the weapon swap feature. The former is just not needed for this type of game, and the latter was just poorly executed. There is almost no point in using weapon switching because with 2 (for some officers 3) musou bars and the EX attacks we really don't need to make our characters do more stuff. And on that note, KOEI really made ranged characters too powerful in this installment of DW, I started a hard difficulty Wei story mode and killed Lu Bu by using Xiahou Yuan's basic attack over and over during the battle against Dong Zhuo. In contrast the close-up fighters like Sun Ce are far more difficult to play which is a shame.The voice acting is so much better for this title. Whoever coached the English voice actors regarding Chinese pronunciation of names really deserves a raise. I seriously hated the way they butchered the names in the previous games so it's nice to seem them actually try this time. Of course the Japanese voice acting (which you can download free from PSN) is far superior but that's to be expected.In summary, here are the good and bad things about this game.The good:- Story mode is better than Musou mode- Great voice acting- Conquest mode is a good challenge- Crisp graphics and good music score- Sima Yi's Musou laugh (seriously it's amazing)The bad:- Too much of a gap concerning difficulty- Limited play modes- Worst.camera.ever- Jin officers are waaaaay to westernized (Sima Zhao is a Californian surfer dude I kid you not)- Cao Cao's hair

11.4.2011

As a person who has played Dw2 to DW5, I must say I like some of the changes within the game, but others leave me wanting more. The game follows more like the story of Dynasty tactics 2, which is great. However some of the battles do leave me wanting more of the game, especially the battle at Red Cliff, aka chi bi. The idea they have the name pronunciation of the characters right, actually makes the game play a lot better.As the game becomes more historically accurate with the characters, there are moments in the game that give me a what the heck moment. Some of the things that do not make sense within the game. For example a horse that jumps ridiculous heights, an arrow machine gun, among others.

8.4.2011

I was very disappointed to learn, at first, that the 2-player ability was taken away from the Story Mode. This had been the favorite game between my wife and I, so being unable to co-op in the primary game mode would surely kill much of its purpose.Having completed two of the four stories, however, I changed my mind. With the new, improved story telling, there is really no place for a second player. It's not so much about the graphical transition from movie to game, but about focusing on the character(s) that the story is about at a given time. It never made much sense for Xiao Qiao to follow the troops as Cao Cao hunts Liu Bei down Chang Ban, or send Guan Ping on a quest to take out the Yellow Turbans.

11.4.2011

I've been a die-hard Dynasty Warriors fan since the third installment was released, and I can say that this one is the best yet.- StoryThe biggest addition to this game is the new 'Jin' kingdom - The newest kingdom to the Dynasty warriors series. Instead of each character having his/her own story mode, each kingdom has its own story mode consisting of battles using fixed characters. This is so much better than the old story mode because it promotes longevity and has a deeper sense of the story than it did in previous installments. Free mode has been replaced with 'Conquest Mode' - A mode in which the player picks a character (that they can swap at any time) and battles through sections of a map of China,

1.4.2011

I will try to be objective since I am kind of fan for DW series.This is just a quick review after I played "Shu" in story mode for about 3 hours.0.I put it in '0' place because I think it is very important. For casual gamers, this game could be fun, simple and maybe boring in "Normal" difficulty. But please do not underestimate the action element of the game. only when you have played "Chaos" difficulty, you can feel that the action is somehow technical. From my experience in almost all DWs,Samurai Warrior 1&2, Musou Oruchi, you have to play the hardest difficulty to really get the essence of the game and the action.Now others comments:1.Story mode is different from previous versions.

1.7.2013

I own and have played Dynasty Warriors 4, 5, and 6 for the PS2, so I am familiar to the Dynasty Warriors series. I think Dynasty Warriors 7 is a pretty good game. The story mode is cool; it takes on even more of a historical perspective when you play as one of the kingdoms (Shu, Wu, Wei, and now Jin as well, the dynasty that ends up taking over) and watch as the geography of China changes, as to who is ruling each area. In Shu's case, the story goes from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the death of Zhuge Liang, after which, in history, Shu begins to fall apart. I assume the other kingdom stories will come to similar points and stop, as Shu is the only story I have completed so far.There are basically two playing modes in this game,

25.6.2013

GameplayThere is a new system where each character has a 'power' move available to them when chaining together regular combos. Each character also now has 2 musou attacks which are much more powerful than their regular blows. These changes as well as the wide range of weapons available (but each weapon has only one moveset) is a good change to the series. The bow attack has been done away with which was in DW5. Now the player can attack with Juggernauts and ballistas (a lot of fun). The controls are as repetitive as ever and the character cannot be chosen during story mode. I think this is why only DW fans regard the games highly and the critics never love the series and this is no exception.

21.5.2011

I have owned every game in this series and i would have to say im very happy with the way this came out. Especially after the last one (strikeforce) this game brings back the orginal feel for the game. The massive maps are back with endless waves of eniemes. In the new story mode feels alot more interactive. The cutscenes, movies and storyline are very detailed. Instead of jumping into a level you actually begin most levels in a fort where you can talk to diffrent people and buy weapons before opening the gate and heading out into the level. Also sometimes you will start a level excatly where a cutscene ends without a loading scene which is a very cool effect.

20.7.2012

im a DW fanboy since DW2 and i have played most DW games, Orochi, SW and a few of the empire versions (my favorite kind)So from all the other reviews you know whats up but what i disliked is since all weapons can be used by practically everyone there is a lack of uniqueness. Sure some characters have EX attacks for certain weapons but what if you dont like their ex attack/musou and seems useless [f.e any EX atk giving u atk,def or speed buff]. I much prefered other versions where characters had unique movesets and weapons. My suggestion would be have their unique movesets and static weapon and a free slot for a free weapon (with some having EX attacks)They added alternative musous (and you can no longer hold down the musou button till it drains)

13.6.2011

For lovers of the hack and slash genre this is a must have and especially for dynasty warrior fans! I missed the 6th installment so cant comment on the changes since then but from the 5th they are quite marked. The story mode now plays out more like a story for each of the separate families and factions, in my opinion this makes the story easier to follow, understand and become involved in. Your character changes throughout the story, between the generals. Rather than each general having specific moves the weapons they wield dictate their combos. However they still each have their own specific musos and power attacks when wielding specific weapons.The biggest change is the ability to change

24.5.2011

You absolutely need to buy this game if you are already a fan. The graphics and movie sequences are truly incredible, my friends said they feel like they were watching a real movie. The three kingdoms story itself is stimulating like always, and I never seemed to be caught in a boring moment.Now I understand some people are upset because their is no co-op offline story mode, yes I was very disappointed to find this out as well, but I still decided to give it a try.I think they decided leave out a co-op story mode because it would take too long for you to actually finish the game. Sometimes it's hard to get two people to always be there to watch every sequence and every transition into every battle and to have the time to get together and play the game with a friend.

11.5.2012

OK not really, but I could see myself doing it. I was a little worried when I heard the Tecmo had bought Koei, was worried that Tecmo would change everything. Luckily, they improved things. I have been a fan of Koei since Romance of the Three Kingdoms on Super NES, and a Dynasty Warriors fan since the second one on ps1, and this is one of the best titles in the series.I still believe DW6 Empires is the title to beat though.Let's start with the bad, cause this will be quick:1. There are still some camera troubles, they aren't too horrible, but noticable2.Lack of Morale Bar. I totally depend on this in all the other DW games. This bar lets me know if the other generals can handle thier battle or if they need help.3.

2.11.2011

Dynasty Warriors tends to provoke one of two reactions - love it or hate it. The new additions of Dynasty Warriors 7 go at least a little way towards trying to convert the hate, with it's more in depth Kingdom Mode, breathing new life into the story, and also gives the characters incredibly moving death scenes and invoking of the tragic grandness of the source novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".That's not to say the game doesn't have it's faults. In Kingdom Mode you are restricted to what characters can be played, and the challenge of then maxing all characters in the new Conquest mode is not for casual gamers as it will start to feel tedious.Luckily,

Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) - Reviews

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