Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires follows tradition of allowing the series to reveal it's more strategic and customizable approach through tactics and creating your own unique warriors in order to unite ancient China.
It starts with the opening that pretty much sums the game up very clearly of what's to come. The most honest opening yet. You'll witness the Kingdom of Wu's Zhou Yu showing you all the phases. From being a simple ronin scouring the land, to becoming an officer, then controlling China as a Lord. Within these few minutes you will see Zhou Yu plan ahead, go into battle with some companions and even bow before Sun Ce, as you would normally expect him to if you've any knowledge of Dynasty Warriors and his relationships. This is indeed the game in a nutshell.
Now about the actual gameplay. The Empires series is known for you starting off with a little part of China, often known as ''The Land.'' What you can do from here is choose at your own free will of what you make of it all, you can decide to attack certain nearby places, or even need be, defend your cities from a localized sweep. Though as an important factor of the Empires series, buying tactics and recruiting characters can be done during these stages of events. So once all that is done, you go into battle and brawl your way through to the enemy commander within a time limit without you or your commander being killed. Do this for over a course of many hours through thick and thin and you'll find yourself uniting the land under your banner, or your Rulers that's. In this main mode before you really get going, a fictional option letting you play more your way, or the historical option where you can follow and perhaps alter time-lines of The Three Kingdoms period of China.
Worth noting now is that for the first time you're able to play as a Vagrant (ronin) and earn your keep that way. Basically you will have much less control of where to attack and the course of action to be given. You will literally be freely fighting for the AI commander's turn of events. Otherwise there's the Officer and the Ruler status, the former will gain submissions from who you're working for every few months, enough to keep you occupied and feeling that being a part of is vital to controlling everything. Now as a Ruler, you have all the control you could want, such as using the tactics from purchasing and collecting character cards known and found throughout the two games before, 4 Empires & 5 Empires, plus more for the taking. Of course, hiring, attacking and defending should always be top priorities too. So really, the three above are different grades ranging from little control to lots of control over the battlefields.
CAW, also known as create-a-warrior in the series, is back. This time it's very large on customization that you won't know what to do next or what kind of body clothing you will collect after buying or finding them through missions. And do not fret, 100 places are set for you to fill in, so no need to delete in order to make room. Though unfortunately, the amount of characters used for creating a name has not changed. Plus this isn't it for CAW, not only can you change a body shape of your heroic or joke character, 6 Empires allows you to change a person's shape face and even go from a deep voice to a high pitched. So yes, you will certainly have plenty to do and spend time on with CAW, it's expansive.
Now in terms of the modes and what's new to the series or based upon the latest installment, Dynasty Warriors 6. First off, for those who've played DW6 would be aware that it for the first time, gave it a makeover with the new Renbu system. That has returned. But, in a slightly different fashion. Now you will need to buy a grid from the shop for each Kingdom which will unlock the Renbu system for that entire Kingdom.
Moving on, those who missed out on the PS2 version of Dynasty Warriors 6, the characters who were given new weapons and move-lists will be like so in this game as well. But otherwise in terms of new historic non-generic characters, Meng Huo has reawakened his tribe and has come back looking thrice as huge and ready for some action. This time carrying a huge pillar which he likely pulled out from his homeland wishing to smack some stupid grunts on the head with, in both a serious and punishing style. Or even with a more comical approach, summoning a giant mushroom from the ground which spins and fires spore pellets. Remembering the fact that DW6 featured two special attacks for each character (now there's 4 slots that you will need to buy to fill), in his case one of his looking extremely cruel to witness. One thing is for sure, this guy not being one you want to be rivals with due to his move-list and physical presence. And as other added bonuses, Empires gives his land some time and BGM, along with other historical places through interpretations via playable maps. Not forgetting Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires will, as a first, give customers DLC (download-able content) costumes and even BGM's through PSN and Xbox Live. Also if you haven't forgotten the background music will be more of use here due to the fact Empires allows you to choose your music track pre-battle. A few new BGM's will be in the game, though, spanning through the series giving 150 music pieces.
Another new feature is having the ability to edit the ending this time around. But in order to do so you must complete the mode.
There's the Encyclopedia which enlists what historically happened and gives a more honest view on the many faces found in Empires. And there's the Visual Database which is the new name for the Gallery from past titles. Brand new music plays here, though the main purpose, showing off character art (up to 4 per char) of never-before-seen poses. However, I'm sure you will be excited to learn that you can actually buy these now, as well. And if you've been following the series, you'll likely know there's the voice tests and specific character quotes within this mode. This includes the generic officers as well.
That's it for the Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires preview. From just watching the opening to completing your first Empire mode, I'm sure you'd agree it's a step forward for Dynasty Warriors in the sense you will know what you're doing and how much control you have. Vital for this specific series of games.
Release Dates
June, 23 (US)
May, 28 (JP)
June, 26 (EU)
I have seen 23 for US and 26 at the end of the video but it came from the UK site so i just guessed.
