Dynasty Warriors 6

Written by Jason Cisarano  on November 04, 2008

Previews: Ancient China? Check. Massive battles? Check. Must be Dynasty Warriors.

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When I cranked up the demo for Dynasty Warriors 6, I had visions of massive movie battles in mind. Hero, Lord of the Rings, Braveheart and Henry V have a few of the great battle scenes, with their rains of arrows, the clash of sword and shield, and hordes of soldiers stomping around in mud and muck for a good cause. The upcoming port of Dynasty Warriors 6 promises to bring some of that experience to the PC by combining large-scale battles with the first-hand action of a beat-'em up martial arts game.

If you're new to the series, that mash-up might surprise you, since talk of large-scale battles tend to conjure up thoughts of RTS titles like the Total War series. Dynasty Warriors has the battles and the massed armies, but does the RTS one better by putting the player and her gamepad in control of one hero on a Chinese battlefield. Friendly and enemy forces swarm all over the place, and the player canЧin true hero fashionЧstride into the fray and lay waste to wide swaths of enemy footsoldiers with a few deft swordstrokes. That direct participation sets this one apart from a sea of other battle games, but many familiar RTS elements are still present. For instance, the demo level started out with a series of setup screen that showed a general plan of the assault we were about to undertake. The 3D map showed friendly forces in blue around a seemingly-impenetrable castle with its rings of massive walls and fortified gates surrounding the ultimate goal: the keep of the powerful Chinese warlord Cao Cao. If I could just make it through all of those walls, the areas teeming with enemy armies marked in red, and maybe pick up some of the special goals along the way (e.g. УOpen the main gate in 5 minutesФ or УTake all watchposts in 10 minutesФ), I might just be able to make a name for myself as a hero.




Of course the setup screen also offered a few customization options for the player character, including choice of mount, choice of weapon, and a skill tree that shows bonuses like improved speed and attacks that the player can earn throughout the campaign. In the demo, I couldn't win new permanent skills, but I did see my character building up experience points by defeating enemy heroes and capturing important tactical goals. I was able to see a few power-ups in the demo. By killing enemy officers and standard bearers, I won speed boosts and attack boosts that helped me dominate the battlefield for a bit.

With the speed boost, I could charge forward to meet the enemy and dart through their ranks, knocking them down like so many armored bowling pins. Most of the troops in the field fall into the human bowling pin category without enough sense to get out of the way of the ball coming down the lane. They'll stand around, looking at one another without attacking, waiting for you to send them off to join their ancestors. Unfortunately, your troops are just as dim, and there doesn't seem to be a way to give them any sort of orders. They can do things like build battering rams, siege ladders and catapults, but they wait for some event before they'll start building anythingЧthey won't do it on your direct command. So in the initial siege, you have to take out enemy captains in an area to clear space for catapults and siege ladders. Then, once you have the ladders built and placed, you can climb up onto the enemy walls to destroy their ballistae so your men can complete their catapults and get through the gate. But once, I saw the ladders standing at the build points, with my soldiers swarming all around the area, though not one stepped up to carry the ladders to the walls. I was all dressed up, with no way to go forward.



Being in the middle of that throng is fun, though, as troops finally batter down a set of gates and swarm through, with you at their lead. The combat system puts a variety of moves and attacks in the player's arsenal: leaps, flips, sword strokes and more, all based on the motion-capture moves of real-life martial arts experts. There are even some devastating magic-based attacks that throw dozens of nearby enemies sprawling on the ground. The attacks are powerful, satisfying, and let you rack up hundreds of victories on the battlefield (the game counts them for you, not unlike Gimli and Legolas's little contest). Special moves, as might be expected, draw from a stamina pool that depletes and is replenished during the fight. Filling it, racking up the kills and collecting power-ups all win players more complicated and potent moves, until it becomes a simple task to lay waste to a whole platoon of enemy soldiers. Still, the combat control system is more or less a button-mashing affair, with victories easily won by launching a flurry of powerful attacks, which keep the enemies stunned so they can't return the favor. This simple system is fun for the relatively short battle that makes up the demo, but will need a whole lot more depth to stay interesting for the duration of a whole game.