Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires

As one of the most popular hack-and-slash series of all-time, the DW series takes Chinese history and literature and turns it into an anime-level action movie. With the release of Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires, though, we got to see another iteration of the series that focused more on building your own story as opposed to re-playing the stories of legends from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms literature. How good, though, is Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires? With so many titles in this KOEI series, does this edition offer anything like the quality you would hope for?

Sengoku combat with generic management

When the Empires series first started, it was supposed to add a deeper tactical element to the Dynasty Warriors series. And while iterations and spin-offs like Hyrule Warriors and the Gundam series helped to change the formula up slightly, Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires keeps things very simple. A massive lack of innovation is a common problem for KOEI in their series, and Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires suffered every bit as much as previous releases.

The game is a product of its time, a 2013 release that lacked the innovation of the games that first arrived. From the fourth iteration, the Dynasty Warriors series has slowly ran into problems with longevity and depth. Empires tries to solve that with some extra management option, but it really does not manage to deliver the consistent quality one would expect.

A pale shadow of a once-great series (5/10)

While the Dynasty Warriors series is beloved by most, many recent editions to the series have lacked the quality, charisma, and polish of previous releases. Therefore, there is something that is lacking in Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. Though it does come with a range of extra features, it provides you with only surface-level tactical and political theatre to deal with. Later editions of the Empires series do this better, while previous editions avoided offering such basic content to begin with.

Where Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires falls down is that it tries to introduce new ideas to the series without going deep enough. Most of the new additions are deeply basic and lack any meaningful depth. This can lead to many features feeling half-baked and can soon become repetitive, getting in the way of the entire experience.

Pros:

• Good collection of characters to pick from.
• Retains a fun, if basic, combat system to enjoy

Cons:

• Watered down features from previous games.
• New featured tend to lack any meaningful polish