So, you're either going to hate this series or love it. If you fall into the former, it would be wise to stop reading now as nothing's going to change your mind, while if you're the latter, then Dynasty Warriors 7 is the best game in the series to date. There is a lot of content, and it'll take a while before you can get 100% completion (although, to be honest, it can be very tedious grinding for 100%). Obviously, the first place to start would be playing the story modes, there are four Kingdoms this time, Shu, Wei, Wu and the newly introduced Jin, which ends the Three Kingdoms era (previous games didn't go too far). One thing's for certain, even though it's the same story as the previous games, the way it is presented is a million times better. It was very surprising when I found myself caring for the characters, and actually feeling sad whenever an important character died. A bulk of the story is still told via a map of China with character portraits, arrows and a voice over, but then you will be presented with some cutscenes, and this was where the game really excelled. While still crap compared to other games, this is the pinnacle of story telling in the Dynasty Warriors series. Some criticisms however is the voice actors, most of them lack emotion and badly synced (if at all), the character models lack expression (and their eyes are dead), and some very cliche moments (the death scenes being the biggest offender).
In terms of game play, it is what you would expect, being thrust into a battle, rack up kills (often more than 1000) and kill the enemy commander to end it. The battle system ditches Dynasty Warriors 6's (terrible) renbu system, and we get the charge system from pre-Dynasty Warriors 6. It's much better and much more fun. The developers added in a few tweaks which actually made is more refreshing and different. It doesn't feel like a complete old tread. In case you don't know, they've added in weapon changes in the middle of a battle, a basic skill tree for each character, seals (which are basically upgrades) that you can choose and special unique attacks. They did enough unique movements per character in order for them to not feel like a perfect clone. While the character roster is huge (I think it's at 62), there's only 36 movements, and most of the characters that you use in story modes using similar weapons (so it's a really refreshing change when you get one that doesn't use a sword). There's some ridiculous weapons too, flying swords? A gun? A giant paintbrush?! Seriously, wtf? There are some gimmicks added in during battles that doesn't completely work, such as using catapults, they break the flow, and feel very awkward. It can feel unbalanced at times, especially with the power of the musou attack (a special move), very easy to recharge but way too powerful (can often take down 1/2 or just one-shot k.o. a boss), while normal attacks do relatively very little damage. There is a point in the game where it gets very draining and tedious, since it can be repetitive. It's also a tad on the easy side, so play it on Chaos difficulty to make it slightly more interesting when battling soldiers (otherwise it's just usually a one-hit KO, although this means you'll probably get a large kill count, it doesn't hold the same appeal after you've played through 50+ stages).
Obviously, the graphics are the best in the series, but it won't wow you. The draw distance can still be limited at times, and enemies love to pop in, at least the frame rate doesn't drop when the screen gets busy. Furthermore, the stages have added in a new dimension, there's now height involved. This gets extremely annoying when you have to try and find a way up to the top, and you up circling around for like five mins, boooooring. While the music is still similar, but I've noticed that it suits what's happening onscreen a lot better. A lot of the scenes in story mode made a lot more impact due to the music, and the music also changes during battle to suit what's going on, a nice touch. So, after you've finished the story modes (around 25 hours), there's the Conquest Mode. While it's not exactly a Free Mode, it's similar, but it's a massive grind (which, after I went through the story modes, I was not up to it), and most of the trophies are related to this mode. Overall, I think it's a decent game, at least with Dynasty Warriors you know what you're getting into, so why complain and push it down when you don't like it? There's a lot of subtle improvements in this installment, they story modes were great, and while game play can get tedious if you constantly play it, it's a good time waster and to be honest, which other game can let you destroy over 3000 enemies in the space of twenty mins?
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