Dynasty Warriors are back with the latest instalment in the console spanning series. Rather than continuing the innovations of their last instalment Koei have rolled back the franchise clock and created what feels like a sequel to earlier instalments than a direct successor to six. While some of the new and returned elements to the series are exciting, others feel unnecessary and for some long term Dynasty Warriors fanatics the roll back isn’t always a good thing.

Fans of the series will be quick to snap up the latest instalment but it offers little to entice non fans into the fold.

The Dynasty Warriors series is a longstanding, but polarising franchise among gamers. There are those who have played it and hate it and those who play it regularly and love it. Speaking for myself I am firmly in the adoration camp. I’ve played every Warriors game since Dynasty Warriors 2 and loved every one of them. But despite my affection I’m aware of the arguments against the game series, it’s repetitive, it’s button mashing, it’s confusing, etcetera.

So here’s a short segment of the review for the haters. You will hate Dynasty Warriors 7, maybe even more than you’ve hated previous Koei games. For you this game easily ranks as a one or two star title. Given your grievances with the series I don’t think a whole new faction of characters, or a new and complicated levelling and weapon system is going to quite win you over; probably the opposite. So, haters, as they say, gonna hate. Now what about us fans or the neutral uninitiated?

Zhou Tai, my favourite character, get's his katana back in DW7, +1 fanservice to me

Dynasty Warriors 7 follows the Three Kingdoms Period of ancient China where, following a peasant rebellion, three warlords representing three factions known as Wei, Wu and Shu, square off in a civil war over control of the country. Following the three kingdoms period a fourth faction named Jin rose to power, supplanting Wei. This is the first Dynasty Warriors game featuring this fourth faction.

The game boils down to a third person hack and slash. You play as an officer for one of the factions and engage hundreds of enemies on battlefields. Your goal is usually to kill the enemy general while protecting and strengthening the position of your own general. Attacks are carried out by three buttons, a standard, strong and ‘musou’ (or special) attack. The more simple Renbu combo system of the last game has been replaced with the old charge attack system whereby different stages of standard button combo can be capped of with a heavy attack finisher. These finishers can be strong attacks against a single opponent or devastating area of effect attacks against a crowd. The secondary weapon option from Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce has been copied over and players can switch between their main weapon and a special weapon during combat which automatically produces a special move. Old fans will be pleased to learn that unique weapons for each character make a return in DW7.

The game is by far the best looking in the series, the graphics and colours pop, the Musou and EX attacks are loud and extravagant and levels are huge and well detailed with the familiar feature of dozens of enemies crowding your character at once. Many of the same voice actors return to their roles and problems with the pronunciation of certain names have been cleared up. The soundtrack contains plenty of cheesy wailing guitar solos and odd electric music the series is notorious for. In a surprisingly lazy move the developers have recycled a few levels from Dynasty Warriors 6 rather than the usual practice of creating a new dynamic level for each battle in each game. Given the sheer number of battles and levels in the game it’s not that surprising, but it still feels like a cheap move.

DW7 is by far the prettiest one yet and there's a noticeable jump in graphics from 6 to 7

The games available modes have been cut back considerably. Campaign mode has been streamlined and now only allows you to pick a faction rather than a favourite warrior, and your protagonist is chosen for you in each battle. The goal seems to be keeping some degree of historical consistency to the story campaign and you’ll only ever play as people who were actually recorded as having been there for the battles you take part in. It feels a little restrictive and the campaign won’t get nearly as much play as it’s had in previous games as a result. For fans it feels like a neutering of the campaign portion of the game. As opposed to the dozens of playthroughs you’d normally run with different characters you will likely only play the campaign the four times required to knock it out with each faction. To compensate for this new, less flexible campaign mode Koei has added the dynamic new Conquest mode.

Conquest is a roll together of the novelty Challenge mode, and choose your own battle Free mode. You move hexagon by hexagon across a map of China, completing objectives and unlocking new stuff. Some of these are short challenges; others are full on battle campaigns that unlock new characters. Occasionally you’ll unlock a city where you can meet officers and buy and upgrade weapons, similar to the villages in Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce. However the town levels feel a little sterile, just a bunch or people standing around and little to do, and don’t add much to the game. Conquest mode is where you’ll spend most of your game time as it gives you the opportunity to play as the characters and take part in the battles you actually want to.

There's plenty of unconventional weaponry on display, such as the pictured giant power drill spear

The best features of Dynasty Warriors 7 are the new elements. The EX attacks that can be completed with each characters master weapon add some extra whoop ass to battles, as do having animal companions to maul and claw at opponents. Rideable elephants and the Nanman campaign against Meng Huo, one of my favourite parts of the earlier DW games, returns. One of the best features is a new tutorial level that runs you through all the controls, handy for noobs and old fans alike as it gives you a chance to use the new weapon swap combos and EX attacks. There are some odd additions too that feel unnecessary, a few battles have platforming sections that require to jump up a cliff face or wall that don't particularly work and a new bonding system where making nice with certain generals makes them available as back up is vague and value lacking.

Unfortunately some of the rolled back features make up the worst elements of this latest version. While I was originally annoyed by the Renbu system in DW6 I learned to love it and now the reintroduction of the charge system feels clunky by comparison. Likewise the manual points based levelling system in DW6 has been rolled back to the old system of improving stats with dropped items. The Tomes special ability has also disappeared. These changes have made the characters feel a little more derivative to me than they did in DW6. Even worse the ability to switch weapons means that many characters have identical move sets with the same weapons. Of course this was always the case but Koei camouflaged it better by providing different individual weapons, now everyone has the same base weapons. A few other elements from DW6 have disappeared such as capturing buildings and forts to generate reinforcements which added a bit of strategy to the game. This might be an attempt to sell more copies of the more strategy focused Empires versions of Dynasty Warriors, but the mini goals of capturing bases in DW6 added a lot to the gameplay.

The addition of a fearsome attack panda more than makes up for the wait for DW7, just look at those cold dead eyes... killers eyes

There are new things I like, new things I don’t like and the return of old features I could go either way on. I’m certainly not pleased that Koei have backed down from the innovations of DW6. The company have always been very responsive to their fan base but I think the game series would have been better served by taking chances and risking a few fanatics shedding some bitter tears. At it’s core the game remains what it’s always been a non stop hack and slash grind with the same battles and scenarios played out over and over again. Love it or hate it, Dynasty Warriors 7 is exactly what you expect it to be. For me, it’s a game I knew I’d love for a hundred nuanced reasons, but I would have liked to have seen the series continue to take more risks. Assigning a star score to the title seems daft as well, for most people this a dead set three star title, some would easily peg it as one star and blow their nose in the box before trading it in. Then sad fan boys like me find it hard to resist the temptation of just giving it top marks. I'm a fan, and as a fan I mostly loved the whole package, but I recognise it's not everyone's cup of Irish coffee, so...