Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Best in series"

DW7 gives you more of what to expect from a Dynasty Warriors game. Over-the-top hack-n-slash action, set to a rock soundtrack in historical China.
You are a one-man-army cutting down hundreds of enemies on open battlefields, defeating enemy officers, leveling up, earning money, weapons, mounts, and companion pets across the "Three Kingdoms" period of Chinese history.
After the fall of the Han Dynasty, three major kingdoms battle each other for control over the future of the country. The Shu, Wu, Wei, and new faction, the Jin, all have many colorful and fun characters as officers for you to take control over. All in all, there are 62 unique characters to play as.
There is the story mode, in which you pick a faction and play through the story from their point of view, beginning to end. This is easily the best story mode ever of any Dynasty Warriors game. The characters die when they are supposed to and you don't see them again. There is a good mix of in-game cinematics and fully rendered CGI movies. The only downside I felt was that you cannot pick your character and just play through. It is very focused on telling the story of each kingdom, and places you in the shoes of a star officer of each battle. It made it more interesting, and gives you more perspective on the whole story from multiple viewpoints, and also forces you to play characters you might otherwise have ignored. This can be good and bad, depending on how you perceive the character you are in control of.
One new feature is that all characters can use all weapon types, and there are more variety of weapons than ever. From guns to bows, crossbows, sword and shield, sickle and chains, flutes, harps, and even a paintbrush, any character can equip two different weapons that they can change on the fly in battle. There are 10 different weapons of each type, and ultimate weapons are back and rewarding to collect. Each weapon can have seals placed on it or swapped out that improve your character, from Walking Speed Up, to Attack, Defense, and Health bonuses.
Also new to the series is the Conquest Mode. This is like a mixture of Free for All and Story Mode. There is a map of China covered in many Hexagons that represent stages to conquer. Some are escorts, some are base defense, and most are standard assault the enemy battles. Some are special treasure battles that unlock special weapons and some are character battles, where you play as a specific character and if successful, you will unlock that character. Some hexes are cities, that hold characters to meet, blacksmithes, weapon dealers, and other merchants. The key is you have to progress across the map by unlocking adjacent hexagons, and as you move across the map, the battles get more difficult, but you get better rewards as well. You can play any unlocked character for any battle and all the gold, fame, and bonds are linked to you, the player, not the officer you use. The only thing that changes with the officers are the stats for that individual officer that you have earned from the battles. There are tons of things to unlock from weapons to sounds to wallpapers.
There is online play as well. With your friends, or a quick random match-making, you can jump in and team up against the enemy.
Dynasty Warriors 7 has incredible replay value and is great for the collector gamer.