Dynasty Warriors is the ultimate Marmite videogame franchise. Love it or loathe it, the series continues to sell by the bucketload. In fact, pretty much anything resembling an Omega Force created KOEI release will fly of the shelves, regardless of the quality of product. The week that Dynasty Warriors 6 was released in Japan, the PS3 outsold the Wii, while Gundam Musou rode high on the bestsellers list for months on end, despite it largely being a shameless cash cow. It may not sell as well on these shores, but these games still do pretty decent business in the West too - believe me, they don't keep releasing the games over here just for the hell of it!

Dynasty Warriors 6 is the latest release in the long running series and, believe it or not, comes a whole three years after Dynasty Warriors 5. That may hard to believe, but considering KOEI's spin off production in between, it's no surprise that it feels like there is always a new KOEI release on the horizon. In those three years between Dynasty Warriors 5 and 6, KOEI have released the brilliantly over the top Warriors Orochi, the rather insane Gundam Musou and the hugely underrated Bladestorm. All of these titles keep to that Dynasty Warriors template of strategy, action, beautiful cut scenes and hammy voice acting - but each has taken the gameplay in a subtly unique direction. After all these reasonably successful endeavours on the part of KOEI, they have finally returned to the original series for which the developer is most famous.

Dynasty Warriors 6 sees a return to the scenarios and characters established by Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The story is as epic as ever, told through a seventeen-character career mode via the studio's staple of beautifully rendered cut scenes. The voice acting may well still be extremely hammy, but for many, including myself, it is something that adds to the series' charm and over the top style. You can also catch up on any of the story or characters you may have missed in previous releases via the beautifully crafted and extremely thorough encyclopaedia. This offers background on the beautiful story around which the series is based, while being accessible and surprisingly well displayed. Don't let the term 'encyclopaedia' put you off - it's easy to work through and is a generally entertaining read. Some may argue that this has nothing to do with the main game and that, based on the cut scenes alone, new players will be left at sea with constant character and event referencing, but this is only a game about the story if you want it to be. For many it will be all about smashing through hordes of enemies with little to no interest in the story, but it you do decide to take an interest in the story then that's where the encyclopaedia comes in. It's a decent compromise that allows you to get involved in the story as much as you see fit.

The Dynasty Warriors franchise has always been criticised for its repetition and failure to move forward. For Dynasty Warriors 6, KOEI have finally addressed many of these issues and, while the game still features the same blend of minor strategical planning and endless button mashing, the tweaks made to the formula certainly make it the best game in the series to date. It's probably not going to win over all that many new fans, and the naysayers will still quaff at the gameplay's repetition and old school sensibilities, but for fans of the series, of which there are many, these changes will be more than enough to warrant a return to the ancient Chinese kingdom.

For starters, you can swim, climb ladders, smash down fortress walls and even ride boats in Dynasty Warriors 6. This might sound like old news in comparison to other games, but for Dynasty Warriors it's a big step in the right direction and one of the biggest changes the series has ever seen. There are also more enemies on screen than ever before, with a lot of them not being quite as dumb as in the past. Dynasty Warriors 6 is still lacking compared to many other titles with regards to its AI, but enemy troops are a lot more organized this time around, with flag carriers leading battalions and enemy troops scaling walls to attack. It's not just the AI either; the whole battlefield feels a lot more energetic; while this is helped by the increased variety of enemies, which now includes ferocious beasts to go with the bog standard troops and friendly troops who punch the air in celebration and generally feel more animated, it is actually your character that really brings the screen to life.

Never before has a Dynasty Warriors title felt so visceral. Thanks to the motion capture of real martial artists, our protagonists move and attack with far greater fluidity. It's not just the animations that have improved either, as the new battle mechanic allows for much greater destruction and a lot more personality for your character. Although the general play is pretty much the same as before, with a single button being continuously mashed to attack and a second power attack button thrown in to allow for basic combos and guard breaks, you can also unleash Musou attacks that feel more brutal and beautifully choreographed than ever before. While these need to be built up, they devastate enemy ranks once released, allowing for the culmination of literally hundreds of kills.

The big new addition however comes in the form of the all new Renbu system. Much like a combo meter, the Renbu meter builds up if you complete continuous combos and attacks without being struck. This then allows for new moves to be used, along with weapon-specific effects and hugely increased combos. This works brilliantly to give the game extra fluidity, while making it feel more like a traditional skill based slash 'em up akin to Devil May Cry in terms of the available move list. It doesn't achieve the depth of DMC, but it certainly pushes the series forward in the right direction.

DW6 is played through either the Musou or Free mode. Both are exactly the same, with each made up of nineteen levels for the seventeen character campaigns - although Free mode allows you to play through with any of the forty-one characters who can be unlocked throughout the game. This may be a reduction on Dynasty Warriors 5, but I doubt that many will begrudge a character list quite as extensive as this one. Free mode also allows you to go back to any completed level from Musou mode and level up any of your characters in the usual kill everything in your path style. Beyond this, there is the aforementioned encyclopaedia, along with a Challenge mode, which is made up of a succession of pretty basic speed and KO type demands, along with a base camp that allows you to survey the progress you have made.

Between levels you can level up your character of choice using a multi-branching skill tree. This is a much sleeker and infinitely more enjoyable way of levelling up, offering an accessible way of adding skills, weapon upgrades and abilities. Exp bonuses are given for achieving set criteria within levels and while this is more entertaining than in the past, it is also more challenging than the skill unlock criteria of Warriors Orochi or the point system of previous releases.

Although the new animations and choreographed action make Dynasty Warriors look a class above its predecessors, it is still visually average for a next gen title. The Musou attacks are more explosive than ever and the battlefields have been given that extra dimension thanks to swimming and climbing, but Dynasty Warriors still suffers from many of the series' usual problems. Enemies still appear as if from nowhere (slightly more forgivable now thanks to the huge numbers of enemies onscreen) and the level design is still pretty boring. Everything still feels a little too flat and forgettable; there will be few cases where you want to travel back to a specific level because something truly awe-inspiring popped up. There is also a lot of slowdown, especially in the case of the PS3 version, which can disrupt the flow of the gameplay quite a bit at times. These issues aside, Dynasty Warriors 6 is still far and away the best looking title in the series by a fair distance and the incidental cut-scenes are especially slick; the animation really does raise the whole game to another level.

The audio is still pretty basic stuff, with passable battlefield effects and the usual hammy voice acting. At least the carnage of swooping through hordes of enemies via Musou attacks does have a bit more oomph to it this time around and it certainly adds a bit more weight to the carnage.

Dynasty Warriors 6 hasn't been designed to win over anyone who has never been interested in the series - it has been made to please its already substantial fan base. From that respect, it is a success, moving the series forward while not abandoning the style and features for which it is famous. This leaves is very much as a Marmite game - if you hated the previous entries in the series then you will hate Dw6, but if you're a fan, you'll find more of the same action you enjoy, but with quite a few successful additions that really bring a new dimension to the gameplay. And love it or loathe it, I get the feeling that Dynasty Warriors will be around for many years to come.

Reviewed by Liam Pritchard for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).