I have been playing the Warriors series now for at least 6 years enjoying Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, Warriors Orochi, even Warriors: Legends of Troy. Somehow I have skipped playing the Empires games, which is a tragedy as I have learned to enjoy the strategy involved in them now with Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires.

As I expected, the game looks like Dynasty Warriors 8. The characters look pretty much as they have throughout the years. There are a lot more non-famous officers in Empires than in the others, so they had to create a few more looks for them, which is nice. It seems to me like the weapons are a lot more detailed too. The battlegrounds are well done and are a bit less free-range, so you see the detail in the buildings and walls that seem to pin you in more than you want.

One thing that hasn’t really changed in a while is the music. If you want to hear your familiar battle sounds and background music, then you are in luck. Personally, I like recognizing a lot of the music but let’s face it, the music is just in the background. I do like that if you listen for the audio cues, you can tell a lot about what is coming and react in advance. There is a specific sound when your enemy changes weapons and when they activate their Musou. These cues will help, if you listen.

There are several options from the Main Menu, but I would bet if you’re playing Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, then you are here for the strategy of Empire Mode. When you start a new game on Empire Mode, you will then get to choose a scenario to play. There are six available, plus you can do custom scenarios and even download scenarios. The first five scenarios are set at a specific point in history. After choosing a scenario, you will pick an officer to use to unite the land. Please note that you will only be able to select officers that were alive during that time period. This means that you can’t go looking for someone like Guan Yu in the Coup d’etat scenario as he died before it started or someone like Liu Shan to start as in The Alliance Against Dong Zhuo because he wasn’t born yet. Your starting rank will depend upon the character you choose. With some characters, you will start all the way at the lowest level and have to work your way up. You can see what your rank will be on the right side as you are looking through the characters. Also, your characters can get married as in the previous Empires games, but now they can have children as well. We’re definitely not "historically accurate" in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires.

You will need to participate in the War Council by completing "Strategy Objectives." These earn you Merits, which you will need to level up or get promoted. Once you get to Prefect, there are two tracks you can get promoted to: Strategist, which you can obtain with strategy objectives, and Marshal, which you can obtain with battle objectives. You are also going to need to manage your resources. The top level you can rise to is Ruler. As you are playing, you will also earn titles for things you have done. Some titles are positive, for things like keeping your people happy. Some aren’t so positive, like earning a title for being a despot (having several unhappy territories). All of these titles will shape your character. If you move your troops right and balance everything well, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to unite the land, which is the ultimate goal. If it takes you longer than 50 years or if another faction unites the land first, you lose the game.

Free Mode is also available from the Main Menu. Here you can choose to replay any of the invasions, defensive battles, event battles, or quests that you have unlocked in Empire Mode. Personally, I just keep playing an Empire game, but Free Mode can be nice if you just want a quick battle. Edit Mode is also available. That’s where you create your own custom characters. You can have a whole lot of custom characters, so create away. I really like that you can mix and match their favorite weapon, the EX attacks, Musou attacks, and Rage attack since I really like the Musou on some characters, but don’t like their EX, for example. A custom character will let you get exactly what you want. They’re also extremely customizable. You can edit so many features that it’s almost to the point of The Sims in being able to create a character that looks exactly like what you want. There are also a lot of choices for outfits and accessories (the weirdest of which I think is the cat sleeping on your head).

You will need that custom character that you just created to choose Play Online (you can play online from the Empire Mode without a custom character). You can choose to create a quick match which will randomly match you with another player, if there is one available. You can choose to join, which will join you to a game. You can also choose to confirm an invite, which will let you accept a specific invite from someone else.

The other things you can do from the Main Menu include Gallery, which will show you images of your various officers and such. You can also choose Encyclopedia, which will give you a lot of historical information about the characters that you are using to fight. Options is also available, which is where you can configure your game.

There are several difficulty modes: Beginner, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Chaos, so you can make your game as hard or as easy as you want. Personally, I like to start on Normal and get to harder modes as I unlock more weapons. I felt like the beginning of Empire Mode was the hardest. Once I got things under control a bit, as long as I stayed on top of things, it got less difficult as time goes on, once I figured out a strategy, of course. Strategy is the name of the game. Getting that proper balance down took some time.

You can change your battlefield objects, which is quite handy at times. You want to achieve as many of these as you can as they give you more points to level up. Leveling up will definitely make your life easier. The stronger you are, the easier it is to fight. Before battle, I recommend you use resources to specify offensive bases, defensive bases, supply bases, and to level up bases. Offensive bases make your attack stronger, while defensive ones give you more health. Supply bases restore health. You can also take over the enemy bases of these types, but you’re going to need to have enough strength to take them to start with. During battle, you can give specific orders to your troops. I really liked this because I could tell the guys that had to stay alive to go defend the Main Camp.

Pretty much every button has a function in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. Some of them are different from some of the other Warriors games, so you might want to take your time to get to know them. (L1) re-centers the camera and defends, just like in previous games, while (L2) calls a horse. You can hold it down to hop on the horse while running. (R1) switches your weapon and (R2) brings up any stratagems that you equipped before battle. You press the up arrow to activate them. You also have a Rage meter. When it is full, you can press (R3) to go into a rage.

I’ll be honest; I wasn’t sure I was going to like Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires when I first started it up. I had trouble figuring out what I needed to do and when to do it as there are so many different options to choose to do each turn. It really didn’t take too long to figure it out though, and once I did, I really wanted to take everything over quickly. I probably should have played slower as my people weren’t very happy with me, but the next time I go through, I know how to make things work ever better. If you’re looking for a pretty solid strategy game that still has a lot of in person fighting, check out Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires today.