Dynasty Warriors 8

[awesomerhys]

Have any of you been playing the glorious latest entry in the Dynasty Warriors series? I'd be tempted to say it's the best one yet as it brings together most of the really cool mechanics of older DW games and adds its own features on top; the result being the shot of refreshment the series so desperately needed.

What do you think of how they've handled Story Mode this time around, and are you a fan of the new characters (Yue Jin is so much fun to play as) and movesets? How about Ambition Mode? I'm completely hooked on that. Discuss what you think of DW8 here! (My god it's so good!)

 

[Quigon]

Dynasty Warriors is actually a total guilty pleasure of mine xD the 8th one looks pretty cool, but I haven't played any of them in aaaaages. In fact the last one I did play was the first one for the PS3? I think. I remember getting frustrated because they'd replaced all the cool weapons some characters had with swords.

Is Sun Ce in the 8th one? He's just my favourite character ever. 

DW4: Empires was my total favourite though. That was such a fun game.

 

[awesomerhys]

Dynasty Warriors is actually a total guilty pleasure of mine xD the 8th one looks pretty cool, but I haven't played any of them in aaaaages. In fact the last one I did play was the first one for the PS3? I think. I remember getting frustrated because they'd replaced all the cool weapons some characters had with swords.

Is Sun Ce in the 8th one? He's just my favourite character ever. 

DW4: Empires was my total favourite though. That was such a fun game.

I think the first PS3 one was 6? I'm not entirely sure but I loved DW6 a great deal, even though it is rather divisive (and rightly so, a TON of cloned movesets and the awkward Renbu system.) DW7 was okay, but again there were a lot of characters who used the same set of moves which kinda sucked. They also removed Free Mode in 7, and Conquest Mode was awful. DW8 is pretty much fantastic all around though.

And yes, Sun Ce is in it. Pretty much every character who's ever been in a Dynasty Warriors is here, as well as a bunch of cool new characters.

 

[deilin]

You can save Sun Ce's life if you play with Hypotheticals active. It's about the only time you get to play as Daqiao in story mode.

DW XL6 was my favorite of the XL line and I think Empires 6 was also my favorite Empires, though it is fun to replace the main characters with edits in empires 7. I have all the DW series for PS from 2 to 8, including both tactics, except the strikeforce and orrochi series. those are a bit overboard. I own all the portable Synasty warriors, but only Dynasty Warrior NEXT is worth playing of them.

I'm curioius, though, why, when they bring games to America, they take them off sequence. DW8 is actually DW 7.

EDIT ADDON

I do think it's funny they do more with Zhen Ji then the Qiao sisters. Zhen Ji only appeared in one scene and had one line in the Romance of the three Kingdoms book. It was Cao Caos diary that really mentioned her, but he wrote more about the Qiao sisters then anything else, especially Xiao. Then again, the reason Da (older) and Xiao (younger) are even named such is because Cao Cao never knew their real names and referenced them as Da and Xiao.

 

[Quigon]

Does he have his tonfas this time round? D:

 

[deilin]

He does start with Tonfas, but you can buy other weapons for primary and secondary weapons like in 7.

 

[Scythuz]

So is this really as much of an improvement over the previous titles as I've heard?  Previous games I've owned are Dynasty Warrior 4 Xtreme Legends (Which I loved) and Warriors of Orochi 2 (pretty good). 

 

[deilin]

the thing with story mode in the normal release (Not XL, Empires, strikeforce) is that it follows the main story and timeline. DW7 followed the actual story well, but you were forced to play as a specific character and didn't deal with to many of the sub-stories, keeping to main events. DW8 is similar in that it follows the story, BUT, this time you get to choose from a couple roles to play through. laying the battle where Sun Ce gets ambushed and mortally wounded as Sun Ce can unlock the hypothetical (What If) battle to save his life, and he lives on, though he no longer battles (since he gave his "Wu is yours" speech to Sun Quan).

I'm interested in the Hypotheticals they use for Cao Cao. Contrary to beliee, CaoCao never fought in the era of the three kingdoms, but he set up the stage. Cao Pi officially did the declaration of war to start the three kingdoms era by recognizing Wu and Shu as proper factions, and gave Sima Yi a military position which would lead to the Jin faction after Cao Pi's death.

 

[Arin]

I still don't like the weapon affinity system that they had in 7, but the Storm Rush mechanic looks cool and I don't think I've seen that before (has only played DW4, DW7 and XL, and WO3). I'm just interested in seeing how my hubby Xiahou Dun turned out in sexy new graphics. <3

Also, Metal Greaves are broken.

 

[deilin]

they did do something I don't particularly like.

Yes, weapon affinity is still apart of the game. Not everyone can master every weapon. But now they added a Rock-Paper-Scissors element to it, stated as Heavenly, Man, and Evil. So you can get a buff or de-buff depending on the weapons element.

 

[awesomerhys]

I'm interested in the Hypotheticals they use for Cao Cao. Contrary to beliee, CaoCao never fought in the era of the three kingdoms, but he set up the stage. Cao Pi officially did the declaration of war to start the three kingdoms era by recognizing Wu and Shu as proper factions, and gave Sima Yi a military position which would lead to the Jin faction after Cao Pi's death.

That's a part of DW8 I love though. I thought 7 played it a little too safe with its story, and while 7's story mode was good, it didn't really offer anything you can't find in Luo Guanzhong's ROTK or DW's encyclopedia. The hypothetical story missions offer a lot more creative freedom and replay value.

 

[deilin]

Have you watched the bugs videos on youtube for the game?

 Some are quite hilarious.

here's one:




Working with UT 2004, I find the magic ladder glitch funny, since it's a common mistake in a lot of UT 2004 games, but easy to fix.

 

[awesomerhys]

Have you watched the bugs videos on youtube for the game?

 Some are quite hilarious.

Some of those were indeed hilarious! I came across a brief glitch in the first level of Wei's campaign, in which Diaochan was more intent on leading Cao Cao and Xiahou Yuan back and forth along the side of a fence than actually helping them escape. I had to nudge her back on track for the mission to end! At least there's nothing potentially game-breaking. Not so far anyway.

 

[Dark Phoenix]

Played the hell out of 6, but I gave up on 7 shortly after I got it. I dunno why, but I find Empires much more fun than the regular series, though it sucks that 7 Empires didn't get a full English translation. Stupid Sony...

 

[The Stranger]

I've just completed Dynasty Warriors 8, I think it's a great game! I'm not sure if it's just me, but the stages feel a lot longer than in previous titles. I also end up slaying a hell of a lot more soldiers than in older DW games; nearly every stage has me killing 1000+ soldiers. I enjoy having different goals in each stage, depending on which character I select.  One thing I don't like, however, is the silent narration between stages. In older DW titles, you'd be treated to a narrator reading aloud the story. However, in DW8 there is no narrator; it ruined the experience for me, because I have a crappy T.V that squashes words together.

You also seem to collect an abundance of useless weapons, which led me to constantly having a maxed-out gold supply.

The only real bugs I've encountered, have been pathfinding ones; Zhuge Liang getting stuck on a fence during the battle of Chibi. However, most pathfinding bugs seem to be fixed by either going far enough away, or by nudging them on to the right path.

I'm having a lot of fun playing it, though, the game is still as addictive as ever.

 

[awesomerhys]

I've just completed Dynasty Warriors 8, I think it's a great game! I'm not sure if it's just me, but the stages feel a lot longer than in previous titles. I also end up slaying a hell of a lot more soldiers than in older DW games; nearly every stage has me killing 1000+ soldiers. I enjoy having different goals in each stage, depending on which character I select.  One thing I don't like, however, is the silent narration between stages. In older DW titles, you'd be treated to a narrator reading aloud the story. However, in DW8 there is no narrator; it ruined the experience for me, because I have a crappy T.V that squashes words together.

My only real problem with the game is, as you said, the speechless narration between stages. I end up skipping them most of the time because the text is far too small for me to read correctly. Bit of a bummer really. A blemish on an otherwise sublime Dynasty Warriors game.

Played the hell out of 6, but I gave up on 7 shortly after I got it. I dunno why, but I find Empires much more fun than the regular series, though it sucks that 7 Empires didn't get a full English translation. Stupid Sony...

It's not Sony's fault. Tecmo Koei just got lazy with the Western release and thought they'd save some money. They did the same with WO3. Normally I don't mind games voiced exclusively Japanese, but because Warriors games are so hectic you're more likely to rely on a characters' voice to tell you the objective rather than the on-screen subs. I agree with you on 6 though. 6 Empires was an absolute ton of fun; I loved maxing out a stupidly OP Edit character.

 

[Dark Phoenix]

It's not Sony's fault. Tecmo Koei just got lazy with the Western release and thought they'd save some money. They did the same with WO3. Normally I don't mind games voiced exclusively Japanese, but because Warriors games are so hectic you're more likely to rely on a characters' voice to tell you the objective rather than the on-screen subs. I agree with you on 6 though. 6 Empires was an absolute ton of fun; I loved maxing out a stupidly OP Edit character.

Oh, yeah, I forgot.  Sorry.  I say stupid Sony because for us North American players of 7 Empires, we couldn't even get a boxed version, because Sony NA insists that if a game isn't 100% English translated, it CANNOT under any circumstances be sold as a boxed game.

Fun fact: The current head of Sony NA was head of Sega a few years ago, and almost drove the company into bankruptcy with his crazy demand that EVERY game they made, regardless of where it was being sold, be full English/Japanese switchable.  Apparently, Sega had a hard time footing the bills for double full voice acting in games...

 

[awesomerhys]

Oh, yeah, I forgot.  Sorry.  I say stupid Sony because for us North American players of 7 Empires, we couldn't even get a boxed version, because Sony NA insists that if a game isn't 100% English translated, it CANNOT under any circumstances be sold as a boxed game.

Fun fact: The current head of Sony NA was head of Sega a few years ago, and almost drove the company into bankruptcy with his crazy demand that EVERY game they made, regardless of where it was being sold, be full English/Japanese switchable.  Apparently, Sega had a hard time footing the bills for double full voice acting in games...

Oh yeah, you guys didn't get 7 Empires boxed. I guarantee it was ridiculously expensive on the Playstation Store, too. Well 7E wasn't even that good despite all the features they introduced. What about the Yakuza games, though? That's pretty much the same deal (English subs, Japanese VA) and you guys got those boxed right? We in Europe did at least.

 

[Arin]

I don't like the DW8 Battle of Chibi Music. I much prefer the DW7.

 

[awesomerhys]

I don't like the DW8 Battle of Chibi Music. I much prefer the DW7.

 Really? I like it a lot. Does a good job of mixing the themes of the three kingdoms. But yeah Thousand Suns is incredible; taking the hypothetical path on Chibi in Wei's story will play a remix of Thousand Suns. It's pretty neat.