Based loosely on Chinese novel: Romance of the Three Kingdom, choose a hero and pledge your allegiance to Kingdom Shu, Wei, or Wu, to unite ancient China under one rule.
Graphics
The opening cutscene is exciting and that is as far as it goes. Throughout the game, it is just normal in-game graphics. Cutscenes are limited to in-between chapters summary. Unfortunately, for each Kingdom, there is only ONE cutscene differing only in narrations for different chapters. And these cutscenes are in sephia, not full color -_-". The only cutscenes worth mentioning are the final cutscenes for each Kingdom where the officers are gathered to celebrate their victory in uniting the 3 Kingdoms. And thank goodness they are colored!
Many stages share the same backgrounds (eg: city, fortress, swamps, etc) and the colours used are rather dull. The mythical beasts look majestic but they also point out the poor layerings, especially when the character have to climb to the body of the beasts to whack them. The layering issue is worsened with poor camera positioning sometimes which make the enemies or the character we control disappear from our screen. The 'chi' equip also looks akward to me. It is as if the people are wearing huge colorful bracelets and socks.
The only treat for the eyes is the characters status menu. The different outfits do not really matter as often they are just different colour palletes. The Fury mode animation is quite refreshing and detailed in colours though. Other than that, the only positive thing about the graphics would be the weapons. Every single one of them looks different from another and the differences are not just in colours. This includes how Sword A differs from Sword B and Sword C etc. Considering there are many weapon classes (i.e bows, sword, double-handed sword, staff, pike, fans, etc) and many weapons within each class, I find it refreshing to see various weapons.
Gameplay/Features
I had fun playing the Dynasty Warriors GBA version (I can't recall the exact title) and I am utterly disappointed with this game. The developer decided to remove the strategy part of the game and replace it with the 'multiplayer' and 'fury' component. Since I am solo-ing most of the time, this game becomes purely a hack and slash game. It becomes very brain-less, and it has a HUGE tendency to get boring very fast. I no longer get the feeling of Kingdom vs Kingdom or Army vs Army kind of fights as it becomes one person to fight all the enemies.
All the missions are very linear. For each mission, there is 1 main objective to clear the mission, and there maybe 1 or 2 side objectives to get extra cash. Sometimes the side objectives are not related to the story at all. It can be as lame as "kill a butterfly". The maps are rather small and simple. Boring...
The AI for the enemies is also quite dumb. Most of them just stand stationary waiting for the player to kill them. They are quite easy to kill or in fact, players can choose to skip them altogether. Unfortunately, the bosses are meant for multiplayer. It is ridiculously hard to solo them (the good news is: it is still POSSIBLE to beat the game by solo-ing). That makes level grinding compulsory and makes the whole game quite stressful to be played alone. Even with hours of grinding and leveling, some of the bosses are still too hard. And worse, some stages have multiple bosses.
There is a nice attempt to put the city upgrade feature. Now weapons, items, orbs, chi, are obtained from the city (sounds more like RPG eh?). During the missions, players just collect money and materials to assemble equipments. The city is upgraded at certain rate depends on the officers (in terms of officer cards) that player collects throughout. However, the methods of collecting cards and upgrading the city are too slow. It can be easily abused by starting and quitting missions repeatedly (after starting and quitting a mission, the city will gain "experience" and there is a chance of meeting a new officer who gives officer cards when we return to the city). To me, it is a nice feature turned ugly..
There is also a nice attempt to costumise the equipments with orbs and chi. Most of them are effectively useless. Only towards the end that the higher level chi powers are more interesting and useful. Unfortunately, there are a few Chi combinations which effectively makes the character immortal. With these few combinations, the game becomes very easy. Even those hardcore bosses become a piece of cake. This takes out the challenge of the game and why bother offering so many things while there are a few sure-win combinations that everyone will use
Each character has 1 main and 1 subweapon. Only the subweapon is customisable to any weapon types. The weapon system is supposedly pretty good with 'vulnerability' system. For example, bows and tech are good (5 stars) against wizards but weak (1 star) towards machines, staff is good (5 stars) against heavy machines, while spear is relatively good (3 stars) against everything, etc. Unfortunately, only the wizards are annoying enough to make bow or tech a necessity. Equip spear + bow/tech will ensure a pretty easy gameplay. This makes all the attempt for customisation useless altogether. For each weapon type, there is a separate speciality point system. The system is a failure because for the type of weapon that we use, a random (rather than based on frequency of usage of that weapon) 1 to 3 speciality points are awarded after every completed mission. Grinding for weapon point is even more tedious and time consuming than grinding level -_-"
Most characters share the same movesets, particularly because the movesets are based on the weapons. As the specialty for one weapon goes up, the moveset evolves with more hits and better combos. Thank goodness the combos are fluid, elegant, easy to execute, and enjoyable to perform. Perhaps the combo is the only thing which salvage the gameplay of this game.
Another good thing is the movesets for different weapon types are vastly different. It makes the game less dull and more challenging. For example: using bow normal attack cannot cause the enemy to fall/fly/etc. The enemy still can attack while being shot with arrows. Thus using bow poses a challenge to constantly moving to avoid enemies attack. In contrast, other weapon types can stagger, knock down enemies, etc, basically disabling them from attacking so we can just happily whack them. Some weapons can cover your backside too while some are only useful for frontal attacks.
The collectibles are lame since there is no way a player can have 100% completion using 1 save file. So what is the point of showing a percentage? Seriously! I think this is plain stupid.
To add on players agony, the 6th chapter is a bonus chapter. In this chapter, we get to play ALL missions (right from chapter 1) with a 5 star difficulty. Wow.. how "exciting" is that? I am being sarcastic here!! Haha.. By the time you reach this part, your character will be too strong to notice any difference between 1/2 star vs 5 star mission. You will be too sick of the game to even bother trying as well. :p
What make this game different from other Dynasty Warriors games are Multiplayer and Fury Mode. To be honest, there is nothing spectacular with Multiplayer. I agree that multiplayer is fun but any game is fun when played with other people right? Some people call Fury Mode as "super saiyan mode". Other than the cosmetic issues, I also see nothing special in this feature. The character will be stronger for a shortwhile but the extra boost makes no difference. The normal enemies are too weak (no need to activate the Fury mode to beat them) while the bosses are still too difficult to solo even in Fury mode. Seriously, no big deal with the Fury mode.
There is too much exaggeration that makes me wanna puke. Come on, if it is based (albeit LOOSELY) on ancient history, can't we be a bit more realistic here? I don't think in ancient times there were bladecarts, which shoot electric sparks, flying robots which shoot beams, giant monsters, etc. These are too over the top for me. And just to quote someone's comment on youtube: China would already be destroyed if these things were present in those times.
Replayability
This will depend on how you wanna the view the game. If you just wanna have fun and play a hack and slash game, I guess this game can just be replayed for as long as you wish.
But if you wanna play it as a strategy or RPG, then this game has no replayability value. It does not matter which character you pick since most share the same movesets. The movesets are based on the equipments rather than the characters. Anyway, just make sure you have a spear/bow/tech + wood element + chi combination which makes you invincible and that's it! I doubt you even wanna clear the game because the storyline is kinda expected with your Kingdom will reign over China eventually.
Storyline
The first 2 chapters are the same for all 3 Kingdoms. It is about the Yellow Turban and Dong Zhuo. The subsequent chapters differ with how the each Kingdom acquired their territories and the officers which eventually join them. The last few chapters are purely fictional (since in the real thing, all 3 Kingdoms were no more. Sima Yi united the whole thing under Jin Dynasty) on how your Kingdom beat the other 2 Kingdoms. Nothing special but I like the parts where they show how each character joins their respective Kingdoms. But even this is ruined by the fact that we can choose any character at the start even before missions where they historically join the Kingdom. Worse, we need to fight 'ourselves' during the missions. I am speechless..
Overall
The only thing that make me play this game is the hack and slash aspect to channel away my stress. After all, the battle system is really damn good. It is comparable to a fighting game, perhaps even better than some fighting games. The multi hit combos can be executed smoothly.. Switching weapons in the middle of combos is even possible. Add in the jumps (or double jump and even triple jump), dash, fly, etc and your character can literally dance and go on an endless rampage in the battlefield. Lol.
But then, there are nicer (nicer in the sense of a more whole-some gaming experience) hack and slash games out there ^^ so seriously, why bother about this game? :)
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| Zhao Yun (in Fury Mode) from the opening cutscene |
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| The background looks 'dead' |
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| Character Status Menu with Fury Mode outfit |
Gameplay/Features
I had fun playing the Dynasty Warriors GBA version (I can't recall the exact title) and I am utterly disappointed with this game. The developer decided to remove the strategy part of the game and replace it with the 'multiplayer' and 'fury' component. Since I am solo-ing most of the time, this game becomes purely a hack and slash game. It becomes very brain-less, and it has a HUGE tendency to get boring very fast. I no longer get the feeling of Kingdom vs Kingdom or Army vs Army kind of fights as it becomes one person to fight all the enemies.
All the missions are very linear. For each mission, there is 1 main objective to clear the mission, and there maybe 1 or 2 side objectives to get extra cash. Sometimes the side objectives are not related to the story at all. It can be as lame as "kill a butterfly". The maps are rather small and simple. Boring...
The AI for the enemies is also quite dumb. Most of them just stand stationary waiting for the player to kill them. They are quite easy to kill or in fact, players can choose to skip them altogether. Unfortunately, the bosses are meant for multiplayer. It is ridiculously hard to solo them (the good news is: it is still POSSIBLE to beat the game by solo-ing). That makes level grinding compulsory and makes the whole game quite stressful to be played alone. Even with hours of grinding and leveling, some of the bosses are still too hard. And worse, some stages have multiple bosses.
 |
| Imagine being gang-banged by Phoenix, Cao Pi, Cao Ren, Zhang Liao, and Xu Huang |
There is also a nice attempt to costumise the equipments with orbs and chi. Most of them are effectively useless. Only towards the end that the higher level chi powers are more interesting and useful. Unfortunately, there are a few Chi combinations which effectively makes the character immortal. With these few combinations, the game becomes very easy. Even those hardcore bosses become a piece of cake. This takes out the challenge of the game and why bother offering so many things while there are a few sure-win combinations that everyone will use
Each character has 1 main and 1 subweapon. Only the subweapon is customisable to any weapon types. The weapon system is supposedly pretty good with 'vulnerability' system. For example, bows and tech are good (5 stars) against wizards but weak (1 star) towards machines, staff is good (5 stars) against heavy machines, while spear is relatively good (3 stars) against everything, etc. Unfortunately, only the wizards are annoying enough to make bow or tech a necessity. Equip spear + bow/tech will ensure a pretty easy gameplay. This makes all the attempt for customisation useless altogether. For each weapon type, there is a separate speciality point system. The system is a failure because for the type of weapon that we use, a random (rather than based on frequency of usage of that weapon) 1 to 3 speciality points are awarded after every completed mission. Grinding for weapon point is even more tedious and time consuming than grinding level -_-"
Most characters share the same movesets, particularly because the movesets are based on the weapons. As the specialty for one weapon goes up, the moveset evolves with more hits and better combos. Thank goodness the combos are fluid, elegant, easy to execute, and enjoyable to perform. Perhaps the combo is the only thing which salvage the gameplay of this game.
Another good thing is the movesets for different weapon types are vastly different. It makes the game less dull and more challenging. For example: using bow normal attack cannot cause the enemy to fall/fly/etc. The enemy still can attack while being shot with arrows. Thus using bow poses a challenge to constantly moving to avoid enemies attack. In contrast, other weapon types can stagger, knock down enemies, etc, basically disabling them from attacking so we can just happily whack them. Some weapons can cover your backside too while some are only useful for frontal attacks.
The collectibles are lame since there is no way a player can have 100% completion using 1 save file. So what is the point of showing a percentage? Seriously! I think this is plain stupid.
To add on players agony, the 6th chapter is a bonus chapter. In this chapter, we get to play ALL missions (right from chapter 1) with a 5 star difficulty. Wow.. how "exciting" is that? I am being sarcastic here!! Haha.. By the time you reach this part, your character will be too strong to notice any difference between 1/2 star vs 5 star mission. You will be too sick of the game to even bother trying as well. :p
What make this game different from other Dynasty Warriors games are Multiplayer and Fury Mode. To be honest, there is nothing spectacular with Multiplayer. I agree that multiplayer is fun but any game is fun when played with other people right? Some people call Fury Mode as "super saiyan mode". Other than the cosmetic issues, I also see nothing special in this feature. The character will be stronger for a shortwhile but the extra boost makes no difference. The normal enemies are too weak (no need to activate the Fury mode to beat them) while the bosses are still too difficult to solo even in Fury mode. Seriously, no big deal with the Fury mode.
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| Fury Mode adds more colour to the otherwise dull background |
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| Multiplayer Mode makes it more 'war-like' with more people fighting |
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| Bi Xie - Lu Bu's giant pet tiger |
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| Wei's Guardian - Phoenix |
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| No idea who/what the hell this Tian Lu is |
This will depend on how you wanna the view the game. If you just wanna have fun and play a hack and slash game, I guess this game can just be replayed for as long as you wish.
But if you wanna play it as a strategy or RPG, then this game has no replayability value. It does not matter which character you pick since most share the same movesets. The movesets are based on the equipments rather than the characters. Anyway, just make sure you have a spear/bow/tech + wood element + chi combination which makes you invincible and that's it! I doubt you even wanna clear the game because the storyline is kinda expected with your Kingdom will reign over China eventually.
Storyline
The first 2 chapters are the same for all 3 Kingdoms. It is about the Yellow Turban and Dong Zhuo. The subsequent chapters differ with how the each Kingdom acquired their territories and the officers which eventually join them. The last few chapters are purely fictional (since in the real thing, all 3 Kingdoms were no more. Sima Yi united the whole thing under Jin Dynasty) on how your Kingdom beat the other 2 Kingdoms. Nothing special but I like the parts where they show how each character joins their respective Kingdoms. But even this is ruined by the fact that we can choose any character at the start even before missions where they historically join the Kingdom. Worse, we need to fight 'ourselves' during the missions. I am speechless..
Overall
The only thing that make me play this game is the hack and slash aspect to channel away my stress. After all, the battle system is really damn good. It is comparable to a fighting game, perhaps even better than some fighting games. The multi hit combos can be executed smoothly.. Switching weapons in the middle of combos is even possible. Add in the jumps (or double jump and even triple jump), dash, fly, etc and your character can literally dance and go on an endless rampage in the battlefield. Lol.
But then, there are nicer (nicer in the sense of a more whole-some gaming experience) hack and slash games out there ^^ so seriously, why bother about this game? :)
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