Simplicity is bliss. A genuinely true statement of fact. Also a statement of fact that can cripple a game or make it truly brilliant. Simplicity is something that the Warriors’ series has been living inside for the better part of 15 years of games. This is technically around the 21st game in the series or there abouts, what with the Dynasty Warriors Extreme Legends and Dynasty Warriors Empires games in the series.
They all follow a very simple formula, you choose a faction, between Cao, Wei and Shu, the three main hallmark factions from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story. After picking said faction you choose an officer from that of your choice, the game allows you to check their weapons and skills before you play, then you proceed to hack, slash and Musou your way through a horde of enemies that put most hack n slash games to shame.
This is one of the things that gives the DW series its catharsis, that feel of hacking your way through hordes of enemies like a homeless super Saiyan smacking his way through a crowd of normal humans with spears and axes pointed at them. Its a fun feeling and the abuse shown by the Musou attacks and the utter destruction they cause only makes you feel more powerful.
Fans of the series will love this, however newcomers to the series or fans of games akin to Devil May Cry may find the lack of combo system besides button bash -Oh-and also press Triangle, may be put off by this process of genocide.
But it’s all mindless and harmless, throughout the battle, characters are constantly talking strategy and tactics, other characters are introducing themselves as they enter the fight etc.
Overall though the fighting in the game is unchanged as ever. The system worked for the previous titles and if it its not broken then Koei see no reason to fix it. What seems to be a joy for some is a slog for others, but for me, this game is a welcome distraction from the over stealthy, hyper tense action of recent thrillers of the last few years.
Graphically the game has really not changed at all since Dynasty Warriors 6. I wasn’t blown away by the visuals in the game until they threw in all the Musou attacks colourful specials, most of which only utilise the spectacle by throwing the odd bit of lightning power around the screen, or some green lasers. It just seems that the textures have been updated to look smoother and less jarring, but at the end of the day it could easily have been a port from the PS2 with an HD texture pack slapped over the top of it.
The newest edition to the series is Ambition Mode.
The whole point of this mode is to create a settlement that the emperor of the land would desire to visit. You do this by gathering “materials” and gold from the various battlefields of the game, before coming back to camp and using said resources and gold to improve the status of the settlement, and eventually make it up to the huge town in the background to further impress the emperor.
All of these resources, items and gold are gathered in battlefields usually littered with enemies everywhere, officers and Famous Officers to recruit. Every officer that you battle has a high chance of joining you if you defeat them, giving the game more reasons to throw you head first into repetitive maps and over the top battles for the sake of it. It would be remiss of me not to say that it has a very Dynasty Warriors Empires feel to it, but I wouldn’t be being honest because the mode seems to be something more of a cut down rushed version of that, just tacked onto the side of this one. Its fun for a while, but at the end of the day it’s just the story mode with a false objective where no officers die, ever. Like the vast majority of the game it feels repetitive, but for fans it will hold their attention for hours until the emperor is impressed enough to visit you and hail you as the new ruler!
The roster of characters in the game is pretty staggering, capping at 70 playable characters throughout the four different factions. The varied character choice and the lack of identical weapons means that there’s no chance of having two of the same move style or weapon set, keeping the variety flowing nicely, but having a huge cast of characters to try out can seem a little pointless as they all level up individually and there’s usually only one reason to bother using others, that being if someone dies in the main story you cant use them again. This forces the player to use all the characters that are on offer, usually giving around 3-5 choices per mission of officers that took part in the battles throughout the story’s progress. It seems smart, but in the end, if you’ve spent so much time trying to get that one character you love to the best level, only to see him get killed off as part of the story, then having to start again with a level one character again, can just be slightly frustrating, almost like some of the characters themselves.
Voice overs in the game are actually pretty decent in some areas although in others they are lack-lustre. The level of voice acting differs in a staggering way, there are some characters that seem to have voice actors who really went for it, such as Sun Ce, then there are other characters like Zhou Tai who literally speaks in monotone non stop throughout the game. The variety of voices is welcome in English but the diverse array of voice acting can come across a bit jarring and somewhat irritating when you know the character is trying to portray something that his voice actor is not. The thing is, having played the games since DW4, I can honestly say that Dynasty Warriors is a series that already has its fans, I could spin yarns about every individual flaw or compliment to this game, but it will sell no matter what to those that love it. It’s one hundred percent made for fans of the series and those that know what they are getting themselves into.
To be perfectly clear, that in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, making something for your fans is not an uncommon practice in modern videogame making, CoD, Battlefield, FIFA, NBA, NFL etc. By my own standards I am happy with the game that they released, despite the obvious flaws or lack of variety from the standard formula. In a time where a lot of new games have been coming out with new things and new ideas, something coming out of the woodwork that everyone is familiar and comfortable with, just some simple hacky-slashy-Musou-Stabby fun is a refreshing break from the dark and head heavy seriousness of the industries best of late.
Dynasty Warriors 8 will hold the attention of its fans like a fireman gripping a hosepipe. Newcomers to the series will have a hard time getting into the repetitive nature of the game, even if there is a rich story being told in the background through some slightly awkward voice acting.
I wasn’t blown away by this game but I am satisfied with my time with it, I am however interested to see what Temco Koei would do with the power of the PS4 & Xbox One for future games in the Warriors series.
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