Toggle sidebar

Dynasty Warriors Next

Well, looks like I'm completely satisfied.

When I heard the PSP had (and was getting) Warriors games, I was ecstatic. I really grew a deep love for the series in elementary school when I used to go to a friend's house like every weekend and play Dynasty Warriors 4 on his PS2. I didn't touch the franchise until I got a PS2 a couple of years ago and I made sure to get that as one of my first games.

But I wasn't entirely satisfied with the PSP games. The system was just too limited. Low enemy counts or slowdowns, really ugly character models (even for Warriors standards), really bad fog of war, and I wasn't particularly fond of some of the changes they made, like trying to add strategy (I know, funny) to the game. I did enjoy Warriors Orochi the most though since it was rather faithful to the standard hack and slash formula.

But lemme tell ya, Dynasty Warriors Next scratches that itch hard. It's rather faithful to the series. Here's my list of things that make a Dynasty Warriors game:
  • Incredibly confusing story that you'll never be able to follow (thanks Romance of the Three Kingdoms and your like 120 characters)
  • Terrible voice acting
  • Awful wanging guitar soundtrack
  • Hacking
  • Slashing
  • More hacking
  • More slashing
  • High enemy counts with no slowdowns or terribly restrictive fog of war
  • Enemy pop ins!
DWN has all this stuff. It can support pretty high enemy counts despite some terribly obvious pop-ins. Still, there's no "fog of war", which makes the game look better. It's entirely based on hacking and slashing, no more of this trying-to-be-a-SRPG-but-it's-goddamn-Warriors bullshit. And I do actually like the new changes. The mini-game segments are alright. Dueling takes a while but once you master it, it's actually pretty fun. And there's lots of hacking and slashing.

I like the graphics too, the character models look nice and their combat animations are alright. Can't say the same for the rest.

Still a must-have for Warriors fans. I'm still in the campaign mode, but then there's Conquest mode and other stuff to keep me busy.

Comments

Skelletonike
I've always liked the Warriors games, especially the Samurai ones (SWC was actually my the game I was looking forward to the most when I got my 3DS).
Regarding the games itself, lots of people dislike them, mainly cuz they're pretty story based and have lots of hack and slash, for people that actually like history, it just makes the games much more interesting, and from what I've seen so far, Koei always tries to make the games as faithful to history as possible (obviously adding some stuff like powers and the like, but that only makes it more interesting).

Once I get a Vita I'll def get that game. =3
 
Guild McCommunist
Well the actual novel it's based off of is part history, part legend, part myth, which explains why Guan Yu can start spewing fire out of his pike and kill over a thousand enemies a match. I wouldn't call it "historically accurate" but it feels accurate to the book if it really does involve such legend and myth.

People just don't like the series because it's a "primal instincts" game. It's not really deep or challenging to charge into a battlefield and kill 300 guys on your own, but it's satisfying. Like God of War or MadWorld. Set the game on normal difficulty and it's a cakewalk but you love it because it's just satisfying to either mash those buttons or frantically shake that controller to have your enemy torn to shreds in the most gruesome way possible. Dynasty Warriors gives you that satisfaction of being omnipotent and powerful by killing hundreds of guys with a couple of button presses. But it makes the game relatively shallow, repetitive, and lacking innovation.

But it's satisfying and fun, and if a game gives me that then I like it.

When you do get a Vita though, I'd really suggest it. It has that token large amounts of content and it's a really faithful Warriors game, plus with the power of the Vita, it doesn't suffer from all the stuff that the PSP did with its games.

And when I eventually get a 3DS (it's not a priority but I'll probably get one some day) I'll probably get SWC to start.
 
Skelletonike
Well, yeah, there was no magic, but people in those times believed stuff like that, that's what I meant.

And the games do get challenging, the SWC for example, normal and easy are ok, but when you do hard and Chaos, now that's messed up, especially doing Chaos on all the bonus levels.

I always spend dozens of hours in those games until I unlock everything, the only reason the games are seen as bad, is because they're actually what they were supposed to be (like, they don't change completly the game just to get more people to like it, like some series did), and because of that, people either really like it, or tend to hate it.
Now I just have to wait for Dynasty Warriors Vs., the graphics hugely improved compared to Chronicles (and there's rumours it might have online multiplayer to booth, that'd be awesome too).
 
FireGrey
ecstatic is a funny word, but then when you think about it all words are, such as "Chew"
 

Blog entry information

Author
Guild McCommunist
Views
278
Comments
8
Last update

More entries in Personal Blogs

More entries from Guild McCommunist

Share this entry