YouTube: New "Recommended Videos to Watch from Others" Playlists on My Channel Starts Today!

Starting from today onwards, I'm going to attempt to hopefully help establish my channel more as a one stop place for significant games I've played and uploaded footage of, while giving back to other content creators. The first games that I'm tackling is of course the Warriors/Musou games.

So I have created new playlists for specific DW/SW/WO games that are labeled "Recommended Videos to Watch from Others". These playlists will contain videos (from friends and strangers) of that game that I recommend others to watch. 

You can now view these new playlists at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/user/wonderpierrot/playlists

What's the main point of this? Well... imagine this: various viewers continuously ask me to upload a video showcasing all musou attacks in a new Warriors games, or cutscenes, or whatever. Instead of giving into pointless labor and create such videos, I can simply redirect these viewers to existing videos that others have already created in my playlists, covering their wanted subjects and keeping them happy. IF such videos already exists.

My modus operandi has always been to create + upload what is necessary and avoid repeating what others have already done. If no one has done such a video yet, I will sometimes get out of my to try to be the first to get the video out. Nevertheless, videos that are not personally unique (i.e. videos that anyone can create and upload, such as cutscenes and musou compilations) are the bottom of the barrel for me in terms of priority—so I usually save these types of videos for last.

One of the reasons these playlists will be additionally helpful to me is because it gives me the chance to share videos I like and believe others would enjoy for that certain game.

In conclusion, everybody wins with these new playlists. I win, the viewers win and the content creators who I chose to have their videos featured in my playlists wins!

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Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires Review (Shin Sangoku Musou 7: Empires Review)

INTRODUCTION

In the world of video games, no company's zeal is as strong and evident as Omega Force and their Dynasty Warriors franchise, spawning eight major installments over sixteen years, and never ceasing to additionally release an expansion pack and a spinoff for each new numerical value.

The Empires games are standalone spinoffs of Dynasty Warriors that attempts to mesh together two very different game genres—the turned-based tactical strategic gameplay of KOEI's own Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the fast paced hack and slash gameplay of Dynasty Warriors.

The results are not so much RoTK as it is Dynasty Warriors. At its heart, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires remains mostly true to its title, but the sufficient strategy element helps elevate the gameplay away from the games' criticized repetitive nature and lack of brain power to play. With its marked improvements to the already excellent Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires may just be the very best Empires game yet.
 

GAME MODES

EMPIRE MODE: The meat and bulk of Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires lies within Empire Mode, a name that's not alien to players who experienced other installments in the Empires series. It's basically your entry into the game's turned-based tactical strategy segment, spawning many historical and fictional scenarios to choose from, and largely mimicking KOEI's Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, albeit much less in-depth and dramatic.

Scenario selector and map of China showing divided forces

Your primary goal in any scenario is to conquer and unite all of China under your ruling, or under your ruler's ruling. Tackling such a titanic task requires you to defeat all your opposing enemies in battle, stealing their territories, and executing important strategies that ensures your forces are always victorious. Not only that, but you may be burdened the task of maintaining your land, people and kingdom; including ensuring imperative facilities are built, keeping material possessions high, recruiting officers, training your troops and either be an angel to keep your people and fellows happy or be a devil to make them despise your existence. All through one action at a time. Yes, this is game mostly based upon choice, after all...

When you first pick a scenario, you have the selective choice of being a ruler, general, strategist, viceroy, vagrant and others in any territories available from the initial map. These positions can be exchanged for another during your playthrough, such as a vagrant can become a ruler and a general can become a strategist, dependent on the choices you make during play and your status. A ruler has the highest authority of any person and carries all duties of the kingdom, having enough power to demand an opposing kingdom to outright surrender. A strategist is allowed to invoke certain strategy actions, such as recommending generals to the force, carrying out invasion/defense battles and building of facilities. A general can only partially assist their kingdom such as aiding them in battles, partaking in raids and tackling requests. A vagrant wanders China in search for a specific goal, perhaps to build their own kingdom or join another's. Vagrants are not held in any kind of peril as they are safe from any kind of enemy attack; however, that does not mean you should forever be a vagrant!

"Allow me to serve you, my lord."

Romance and friendship plays an important role in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires similarly to the previous installment, although it is quite a bit more amplified here. And before you shudder in fear of the thought, NO, this isn't one of those infamous Japanese date simulators and absolutely nothing like it.

Maintaining high levels of friendship with your forces and people (through discussions, aid and banquets) will keep them smiling and discourage them from revolting. Let's just say that if a revolt were to occur within your own forces, they will hastefully and forcefully attempt to overthrow you (and with your own stolen generals, as well). Certain characters such as Lu Bu, has a mighty tendency to revolt regardless of how friendly you are, so be aware that having the mightiest warrior in China on your side may not be such a brilliant idea.

Heterosexual marriages are offered much the same way as Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires; however, the game now allows you to have your own offspring, but regrettably only one. You and your spouse will have lovely, romantic conversations and events with each other until your child gets unleashed from the womb to the world. And you two become the happiest people in the planet, or do you?

"We're married and we're going to have a beautiful child, right?!!" - Lu Bu
"Um... not with those eyebrows." - Diao Chan

The problem with the game's offspring system is in its character generator—it just frankly generates fugly children no matter the mother and father. Sometimes children don't even look children, as some may have faces of a 70 year old man or woman. Some appear alienish with a head of a little boy or girl and a body of a grown adult. One thing is for certain however—Omega Force literally takes genes all too seriously, seriously... If the father has bushy eyebrows and small eyes, you can be damned guaranteed that child will have bushy eyebrows and small eyes too. If the mother wears red and certain clothes, do not be utterly shocked your child wears the same clothes in red. If the father wore blue and mother wears red, the child may come out with a clown looking wardrobe in terms of color consistency. In the world of China in Omega Force's eyes, I guess there are no such thing as good looking children...

Looks like Lizzie Velasquez may have some competition...

Thankfully, you can save your children from shameful disgrace by completely overhauling their face, body, clothes and voice after playthrough. Of course, you can always throw a mask over their face, that works eminently well too. Now I didn't realize ancient China had plastic surgery, but I can certainly assure you I don't wish to know how it's done, ever...

One of the most highly respectable changes to Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires is the elimination of the dreaded fluctuating fame system that plagued the otherwise excellent Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. In its place is a more traditional leveling system which allows characters to level up to 99 and importantly maintain that level and its respective stats granted. The fame itself has now been pushed aside to simply display indication of how good or evil a person is, rather.

Characters each now have their own "Way of Life" appellation, which determines their learning stratagem, specific strategy actions, employment costs, virtue level and starting level. Characters you control start out as mere ordinary men/women, but can escalate themselves to have different Way of Lives, achievable by obtaining certain titles during playthrough. An interesting addition, however profoundly confusing from the get-go.

The store in the game no longer has its own area one can traverse in and graphically shop. It has been completely consolidated into strategy actions and this is a definite pro, as it saves the agony of having to constantly sit through loading screens in order to purchase something.

Purchasing items are now a breeze in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires

Store purchasable weapons, items and stratagems are unlocked exclusively through construction of different types of facilities, unlike Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. Each territory allows two facilities to be constructed, and the more facilities that you build, the higher level they become, equating to more rewards. Facilities can also encourage and automatically develop more resources such as gold and troops, which is a blessing if you're the kind of person who prefers to just sit on your bum and watch the valuables pour in without doing any work.

Weapons are unfortunately preset, and the game provides zero customization including any kind of tempering, which is very disappointing given how the original and Xtreme Legends has always provided such a necessity. Regardless, elements aren't completely disgusting on high ranked weapons, as most provide at least velocity so you aren't torturing yourself too much.

During invasions, in contrast to regular Dynasty Warriors games, Empires differentiates during battles with one primary goal to victory—enemy base capturing followed by eventual defeating of the leading enemy officer. As usual, the general idea is to create a chain of allied bases between your main base and that of the enemy's, allowing you to take down the enemy's leading officer in the end (who appears at some point in-between).

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

When defending a territory, the objective remains the same with the variation in being that the battle can be won by simply allowing the timer to run out, while keeping your army bases in check. It's good to note that the timer has been reduced to a mere five minutes on defense battles instead of fifteen. Thus, defense battles aren't nearly as bothersome and annoying to deal with as in the past, especially when the enemy decides to be an ass and bombard you with invasions. Defense battles can furthermore be entirely avoided altogether during the strategy phase with the inclusion of being able to fix damaged territories after enemy invasion, albeit costing resources. You are allowed up to three disregarded enemy invasions (without fixes) to a territory before it ultimately crumbles and gets claimed.

A different type of optional battle, called raids, can be carried out by the player in any position. Raids allows you to launch an assault on a nearby enemy territory, with the goal being to damage it before the eventual invasion, granting you a positive handicap and allowing easier take down.

A new type of optional battle, called requests, are available that allows your character to accept and complete various battle requests given by officers within the vicinity of your territory. By completing requests, your character will earn assorted rewards including new weapons and items. Friendship levels with the giver are also raised as a reward. These are small types of battles that only lasts for a few minutes with various objectives such as protecting an ally or defeating a number of enemy officers.
 
Overall, Empire Mode remains at large indifferent from Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires aside from the aforementioned changes. This is rather peculiar as there has always been a very stark difference jumping from one Empires game to another. Nevertheless, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires without a doubt does offer the very best Empire Mode yet in the series.

FREE MODE: Free Mode has been a staple feature for all major Dynasty Warriors games, but it seems to be more often than not passed behind in the Empires series. The last Dynasty Warriors Empires game to include such a mode existed minutely in Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires, which was nearly eight years ago.

As a supporter of freedom and personalization in games (who wouldn't be?), I highly believe in the existence of a free mode for every type of Dynasty Warriors games, be it Empires or not. In Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires, I could sorrowfully complain about not being able to simply jump in a battle from the get-go with all my equipment unlocked, set up my own armies, selecting a stage, all without having to paddle through the tedious strategy phases of a regular game. In Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, the same complaint cannot be held valid.

Free Mode is a mode you wish never left the series in the first place

Although the 8th Empires' Free Mode is pretty robust with all the aforementioned features included, it does have some rather pesky limitations and annoyances which mars it down a bit.

For one, individual characters on both armies cannot be assigned their own levels separately. Both your army and the opponent army must be grouped into a specific level each, and that level will be applied to all characters. Because of this vexing limitation, tailoring very specific handicaps and balances is out of the question. For those who likes a little gamble, there's also a random level you can opt into, but that clearly isn't recommended if you're sane.

Secondly, the game fails to remember any kind of equipment setup from previous playthroughs in Free Mode, unlike Empire Mode. Whenever you start a new battle through Free Mode, don't be surprised to be constantly hassled of reequipping your character his or her weapons, items and stratagems again and again; even if you used that character a thousand times previously.

Third, there's very little incentive to play Free Mode other than earning bonus points, experimentation, practice and some quick fun off of Empire Mode. The game does not keep track nor carry over character levels through playthroughs, so you're not going to be able to utilize the mode to develop characters. Sadly, you cannot gain weapons, items or stratagems either, as even if you did, they wouldn't be available to you at the end of the battle, anyway.

By all means, Free Mode is a wondrous and necessary supplement to the game and I'm dead glad Omega Force blessed us with one this time around. However, it clearly isn't wholly ripe yet and can certainly be improved easily through patch updates.

CHARACTER CREATION: It's blatantly apparent at this point that Omega Force isn't debating to entirely rework their character creation system that's been essentially copy pasted in the past multitude of recent Warriors titles. It's no stranger here that the character creator in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires feels and works virtually identical to the past installment, minus a few new parts such as hairstyles and clothing.

Cute, but I feel like this all too familiar before...

It isn't a new game if everything is exactly the same, nevertheless. Hence, several new features are introduced in the editor, including the ability to custom craft up your own flag, horse and even troops. Sadly, the vastly cool photo uploader is exclusively available for flags and isn't accessible at all for characters, unlike Samurai Warriors 4. So no, you can't draw a pretty face on your PC and slap it on as your character's portrait. Or an ugly face, if your character is ugly.

It's... like something straight off a HORROR film!

SCENARIO EDITOR: The Scenario Editor is a new and very welcomed feature in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires that gives you the choice of almost completely constructing a scenario the way you desire it to be. I say "almost", as besides from freely planting officers wherever you please, assigning them positions and colorizing your kingdoms, there's actually little else possible. You can exclude certain officers from appearing entirely in your scenario, such as excluding playable characters from the main cast or custom characters. You can additionally name your scenario and share it online with other fellow players.

This is not your dream scenario creator, but it's close...

If you dig the "Gathering of Heroes" scenario but don't appreciate its epic randomness, then Scenario Editor will most definitely usher a smile on your face. Still, some more finer customization would be appreciated, such as being able to set the year your scenario starts in (it always starts at year 1).

GAMEPLAY AND CHARACTERS

With any customary Dynasty Warriors game, you have at your playable arsenal characters ranging in the amounts of up to nearly a hundred. In an Empires games, that number (in which you already thought was impossible), jumps up to several hundred, literally. That's because Empires games allows you to additionally play as all generics (those boring spear, great sword and throwing knives officers which all look identical to one another), as well as your own custom created characters. Don't be fooled into attempting to play as a generic officer nevertheless, as their genericness implies, their movesets are a lot more limited in comparison to every other character.

Xun Yu looking BOSS

A brand new Wei officer and strategist Xun Yu is now available as an uniquely playable character, sporting a very traditional looking strategist uniform and wielding a totally new Taigong Wang-esque scepter as his primary weapon of choice.

Several existing characters from the main playable cast are also issued replacement weapons that are derived from previous DLC weapons, revamped with their own specialized EX attacks and musous. These include Wang Yi (Emei Piercers), Guan Suo (Sabaton), Sun Quan (Flame Blade), Yue Ying (Bladebow), Xiaoqiao (Paired Fans), Lianshi (Deer Horn Knives), Meng Huo (Stone Pillar), and let's not forget my personal favorite: Jackie Chan a.k.a Liu Shan (Dragon Stool).

And not a single F was given that day...

The replacement weapons will be a hate-it-or-love-it deal with fans, but I have to honestly admit that several of these weapons do actually fit the characters better. One in most particular being Wang Yi's Emei Piercers, which attacks' embodies a purely badass assassin and suits her cold and cruel nature way more so than the trishulas. On another note, I'm also not having to think of The Little Mermaid anymore every time I'm using her weapons, so that's another plus.

The vast majority of these weapons also incorporates their own entirely unique and interesting gimmicks, such as the harsh timing loaded charges of the Bladebow, heavily separating them from the rest of weapons (most of which are bare-bones).

In actual battles, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires adopts the Xerox gameplay and mechanics of Dynasty Warriors 8. Hence, aside from the addition of a few new weapons to slaughter with, you're not going to charge into battle and experience Dynasty Warriors 9. It wouldn't be called Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires then, would it?

Meanwhile, it isn't at all imperative to have played Dynasty Warriors as a prerequisite for playing Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. The core gameplay of Dynasty Warriors is so easily accessible that a newcomer can quickly learn how to play through the game's battles in one sitting. The idea is exceptionally simple in a Dynasty Warriors battle—set up your equipment, ride into the battlefield and just slay thousands of enemies. Be careful though, as since this is a war battle simulator, you're going to have to watch out for your allies and ensure that important officers (like your commander) and your main base aren't stricken down by the enemy. Moreover, keep that morale bar up along with your troop counts, as that can often times decide how aggressive the enemy AI decides to pummel your army minions off screen.

New stratagems are plenty abundant in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, featuring new grand scale stratagems that consumes time to execute but emphatically affects the entire battlefield, including those that engulfs the enemies in raining arrows, lightning strikes and mini-typhoons. Catapults and attack/defense towers can also be strategically placed nearly anywhere on the map, giving you a much more refined control of their usage. Certain stratagems can also instantly alter the weather, granting increased effectiveness on the effects of other stratagems when used in conjunction. That's right, you can play mother nature herself now in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. How freaking cool is that? 

Stratagems lost its visual appeal but gains many more gameplay benefits

Most beneficially, stratagems are no longer fame exclusive (as the fame system has been thankfully abolished). Because of this, obtaining every stratagem in the game for usage in a battle is now possible, although you obviously won't be able to equip them all at once.

About the only downfall of Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires' stratagems is the total loss of its visual aesthetics when being executed. Sadly, you won't be receiving anymore of those epic close up shots of your characters prancing in front of a colorized electric field.
 
The game now allows you to upgrade your current bases prior to entering actual battle by utilizing resources you gained during playthrough. You can level up bases to help better protect them from downfall or transform them to other types of bases, such supply or defense bases. These aren't incredibly valuable however, as I have personally never bothered to upgrade or transform my bases and yet in every battle I was constantly on track of being victorious. You would literally have to be at a huge disadvantage and on the verge of losing at the get-go in order to resort to using this feature.

Overall, while the actual combat portion of Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires isn't any different from Dynasty Warriors 8, the amount of new weapons and added stratagems helps eliminate the dreaded feeling of playing the exact same game as before.

AI AND DIFFICULTY

Slap me on the head, throw a bucket of ice water on me and wake me up when Omega Force develops a Warriors games that implements a disparate form of AI than ones present in the past decade. Yep, there ain't no lying to anyone when I say the AI and overall difficulty of Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires remains very little different from past recent Dynasty Warriors games. To put it bluntly—mediocre AI, punishing damages.

The game is actually structured from Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends, and includes every little change introduced from that game, such as enemy officers switching affinity more often, affinity shield being more difficult to break, and tons and tons of various nerfs to all sorts of weapons.

For the difficulty lineup, the game has its usual affair of difficulties covering the whole spectrum from Novice all the way to Chaos. The Ultimate difficulty has been oddly removed, much to the same fashion as Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires. Fellow brave warriors should fear not though, as Chaos is more than ample enough challenging due to its very punishing enemy damage output. But like I indicated earlier, you shouldn't have to worry too much about the AI attempting to outsmart you on any difficulty.

I shall be the wise and say: never begin an Empire Mode scenario on a harder difficulty fresh out of the water, unless you are really inept and inclined on going on a suicide mission (seriously, those one hit K.O.s from normal difficulties are bad enough). That's why the game offers the ability to transfer all your weapons, items, stratagems and strategy actions that you've obtained during all your playthroughs to the next. These have to be purchased with bonus points you accumulate by playing the game, so unfortunately they aren't freebies. You also have the option of starting out at a specific level for your character and up to 50,000 starting materials, gold and troops. These are all great options that helps makes the game's difficulty and ease of play incredibly controllable.

GRAPHICS

What happens when you attempt to throw a hundred enemies on screen at once in a ginormous battlefield filled with scenery, have a playable character roam around it wherever he or she pleases, and add flashy effects and explosions everywhere? You get the graphics of Dynasty Warriors—which is somewhere in the very middle lines of photo-realism and Minecraft graphics. Truthfully, there are always limitations imposed on game developers considering the limits of gaming hardware. To say the game looks bad is an overstatement; however, to say the game looks good is an understatement. The game actually looks astonishingly pretty considering how much havoc wrecks the screen at any given time. The most jaw dropping graphics comes from the playable characters themselves, in which every little detail such as clothing texture can be discernible when up close.  

You  have to be lying to yourself if you don't think these graphics are pretty

You might expect low frame rates to be a devastating enemy to a game of this incredible nature, but it's hardly ever jerky enough to pass it off. The PS4 version of the game handles exceptionally well, with frame rates rarely ever dipping below 60fps regardless of what occurs on screen. The PS3 version occasionally has a few hiccup moments and isn't as buttery smooth as the PS4, but I dare challenge anyone to experience it and say it isn't completely playable in the end.

AUDIO AND MUSIC

Most would agree traditional Chinese music and rock music doesn't mix, and is the equivalent of meshing up Xbox fans with Playstation fans. But let's get real, what Omega Force has done with Dynasty Warriors music is simply remarkable and the epitome of genius. If every soldier and officer were all fighting to Dynasty Warriors soundtracks back in the Three Kingdoms era, their morale would skyrocket like a speeding rocket ship; China would then always be at a stalemate because nobody would ever best one another. That's how good the music is.

Regrettably, not a whole lot of new music are introduced in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, and those that are new are more crafted to be mellow and soft for the strategy phases and meaningful events in the game.

REPLAYABILITY

As far as games go, I find myself constantly going back to Warriors games again and again. There isn't a mysterious poison that keeps me affixed to them, but rather the sheer fact that Warriors games are designed to always have replayability in them. Not just in minute quantities, but in large, excessive amounts.

Empires is no exception. Although the replayability is a wee tarnished due to the game's inability to maintain developed character levels and stats, it's replayability is still untarnished in other areas, including access to a crazy sized playable cast and multiple scenarios to clear. Moreover, no scenario is ever exactly the same every time you play through them due to the game's random nature. Upon adding the strategy elements that only the Empires games highly encompass, it might not be a stretch to call the replayability of Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires "unlimited".

CONCLUSION

The Empires games may not be suitable for everybody. For those who prefer to just carelessly lay back on the couch, shut half of their brain off, shed off pounds of stress and slay thousands of enemy fodder continuously, the original Dynasty Warriors flavor may be the better game for them.

For those who desire a little more thought and personalization in a Dynasty Warriors game however, there is absolutely nothing that offers better than Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. 

Even if one so wishes to just play Dynasty Warriors for what it really is, you still can't go wrong with the game's non-strategic Free Mode, or downloading the equivalent free to play version. 

OVERALL RATING: 7.5/10  

 

Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires comes out February 24th for North America and 27th for Europe

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Bruteforce Save Data Frequently Asked Questions

Having woes with Bruteforce Save Data? Here I will answer some of the most common questions I receive about using the software. Hopefully this will help resolve most of your issues.

Whenever I launch Bruteforce Save Data, I receive an error message saying msvbvm50.dll is missing?

You will need to install Visual Basic Runtime 5. The software will not run without it.

Loaded game saves, but they are labeled as UNREADABLE and I cannot do anything with them.

This is either a permissions issue or can occur if you haven't installed Microsoft Visual Basic C++ 2010 (x86). Make sure you install the x86 version, not the x64. If you installed it and are still receiving UNREADABLE, make sure you are logged into an account with administrator privileges and are not storing your game saves on a write protected directory.

Cheats Repository will not download and/or fail to update.

Update to the latest version of Bruteforce Save Data, run the software as an administrator (right click on the exe file and select "Run as Administrator") and try the update again. You can also download the latest cheats repository manually by visiting the Bruteforce Save Data forums. Simply replace the existing game.conf and add the cheat files with the ones included in the download.

I receive [BLANK] as profile ID when setting up or resigning game saves.

This can occur if your PS3 user account does not have an attached PSN account and you are not logged into it while creating your game saves or saving over them in-game. Please read this post for more information.

BLANK ID will work on games that do not specifically require a unique ID on their game saves. You will have to test the game save after resigning it with a blank ID first.

When I do the rebuild process, the profile name and ID on the game save does not change.

Ensure you are running the software as an administrator. Right click the Bruteforce Save Data exe file and select "Run as Administrator". Then try to rebuild again.

How do I obtain a missing key for a game?

Select the game save and hit F6 (Bruteforce), then select the game's EBOOT.ELF file. EBOOT.ELF file is only available on the game data itself, not the game save. You will need to find someway to transfer the game's data from disc or hard drive to your PC.

I receive corruption message after rebuilding/encrypting a game save and using it on my PS3.

First off, check to see that the game save is actually properly encrypted. The rebuild process should automatically decrypt and encrypt the game save in the process. Always use the "Verify PFD" button to verify that the game save has been correctly encrypted and normal (you should see no red messages). Attempting to run a game save in a decrypted state will always result in a corruption message. Again, you should try to run the software as an administrator to counter this.

Secondly, corruption can also occur due to the following reasons:
1.) Multilayer encryption - Certain games, most notably newer games, will use multilayer encryption. Without a tool to specifically decrypt beyond the first layer, the game save cannot be modified and used without corruption. A fix is to wait until a tool is available, or you can use devices such as Game Genie, which allows you to decrypt all the layers of certain multilayer encrypted game saves. A list of such known current games that uses multilayer encryption can be found on Bruteforce Save Data forums.
2.) Bad/incorrect data - This can occur if you are transferring from one region to another. The differences in offset between the two regions in the game's save data can be different enough that the game will mess up reading it, causing corruption. And yes, this means that not all games can be transferred to one region to another. This can of course occur if you mess with the game save's data too much without knowledge on how to change values.
3.) Wrong region title/ID - If you use the wrong region title/ID, you will receive corruption.
4.) Wrong key - If you use the wrong key for your game save, you will also receive corruption. This can accidentally happen if your game is in multiple regions. Use the specific key for your region only.

If you confirm you did everything correctly and are still receiving corruption message, the problem may be the above four.

After resigning my game save, it still states the save belongs to another user.

Something failed during the rebuilding process or you are using a blank ID on a game that doesn't support it. You must ensure that after rebuilding, your exact PS3 user account profile name and ID appears on the game save. Running as an administrator will solve most of these problems.

How do I apply cheats?

After decrypting the game save, the cheats button should be available. Click it and you can add your cheats. After adding cheats, you need to encrypt the game save to avoid corruption. If you are running an older version, you may need to right click the game save and select "Apply Cheats" instead.

How do I edit data directly with a hex editor?

After decrypting the game save, you can open up the BIN file directly with a hex editor and make changes. Of course, you have to make sure you know what you're doing. The search function is probably the most useful tool to find existing values and change them. Encrypt the game save after to avoid corruption.


If you have any other questions and concerns not detailed in this post, feel free to jot me an e-mail and I will try to answer you promptly. Just do not ask me to simply resign a game save for you.

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Important Announcement Regarding Sending Me Your PS3 Game Saves to Resign

Please do not send me your game saves on PS3 and request me to resign them. I am very sorry to say, but I will no longer accept requests of such. The same applies to region transferring or even on Xbox 360.

I just do not have the time to do them and do not feel honored after doing them. I'm also on a Mac 99% of the time, so it's rather inconvenient of me to change operating system just to resign a save for someone, especially given how easy it is to do it on their own.

Don't get me wrong, I will certainly help you through problem solving and attempting my utter best to get things working for you, but you will need to tell me exactly what problems you are having. That means being very specific, including explaining all the steps you did and what error messages you are receiving (if any). Too many are being completely vague and saying things like "it will not resign I get errors". The only reason I created tutorials was I want this to be a learning experience for everyone, so if you learn how to do it yourself right, you can always do it on your own and troubleshoot your own problems. If I simply resigned game saves for everyone, then I'm doing free favors for everyone and no one will learn anything.

Also note that before you attempt resigning a game save, ensure your game can be fully decrypted in Bruteforce Save Data first. Many people are attempting to resign the latest and newest games, failing and this is because a lot of newer games use multilayer encryption including having unknown checksums, which cannot be decrypted using Bruteforce Save Data. Game Genie can counter this, but that doesn't support all games. Tools are also available for specific games to decrypt all the layers. If you repeatedly receive corruption and did everything right, the game is likely not compatible.

If you are 100% sure you followed all steps completely in the tutorials, I can assure you I will not be doing a better job than you are.

I recommend everyone who seeks help to visit the official Bruteforce Save Data forums. There are people who have more knowledge than myself, including the creator of the software himself, and will be happy to assist you with all problems. And it's free!

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Samurai Warriors 4 Weapon Modding Now Possible on PS3!

All you modders can happily rejoice, as Samurai Warriors 4's game save can now be successfully decrypted with Bruteforce Save Data without corruption, thanks to chaoszage's Samurai Warriors 4 Checksum Fixer Tool. If you are unfamiliar with what decrypting a game save does, it essentially destroys the encryption and allows editing of its data. This makes it possible to make all sorts of changes to your game save's data, including of course the modification of weapons.

This is pure software without the need of devices such as Game Genie or Cyber Save Editor.

So here's basically how you do it:

First, you need to have the latest version of Bruteforce Save Data installed. If not, you should at least have updated your cheats repository to the latest database.

Second, you'll need chaoszage's Samurai Warriors 4 Checksum Fixer Tool. Without this tool, you will end up with corruption after decrypting and encrypting. You can download it here.

Open your Samurai Warriors 4's game save using Bruteforce Save Data, decrypt it, edit the data as you would normally (or apply cheats), run the Checksum Fixer Tool on the game save, then encrypt it with Bruteforce Save Data.

Transfer the game save to your PS3 and you should be good to go!

Weapon Modification Codes and Skill Values:

All 1st Weapon Skills Mod
42003884 05050505
403c0110 00000000
42003888 05050505
403c0110 00000000
4200388c aabbccdd
403c0110 00000000
42003890 eeffgghh
403c0110 00000000
42003894 05050505
403c0110 00000000
42003898 05050505
403c0110 00000000
4200389c 02020202
403c0110 00000000
420038A0 02020202
403c0110 00000000

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/730732-samurai-warriors-4/faqs/69237
Use link above to refer the skills effects

Fill aa,bb,cc,dd,ee,ff,gg,hh with value below:

00   Potency
01   Range
02   Counrage
03   Impact
04   Fury
05   Underdog
06   Momentum
07   Clarity
08   Verity
09   Concentration
0A   Fortitude
0B   Stability
0C   Elasticity
0D   Bravery
0E   Determination
0F   Resolve
10   Nullification
11   Zeal
12   Conviction
13   Resurrection
14   Alacrity
15   Blaze
16   Shock
17   Frost
18   Wind
19   Diamond
1A   Reaper
1B   Rampage
1C   Impulse
1D   Awakening
1E   Cavalry
1F   Equestrian
20   Connoisseur
21   Collector
22   Hoarder
23   Constitution
24   Expert
25   Endurance
26   Paladin
27   Stimulus

Modding weapons directly with a hex editor:

You could theoretically mod the weapons without using the code above directly via a hex editor, if you require only specific weapons be altered. Again, this process should be identical to Dynasty Warriors 8. Write down your weapon's skills in hex as it appears in order, then use the search function in a hex editor to replace skills. This process has not yet been tested, so there is no guarantee yet of it working.

Some other fun codes if you're THAT lazy:

Max Gold
20007842 000F423F

Max Kills
2000784A 05F5E0ff

All Gems Max
200078BC 63636363
200078C0 63636363

All Chars Proficiency Max
42000C44 14141414
403C0044 00000000

All 1st Weapon Becomes Rare
40003883 00000000
403c0110 00000002

Notice: This is all specifically for the US/EU versions of Samurai Warriors 4. If you need codes and values for the Japanese version, visit savedata.jp.

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Tool to Decrypt Second Layer of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Available

I should have posted this bit of news earlier, but thanks to chaoszage, you can successfully decrypt the second layer of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends with a free Windows program that requires no  hardware or devices.

As you may have recalled, Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends (along with all newly released KOEI games) has incorporated double layer encryption security for save files. Up until now, the only method of fully decrypting the game saves required usage of paid devices, such as Game Genie and PS3 Cyber Save Editor.

Why would you need to decrypt the game save? Plenty of scenarios—if you want to resign it to another user's profile/PS3, mod your save data, transfer regions, etc.

The guide for usage is included in the download. Remember that you need to pair the decrypter with Bruteforce Save Data. First layer of decryption is done via Brutefroce and the second layer is with this tool.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE TOOL

Have fun, and don't spoil yourself!

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Translate In-Game Japanese Text with OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

I know that a lot of my viewers are interested in playing imported games, particularly newly released Japanese titles or earlier titles that were unfortunately pushed off into the abyss for English or other international audiences. While I think the idea is wholly crazy for reading intensive games such as RPGs, it's otherwise alright for games that are rather light on it, such as action games in veins of KOEI's Warriors series.

To help your experience be less of a misery, I'm going to share with you a useful tool you can use yourself to quickly translate in-game Japanese text to English, or whatever other language you desire. Now if you are already fluent in Japanese as I mostly am, you can still use it for a dozen other languages and not just for games either. I've used this tool myself to translate Chinese, Korean, German and Russian text to English from games, movies, video clips and television shows (none of which I'm fortunately any adept in).

The tool in question is called OCR, or Optical Character Recognition. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it essentially allows you to grab specific sections of text in a picture/screenshot and converts them to machine-encoded/computer-readable format, which is text that you can manipulate freely on your PC including copying and pasting into a translator.

OCR is widely available as both online web embedded services or via downloaded software. There are additionally both free and paid versions; free versions offering basic functionality with less accuracy while paid offering higher accuracy and more features.

Before we dive into anything, let’s briefly go over the prerequisites. You’re going to need the following:

1.) A computer that preferably has access to the internet.
2.)  OCR software.
I tend to favor and prefer ABBYY Screenshot Reader, included in ABBYY FineReader. Although it is paid software, it has worked mostly flawlessly for me converting virtually any text in any language in screenshots to computer-readable with high accuracy. If you visit their website, you can download a free, fully featured trial of the software. Albeit its rather hefty price tag, I highly recommend purchasing as it is one of the best OCR software available on the internet.

Do not download or purchase ABBYY Screenshot Reader individually, as you will not be receiving Asian language support with it.

If you prefer to go the free route, there are numerous free OCR services available, both as online web embedded and via downloaded software. Be wary that a lot of them do not support Asian languages.

Capture2text is a free downloadable OCR software with Asian language support and specific section/text area capturing:
http://capture2text.sourceforge.net/

Here are some free OCR web embedded services that have Asian language support:
http://newocr.com
http://maggie.ocrgrid.org/nhocr/
http://www.i2ocr.com/free-online-japanese-ocr (Japanese only) 

Keep in mind that I have no experience or knowledge with Capture2text or any online based OCR services, let alone free ones. All I ever use is the fantastic ABBYY Screenshot Reader. Nevertheless, a simple Google search will yield more results, if the above ones are not favorable or working for you.

The following is necessary if you desire game console support (e.g. PS3, Xbox 360, etc.):
3.) A capture card or device compatible with your game console.
The capture card or device is necessary because we require a method to take screenshots in the game with the text we want converted/translated, so we can then run OCR on it. Now, you may get away substituting this with a camera, but since most OCR requires the text in the picture be very clear and precise, a capture card or device will undoubtedly work much better.

If you want to do this on PC games, then you can simply use "Print Screen" command.

Alright, now with the prerequisites and boring things aside, let’s get into the actual process!

Let’s say for example you're playing Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate right now on your PS3, pretend you don’t know Japanese and really like to know what the highlighted text said.

Now being that it’s a game, you can’t really just copy the text and paste it into a translator, could you? You could possibly manually convert the text into computer-readable by finding out which letter is which (using some sort of Japanese dictionary or characters list) and typing it out one by one on the computer. But let’s face it, that’s going to take until Hell freezes over and infinite eye strain, especially given the amount of Kanji that exists!

Well, fear not, as this is where OCR comes to save the day! It will easily convert the text to computer-readable for you in the speed that it takes you to type a sentence or less.

So the first thing you have to do is take a screenshot of the screen with the text on it you want converted, utilizing your capture card or device. If you're on a PC game, print screen should work dandy. Remember, you can also attempt to use a camera if you're on a game console and have no access to a capture device. That may or may not work, depending on how large, clear and prominent the text comes out on the photo.

The next step is to run OCR on the screenshot. For this purpose, I'm going to be using ABBYY Screenshot Reader exclusively. Methods and instructions will vary upon the OCR being used. In my case, I'm going to show you how easy and fast it is to use ABBYY Screenshot Reader.

Here ABBYY Screenshot Reader can be launched directly from the Start Menu after installing ABBYY FineReader:

In order to change language to Japanese or any other Asian language, click on the Language drop down menu and select "More languages...":

In the Language Editor window, Asian languages, including Japanese can now be selected under "Asian Languages". Be sure to uncheck any other languages that have already been enabled, such as the default English. If you have more than one language selected, the software will attempt to read all of those languages in the screenshot, which may make the results not come out what you'd expect.

After clicking OK and confirming that you only have one sole language selected, you can now go ahead and click on the capture screenshot button (the big button with the notepad and clipboard icon to the right). However; before doing that, you have to make sure the screenshot the software needs to read from is already opened in a picture viewer, fully zoomed to 100% and non-hidden/obstructed on the screen. Because once you click on that button, it will essentially freeze everything on the screen.

Click the capture screenshot button to start the reading process, but do not click it until your screenshot is launched in a separate window, fully zoomed to 100% and non-hidden/obstructed on the screen.

After clicking that button, the ABBYY Screenshot Reader window will disappear and your cursor will transform into a crosshair.

What you basically wish to accomplish here is to simply just drag and select the section of text you want the screenshot reader to read and copy from.

It might consume a few lousy seconds, but once it's done its magic, that bit of text that is in the screenshot should be correctly converted and additionally copied to the clipboard.

We can find that out by simply opening a software that can input text (such as Notepad) and clicking Control + P to paste.

So here are the results of attempting to run ABBYY Screenshot Reader on that specific section of Japanese text in that Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate screenshot:

In comparison to the actual text that appears in the game, it read it 100% perfectly!

The next step is, as you have guessed, copy that bit of text and paste into a translator. My main web translator of choice is Google Translate, but if results fair poorly for you, I also recommend Babylon Translation or Babelfish.

After running that bit of Japanese text on Google Translate, this is what it returned:

Google Translate doesn't do a fantastic job on translation, especially regarding Japanese to English, generating broken Engrish a fair majority of the time. Regardless, it should be enough most of the time for you to get a general idea of what the text means. Here, I can pretend that I can only read the English, so to my understanding it basically means that turning this on will cause enemy morale to raise greatly at the start of the battle.

Now if you still don't understand it after the above translation, you are welcome to torment ask me to give you a proper translation that doesn't make anyone's mind melt in confusion (Japanese only of course). No OCR necessary, just send me the screenshot or text directly. :)

And that pretty much concludes this guide on OCR. You can envision other endless possibilities you can have with OCR, given all the possible languages it can read from. Of course and like I already indicated, it doesn't have to be Japanese or be a game. I honestly think every person who enjoys foreign media and games should have knowledge on how to effectively use OCR, and most certainly ABBYY Screenshot Reader.

One last thing I want to mention is that any OCR, even ABBYY Screenshot Reader, isn't a miracle product by any means. Meaning, it's not going to perfectly read all text you hand to it. If you desire perfect or near perfect results, you have to make sure whatever text in your screenshots you want read from is as crisp, clear and in large font as possible. The text should additionally have no background behind the text, straight (not crooked) and be single colored. Vertical text is fine as long as it's straight.

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How to Resolve the BLANK Issue with Bruteforce Save Data

Lately, there have been reports of people having pesky troubles resigning PS3 game saves to their profile using Bruteforce Save Data, the main culprit being the dreaded BLANK they receive when they attempt to setup a PARAM.SFO template.

Keep in mind that getting BLANK doesn't essentially equate to failure. Some games do not mind game saves with a BLANK profile. To them, it just means that game save has no attached owner and they will allow you to save over it just fine and dandy. Other times however, games will reject game saves with a BLANK profile. The only way to tell for sure is to simply test the game save.

So what if the game does mind, and it really needs an appropriate profile (16 digit ID) attached to it? Well, lately all I have been telling people with this problem is to keep trying different game saves until you get one without BLANK. However, that doesn't work a lot of times. I have been searching around the internet to answers of why BLANK occurs and even e-mailed the software author about it (with no response). That is until, I finally believe I solved the mystery!

What you basically need to do is to simply tie a PSN/SEN account to your PS3 user account and log into it.

That's it! That will generate that magic 16 digit ID for you on your game saves. After you logged into your PSN/SEN account, make sure you create a new game save or save over a current one.

After you transferred the game save to a USB drive and configured your PARAM.SFO profile once, you can then continue to use that saved profile configuration on the rest of your game saves you need to resign. After that, it is your choice to continue to log into PSN/SEN on your PS3 or just stay offline.

I have tested with success on a brand new PS3 user account. The PS3 will continue to create BLANK game saves until I created a PSN/SEN account, log into it and then save the game.

Hopefully, this helps answers the continuous messages I am receiving about this issue!

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Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate Patch 1.05 - Analysis of Extra Reincarnations

 

So I had the chance to update Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate from version 1.02 all the way to the present version 1.05 released around Christmas time. I know, you're probably thinking: "Where the hell have you been, living under a rock?!" But trust me, there's a valid reason why I was staying on 1.02 for what seems to be an eternity. You see, my PS3's wireless has gotten funky and hence caused me to be offline since around October with no connection to the internet. I could theoretically connect using a wired Ethernet cable, but since my home's router is upstairs and my PS3 and HDTV are downstairs, I didn't want to run an hundred feet cable and have everyone tripping over it. Anyway, I finally got the chance to fix the wireless on the PS3. So now, I can finally connect with it to the internet once again, hurray! Still, I don't have a PSN account, so don't bother asking (I don't play online on the PS3 anyway).

You don't want to hear my sob story about my PS3 hardware woes though, so enough of that and let's get into the topic of this blog post—why nine reincarnations in patch 1.05 is overkill, and why KOEI even bothered to add in that many reincarnations.

So if you haven't learned yet, patch 1.05 adds a few new features, most notably extending the maximum numerical values of various elements, including reincarnations. In versions prior to 1.05, reincarnations are capped at three total. This cap allowed almost all characters to max speed (180) and an additional two to three other stats (health, defense and musou). That being said, it left you with the inability to max all five stats, so KOEI has kindly raised this cap to an absurd value—nine.

I decided to test it out and reincarnate a few character nine times. Not that you'll really want to though, because it's quite senseless to raise stats beyond their normal max values without reincarnations, strictly due to diminishing returns (you'll be working much more than what you'll be gaining in return, basically). The formula is two growth points per level after reincarnation, so 891 points is possible for every character.

What I discovered was that for a few characters that I did reincarnate nine times, I was able to max out all five of their stats by the eighth reincarnation. This meant their health was 999, attack was 999, defense was 999, musou was 999 and speed was 200. Yes, they did raise the speed cap to 200 instead of 180, which is still pretty lousy. Beyond the fourth reincarnation, speed remained capped at 200.

Keep in mind that in order for this to be possible, I had to be conservative with my growth points and use them only after I have leveled the character to 100 and not in-between.

I was then left with around 200 extra growth points on the ninth reincarnation for all characters, with nothing able to pump them into it. Hence, making the ninth and final reincarnation completely non-beneficial to your character stats.

Xu Shu ninth reincarnation with 176 extra growth points.

Nu Wa ninth reincarnation with 234 extra growth points.

Zhao Yun ninth reincarnation with 219 extra growth points.

Yukimura ninth reincarnation with 225 extra growth points.

Diao Chan max stats at eighth reincarnation with 21 extra growth points.

So in conclusion, reincarnating characters the max nine times is not necessary to max a character's stats. You may gain other rewards, but certainly not in the stats department!

I was also curious to what the max speed you can now have on a character, including all bonuses from items. With Charm of Alacrity (神速符) +20, Dual-Layered Armor (両当鎧) +20 and Tag Shell (札甲) +20, along with the new 200 speed cap, you'll end up with a grand total of 400 speed.

400 speed on Yukimura at max stats.

Testing out the 400 speed definitely felt insanely fast, and much, much faster than riding on both Red Hare and Matsukaze. Picking up speed shoes unfortunately didn't seem to have much of an effect, or there seems to be a cap on the max speed of the effect on the shoes. I didn't have time to test Rabbitskin Leggings (脱兎脚絆), as that will also double your speed when your life is in the red. I doubt you'll need them anyway, as you'll be blazing through battlefields like a rocket. It almost feels like cheating!

Anyway, I don't want to turn this post into a book, so I'll leave it at here. There are other things that 1.03-1.05 added, but they aren't significant enough to write about.

Also, I want to also mention I will be updating and reposting the Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate platinum status game save I posted earlier, which is now taken down. The reason why I took it down was because I desired to update it for subsequent patches past 1.02. I also liked characters growth and levels to be a bit more even, so I am in process (and nearly finished) of reincarnating all 145 character three times. Some characters will be reincarnated nine times due to the experiment above, but I am definitely not planning on reincarnating everyone nine times. Weapons will also be updated. I will be removing all 4 star +99 weapons, since they have become useless in patch 1.03+. The strongest weapons are now the 5 star crafted weapons from Unlimited Mode, because patch 1.03 allowed them to have +99 attack power from max compatibility (from the previous +18 max).

I will let you guys know when the new, updated game save will be available. I'll likely have it tomorrow or by Friday the latest, actually.

Until then, take care!

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