I have gotten some attention regarding the post "How to Disable the Affinity System in Dynasty Warriors 8 (Playstation 3)" and its subsequent follow-ups. For some, the idea seemed brilliant: finally be able to rid of that irritating weapon affinity system in its entirety with little to no side effects, playing the game once again like its Dynasty Warriors 7 and past days.
However, many aren't that keen on doing the required manual tasks themselves, including transferring their saves to their PC, using software to modify hex values, yada yada. For some, it may require too much brain power and work, even though it probably would take an average person less than 5-10 minutes total to accomplish... But still, I understand completely, really...
Well, what if I told you that you didn't have to do any work at all, or very little to get this experience? Well now, as a few have requested, I am providing a game save that already removes all affinity from every weapon in the game. That's right, just download the save for your correct region, transfer it to your PS3, then enjoy Dynasty Warriors 8 the way it should have been (if you aren't catching up this point, hint: I despise the affinity system like a lot of people).
There are some caveats to this save, however. All weapons will have the same elements (in the save, the elements for every weapon will be Cyclone lv. 5, Slash lv. 10, Thunder lv. 10, Velocity lv. 10, Flurry lv. 10, Thorns lv. 10). In addition, any new weapons you obtain will not be granted the no affinity effect.
To get around this, you will need to refer to this post for details on how to reapply no affinity to newly obtained weapons and change weapon elements and their levels (YES, THIS WILL REQUIRE SOME MANUAL WORK!).
Have fun, and let's hope Dynasty Warriors 9 will not have the less than stellar weapon affinity system!
Below is an extended gameplay demo of the modification:
BTW, if you are wondering what music that's playing in the background in the above video, it's a song I created myself—for fun and because I was tired of getting copyright claims on every video I put music to. I call it "Pink Sky" and you can download the song here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66210285/Pink%20Sky.mp3
Oh, about the beautiful cosplay photo that doesn't have anything to do with this post other than being DW8? That's just there to get your attention, duh!
Recently, I've been experimenting with individually altering character stats in saved games on Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires for the Playstation 3 and have been fortunately successful doing so.
One dominant reason which resulted in me ensuing this was so I could lower my controlled character's stats and raise enemy officer stats (particularly attack, health and defense), enabling lengthier combos as officers tends to be annihilated a bit too quickly for my liking. Of course, one could easily reverse that and raise their own character stats to abnormal amounts and the enemy to nothing. Personal choice is a wonderful thing, ain't it? Anyway, that's probably not important to you—you want to just know how to change a character's stats to anything you want, correct? Well, I'll show you how!
First things first, you'll need the obligatory and rehashed on this blog Bruteforce Save Data. Be sure to download the latest version and update the database pronto (also, run the program as an administrator). I assume you already know how to use Bruteforce Save Data, but if you happen to not, read up a bit on it here and here.
Second, you'll need a save game present on Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires to modify. No, I'm not talking about system data (which cannot be decrypted at the time being), but a save game such as an Empire Mode save and quick save.
Pick the game save you want to use and open it with Bruteforce Save Data, decrypt it and open it with HxD as usual.
You first need to pick the character you want stats changed, taking note of that character's current stats.
In this tutorial, I will change my controlled character's stats (ruler). You can choose any character you wish, as long as that character is present in your current game and you can view their stats.
The first important thing is to view the character's current stats and convert them to hex.
IMPORTANT: You must remove all of your character's item equipments (if you are using any) for this to work. You can re-equip them after you are done changing the stats. Weapons and mounts can be left alone. This only applies to characters you control. Here is a screenshot of my ruler's stats:
Excuse the Japanese. English version will have no difference aside from language.
Convert the first four stat numbers to hex using this online tool. Four should be sufficient to isolate the specific character and anything less you'll run into the possibility of editing the wrong character.
In my instance, health (520) would be 208, attack (410) would be 19A, defense (550) would be 226 and leadership (510) 1FE.
Put them together IN ORDER and you will get: 208 19A 226 1FE
Now you would think that the hex above would be enough to search out in HxD and change, right? WRONG. This is because KOEI is swapping the hex in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires. If I searched 208 19A 226 1FE I would never find anything or anything relevant to the actual stat location.
First, if any of your pair of hex are three digits, you will need to prefix a 0 to each one, such as: 0208 019A 0226 01FE
Two digits, you will need to prefix a 00. One digit prefix a 000. Four digits, do not prefix anything. The rule is to keep all pairs of hex four digits.
What you have to do now is to swap the hex. So 0208 019A 0226 01FE = 0802 9A01 2602 FE01.
Notice how the first two digits and last two digits of each pair of hex are swapped around. You must do this for all pairs of hex.
Now with that hex swapped, you can finally search it using HxD and start changing values.
This is what the search results leads to, spot on!
And here is a general idea of which pair of hex correlates to which stat:
But remember, you have to input your new desired hex swapped as well. So if I wanted 1000 for health, attack, defense and leadership, the hex will be E803 E803 E803 E803 (and not 03E8 03E8 03E8 03E8).
Results of change. Red indicates altered values.
Once you are done, encrypt the game save and presto! You've changed your character's stats! Best of all, it doesn't affect any other character other than the one you changed.
SATISFACTORY!
Tip: Once you have obtain the offsets for a certain character's stats, you can reuse those offsets again next time in any game (even a different one from the the one you modified) without redoing all the stats to hex conversion above.
You can also change your materials, money and unit likely in the same manner.
Ever missed being able to use the older and original weapons including EXs and musous in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires on characters such as Wang Yi, Sun Quan, Lian Shi, etc?
Well, here's an interesting take on how to somewhat overcome that by a Japanese player—creating CAWs that basically resembles those characters and give them their original weapons.
By all means this is no work of art and the resemblance could be definitely better, but the idea is still cool and even somewhat funny. It can even be something to shut complaints a bit for not liking the altered weapons.
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.
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!
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 customizationincluding 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 foddercontinuously, 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
Hello! I'm currently in process of writing up and finishing my detailed written review for Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, which will be published exclusively on this blog. The written review should be posted by the end of this week.
A video review may likely follow suit, but considering how much more time and effort it requires to make one, the video review may not be published until the end of January to midst of February.
I also like to announce that because of this, I will be on a short hiatus from posting any YouTube videos for the time being. Don't worry, I won't abandon you guys again!
Do you not like the weapon affinity system present in Dynasty Warriors 8? Well, there is now an easy way to totally annihilate it using the magic value of FF (we'll get onto that in a little bit). By removing it, the combat system essentially returns back to its former Dynasty Warriors 7 days, where you wouldn't have to worry about which affinity to use. Additionally, there would be no storm rush, no variable counter and most importantly, being able to stagger/hitstun every enemy officer in the game regardless of what affinity they have.
So how do you do it exactly? Well, it's actually nothing new at all. Remember when I wrote the weapon modding guide for Dynasty Warriors 8 a long time ago? Remember the part where you could change your weapon's affinity to Heaven, Earth and Man? If so, basically all you need to do is instead of choosing Heaven (00), Earth (01) or Man (02); you replace that value with FF. This renders the weapon in particular to have no affinity whatsoever. No affinity = no inferior or superior affinity to worry about.
CHANGE AFFINITY VALUE TO FF
If you don't understand what I just said, you should definitely read up on the weapon modding guide. It's not just for the sake of removing affinity, but for also learning how to mod your weapons and have full customization over them.
Regrettably, you can only remove affinity of weapons one at a time, or together as a batch work. There is currently no code yet to automatically remove affinity for all weapons in your possession. Hence, it does take an extra bit of work, but that bit of work may pay off extremely well for those interested. 1/25/2015 UPDATE: I created a code to automatically remove affinity all weapons in your collection, so you no longer have to resort to doing any hex editing. Just apply the cheat code to your Dynasty Warriors 8 game save on Bruteforce and you're affinity free! [Remove Affinity for All Weapons in Collection] 40015D43 000000FF 47260018 00000000
On Dynasty Warriors 8 (non Xtreme Legends version), there is one side effect of removing affinity from your weapons. It will cause your weapons to do very little damage to enemy officers (on any difficulty). However, elemental and musou damage are not impacted. So if you use this, it's a MUST to put on your weapon a percentage damage element, preferably Cyclone. You can mass change all elements in your weapons by using the codes provided in this post.
I have tested this on the Playstation 3 version of Dynasty Warriors 8 for a few hours and it's fully functional. There are no game issues using it besides what is mentioned above. No crashes and no freezes.
Doing this on Xtreme Legends is not recommended due to frequent game freezes. Read this updated post for more information on why.
Below is a small demo video of removing affinity in action (notice green affinity vs red/null). I purposely added Cyclone only on the Dragon Spear to show you the damage bug. The damage bug is very apparent in the Dual Hookblades, but the Dragon Spear shows off how elemental and musou damage are not affected.
I've been having some fun with character creation in Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires lately, so much that I've neglected playing the actual game.
Although I have to say that I was rather disappointed that the actual playable character editing portion remained identical to the 7th Empires. All those cool new features from Samurai Warriors 4's character creation, specifically uploading custom photos for your character's portrait and design on your clothing were missing. Rather, custom photos is only exclusively available for flag customization, which is a shame. Also, there weren't even any new hairstyles besides like two, not including certain head pieces that force their own hairstyle upon you.
I do like some of the new costumes. These are some designs I came up with using them:
Regarding the game itself, it has been mostly positive, although I do miss certain things from Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires, including the aesthetic flair when your character executes stratagems and the many more unlockable events.
I liked that they dealt away with the displeasing fame leveling system, which causes your character's stats to be determined by your fame's fluctuating levels. Now it's back to plain old fixed character levels, which makes the leveling process significantly less annoying. Please KOEI, don't you dare ever go back to that fame leveling system again, ya hear?!
Being able to build facilities in your provinces to increase gold, troops and develop more advanced weapons, items and stratagems is a nice touch that helps strengthens the strategic element of the game. No longer can you just gather a mountain of gold, run into the shops and buy the best of everything.
The marriage system allows you and your spouse to have a child that can later partake in battle. It's an interesting feature, but you're going to unfortunately generate a lot of child monstrosities, even if you and your spouse are the most beautiful beings in the universe. Not just the face will be bad, but the clothing too. The last child I had, his clothes were all different colors and none of it matched. He also had a frightening man's body yet a face of a boy. You are damn right I was ashamed of releasing him from the womb.
The one feature I definitely appreciated the most in the game is free mode. It's like a God sent gift for me in an Empires game, because it allows me to play around with movesets and study them for efficiency without going through the lengthily scenarios. Speaking of movesets, out of all the new movesets introduced, I'm liking Wang Yi's the most. That weapon and moveset, aside from a few lousy charges, is AMAZING.
Of course, the biggest downside to this iteration of Empires is the total lack of New Game+, excluding what you can carry over in free mode. Hopefully, KOEI learns of this horrific mistake and adds at least weapon transfer in a future patch.
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.
I didn't really meant to make this an actual blog post, but I've been getting two particular questions regarding Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate from viewers continously. Hence, I might as well make a big public post about it for everyone.
When will Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate be released in English for North America and Europe?
At this moment I'm typing, neither KOEI TECMO Japan or NA/EU has made a public announcement regarding whether the game will be localized to English, that includes specific dates. However, one of the company's officials (鯉沼P - Koinuma) has tweeted they might release an English version in summer of 2014. Here is the link to the tweet.
Can you supply a translation guide for weapon attributes in English?
I would translate them, but a kind soul has already compiled a list of weapon attributes in both Musou Orochi 2 and Ultimate, plus provided English translations for them. You can find the list here.
If you need other bits of the game translated, feel free to send me an
e-mail. I could also work on a thorough translation guide for this game
if you guys want, since this game doesn't look like it's going to
localized any time soon. If so, let me know your thoughts and I may look into it.
I might as well add another question I was asked just recently on a different game...
How come I can't decrypt the game save of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends with Bruteforce Save Data?
Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends, like a lot of newer games, uses double layer encryption for their game saves. Hence, you won't be able to decrypt it via software as of yet. The only way to do so is to use a third party Game Genie device. PS3 CYBER Save Editor (Japan only) has added support for Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends. I have no familiarity with this item, but I know it lets you modify game save code. I'm not sure if it will allow you to resign your game saves like Bruteforce Save Data. Remember: Don't mod/cheat unless absolutely necessary; try to stay legit!
Note: This review is based upon the Japanese version of the game (Shin Sangoku Musou 7: Moushouden) and uses translated names. English names of certain things may be different in the English release.
INTRODUCTION
Dynasty Warriors marks its 8th iteration almost one year ago and certainly, it's no astonishment that this upcoming year marks another Xtreme Legends expansion for the game.
The Xtreme Legends series have always been considered the true expansions to the original games, whereas the Empires series are deemed more as spin-offs. Therefore, if you have arrived expecting more of the same, then there's not a whole lick that's going to disappoint.
Please remember my fellow readers—this is a review for Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends and its new contents and gameplay differences alone, not factoring in the original. Like my Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate review, since I'm essentially reviewing an expansion pack, I will have the predetermined mind set that you have already played or at least know details about the original game, plus Dynasty Warriors in general. If I were to go all out to please even the newbies, this review wouldn't be called xtremely long version, it would be called xtremely unreadable version due to its length.
With that boring guff out of the way, let's get into the good stuff then!
GAME MODES
Customary to any Xtreme Legends, new game modes and features to existing ones are obligatory. It's also no surprise that KOEI TECMO went again with their safe, perpetual formula to include more story mode content, a challenge mode and a few features to ambition and free mode. So how good are they, exactly?
STORY MODE has been expanded upon from the original, including a brand new story of the Lü Kingdom (Lü Bu's forces) and supplementary hypothetical scenarios for Wei, Shu, Wu and Jin. Lü Bu's story mode follows the vein of the original four kingdom story modes, featuring full length historical and hypothetical paths. Wei, Shu, Wu and Jin on the other hand receives short, segmented stories that are usually one to two stages long, encompassing various playable characters.
I'm sure many fans were storming KOEI TECMO's headquarters in hopes that their favorite character finally gets sufficient share time and love in one of the games. I mean, this is Lü Bu we're talking about after all—the only character in Dynasty Warriors to have a diminutive chance in winning a video game character popularity poll. Fear not fellow Lü Bu fans, as Lü Bu is indeed the protagonist here in his dominant story mode, and it follows him all the way soundly, grunt to grunt, until his untimely end. That is, unless you choose to cheat history and potentially destroy China, of course.
Yes, this is a real screenshot. Lü Bu actually has his own, full length story mode!
I do have to say playing through the historical path of Lü Bu's story mode is rather disheartening and awkward, especially near the end. To prevent my head from being severed due to reader backlash, I'll just describe the feeling in a non-explicit way that opens up for interpretation (until you play the game). But imagine playing a battle, ridding the entire field of enemies, dominating against every enemy tactic, having the morale of Superman's friendly onlookers, then finally being crushed having to endure drawn out, dreadful deaths of people you've been attached with for a long time. History is history, right? If you can't handle history, you shouldn't be playing Dynasty Warriors to begin with.
The most touching part of Lü Bu's story mode. When you see it, you'll know why.
One of the most noteworthy positive experiences to the new story modes are the multitude of new and redesigned stages. The final battle of Xiapi is now a giant single land with a colossal castle in the center that has walkable walls. That entire stage just screamed epic!
Overall, if you're expecting more story mode content, you'll be getting quite a good amount of it here that will last you anywhere from five to ten hours. Then again, this is something we were already expecting in a Xtreme Legends, so I can't be exactly too glee about it.
CHALLENGE MODE is a new, recurring mode added in many past Xtreme Legends games that pits and hones your gaming skills to a variety of objective based challenges, focusing on obtaining the highest score both offline and online. Five total challenges await you in this mode. Prior to entering into a challenge, you are allowed complete freedom to select any characters and customize their weapons to your heart's content. To ensure overall equality and balance, character levels are capped at level 30, and skills cannot be equipped.
What will you find in these five challenges?
Storm transports you inside a small, enclosed arena with thousands of enemies, tasking you as the player to rack up as many K.Os as possible in a given time limit. When a certain amount of time and army fodder are annihilated, the beast known as Lü Bu emerges, hoping to both put a halt to your insane killing spree and dwindling down your inner morale. Get used to him appearing abruptly by the way; he's going to be there in most challenges to put your efforts to ruins. After he's taken care of, more army fodder pops up. The process is then repeated until the timer runs out.
Comet puts you on top of a series of connected narrow platforms with peon swarms, ballistas and occasionally enemy officers. Enemies are invulnerable to damage, so your goal here isn't to rack up direct kills, but K.Os that involves shoving them off the platforms. Yes, enemies will meet their demise apparently when they fall into the abyss below. Not only can you die due to regular damage, but falling off yourself results in the same fate. Comet isn't so much skill and luck based, but more about weapon and moveset choice that works best to shove enemies off.
Thunderclap is like running the Chinese Olympics solo in hell. There is one long, twisting path chocked full of the absolute worst possible living and non-living things you can face in the game—tigers, ballistas, flame throwers, sorcerers, horsemen, tanks, spiked walls, giant wind blowing fans, the list goes on. Even Lü Bu starts chasing you like an insane psychopath from Clock Tower. The goal here is as you guessed, to get to the end of the path in one piece in the fastest time possible. Regrettably, this challenge is about as annoying to play as it is to enjoy, as you're likely going to get constantly knocked around by all the junk on the screen.
Leave me the #*@$ alone!
Hundred Flowers isn't about picking a hundred flowers in an oriental garden, although that would provide immense relaxation from all the crazy adrenaline inducing challenges before it. It's about killing all playable officers in the game sequentially in an arena with no other enemies. Yeah, go figure right? This challenge just screams nostalgia because it looks and works virtually the same as the arena battles in Dynasty Warriors 7. Arena battles were indeed fun in the past, but here it's forgettable at best due to how the combat has changed for the worst. The equal character levels and starting weapons limitation does make Hundred Flowers more challenging, nevertheless.
Inferno is like storm mixed with thunderclap. You are inside this weird maze littered with enemies, strange obstacles you have to destroy to open up paths, and platforms you have to jump over. The objective here is to eliminate all enemies in the map before the timer runs out, ingenious eh? Be prepared to be very annoyed if you missed even a sole peon, as if you did, you'll be likely having to backtrack across the empty map devoid of enemies to get to that pesky little rodent.
It's nice to know that in this iteration of Xtreme Legends, playing and winning challenges aren't all about showing off coupled with smack talk. Successfully completing each challenge will award you with a random weapon prize, regardless of how well you did in the challenge. A new weapon element is also incorporated for each challenge, resulting in five new weapon elements total that are exclusively obtainable in this mode.
Winning 6th place yet receiving a level four weapon. Looks like I other things to brag about!
Albeit fun and a good distraction from the prolonged mayhem in story, free and ambition mode; the main problem in challenge mode lies in its originality. That is, none of the challenges here are new and original, save for the slightly disappointing Inferno. Four of the challenges are rehashed copy pasted from Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends with minor alterations. If you factor in the ugliness that most of the weapons and movesets from Dynasty Warriors 7 are additionally rehashed in 8, you'll find little redeeming value to go through the same challenges again, other than obtaining some beneficial weapon prizes that you can use in other modes. Tsk, tsk, tsk... KOEI TECMO, you once again chose the lazy way out in hopes that either your audience won't mind or won't notice. You sly fox you...
AMBITION MODE receives a new game feature/mode in itself called "Territory Suppression", additional to the primary one where you are charged with construction of the Tongquetai Palace. This one takes place after all that home improvement jazz, and this time it's actually serious, because these Chinese men and women now directs your action to unite Han China as something troubling is brewing.
So here's the synopsis in territory suppression: You are to recruit officers, build your relations with them and conquer five territories of Han China through repeated battles, then finally defeat the emperor (who is a naughty, fake one) in the final sixth territory. The unification occurs when all regions have been conquered, obviously. But there's an enormous catch though—friendly officers defeated by the enemy during battles will depart your forces and return to the other side, as somehow seemingly provoked by the fake emperor.
The first thing right off the bat that will likely induce angst and rage is the actual starting process of territory suppression. You can only initiate by talking to an individual in ambition mode after your task of construction of the Tongquetai Palace in is complete. But once so, close your eyes and take a deep breath, as all your current recruited officers (aside from a few characters that are in close relationship to your controlled character) will vanish back to enemy forces. To make matters more insulting, the effect is universal in ambition mode and hence applied to even the original survival battles. You would have at least thought KOEI TECMO showed some decency and courtesy, respected your immense time in obtaining all your officers and simply allowed the game to continue on the way you left it, but nah... they mocked your efforts and forced you to unlock every playable character for this mode over again. *Claps* Bravo!
There's no going back after talking to this special guy.
This is becoming a trend actually, and a bad one. Putting in a new mode separate from others that erases all character unlock status, forcefully requiring their unlocking again. It's idiotic and annoying KOEI TECMO. May I at least kindly suggest simply putting this new feature into its own mode, separate from the original ambition mode, whilst also separating the unlock status of characters on both?
The actual gameplay portion of territory suppression resembles sort of a bastardized and miniaturization of Empires, and an extreme one at that.
You start off with being able to select one territory and one battlefield within. To wholly conquer a territory requires you to conquer 100% of each of its four battlefields. How so? The percentage increases after a successful battle in each battlefield. Subsequent battlefields are then unlocked when the percentage of the prior battlefield are raised high enough, and raising percentage of battlefields will raise the overall percentage of the specific territory. Additional territories are unlocked when the overall percentages are high enough. Don't worry if all that percentage talk above is the cause to your sudden headache—the concept is pretty much straightforward and simple, I promise! The most important thing you should need to know is: expect to play through the same battlefields a heck lot of times!
That's a whole lot of percentages!
A nice, savory bit is that prior to riding into the battlefield, you are allowed freedom to construct your own forces of up to 32 officers, with each officer playing a different role in their battle tactics. Gaining more officers to shove in the excitement requires defeating them in battle and recruiting them into your forces, similarly to the past. Three officers you recruited can also be selected to serve as your bodyguards during battle. We'll dive a bit more in-depth about bodyguards later onwards in the gameplay and characters section.
Constructing your own forces of officers.
All battlefields, with exception of the final one in the final territory, consists of the player aiming to defeat a set amount of enemies (including enemy bases) and afterwards a boss officer to be victorious. Bases are marked by flags (blue for the player's army and red for the enemy's) and can be captured by defeating guard captains surrounding them. Remembered where I mentioned Empires? This is where the subtle similarities of Empires ties in, as taking over bases is virtually identical here, just without the whole colored and connectivity element.
Flags, enemy bases and officers are the meat of territory suppression.
After all five territories are adequately conquered, a sixth territory opens up consisting of a single battlefield, giving you chance to finally crack down and go toe to toe with the fake emperor. This one's an outcast from the rest of the battles, as the battle itself resembles more of something constructed and pulled from challenge mode. There's no base taking here, just lots of enemies to defeat and siege weaponry to avoid. I gotta do say that this battle is probably the most memorable moment in the entire game, as it features one of the most absurd and ridiculous fights in Dynasty Warriors history leading up to the boss fight. Words will not be able to express the true extremity of it, so I'll gladly leave that up to you to find out!
Alright, with details of territory suppression aside, let's talk about two of its primary flaws.
First, there's nothing terribly enticing or innovative about the entirety of the gameplay. Like I stated earlier, it feels like a kindergarten version of Empires—conquering territories, recruiting and losing officers, formation of your own forces, taking over bases, etc. all without the fundamental strategic components that makes Empires special and fun. I was also borderline bored going through the same battlefields multiple times to raise the percentage enough to unlock additional battlefields and territories. A little more variety and choice would be a welcomed addition.
Second, the whole aspect of friendly officers returning back to enemy forces after being defeated makes the experience unnecessarily frustrating. This is especially valid as the only way to play playable characters is through recruiting them to your forces. While your controlled character can never be seized away, the opportunity to utilize and better develop other playable characters (notably through ambition mode exclusive facilities) becomes restricted once they've been captured. Playing thoughtfully and well will prevent your officers from getting defeated, but you aren't always going to be able to keep them all safe every time. Attempting to re-recruit lost ones over and over again becomes an inconvenient and senseless task, heightened by the fact officers are seemingly randomly placed on battlefields. The only way to truly avoid losing playable characters is to keep them out of your forces entirely, i.e. only bringing generics to the battlefield. But that's not any fun, now is it?
Territory suppression is marginally fun and a nice change of pace from regular ambition mode survival battles, but it's certainly not going to get anyone steamy over its inclusion.
Ambition mode also introduces a new weapon tempering feature for the blacksmith. This one's entirely separate from the original and thankfully works identical to Warriors Orochi, allowing you to swap in elements, increase attack power and change affinity from two weapons with ease. Good luck being able to use this feature often though, as it requires much grinding for gems in territory suppression.
FREE MODE in Xtreme Legends has also been revamped with a new interface and enhanced with supplementary features. You now get a lot of options and features right at your fingertips in the menus, including entire access to the blacksmith, equipping bodyguards and more. All other existing options have been completely streamlined, making free mode now incredibly easy to jump in and get going.
The newly revamped free mode interface. Sure beats the old one!
Granted are also optional missions in each stage, which are loosely based upon those found in story mode.
Finally, the game incorporates a ranking system that ranks your gameplay efforts with a alphabetical grading scale after each stage. Earning higher ranks, as you might have guessed, rewards you with higher experience points. Now I'm uncertain how the ranking system works and could care less, but if you play like a madman like I do, you'll be gifted with an S or A rank in no time!
GAME OPTIONS has been sprinkled here and there with some new options. The most remarkable being the ability to set storm rush to activate manually using the square and triangle buttons simultaneously. Remembered how I complained about the automatic activation of storm rush and wished for manual activation in my Dynasty Warriors 8 review? Perhaps KOEI TECMO does listen to their fans after all. Kudos, kudos!
You'll also discover MixJoy in any Xtreme Legends, allowing you to "remix" the game by inserting your original Dynasty Warriors 8 game disc to "load its contents", then reinserting back your Xtreme Legends game disc. This allows the game to be unlocked with all the original content in addition to the new content. Of course, everybody and their grandmas should know that nothing is really being loaded when you insert either game disc. All that happens is a system check is made to verify if the discs are valid and are of the correct games. Every single spec of data of the original game is already in the Xtreme Legends disc. Hence, this is just a pure folly way for KOEI TECMO to force you to own the original game alongside Xtreme Legends.
Xtreme Legends does have other version variants, including a PS4 version that has contents of both games included. Again, the Xtreme Legends with Dynasty Warriors 8 and Xtreme Legends solo are likely the same damn thing, just with some changes to the code that allows the player to have all content non-hidden from the start.
GAMEPLAY AND CHARACTERS
It isn't Xtreme Legends without a couple new faces to the existing mammoth cast of characters. This time, the spotlight gets shined on notable officers of Lü Bu's forces, including his wicked strategist Chen Gong and his own daughter Lü Lingqi (who's own name KOEI TECMO has fancied up). Contrary to what Chinese historians say, where Lü Lingqi was essentially a poor soul that was pushed around by her father for forced marriage, she's certainly no pushover here. In fact, she's just as bit as tough and diabolic as her father, even going as far as completely stealing his cross halberds (remember those?) and using it to show amazingly utter badassery.
Who said a woman has to be weak?!
Lü's kingdom isn't the sole one to receive the new characters treatment; as Wei, Shu and Wu are all granted a new playable character to their forces each. Within the mix you have Yu Jin—Cao Cao's fierce general who's blessed with a trident encompassing all of Earth's elements, Fa Zheng—Liu Bei's adviser who has a knack for magic carpetry, and Zhu Ran—a pretty boy from Wu that isn't shy to show off his archery skills.
"Would you like a ride on my magic carpet?"
The new characters' weapons and movesets are fortunately not a disappointment due to their very varied, unique and interesting attacks. Fa Zheng's floating carpets are a bit out of the world, even for Dynasty Warriors; but Yu Jin's trident that allows the player to switch and build from ice element to slash element is probably the most fascinating weapon I've seen yet from KOEI TECMO. Nevertheless, it's not all safe heaven for the weapons, as a few do lack proper polish and control. Zhu Ran's bow and arrows in particular controls like a mess unless standing completely stationary.
One of the minor issues with new characters are the designs themselves. Now, I typically adore KOEI TECMO's character designs, but some of these poor souls just screamed a style that's both lazy and generic. Both Chen Gong and Yu Jin looked more like generics than actual playable characters, only colored and facially detailed in a way that remotely makes them unique.
New characters aside, Xtreme Legends adds and changes a significant amount to the gameplay. So let's spent some quality time with each of the new and different.
Accompanying the original EX attacks of each character and their primary weapon, a second EX is added to every standard character and weapon combo. This new implementation almost makes equipping and using non-primary weapons personally degrading, as there's a huge increase in the amount of strength and diversity in primary weapons now. While not all second EX are equal in performance and aesthetics, it's nice to know that KOEI TECMO is indirectly encouraging the usage of primary weapons (at least for one of the two weapons). I don't know about you, but I'm tired of being disgusted by seeing players running around as Da Qiao with Twin Axes or some other variant, which often just looks awfully wrong.
Character stats and levels have been raised from their previous maximum limits. Character levels are now capped at 150 and stats for attack and defense are increased to 1,500. Although this overall raise is mandatory for the intention of the new Nightmare difficulty, it just simply means a whole hell lot more grinding for your finger and thumb thwacking pleasure if you wish to get there.
A new, harder difficulty has been added called "Nightmare". If I were to describe this difficulty, I would label it Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legend's nightmare difficulty minus both the extreme enemy aggressiveness and player life absorption ability. Enemy officers in particular have the ability to boost their attack plus defense, and their damage output is crazy high even if you have max defense. I congratulate KOEI TECMO for finally delivering a difficulty that actually feels challenging and worthy of its name, unlike the tired and failed nightmare and chaos difficulties of the past. Nevertheless, it's still another Warriors Orochi type of high difficulty, where the challenge lies in both the player and enemy capable of tremendous damage output. Some of this is actually due to the game failing to fix blatant broken aspects in the original like they did with the 7th version of Xtreme Legends. The enemy AI is still a soft spot, unfortunately. We'll talk more about the AI in the AI and difficulty section.
Personal bodyguards makes a welcome return, allowing you to tag along three bodyguards and boss them around in the havoc. Unlike bodyguard systems of the past, where your selection was limited to pretty much a bunch of faceless and boring nobodys, the new one in Xtreme Legends allows freedom to select all three as any character in the game, non-generics included. Being able to fully utilize the bodyguard system (such as equipping more than one bodyguard and equipping non-generic characters as bodyguards), requires you to build up your leadership level in ambition mode under territory suppression. Bodyguards' actions can be controlled on the battlefield by either manually selecting the actions in the pause menu or use shortcuts via the directional pad on the controller. The actions range from following you closely to defending a specific base. Leveling bodyguards can also be achieved by simply having them continuously fight alongside you, or exchange existing recruited officers in ambition mode for an exchange in their increased experience. Overall, this is a good addition.
My very own team of bodyguards... Aww...
I bet you didn't see second treasure weapons coming, did you? Yep, KOEI TECMO has added yet another treasure weapon for every character that's even more powerful than the first. The unlocking method remains unaltered, requiring you to go through a specific battle with a specific character completing specific tasks. Sadly, even these weapons are once again mostly tailored for aesthetics rather than actual usage. They still don't hold a candle to an appropriately decked out level four weapon. The dominant reason holding these treasure weapons back are the inability to customize any of their elements, which KOEI TECMO unfortunately did not want to remove.
Speaking of weapons, Xtreme Legends adds a hefty ten new weapon elements that can attached to your weapons. Five of the new elements are exclusive to the challenge mode mentioned earlier, and the rest of the five are exclusive to ambition mode under territory suppression (where the emperor grants you a gold weapon with a new element each time you thoroughly conquered a territory). The bulk of the new weapon elements are not terribly beneficial to your arsenal; however, thunderclap is one element which should have been in the game in the beginning. It essentially gifts you the ability to avoid getting staggered by enemies, similarly to how the combat resistance weapon seal worked in Dynasty Warriors 7.
While most weapon elements and their effects are untouched
in Xtreme Legends, several do get whacked with the change stick. Most
of the changes are incredibly minor and therefore negligible, but one in
particular really switches things up in the gameplay—Cyclone.
Cyclone has a bit of controversy in the original, as it was a weapon
element that hugely broke the difficulty balance of the game (going as
crazy as to kill Hu Lao Gate's Lü Bu under chaos in one hit). It's
standard tradition that with any new Dynasty Warriors game, KOEI TECMO
squeezes in something that purposely or accidentally breaks the game,
then swiftly patches it up in the expansions. In Dynasty Warriors 7, it
was wind element coupled with multi-elemental hits, which was mostly
patched in Xtreme Legends to reduce the insane damage. Did KOEI TECMO
execute the same plan for cyclone in this Xtreme Legends? Not quite...
In
fact, they completely transformed cyclone into something else that works similarly to the Blast Orb of Dynasty Warriors 4. Cyclone now only activates and deals
its percentage damage on blocking enemies. In addition, it can no longer
break an enemy's guard, period. Call me crazy, but I think it's utterly confusing to abruptly change an element's effects to behave drastically different. Cyclone equates to wind, and wind should remain in its current form in the recent games—an element that breaks an enemy's guard (along with dealing additional damage). KOEI TECMO furthermore
didn't bother reducing the percentage damage on cyclone, so what's the
point? The game is still broken because of it, as you can still run
rampant on nightmare throwing cyclone knives at blocking enemies and
instant killing them in one hit. If anything, it chiefly reduces the
amount of freedom and style in combat when utilizing it, as you're
obviously going to want to use it on blocking enemies only. How
boring...
GRAPHICS
If you were judging this game based upon graphics alone, then it'll be sucky. But that's ignorant. You have to take in consideration how taxing it is for console hardware to implement and render a game such as Dynasty Warriors, where players are predominately placed on giant, free roaming battlefields with hundreds of enemies at once. For this type of game, the graphics are more than beyond good, especially considering how much the graphics from the series has evolved throughout the years.
This is about the only time you'll be drooling at the in-game graphics.
Now if you're expecting improved graphics from the original, then sorry, that isn't evident here. This is just an expansion pack, after all. Nevertheless, I'd expect the PS4 version of the game to have some minor boost in graphics including cleaner and higher resolution textures, more enemies on the screen at once and higher frame rates. Still, graphics in these games are mostly a non-issue.
AI AND DIFFICULTY
The AI, particularly the enemy's, has been vastly improved from the original. In fact, the AI and combat mechanics have been so greatly adjusted, it's pretty much no longer a BSing game—you either play to win or not play at all. In other words, forget messing around like the original and attempt to pull off crazy, stylish combos for fun. That's just going to wind up as a personal embarrassment here.
Why so?
Lots of small tweaks have been developed to put a stronger halt to player's ability to juggle enemy officers than before. One of the major ones involves massively ramping up their ability to switch affinity both on ground and in the air, regardless if they are under attack. If you recalled in the original, enemy officers rarely ever bothered to switch affinity, even though the feature was clearly available. Heck, I even yelled out it happened only twice during one hundred hours of play. So the supposed outcome was to stop juggles by having the enemy officer switch to a different affinity (usually superior to yours) during the juggle, rendering them then futile. This of course will also increase difficulty, as you're gonna be seeing that warning sign more often than anything else now. There's somewhat of a problem though, dear KOEI TECMO... Why does the affinity switching take them so bloody long to execute? By the time you realized they are attempting to switch affinity, you can easily knock them out of it completely with a simple weapon switch (they can't be staggered by most other attacks while affinity switching), rendering them inane. Yes, it does greatly kill combos via juggling, but for increasing difficulty alone it's poorly implemented.
Storm rush is now seemingly much more difficulty to activate, as destroying an enemy officer's affinity shield requires twice or three times the normal effort. This is more notable on higher difficulties than lower, as in the lower difficulties storm rush comes out just as fast as usual. I have no complaints about this change, as this is something welcomed to help fix storm rush being vastly overpowered in the original.
The incorporation of nightmare difficulty gives a strong boost to better difficulty varieties—ranging from being so easy you could play with your toes and win, to being actually sweaty and anxious trying to stay alive. Nevertheless, nightmare can still be a complete pushover if you're utilizing good weapons, have high to max stats and learn to avoid taking damage. The sheer, continued brokenness of cyclone doesn't help matters, either.
AUDIO AND MUSIC
For the most part, audio and music remains stable in its high quality form. The new music introduced are quite unremarkable and immediately forgettable, which is a repeated act of shame as the majority of music from the original game suffered the same mediocrity. Then again, all ears are not created equal, so I'm sure a few people may actually dig the new music.
For individuals that wants some more of that nostalgia factor, KOEI TECMO does tack in a lot more music derived from earlier Dynasty Warriors games. From within you'll now find classics such as "In Full Bloom" and "Ultimate Pressure".
Voice acting are great and clearly continue to be unmarred. The Japanese here surely have raised the bar high and no one else is going to touch them in this department. Even unwarranted death does not shake them up one bit, as the new voice of Sima Yi is just as lunatic and awesome as the former.
REPLAYABILITY
Short answer: You'll be playing this game more than once, even if you finished the game multiple times. That's because there's still additional paths (such as hypothetical paths) to embark on in story mode, a never ending ambition mode and challenge mode. Let's not forget the over 80 plus individually unique characters that you can play as and develop alongside hundreds of weapons to collect.
By no means can this game or any Dynasty Warriors become an addiction like an MMO, it just means you're never going to run out of things to do.
CONCLUSION
I believe it has arrived to an unsettling point where the Xtreme Legends games no longer feel special and wholly worthwhile to play. KOEI TECMO has proven their desires in continuing to go down the same old road of stagnant, tired and industry safe game formulation. Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends shamefully contains nothing exciting or creative, shoving back in content that's been rehashed from their earlier games of the same category.
The combat has additionally devolved a further notch, offering much less possible variety, style and fun factor in exchange for increased challenge and difficulty that could be worked in other, better ways.
The saving grace of it all merely lies in its expanded story mode, where much of the actual effort and talent of the game developers lies. If you enjoyed playing through story mode whilst learning about Chinese history at the same time in the original, then that same amount of joy can be found in a sparing amount here.
It's also good to note that Xtreme Legends does greatly enhance certain experiences that are missing from the original, such as more streamlined menus, additional features such as bodyguards, easier weapon tempering and secondary EX attacks.
Still, the combat and lack of originality dilutes the pros of the what's offered. In the end, the game become something of a mixed bag that can be described as mediocrity.
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