Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends - List of What's New + Changes

I've been observing a lot of interesting things that are different or new while playing, so I decided to develop this unofficial list to help others learn more about this game. These are likely not all of everything, but almost all of them I have confirmed myself.

NEW ADDITIONS AND FEATURES

‣ New characters are added: Yu Jin, Zhu Ran, Fa Zheng, Chen Gong and Lu Lingqi.
‣ Lu Kingdom is now available through Story Mode and follows the story of Lu Bu and his army. The story is full length with an IF branch and cutscenes.
‣ A supplementary IF story scenario is available for the kingdoms of Wei, Wu, Shu and Jin. Features short, segmented stories following various events and characters.
‣ A challenge mode has been added with challenges very similar to the ones in Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends. Completing each challenge mode will grant you a weapon with a unique weapon element every time.
‣ A new, harder difficulty called "Ultimate" is added, likely to be translated to Nightmare in English localization. Difficulty is similar to the one in Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends, including enemy officers having the ability to boost their attack and defense. Enemies can deal significantly more damage compared to Chaos, even at max defense. Enemy aggressiveness is not as harsh however.
‣ Bodyguards can now be equipped in Free Mode and Ambition Mode. It allows up to three bodyguards simultaneously on the field with options to control their actions. Bodyguards can leveled up and be both generics and unique officers.
‣ Free Mode has been revamped with an improved interface with many more options. For one, you can now have a lot of the features of Ambition Mode in Free Mode, including entire access to the blacksmith, equipping bodyguards and others. There are additionally new optional missions that you can complete, loosely based upon ones found in the game's original Story Mode. You are also ranked (e.g. A) after completion of a stage, gaining bonus experience points for higher ranks.
‣ Ambition Mode has a whole new quasi-war simulation feature after completion of the original goal of constructing the Tongquetai Palace. The goal is unite Han China by building relations with the characters they have earned in their ranks and claiming five enemy territories. A large bulk of the gameplay style is very similar to Empires, with being able to capture flags by defeating enemies around it.
‣ A second EX attack is added to every character. 
‣ Second treasure weapons are added for every character. These weapons are symbolized with 6 gold stars.
‣ 10 new weapon elements have been added. These can be obtained by winning in the challenge mode and in the new Ambition Mode. The most remarkable being "Thunderclap", which allows you to essentially have the Combat Resistance weapon seal of Dynasty Warriors 7.
‣ An additional weapon temper option has been added that works virtually identical to Warriors Orochi. It however uses newly introduced gems instead of weapon materials.  

CHARACTER STATS AND LIMITATIONS

‣ Maximum character level is raised from 99 to 150. It is NOT 999 like everyone is suggesting!
‣ Maximum attack and defense stats are raised from 1,000 to 1,500. Additionally equipping level 20 attack and defense boost skills raises this to 1,800. Health remains capped at 1,000.
‣ The limit of weapons you can carry has been raised from 1,000 to 1,200. Current number of weapons you posses and limit are now conveniently shown in menus. 

GAMEPLAY CHANGES 

‣ Cyclone now deals proportional damage only on block (chip). It also can no longer break an enemy's guard.
‣ Morass element will now cause enemies to glow blue when its in effect.
‣ Enemy officers' frequency of affinity switching both on ground and in the air when attacked has been increased significantly. 
‣ Breaking an enemy officer's affinity shield for Storm Rush is seemingly much harder—more notable on higher difficulties.
‣ Attacks can no longer spin the enemy upwards (e.g. C5 of Double Edge Trident, switch attack of Boomerang). Hence, enemy officers recover more quickly from such attacks, rendering certain combos significantly more difficult.
‣ There is now a slight delay after landing with a jump before any movement. This causes double jumping with a speed weapon for faster movement a lot less effective. This can also make combos that rely on jumping/landing less practical.
‣ Unit Commanders now have the same recovery percentage as named officers, or nearly 100% all the time.
‣ Unit Commanders affinity is now displayed as gray instead of colored.
‣ It is now possible to jump cancel a variable switch counter with a speed character.
‣ Horse animations have been improved. When you turn your horse in the right or left direction, the horse will subtly lean in that direction. This is purely aesthetic.
‣ Equipping and changing support animals during battle is now possible.
‣ Loading times between events have been reduced.
‣ Resetting the stage is now possible during play—it will bring you back to the beginning of the stage without having to go back through the main menu again.

NEW OPTIONS

‣ Storm Rush can be assigned to be manually activated with the □ + △ buttons. This allows freedom for instance to start the Storm Rush only after a full charge attack.
‣ Events can be set to not occur in Free Mode.
‣ BGM can be automatically set to play a random song every battle, disregarding default BGM.
‣ Display brightness can be individually set.
‣ Health bars can be set to show only enemy officers exclusively.

If you have seen something different or new about this game that hasn't been listed above, please let me and everybody know!