Now, these may only be two extra bits of punctuation in the grand tale of a Dynasty Warriors battle but they’re two surprisingly compelling concepts that feed perfectly into the sheep dog nature of Dynasty Warriors’ combat. A blue diamond appears above the commanders head and is depleted as you attack them, and on its expiry you will launch into a whirlwind of swings known as a Storm Rush, pulling in any enemies in the vicinity. Conversely, the Storm Rush can be activated when your weapon is of the stronger affinity. Approaching an enemy general when you’re armed with a weapon that’s weak against his means you will have the ability to activate a “Switch Counter” in combat by tapping R1 just as they power up an attack, but you will take more damage from them should they hit you with their dominant weapon. Put simply, each weapon has an affinity (Heaven, Earth and Man). Cathartic indeed. The other big change to the rhythm of combat is the addition of Weapon Affinity, Switch Counters and Storm Rushes.
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Once the rage bar is full you can enter a state of pure power and carve through hundreds of enemies without a care for getting hurt. Over-powered EX attacks remain from Dynasty Warriors 7, and will become anyone’s most used attack within five minutes, while a Rage mechanic gives players another crutch to fall on should they take one too many heavy hits. The changes don’t stop there, as Dynasty Warriors 8 introduces a few new elements into the narrative of its most important aspect – its combat. It doesn’t change the way combat works, but it adds a cute, compelling framework that feels more rewarding than the achingly arduous story modes (though you can play story mode online now, which is nice). You then have to go out and fight, bringing back resources from your conflicts to expand your little village and build your big castle. You take the role of any hero you choose and stand in front of a part-built Tongquetai. This isn’t a grand strategy enterprise, al a Empires, but it’s a mode that adds a diverting spot of architecture in between the mass-murder. This mode is independent to the core story and introduces a nice spot of agency for the player. The new Ambition Mode, on the other hand, is a blessing. Considering that the quality of the dialogue is certainly faithful to past iterations of the franchise, I’m not sure if that’s such a blessing… 10 new playable characters (the full roster is somewhere in the region of 80 – 90) and 40 “new” stages make for some strong back-of-box facts, while “what if?” branching narratives allow Omega Force to explore new avenues of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms tale that they’ve been re-tracing for years. So what’s actually new? Let’s cover that first. But it’s the same core concept. It is all presented in an unwavering 60 Frames per second mind, can’t argue about that part… There are a few new tweaks and additions but pretty much, yeah, it’s Dynasty Warriors. A field, some enemies, and a whole lot of hackin’ and slashin’.Īnd it is.
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Which is why I expected Dynasty Warriors 8 to be an absolutely unashamed return to what the series does “best”. Dynasty Warriors does tinker with its foundations in its various offshoots – the Empires throw in a little more RTS, for instance – but through this outside experimentation, the core franchise has remained somewhat vanilla in flavour. So what does a franchise do when it gets to entry number eight? To be honest, I expected very little. And those are just the ones from Tecmo Koei… Pile on top the Fists of the North Stars, Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War, the Samurai’s, the Orochi’s and the Gundams and you’ve got a huge swath of mob-squash games. Actually it’s more than 8 when you think about it. You don’t get to eight titles by being a bad game. There is something rather cathartic about it, isn’t there? I mean, there must be.