Darkshot77
Pre-Show Stalwart
When a company makes a good game they try to capitalize on its popularity by making sequels. Some sequels are fantastic others developers wish they hadn't made. Today I wish to spark intelligent discussion of two games in one of my favorite series: Dynasty Warriors.
For those of you unfamiliar with Dynasty Warriors, in this game you take heroes of ancient china and kill hundreds and hundreds of enemy soldiers, by mashing the X/square button for regular attacks and ending strings of regular attacks with strong attacks by pressing Y/Triangle. As you deal damage you fill a special bar and can execute a Musao attack, devestating enemy forces by pressing B/circle. All well and good but one problem, the game play been that way from the first installment. Many consider Dynasty Warriors the definition of "beating a dead horse." So in order to create variety, Koei, the makes of the game, released Dynasty warriors 6, with many changes to the overall game play In DW7 some things changed but somethings returned to the way they were, so was it an upgrade or a downgrade from 6 to 7. Here is my opinion:
The Battle System: Dynasty warriors 6 removed the "charge system" that I have previosly explained, and replaced it with the Renbu system. The renbu system gave two infinite strings from pressing X/Square and Y/Triangle. The length of said strings came from a renbu gauge that filled as you attacked. The X string was fast and was for dispatching weaker enemies while the Y was slower and used for the stronger officers. One issue, I never found a use for the Y string. Enemy officers fell most often with your x string and a well timed Super attack (AKA musao). Most officers were surrounded by soldiers, and more often than not would hit you out of your Y string, making it difficult to get going, At least for me. The basic attacking was very..well basic, and generic for each character. In DW7 we went back to the charge system, of which I am a bigger fan. As opposed to 2 main combos we have several that all have different purposes in battle, it adds more variety to things. to a game that's somewhat dull to begin with. Upgrade.
Battle Actions:Here is where DW6 got something right. Other than mindlessly wasting hordes of enemies by mashing the x button, there were several other things you could do in battle. You could roll to dodge enemy attack, crucial on the higher difficulties. Along with blocking, grapples were included to get through the enemy's guard. DW6 added two forms of Dash attacks, normal and strong, as well as normal and strong jumping attacks. Grapples, in DW7, are only accessible to certain characters and certain weapons, while strong jumping and dash attacks and rolling are completely absent. This gives you much less options on defense, and is a major issue. Downgrade
Musao:From the beginning the musao attack was a bar you filled and after you activated it depleted, meaning the more you had the longer it lasted. In DW7 the Musao gauge is more of a stock thing you filled a bar and the attack drained one bar. the strength of the attack was no longer based on the amount of musao you had. Also every character ad 2 unique musaos preformed in different ways. DW6 on the other had had tomes, one time use items, which when activated other types of special attacks, such as running around really fast and killing everything by mashing the attack button, summoning arrows to fall around you. While I liked the tome thing I wasn't heart broken to see it go, But the Musao system wasn't really improved upon, just different. Neutral
Characters and Weapons:This is where DW6 really turned me off. A vast majority of the DW6 cast were clones, they used the same weapons, skills and musaos as other characters, Along with this, only a fraction of the cast had a story mode, so if your favorite character form the past games didn't have a story mode, well then you were out of luck. You could play them in free mode, but they were just generic. That and most of the characters signature weapons from the past games were changed. Most notably Lu Bu who lost his halberd for duel double voulge cross blades. Which made no sense. In DW7 no character had a specific fighting style, but rather there were weapon styles. Some characters were good at one and bad at another. Each character had a specific weapon where they could perform an ex attack, which was unique to them, some characters shared their EX weapon, but the attacks was still different. Each character could equip 2 weapons and switch between them in battle. the only issue is that every character could equip every weapon, and with some bonus could wield it well. This means if you like one specific weapon then you could use it on every character, but this a minor issue for me. At least ever one was independent as opposed to generic. Upgrade
Story: from 1-6 the story was basically you take one character fight 5 battles and get an ending, repeat for all characters. Didn't seem well thought out. DW7's story mode on the other hand blew me away. It is faction specific and you get two use multiple characters throughout the whole thing. Each of the four stories is in depth and well defined/and intertwined with the others. Each one takes a considerable amount of time to complete and is most of all fun. This is where DW7 really shines, and stands out form its predecessors. Major Upgrade
Over all DW7 is an upgrade from 6. Koei tried something new with 6 and it didn't work so they went back to the basics. moving forward they need to take the pluses from bother games and see where that gets them.
Questions, comments, concerns? Your thoughts?
For those of you unfamiliar with Dynasty Warriors, in this game you take heroes of ancient china and kill hundreds and hundreds of enemy soldiers, by mashing the X/square button for regular attacks and ending strings of regular attacks with strong attacks by pressing Y/Triangle. As you deal damage you fill a special bar and can execute a Musao attack, devestating enemy forces by pressing B/circle. All well and good but one problem, the game play been that way from the first installment. Many consider Dynasty Warriors the definition of "beating a dead horse." So in order to create variety, Koei, the makes of the game, released Dynasty warriors 6, with many changes to the overall game play In DW7 some things changed but somethings returned to the way they were, so was it an upgrade or a downgrade from 6 to 7. Here is my opinion:
The Battle System: Dynasty warriors 6 removed the "charge system" that I have previosly explained, and replaced it with the Renbu system. The renbu system gave two infinite strings from pressing X/Square and Y/Triangle. The length of said strings came from a renbu gauge that filled as you attacked. The X string was fast and was for dispatching weaker enemies while the Y was slower and used for the stronger officers. One issue, I never found a use for the Y string. Enemy officers fell most often with your x string and a well timed Super attack (AKA musao). Most officers were surrounded by soldiers, and more often than not would hit you out of your Y string, making it difficult to get going, At least for me. The basic attacking was very..well basic, and generic for each character. In DW7 we went back to the charge system, of which I am a bigger fan. As opposed to 2 main combos we have several that all have different purposes in battle, it adds more variety to things. to a game that's somewhat dull to begin with. Upgrade.
Battle Actions:Here is where DW6 got something right. Other than mindlessly wasting hordes of enemies by mashing the x button, there were several other things you could do in battle. You could roll to dodge enemy attack, crucial on the higher difficulties. Along with blocking, grapples were included to get through the enemy's guard. DW6 added two forms of Dash attacks, normal and strong, as well as normal and strong jumping attacks. Grapples, in DW7, are only accessible to certain characters and certain weapons, while strong jumping and dash attacks and rolling are completely absent. This gives you much less options on defense, and is a major issue. Downgrade
Musao:From the beginning the musao attack was a bar you filled and after you activated it depleted, meaning the more you had the longer it lasted. In DW7 the Musao gauge is more of a stock thing you filled a bar and the attack drained one bar. the strength of the attack was no longer based on the amount of musao you had. Also every character ad 2 unique musaos preformed in different ways. DW6 on the other had had tomes, one time use items, which when activated other types of special attacks, such as running around really fast and killing everything by mashing the attack button, summoning arrows to fall around you. While I liked the tome thing I wasn't heart broken to see it go, But the Musao system wasn't really improved upon, just different. Neutral
Characters and Weapons:This is where DW6 really turned me off. A vast majority of the DW6 cast were clones, they used the same weapons, skills and musaos as other characters, Along with this, only a fraction of the cast had a story mode, so if your favorite character form the past games didn't have a story mode, well then you were out of luck. You could play them in free mode, but they were just generic. That and most of the characters signature weapons from the past games were changed. Most notably Lu Bu who lost his halberd for duel double voulge cross blades. Which made no sense. In DW7 no character had a specific fighting style, but rather there were weapon styles. Some characters were good at one and bad at another. Each character had a specific weapon where they could perform an ex attack, which was unique to them, some characters shared their EX weapon, but the attacks was still different. Each character could equip 2 weapons and switch between them in battle. the only issue is that every character could equip every weapon, and with some bonus could wield it well. This means if you like one specific weapon then you could use it on every character, but this a minor issue for me. At least ever one was independent as opposed to generic. Upgrade
Story: from 1-6 the story was basically you take one character fight 5 battles and get an ending, repeat for all characters. Didn't seem well thought out. DW7's story mode on the other hand blew me away. It is faction specific and you get two use multiple characters throughout the whole thing. Each of the four stories is in depth and well defined/and intertwined with the others. Each one takes a considerable amount of time to complete and is most of all fun. This is where DW7 really shines, and stands out form its predecessors. Major Upgrade
Over all DW7 is an upgrade from 6. Koei tried something new with 6 and it didn't work so they went back to the basics. moving forward they need to take the pluses from bother games and see where that gets them.
Questions, comments, concerns? Your thoughts?
