Despite Jeff's deep psychological hate of Dynasty Warriors imprinted onto my brain after years of watching him quick look these games I decided it was time I stood up and gave them a fair chance. Upon web searching I came across a copy of Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Complete Edition *and breath* and decided to give it a blast. Costing around £18 for a copy of the PS4 version I thought why not, worth the reasonably small investment. So why am I now only considering giving these games? Well I recently was reminded of Kingdom Under Fire, a game I remember rather enjoying a great deal of back on the original Xbox (I think) and I'm sort of intrigued at the deeper understanding of the DW games. I had absolutely no idea there were 70+ characters to play and level which seems insane considering that apparently no two moves are copied between multiple fighters (or officers). I know nothing about these games so I'm interested to see what they're all about and who doesn't love randomly murdering hundreds of virtual peasants. I was informed that DW8XLCE is probably the better place to start on this series so I'm fascinated to finally play a Dynasty Warrior game.

I'd appreciate some tips and opinions. Jeff hates a lot on the series and I can sort of understand where he's coming from but I can see the appeal to and if it scratches the same itch Kingdom Under Fire does than it would be £18 well spent, I hear it features a hell of a lot of content. By the way, mode wise what exactly does Free Mode entitle? I get Story Mode and Ambition Mode, but Free Mode intrigues me. Oh and speaking of the 70+ characters, can they all be upgraded with new weapons and so forth.

Thanks and wish me luck :D

Free Mode is made up of the stages in story mode, but you're allowed to tackle the stages with any character. All characters are able to level up through fighting, and you can equip new weapons to make them more powerful. Additionally, you can equip any weapon to any character, but each character has a natural affinity (rated in stars) for each weapon type, and one EX weapon that is considered their primary weapon type. Using an EX weapon gives the character an additional EX attack that can be performed with a specific button combination.

Otherwise, I'd recommend when you tackle the story to tackle the Jin storyline last, as its canonically last in the timeline. Once you beat each faction's story, you'll be able to unlock alternate paths and stages in story mode by replaying stages and completing specific requirements.

Good luck!

I'm not sure if that version supports it, but I had the most fun with those games when I had a buddy over and we did split screen co-op. We never took it seriously, but we enjoyed playing them. I've tried going back and playing those games by myself, and they're okay for podcast games, but I always get pretty bored with the gameplay before too long.

Really? even seeing that part of the latest oroshi something or whatever quick look where Jeff just stood still while all the "enemies" just clumped around him, glitching around while doing exactly NOTHING didn't convince you otherwise? wow... well good luck with that I guess...

edit: here's the part I mentioned, yep sure looks like a quality product worth your hard earned cash...

Jeff was playing on Easy.

You have to understand in Warriors Orochi, characters are split into 4 classes. That character Jeff was playing is a power type character, and power type characters don't flinch when attacked. Warriors Orochi 3, especially Gauntlet Mode, gets annoyingly hard.

Dynasty Warriors, and the other Warriors games, are perhaps my favorite franchise of all time. I'm not delusional enough to believe its the best made game and I understand its not for everyone (as do most of the fan base, in my experience), but I find most people who are adamantly against it don't know anything about it. There are a lot of things at play in these games that only people who put the time in to find are going to know about, such as (in the case of DW8) weapon switches, the different way each weapon works, EX attacks (two per character), musou attacks (three per character), some characters can jump cancel.

Again, I don't think its the best game ever made. But it satisfies urges, at least.

Welcome to the fold! I've played Dynasty Warriors 2,3,4,8 and Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate. I don't remember much of the earlier ones but DW8 and WO3U I still play. I think they are extremely misjudged games. That one email from a couple of bombcasts ago really nailed, when they said that the warriors games are about "breadth not depth". Yea they're repetitive and kind of mindless but that's why I like them. I also like how they're mostly commitment free and not huge time-sinks, while at the same time, offering lots of content.

I don't have the Xtreme Lengeds of 8 but as far as I know, its mainly extra levels and such. So I hadn't played a DW game in years before 8. But apparently 8 is the one of the best in the series so it works out. Also Free mode lets you play any stage on either side(with any characters?).

So every charcter levels up and can equip 2 weapons. Its generally recommended to use their signature weapon and another that they have an affinity for, shown by the stars. There's also a rock-paper-scissors (earth, heaven ,or man ) triangle for the weapons which makes it easier or harder to fight certain officers who, so try not to carry duplicate elements. As characters level up, in addition to their stats increasing, they get various traits and moves. Every character eventually unlocks a special attack(usually sqaure,square,traingle,triangle), 3(!) different Musou attacks, and better affinity for weapon types. The 4 star weapon affinity, gives you special traits for using said weapon. Finally, don't wait to play ambition mode, its a great way to level characters and buy new stuff!

Hey have you heard about Kingdom Under Fire 2? I never played the first but it looks pretty great.

@hailinel: well regardless of difficulty settings, how much damage they take or on what rate they attack, it just looks absolutely ridiculous.. I mean just look at that! it's like they didn't even tried to make it look good and believable, and that's my problem with this series, it just feels and looks fucking lazy as hell, it was like that when it first came out and it is still like that now, I just don't get why people keep buying these things...

Well either way, I don't want to hijack the thread, it's just... seeing that last quick look and then someone saying they bought it I had to say something.. but it's your money and you may do with it as you please of course, but god damn....

Well, Jeff is also the last person on this Earth that I would ever go to for quality commentary on the Warriors games in general. What do you want to say? How dare we have fun with these games? Please just stop.

Because they're actually incredibly fun to a lot of people and offer more replay value than practically anything that isn't competitive-multiplayer and therefore infinite. Not liking something is fine. Insinuating that other people are wrong for liking something is real dickish. Especially when you have practically zero knowledge about the thing you're shitting on.

As someone who plays and enjoys the Dynasty Warriors games a lot, I'll say you should think about giving one of the Empires games a shot; it adds a nice strategic element to the battles. Also, and this might only appeal to me, but 7 Empires had a pretty sweet create-a-character mode where you could build armies and even an option to replace the in-game characters with characters of your own making! All of those generic officers seem like a bummer? Replace them with custom characters and don't deal with repeats anymore! Alternately, gender-swap the whole cast, if that's your thing. It's a lot of fun to mess with.

Also don't get too hung up fighting the generic soldiers; anyone without a name over their head, at least on lower difficulties, is pretty much just a particle effect to make you look more badass when you swing your weapon at an actual officer or something. You can safely ignore them until you hit Hard difficulty or so, and killing them all is pretty much never a requirement (that I can remember).

@machofantastico: Not sure it's quite going to scratch that Kingdom under fire itch but good luck, Kingdom under fire was much deeper. These games don't have much in the way of controlling armies directly, it's more indirect by taking supply bases and defending/attacking officers. It's still fun, but definitely not as cerebral or strategic. Also where is new kingdom under fire? Someone is making that right? I wan't it.

For my money DW games have always shined in co-op, where you can split your priorities in the missions and have some casual fun with it.