Dynasty Warriors 7 - Shu, Go Away!

So this time in Chinese history is called the Three Kingdoms. So of course there are three different powers at play. The Three Kingdoms era really begins with the fall of the Han Dynasty. As the Emperor of the Han grew weaker in power, civil unrest rose. Eventually the people rebelled in what would be called the Yellow Turban rebellion. Things would then get worse before they got better.

But I'm not here to give a history lesson, I'm here to talk about a video game that happens to use history as its premise. I'll start with the kingdom of Shu.

SHU
Shu is formed by a man named Liu Bei. He and his two sworn (note: not actual) brothers by his side try to create a land of virtue. A land of benevolence. Let me just say that by the end of the game I was sick of the work benevolence.

Shu always seems to be given the "good guy" role in these games. Liu Bei is a hero of the people and he only wants what is best for them, or so it's claimed. But as the games have progressed they've gone from "we're the good guys" to "We had good intentions. We just got lost." It doesn't help that Liu Bei is a monstrous idiot in my mind. What kind of man could possibly leave his child behind? Yet that's exactly what Liu Bei did at one point. and poor Zhao Yun had to go risk his life to rescue the poor child. I'm not sure if this kid grows up to be Liu Shan or not, but it sure would explain a lot.

Shu's good intentions go right out the window after the death of Guan Yu. Shu had an alliance with the kingdom of Wu. Wu betrayed that alliance and because of that betrayal the might Guan Yu died in battle. Stricken with grief, Liu Bei goes out on a murderous "kill all of Wu" rampage. That attack fails and Liu Bei falls ill and dies.

I was really surprised by how many people just fell ill and died in this story. I know that illness was a very serious issue back then, but more people seemed to die from disease then from combat. Shu never recovers from Liu Bei's death. Mainly because his son is an idiot and he was not fit to rule. Anyone. Ever. You only briefly get to meet Liu Shan in the Shu story. I thought that with the kingdom of Jin in the game that each kingdoms story line would go further, but the game still stops at the battle of Wu Zhang Plains. This has always been Shu's big final battle. This meant that when the story ended I had roughly half of the cast unlocked.

What the hell?! I only used half of the characters during that story? I barely got to know many of the ones that I did use. Why? Why can't I have a full story mode back for every character? Is that really to much to ask?

Next time: Wu

Dynasty Warriors 7 - Story Of Conquest

I bet you thought I was dead. Truth is things have been very busy at work and seeing how this blog is a side project of mine it got relegated to back burner status. Can't guarantee that I'll be able to post more often, but I'll sure try.

Dynasty Warriors 7 has two modes of play, Story and Conquest. I've played a lot of Story and a little of Conquest. In past Dynasty Warriors games you've been able to select your character and get the story from that characters perspective.

Dynasty Warriors 7 changes that up. You are now given a pre-selected character and the story is told in a more chronological way. It really gives an idea of how things flowed for each kingdom, but there is this huge disconnect for the 4th kingdom of Jin.

Story mode is broken up into four kingdoms. The first three are the main forces of the Three Kingdoms era of Ancient China, Shu, Wu and Wei. The fourth kingdom, Jin, comes at the very end of the Three Kingdoms era to wrap everything up. I don't know much about Jin as I'm still in the middle of their story mode. I have studied the Three Kingdoms era a little of the years so I do have a rough idea how the story plays out.
While I liked being able to understand the order of events, you only get to play a handful of characters during the Story mode. If the character doesn't do anything until the the Jin era he's just flat out of luck as being playable. This is a big disappointment. Story mode is where I got to know and like the various characters of this world. You no longer get that full opportunity.

Plus I like unlocking characters. I always enjoyed seeing who I unlocked after I beat each character's scenario. Now extra characters are unlocked only in Conquest mode and unlocking them isn't hard or challenging. Just keep playing through Conquest you'll eventually be handed all of them.

The fact that no character truly has a set weapon is also bothersome. Koei promised no clones in this game. Problem is, you can equip anyone with any weapon, so everyone is a clone. I can't believe how  many characters use the same basic weapons. The basic sword is an insanely popular choice for characters. Sure characters get an EX attack if they have a specific weapon equipped, but beside that and a characters musou attack there's nothing to truly make them feel different. Having two weapons equipped doesn't really seem to help since I very rarely use the second weapon.

Weapons have always been a way to connect with a character. You picked Zhao Yun because you liked how he used his spear of Jian Wei. Now it doesn't matter. They both have the same basic moveset. Weapons don't help a character stand out anymore. Liu Bei and Cao Pi both use dual swords as their main, so they have the same moveset. I really hope Koei goes away from this style next game and gives each character back their own unique weapon and moveset. If doing that for the 60+ characters in this game is to hard, then cut characters. Sell them as DLC later on or something.

The oddest thing that happens during story mode is that after a stage is done, you might get voice over occurring on top of a blank screen. I kept thinking my game was broken, but every kingdom has stages like this and I just don't get it. What player would want to stare at a blank screen for so long? Before a stage you're given a slideshow of how the war is progressing. That's nice and informative, but what's with the black at the end of the stage?

Dynasty Warriors 7 - For Great Justice!

Dynasty Warriors 7 was released for the PS3 in March of 2011. Developed by  Omega-Force, it is a Hack 'N Slash title. You play as one of the many warriors during the Three Kingdoms era of Ancient China. This is my first time playing through. I'm playing the Story Mode on Normal.

I've been playing Dynasty Warriors 7 recently, having put Red Dead Redemption on hold. I'm a big Dynasty Warriors fan, but for me the series peaked at number 5. 6 was a huge let down having tried to make things more "realistic" really took away from the over-the-top nature of the game. Plus changes to character personalities, weapon sets and exceptionally boring combat with the Renbu system did nothing to help. 7 attempts to correct that by going back to the old Charge system combat.

Dynasty Warriors has never had the deepest combat system in the world. I've always enjoyed for it's easy to "pick-up and play" nature. Plus the large cast has allowed for some diverse gameplay. Dynasty Warriors 6 decided to throw out the series good points and actually managed to dumb the series down. It introduced the Renbu system of combat. What this really meant is that you just pushed one button repeatedly as a bar built up. Once the bar maxed out you gained a "level" and your one button combo would be extended a few more hits. This was really aggravating and made the game insanely un-fun. And for big fans like me that's actually hard to do.

Dynasty Warriors 7 brings back the old Charge System for combat. Basically you press the Square button and then throw in a bigger attack with the Triangle button. This can actually make for some fun attacks/combos during combat. I'm glad it's back. But there is one major issue with it this time. Every character can now equip any weapon in the game. This means that every weapon now has the same basic attack setup instead of having unique combos for each character. It's not a turn off for me, but I would rather have each character with a dedicated weapon/moveset.

On top of that you can actually equip two weapons per character now. It's a nice though, but I hardly use the second weapon unless I'm trying to unlock skills associated with it. Then I'll use it only until I've maxed out the skill then switch back to my first weapon.

Alright, I've played a lot of the game already so my next post will be talking about the story mode.

First Day Updates

There's a running joke with my wife whenever I bring home a new game. We place bets on whether the game will have an update. Now if this is an older game, it's pretty much expected. But when this is a new game we tend to hold our breath's waiting for that update screen to appear.

For instance, I just brought home Dynasty Warriors 7. Yes, I am a fan of the series and I'll talk about that later. Dynasty Warriors 7 just came out (March 29, same day I got it). I put it into my system and low and behold there it was. A version 1.01 update. Why? Was the game released broken? Did it need an emergency fix? Is this preparing it for DLC? If it is, why wasn't it DLC ready at ship?

From what I read it seemed to fix some CRASHES?!  What was the QA team doing? Sitting with their thumbs up their collective assess?! (note: I can't actually verify this.)

Anyways, I've found it to be an increasing problem. Part of the benefit of playing a console game is that there is no patching. If a game is broke it's going to remain broke, this means teams must be more thorough. This is obviously not the case anymore.

Heck, even the Explodemon demo I downloaded had a patch for it and it was a freakin' demo! Is it just me or are developers becoming more and more lazy? Or is it the QA team? It is their job to find these breaks before the product is shipped.

I'm finding this more and more frustrating. I just want to play my game. I don't want to update my firmware to add 3D support. I don't want to have to patch my game because you stupidly made Sentinel too strong. Stop patching and make it right the first time!

PlayStation Rewards

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was testing the PlayStation Rewards bets and that this was the reason I kept downloading demos. My goal was to reach Select status by doing PlayStation related things. Well I would like to announce that yesterday, March 31st, I finally reached Select status. My reward was a bunch of Avatars, a Dynamic Theme, and some items for PlayStation Home. Not really worth the stupid amount of effort this took to reach.

On top of that, the Rewards program has been put on temporary "hiatus", instead of being rolled out to the general public.

I can't really call the "delay" a bad thing. The rewards seem lame. The amount of effort to even reach the first level is ridiculous. Tracking your progress was not user friendly. The quest system they set up for bonus points was badly implemented.

I've got my rewards for the first level. I'll call that good.

p.s. when you use the "insert word", you should probably read that as "canceled", just to clarify.