Thoughts From a Once Hardcore Fan

[Kongming's Prodigy]

*Originally a response on Koei Warriors to users countercriticizing FPS games of being repetitive*

Every game is repetitive in what the player is asked to do, but the key is how these repetitive actions are implemented into the game's environment. Of course Call of Duty and other shooters all ask you to do the same damn thing: shoot, cover, snipe, etc. However, Call of Duty 4 makes these repetitive actions fun to do with its immersive gameplay; you get swept up into the game and you forget that you are performing the same actions over and over again. Same can be said with A LOT of games: Bioshock keeps you intrigued with its plasmids and storyline, Devil May Cry keeps you hooked, despite its obvious button-mashing, with its sick movesets, etc.

Now the problem with Dynasty Warriors is that many players break free of that immersion, and realize that the actions they are performing are f***ing repetitive. This can happen in a lot of ways, such as spamming the same attack over and over again. For those of you who spice up the game with different combos for particular situations, you don't loose track of that immersion. Personally when I play DW, I'm constantly thinking about which move for my particular character will be the most effective at any particular instant, and thus I can enjoy the game. Some can't, and it's a shame. However, criticizing shooters is like shooting yourself in the foot, because it's totally calling the kettle black. Or just think about what the number one time spent in RPGs is: inventory management. Isn't that f***king repetitive?! For some, of course not, because it's the items being shuffled around over and over again that keeps you interested.

Now for Koei's rehashing of its series, that's a whole different issue altogether. Putting it simply, I have 50 bucks - how am I going to use it? Am I going to buy a game that offers pretty much the same experience as a game I already have, or am I going to buy something that's new and refreshing, like, say, Mass Effect? The choice is obvious. And even if some do have money to waste, they are still complaining because they truly wish to see something different and refreshing. That's called disillusionment. Although I still enjoy playing DW, and I'm sure as hell eager to run DW6 on my PC this July, sometimes I stop to think how sad it is that to this day, Koei's best DW game is still DW3.

[James]

My feelings on the matter are quite similar...
I just don't get that excited about Dynasty Warriors anymore.

It isn't because Koei can't do anything more with it. They can. They have demonstrated their ability to mix things up and innovate time and time again with Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That series remains interesting because each time they release a new title it changes things and experiments in new and interesting ways. Dynasty Warriors just seems to... I don't know what it does. It does nothing. They've made some considerable gameplay improvements in the latest release, but at what cost?

Dynasty Warriors 3 was an incredible game.

[Ranbir]

I'm just always amazed they can get away with retelling a story over and over at retail price every few years. These aren't really 'sequels'. More like remakes, at a much higher frequency than should happen!

Can you imagine if all four Indiana Films just used one script? Or a book series no different from the last(Just a different cover!)?

I think it's almost universally agreed, DW3 was their best and still is. Partly because at that time it was fresh and exciting and seemed to open up a door to lots of possibilities. Koei decided to stay to just stay by the doorstep and continually decorate the door, not daring to step through. Tut!

In some ways, games like Mount & Blade, Spartan/Viking offer a unique and refreshing takes on the general idea and atleast try to push things forward. The sadness is, there is some expectation, from me atleast, that Koei would take the lead in this charge.

[James]

They effectively introduced a whole new genre of games...

[Ranbir]

...and did very little with it.

[Kongming's Prodigy]

...and did very little with it.

Hahaha, but I've yet to see a game do well with the whole "battlefield" theme. Surely not Devil Kings, Ninety Nine Nights, or Heavenly Sword. And honestly, I don't care about Koei, but unless someone picks up where they left off, DW's the only thing I have to rely on for battlefield "oohs" and "aahs". And lemme tell you, I haven't "oohed" or "aahed" for a long time.

[Ranbir]

Battlefront, Battlefield('42/2/2042/3) and Creative Assembly's Spartan/Viking.

The third showing the greatest promise, imo.(Although they all have in their own settings) Which makes perfect sense coming from people that truly have mastered the ooh and aah effect of battlefield action. Spartan actually demonstrated a high quality of level design and optimisation and real time theatrics. Viking builds on aspects of that, provides the basis of one large open enviroment in which to interact with. I tell you what, I'm waiting for their third. Each one has taken giant steps forward.

[MistroPain]

I totally agree with this thread, playing DW3 (which i only just bought recently) is actually more fun the DW6 to this day, they had better character designs, better character speeches, etc. etc.
DW6 done the decent thing adding Renbu (when i bought it i was like "YES SOMETHING NEW", no joke i woke my mum up!), but as James said "At what cost", they made EVERY character bland to the point that even their DW1 counterparts are better, they even ruined speeches, they turned more characters into weirdos (In other words there are more... gay characters) and turned some amazing characters into some crappy ones...
Guan Yu is meant to look like how he does in DW2-5, its just the way i see him, his DW6 edition is just too different, they turned him from super honour mega warrior guy to a rockstar whos only gigs are at the corner shop...
Zhao Yun used to be my fav character (he is in all other games) but they gave him a SCARF, comeon A SCARF, WHY! he now looks stupid!
Gan Ning lost his badass design
etc. etc.
The worst thing had to be about DW6 was that they still had cutout trees ITS THE NEXT GEN!
I have to admit some better character designs:
-Sun Jian...
-Liu Bei (only cause of the two swords, return his DW4 style with the two swords and he'd be awsome)
...thats it.
I therefore agree.

[talon1579]

What are the major differences between DW3 and 4? I've only played 4, 5 and 6

[MistroPain]

Not much... a new weapon system is about it i guess...
DW5 change was to provide unique stories to each character, and even that flopped as it still had the exact same objectives as everyone else who fought the same battle it was good that they had a few unique battles for some characters... Guan Yu... thats about it, but the unique battles were SHORT and i wouldnt really consider them levels...
So as you can see DW3-DW4 was a weapon leveling system (which i think is better then the current weapon systems, but still not a significant change), DW4-5 was also a load of crap, more unique stories per character which werent even that unique... and then DW5-DW6 was renbu at the cost of bland characters, no uniqueness in anyone anymore (the most uniqe character was Dian Wei and his previous version was better)... The biggest change was DW1-2 which changed from a fighting game similair to tekken and etc. to a full war game, DW2-3 added loads more characters, a much better story, unique characters and everything... DW2 had the biggest improvement but DW3 still remains the best...
KOEI NEED to do more!