Why do they make Xu Zhu mentally challenged?

[SunXia]

I wouldn't wanna play a realistic DW game. Imagine how much that would suck... being one shotted by archers, being one shotted by horses, being incapable of running at sprint speeds for a full hour, being unable to execute crazy awesome spear acrobatics.. etc. I don't mind when they bend reality for entertainments sake. At the end of the day, I'm not very offended/unsettled/[insert bad feeling] about Xu Zhu being a bit dimwhitted, or Zhang He being flamboyent, while I am very amused.

Quite!! It's meant to be funny it's meant to be characters that break the mold and are not subject to single stereotype!! Not everyone in the world is the same and I enjoy games that reflect that!! There are plenty of characters so if you don't like a certain character then don't play them!! I'm not ashamed to say I used in-game money to level Bao Sanniang just so I could get her weapon and she has not been used since!!

My niece and nephew and cousins play the games with me and they play a wild variety of the characters and giggle at some of the antics!! Granted, I do not like it if some characteristics are used in a deliberately negative way but since there are flamboyant people in real life and effeminate men, I have no issue with it at all!!

Most of these characters are sacrificed in terms of story so that we can have the same characters talk about "honor, honor, honor" or "benevolence, benevolence, benevolence" or "ambition, ambition, ambition" over and over that there isn't a lot of room to develop some of them outside of a few lines in-game and thus these aspects of their personalities are represented and not much else is shown, and when that happens, characters can become one dimensional!! If I had any problem with it, that would be it!!

[Kong Wen]

I try to avoid the idea they make bad characters deliberately

Have fun.

Anyway, in the context of what this game is, none of them are really bad characters. Xu Zhu's supposed to be stupid, for no other historically-rooted reason than that Omega Force wanted him to be. The fact is, they're all bad, but the game isn't supposed to be a narrative masterwork.

[Dong Zhou]

I'm not expecting MGS narrative masterpieces and I accept that game by game, there are going to be some characters that are very well done and some that are not every now and again. Some are disappointingly sidelined (Yue Ying for example) but some have been consistently bad for some time. Zhang He is one, Xu Zhu was one till 7, Ma Chao has traditionally been one

I'm not sure Xu Zhu was supposed to be stupid, perhaps more fell into it till 7 where it was more homespun wisdom.

[Xu Yuan]

Yue Ying is picking back up. They Finally found a role which fits for her as an Inventor who gets away purely from the Zhuge Liang worship by instead trying out things for research. I think she's a stronger character now than she was in the past. What I think helps with Zhang He to prevent him from becoming Too camp was his relationship with Xiahou Yuan. That had mostly been the pinnacle of his characterization from DW5 and onwards. Unfortunately though he now shares that spotlight with Guo Huai and Xiahou Ba so it diminishes that previously unique bond.

Every game there is a couple characters that you have to wonder their purpose, but eventually Koei can get them right. (They still have No idea what they're doing with Cai Wenji though, in DW8XL it seemed every character had a stage... Except her! Granted there was a stage "revolving" around her, but she didn't show up until the very end.)

Though I think at first some characters struggle to fit in or lose their situation, Koei can ordinarily find a place for them to belong. (That was definitely not the case with Chen Gong, talk about a show stealer! He might have been the best add in all of the DW8 line, which had great adds like Han Dang and Lu Su, all around!)

[Ranbir]

I try to avoid the idea they make bad characters deliberately

Have fun.

Anyway, in the context of what this game is, none of them are really bad characters. Xu Zhu's supposed to be stupid, for no other historically-rooted reason than that Omega Force wanted him to be. The fact is, they're all bad, but the game isn't supposed to be a narrative masterwork.

But from DW7 they tried to instil some hard drama. Which seems an odd thing to do when the last 16456 iterations of the game continually affirmed goofiness.

[Jordan]

Yue Ying is picking back up. They Finally found a role which fits for her as an Inventor who gets away purely from the Zhuge Liang worship by instead trying out things for research. I think she's a stronger character now than she was in the past. What I think helps with Zhang He to prevent him from becoming Too camp was his relationship with Xiahou Yuan. That had mostly been the pinnacle of his characterization from DW5 and onwards. Unfortunately though he now shares that spotlight with Guo Huai and Xiahou Ba so it diminishes that previously unique bond.

Every game there is a couple characters that you have to wonder their purpose, but eventually Koei can get them right. (They still have No idea what they're doing with Cai Wenji though, in DW8XL it seemed every character had a stage... Except her! Granted there was a stage "revolving" around her, but she didn't show up until the very end.)

Though I think at first some characters struggle to fit in or lose their situation, Koei can ordinarily find a place for them to belong. (That was definitely not the case with Chen Gong, talk about a show stealer! He might have been the best add in all of the DW8 line, which had great adds like Han Dang and Lu Su, all around!)

Kessen II Cai Wenji was the best.

[patrickrafferty9]

Wei Yan is also another guy who I think could be portrayed a lot better in the dynasty warriors series, come to think of it he's probably the worst of them all.

[Shen Ai]

Wei Yan is also another guy who I think could be portrayed a lot better in the dynasty warriors series, come to think of it he's probably the worst of them all.

Tell me about it. I still don't get the caveman part.

Xu Zhu is bad though, but it's not horrible. At least he's got a consistent role.

[FoxWithWings]

I wouldn't want ultra realistic, i want more realistic.

Best Example: In the fourth installment, the archers and regular soldiers could kill you. Was it easy? Hell no! You had to be standing still with a apple in your mouth! But they were THREATS. They interrupted your attacks, they blocked your attacks, they opened you up so that the officer could take you out. The archers were dangerous because they took a damn big chunk of health. The point was, you learned that these everyday soldiers were real, that you should respect them and maybe even fear them. You hated those damn archers who sniped you from the towers, you hated those elite guards that swarmed you and opened you up, and you especially hated the way they surrounded you and struck from behind. Like actual soldiers would do.

In conclusion, you realized you were not God, you weren't some unstoppable juggernaut. You were just a talented warrior who would be slain if they were reckless.

As for characters, I would want a Xu Zhu who was the confident Swashbuckler. I would want a headstrong Ma Chao who didn't scream about justice all the time. I would want a Zhang He who isn't overly feminine. I would want real, actual characters who aren't so shallow.

[Dong Zhou]

Zhang He's not feminine, he is flamboyant.