Like some other unfortunate individuals- I was more or less addicted to Dynasty Warriors 4 for a good two years or so. It was a perfect concept for a fighting game- and yet I could think of a thousand ways to build on it. I have played Dynasty Warriors 5 and some Dynasty Warriors 6 (though mostly I read reviews)- and I've noticed from the excrutiatingly in-depth summaries that the over all quality of the games seems to be... Well, declining.
I first noticed it in Dynasty Warriors 5. The over all layout of the game felt suspiciously lacking in the epic department. The interface of the previous installment had a flaming backround and the detail in the art was impecible. This looked more like a crappy RTS interface- my Age of Empires II layout looked cooler than this. Pretty stupid thing over all to complain about, I know- but I took issue with this game in other respects as well. This part was more or less a harbinger of things to come.
The character customization system in the Extreme Legends edition of the game was also troubling. The development was nice, I'll admit- but they barely skimmed the surface with physical character customization itself and every character effectively became a cookie cutter copy of whatever general you chose for them to serve under. I actually preferred the Dynasty Warriors 4 Empires customization system which allowed you to make any character from the game's basic archetypes and then some (heavy hitters, footmen, strategists, etc.). I will say that adding characters to the cast was nice; they maintained their standard cast and added six new characters- which I'm always welcome to.
The story mode was the main attraction at this shit show, though. Instead of having a faction-based campaign mode with side missions here and there depending on who you were playing, you fought in fewer battles and it followed each character individually instead of as a whole kingdom. I don't know about you, but I found it infuriating. I'd rather take more missions and more epic battles over fewer battles and irritating monologues any day of the week. It was so painfully obnoxious and lazy of Koei that I could barely play more than one character's story without getting nostalgic and putting DW4 back in the disc tray. Regardless of the customized character system and added characters- it didn't even really add anything to the series so much as it did tamper with a good thing. The idea of the DW series is that it's essentially the same story, only they add more content, systems, gameplay, and the like with every new installment- making it over all more fun and more interesting every time. It stayed true to this philosophy until after DW4. Instead of really 'adding' new ideas and content, they butchered the good parts of the game and tried something completely new in areas that didn't need it as much as others.
While I've only played this edition minimally, DW6 is what really got me fuming. I'll going to put this out there first and foremost because it's what pissed me off the most: they removed characters. Not added, removed. Jiang Wei, Xing Cai, Pang De, Da Qiao, Zuo Ci, Meng Huo and Zhu Rong were completely cut from this game. They're talking about adding characters with Empires, but that just makes it worse. It means that they cut them for the sake of cutting them and getting you to buy more of these half-assed games. But if any of the characters on those lists happened to be your favorites- there may be... 'some' hope. Meng Huo is the only one confirmed to come back so far, and he may be the only one. On top of that, only 17 of the 41 characters have story modes (I don't know if they went back to the DW4 story mode style or kept with their revision at DW5- if someone could tell me that would be great... Or terrible, my reaction being contingent on their decision). If you want to play anyone who isn't in that 17, you're going to have to play in the free mode (any mission of the ones you've beaten- usually used for practice since you can play it outside of a campaign) or challenge mode (little minigames and challenges based on your skill in certain aspects of gameplay- not a campaign or real battle in any way).
This entire rant has little to no relevence to non-DW fanatics, but I'd appreciate commentary from other fans of the series.
I first noticed it in Dynasty Warriors 5. The over all layout of the game felt suspiciously lacking in the epic department. The interface of the previous installment had a flaming backround and the detail in the art was impecible. This looked more like a crappy RTS interface- my Age of Empires II layout looked cooler than this. Pretty stupid thing over all to complain about, I know- but I took issue with this game in other respects as well. This part was more or less a harbinger of things to come.
The character customization system in the Extreme Legends edition of the game was also troubling. The development was nice, I'll admit- but they barely skimmed the surface with physical character customization itself and every character effectively became a cookie cutter copy of whatever general you chose for them to serve under. I actually preferred the Dynasty Warriors 4 Empires customization system which allowed you to make any character from the game's basic archetypes and then some (heavy hitters, footmen, strategists, etc.). I will say that adding characters to the cast was nice; they maintained their standard cast and added six new characters- which I'm always welcome to.
The story mode was the main attraction at this shit show, though. Instead of having a faction-based campaign mode with side missions here and there depending on who you were playing, you fought in fewer battles and it followed each character individually instead of as a whole kingdom. I don't know about you, but I found it infuriating. I'd rather take more missions and more epic battles over fewer battles and irritating monologues any day of the week. It was so painfully obnoxious and lazy of Koei that I could barely play more than one character's story without getting nostalgic and putting DW4 back in the disc tray. Regardless of the customized character system and added characters- it didn't even really add anything to the series so much as it did tamper with a good thing. The idea of the DW series is that it's essentially the same story, only they add more content, systems, gameplay, and the like with every new installment- making it over all more fun and more interesting every time. It stayed true to this philosophy until after DW4. Instead of really 'adding' new ideas and content, they butchered the good parts of the game and tried something completely new in areas that didn't need it as much as others.
While I've only played this edition minimally, DW6 is what really got me fuming. I'll going to put this out there first and foremost because it's what pissed me off the most: they removed characters. Not added, removed. Jiang Wei, Xing Cai, Pang De, Da Qiao, Zuo Ci, Meng Huo and Zhu Rong were completely cut from this game. They're talking about adding characters with Empires, but that just makes it worse. It means that they cut them for the sake of cutting them and getting you to buy more of these half-assed games. But if any of the characters on those lists happened to be your favorites- there may be... 'some' hope. Meng Huo is the only one confirmed to come back so far, and he may be the only one. On top of that, only 17 of the 41 characters have story modes (I don't know if they went back to the DW4 story mode style or kept with their revision at DW5- if someone could tell me that would be great... Or terrible, my reaction being contingent on their decision). If you want to play anyone who isn't in that 17, you're going to have to play in the free mode (any mission of the ones you've beaten- usually used for practice since you can play it outside of a campaign) or challenge mode (little minigames and challenges based on your skill in certain aspects of gameplay- not a campaign or real battle in any way).
This entire rant has little to no relevence to non-DW fanatics, but I'd appreciate commentary from other fans of the series.
