Reviews

Here you will find reviews on a variety of Tecmo-KOEI videogames.

REVIEW: Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires

Posted by Shaun Player on Feb 14, 2022
Posted in: All, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

 
Critic: Shaun Player
Date of Review: 14 Feb 2022
Version: Playstation 5
File Size(s): 37.52GB(PS5/XBSX), 13.7GB(NS), 50GB(PC)
Region: PAL
Game Page: Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires Game Page

 

Review copy provided by KOEI Tecmo Games Europe.
*Be sure to download the day one update for Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires on Nintendo Switch.

It was inevitable since after every main series title after Dynasty Warriors 4 an Empires edition has cropped up. It was initially looking to be a new innovative way of playing with the Open World of the prior main game Dynasty Warriors 9, so how has this game taken the formula to new heights?

Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires is at it’s core the same usual Warriors flare of you picking a character and defeating hundreds to thousands of enemy peons, stripping honour in combat from famous historical figures and making your kingdom thrive. What makes the Empire games stand out is that with the removal of a structured story, you now have a more sandbox strategical take on China. This allows you to play as anyone (even your own created character) and to conquer China however you see fit, be it as a Ruler, officer or some vagabond roaming the lands.

The game still retains it’s combat mechanics from 9, where you open up your trigger attack menu to perform different combo strings, instead of the old attack and charge combinations. This still translates over rather well and functions as a fun means to dispatch your enemies. (You can read more about the combat mechanics in our Dynasty Warriors 9 review.)

There are a handful of modes for you to dig your teeth into, though you will get the most mileage out of Conquest mode (Empire mode in prior games). Along with Conquest Mode, you have Edit mode (more on that later), Gallery where you can check out information on characters, weapons and items you have acquired, and the encyclopedia which can get you up to scratch on the historical side of things.

But let’s dig into the meat and bones, the conquest mode. Once you start here you will be able to pick from a variety of scenarios such as Yellow Turban Rebellion, Fall of Dong Zhuo, Guan Du and more. Unlike previous titles however you cannot create or customise your own scenario, and the ‘gathering of heroes’ scenario just enables you to pick anyone then chose if they are a ruler, officer of unaffiliated with basic customisation options. Everything else is then random generated.

Each scenario has their own event cutscenes that play out when certain requirements are met, such as the Three brothers Oath at the start of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Every scenario also includes a unique Event battle, which will play out depending which character / kingdom you support. These event battles play out quite differently to your regular battles, often having more objectives to accomplish along with a more structured story to the battle itself.

Once you have chosen your desired scenario you then can pick literally any character within the game, including both Musou characters (unique) or the generics. Each game and character will play out somewhat similar so don’t think you will be at a major disadvantage for picking a generic officer. However how the game fully folds out depends on your actions and choices within the game. There is quite a lot of variety to how your character can play out.

When you are finally in a game, your main goal is to unite China, or have your supporting Kingdom unite it. This means you’ll be going out and battling for new territory. All battles are Siege style battles where you are either trying to break into a castle or trying to defend invaders from doing so. Before you even begin chopping away, you can kit out your officer with an ‘Artifact’ which allows you to equip Gems. The rarer the Artifact type the more slots for gems you’ll have, ranging from Common to Epic. Gems like in the main instalment add bonuses to your attributes such as damage, defense, speed, etc. Artifacts also dictate the rarity type of the weapon you wield, matching the same type as the Artifact.

There is also a new system called Secret Plan, which allows you to equip up to four skill cards that grant you abilities such as performing a flame attack, healing your health, buffing your allies when used. This takes place of the Strategems used in previous Warriors games, and while it makes your character feel more powered up, it really takes away from all the strategical options you had before. As well as this ability style Secret Plans, there is a big Secret Plan, which is an army wide objective you can set at the beginning of most battles. These can range from calling allied reinforcements – making you having to conquer so many designated bases to allow passage for them to arrive – setting up a fire attack on the enemy castle or even summoning a powerful element infused giant animal. Each of these Secret Plans come with their own unique objectives, and also are used by your enemy. Unfortunately, these unique objectives don’t really feel that unique and you will spend most battles performing the same repetitive objectives to get your plan off.

Now onto actually being on the battlefield. You can command your fellow officers by ordering them to attack, defend and capture bases. They will also aim to help you complete the big Secret Plan you enact. Along with this, there are a myriad of bases scattered around the battlefield. These are extremely important for your siege (or defense of) to succeed. You will want to focus on capturing Siege Ram, Catapult and Siege Tower bases, so they can start working their way on demolishing the enemy forces defenses (or stop them from destroying yours).

The goal to win a battle is to storm the enemy castle and remove the leader in charge of power. However you cannot enter an enemy castle until one of three objectives have been completed; Your catapults capture all the Lookout bases, enabling you to then be able to access your grappling hook to scale the walls; Your ram successfully breaks through one of the castle gates or a Siege Tower being able to set up alongside a Castle Wall. Once in you need to make sure at least one gate is open, this will then initiate a ‘Decisive Battle’ which then will allow you to defeat the enemy leader and win the battle. But be warned when this decisive battle occurs, a bunch of enemy officers will return to defend the camp, as well as get a rally boost to their stats. Not all bad though, as during this state it is much more likely you will be able to capture them on defeat.

Outside of battle, you have the council phase. This is where you can implement minor strategies, such as upgrading your territories defense, training your characters, and other kingdom based functions. There is also a completely new function called ‘Stroll’. This is pretty much a more grandeur way to handle the relationship system.

While out strolling, you will have full access to the open world from the main game. Here you can find other officers which you can interact with by spending action points. You also can roam around and come across random bandits or animals you can decimate to get a small amount of gold or rations respectively. While it is cool to have access to the open world, the whole stroll mechanic is pointless, and most of what is needed can be done in the menu’s of said Stroll segment. It’s just a bloated glorified chat mechanic that serves to waste time. The gold and rations you gain from random combat (and exp) is so little it isn’t worth spending hours chopping just to get a few thousand of each, and maybe one level up if you are lucky.

The relationship system is quite important to the game however, where if an officer likes you more, they are more likely to accept invitations in recruitment, or even start giving you random gifts such as gems. You can also marry someone of the opposite sex if you raise their relationship to 100. This enables some unique scenes that will playout through the rest of your campaign. You can also have up to three sworn brothers, which I state only brothers as even if you have sisters there is a whole lot of mis-gendering in the dialog scenes, where often females are called brothers or men.

If you finish a campaign and you are married, the wife of the duo will have a baby at the end. There will be a scene of your baby magically appearing next to the wife, don’t ask KOEI how babies are born, as they don’t quite understand it in this. This then enables you to play as your son or daughter in a new campaign, and they are tied relationship wise to the father and mother. This will lead to some unique dialog within battles, however all out of battle interactions don’t recognise you as their kin, and some will even treat you like a complete stranger, or someone you just met (as they treat you like any other character) which is very jarring. The child character will also have better abilities to what you could normally create in Edit mode, so it is worth to save their data when you acquire one.

Speaking of the edit mode, it has been completely overhauled in this title. Taking the edit mechanics first used in Ni-Oh 2, you can now greatly customise your characters facial structure and hair. Though as this is KOEI Tecmo, it is very much a one step forward two steps back situation. While you have far far greater customisation for the aforementioned two options, you have a lot less variety in costumes and armour for your character to wear, which makes it quite difficult to have variety between remaking generic officers. Your created character does look a lot better overall in this new system, we just need more variety in what your character can wear. It is a shame as currently there has been quite a bit of customisation cut off to be sold as DLC later, but even then it still isn’t a whole lot to play with. Most of the outfits and armour options you do have (which are all unisex) don’t match well with other pieces either, so you often are stuck using the pre-made sets rather than mixing and matching.

We also no longer have any of the Army, horse, kingdom or banner customisation that was featured heavily in Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires. This is a massive step back, and makes your own created kingdom more random as you have no choice over unit colour and your banners are always blank. It definitely isn’t a game killer but a real disappointment none the less.

There is quite a lot more to dig into, such as character titles earned depending how you play, the return of the reputation system from 7 Empires, where depending what action you take will increase points in certain areas such as Brave, Commanding, Benevolence, Evil and more. This all adds to make each game playthrough more unique.

After all the above, there is still some issues the core game has, especially on the technical side. You will often find textures completely absent, much like how the main title suffered with early on. Most scenes will have numerous noticeable objects missing textures. Horses will show no textures in some scenes as well as general stuttering in the backgrounds. There is also fairly frequent frame rate drops that happen when there is a lot of combat happening on screen – not enough to be jarring but still enough to take note of. There are some weird AI habits as well, where your allies if not commanded manually will literally stand still and do nothing even as enemies pass them by. Enemy AI seems to be able to cheat in some instances, where I have had on more than one occasion an enemy redeploy inside my main camp. You also have the usual grammatical errors that come with a western localised KT game, as well as some ridiculously long loading times (even on PS5) for simple dialog scenes, though this happens randomly so likely down to poor optimisation. Thankfully we only have a Japanese dub, so no suffering the English dub at all in this title, however the Chinese dub will be missed.

Overall the game has a lot of fun to be had. Even with the absurd issues mentioned above, there is a lot to like here and a lot of potential if Omega Force continue to develop upon this. It very much is a one step forward two steps back, but that one step forward is a good one, and I would recommend giving this a go if you are a fan of Warriors games or specifically the Empires strategy side of games. While the battles can start to get repetitive, the Siege style is a lot more engaging and makes battles feel like an actual battlefield for once. May your army thrive and China be yours.

REVIEW: Samurai Warriors 5

Posted by Shaun Player on Aug 22, 2021
Posted in: All, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

 

 Critic: Shaun Player
 Date of Review: 22 Aug 2021
 Version: Nintendo Switch
 File Size(s): 14.2GB(PS4/XB1), 9.2GB(NS), 25GB(PC)
 Region: PAL
 Game Page: Samurai Warriors 5 Game Page
 

Review copy provided by KOEI Tecmo Games Europe.

We may have been waiting since 2014 for the next mainline instalment to Samurai Warriors, but finally after 7 years the titular 5th title is now out on the market for all to enjoy. But after such a long wait, has the built up anticipation been worth it? Omega Force had decided to go a new route with Samurai Warriors 5 by scrapping it’s previous games efforts and doing a soft reboot. This new iteration of Samurai Warriors focuses solely on Nobunaga Oda and his relationship with Mitsuhide Akechi. You get to view the story from both perspectives as you reach Nobunaga’s eventual demise at Honnoji.

So what exactly makes this game a reboot? The first thing you will notice is the overhaul in character design and graphical style. Instead of it’s usual anime focused style, it now has a much more Manga artistic style instead. Majority of the characters have gotten complete redesigns in both looks and personality, most for the better, while some being outright bizarre.

With the new looks also come a complete new set of movesets for our warriors to harness. Though this could be seen as quite controversial among Warriors game fans, they have taken the system from Dynasty Warriors 7 onwards and enabled characters to swap weapons freely. To avoid everyone being a complete clone of themselves however every main character has their own preferred weapon of the lot, which will enable them to perform unique attacks with the weapon. For example Nobunaga Oda’s preferred weapon is the Odachi, so there will be further charge combo strings that only he can perform with that weapon type equipped.

Samurai Warriors 5 offers the usual Musou Mode story, and along with this a side mode called Citadel Mode. I’ll get more into that later, as really the meat and bones to this game is the Musou mode. You start off with following the perspective of Nobunaga Oda, starting out with his first initial skirmishes with Yoshimoto Imagawa back in the 1540’s. As you progress through the first handful of chapters you will then unlock Mitsuhide Akechi’s perspective, a separate storyline to follow through his eyes. Both stories have unique scenarios and fun battles, though unfortunately there is still a lot of crossover that play rather identical (besides a few swapped in battle missions) which ever side of the storyline path you chose.

That isn’t to say that Mitsuhide’s story path isn’t worth plunging into, just be warry that some chapters of his have recurring battles you played with Nobunaga’s perspective. Outside of Nobunaga and Mitsuhide as the leading men, you also have 25 other main characters to enjoy. This includes newcomers such as Mitsuki (an original character by Omega Force), Sena (wife of Ieyasu Tokugawa), Shikanosuke Yamanaka (a die hard Amago loyalist who idealises Mitsuhide) and quite a few more. Not all of them have unique weapons, but they do have unique moves assigned with their preferred weapon equipped. Out of the weapon selection there are quite a few new types, such as wielding a hand cannon, using talisman magic, beating people up with fist claws and more.

The battles themselves play out quite similarly to what you would expect from playing previous games, though the battlefields tend to be much larger and open instead of the many narrow corridor style. You blend together both normal attacks (Y, Square, X) with your charge attacks (X, Triangle, Y) to deal devastating attacks. Movesets generally have a far wider range to their attacks now, so you can wipe the floor with hundreds in one fell swoop. The hyper attack system returns here also, but it plays out quite a bit different to Samurai Warriors 4’s inclusion. You cannot perform combos with it, nor can you mop enemies or scoot around the battlefield using it. It is more so used as a means to quickly catch up to more groups of enemies, sneak an attack in from behind on an enemy officer, and generally to keep your HIT count high.

HIT count is just as vital as KO count on the battlefield. You’ll be strategizing what is the best way to get both a high KO count and a HIT count by continuously chopping at your foes, using the Hyper attacks to deal big hits at low damage. What also helps is you can switch between two characters in majority of the battles (all in Free mode), and it keeps your HIT count rocking when you swap. This, along with KOs, speed of completion and officer kills are what the game ranks your completion on.

Now with the story mode covered, that leaves you with Citadel mode to dig into. Citadel Mode is a mix of mission based objectives and your home base to use shops, blacksmiths and the like. As you progress through the main story, you can unlock upgrades which require materials to improve each building in your Citadel. Materials can only be acquired through grinding the Citadel mode missions, which unfortunately is an overly massive grind. Every mission revolves around you having to defend 1-3 entrances to a fort from an always predictable amount of enemies and officers trying to break in. Each mission will then reward you certain materials you can use to upgrade your Citadel buildings.

You do get to equip three squadrons of troops with you to help with this. Allowing you to summon 3-5 (depending on their level) spearmen, cavalry, kunoichi, and many other unit types to the field to help guard your posts. They are quite hit and miss if they actually help you when you have to wonder off hunting down enemies elsewhere, but most cases they do stall officers long enough for you to get back. There are a few other things you can do in Citadel mode, such as building up friendship ranks with certain officers to unlock a very brief dialog scene with, but most are not especially that entertaining and likely not worth pushing the grind for them alone.

In short, this mode is very repetitive, and locks too much important components behind it’s needless grind. It is a shame as the whole summon troop squads and fort style defense battles has potential to work out great. Just not how it is executed here.

That is pretty much the core gameplay, with 15 weapon move sets to play with, 27 main characters (and 10 additional support characters) to play around with, there is a fair amount you can enjoy from the Musou mode and replaying battles in free mode. However it may feel quite troubling to commit as now you are playing as a weapon more so than your favourite character with their more unique flair. It really comes down to how you look at it when playing and if the unique spins for the preferred weapons change things up enough for you (some do, some are more mediocre).

On the Switch the game runs remarkably well, with very little slow down that hits on the rare case a lot of excitement, slashing and particles are flying all about the place, but it only dips slightly and soon gets back up to it’s more stable 30FPS. The game also suffers with needlessly long loading times that just seem like the game hasn’t been quite optimised enough in the oven. You can be waiting up to two minutes in some cases just for a short dialog scene. Naturally the loading times are not an issue when playing on PS5 or Xbox Series S/X.

Overall do we recommend the game? If you want a fairly in-depth look at Nobunaga’s life, with a slice of Mitsuhide’s take on the side, you’ll get quite a lot of enjoyment out of this title. Most of the newcomers are quite charming and fun to see in their own right, and the story mode offers a lot of battles to dig your teeth into (along with a lot never before seen in Samurai Warriors games). However if you are looking for more of a general Samurai Warriors title that focuses on the many clans throughout the Warring States period, this is not for you. The heavy focus on Nobunaga and very few occasional battles catering to side characters won’t scratch that itch. Either way, just don’t question why Ieyasu Tokugawa is stuck as a 10 year old throughout the 40 odd year story period.

REVIEW: Warriors Orochi 4

Posted by Shaun Player on Oct 17, 2018
Posted in: All, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 5 Comments

 

 Critic: Shaun Player
 Date of Review: Oct 17, 2018
 Version: Nintendo Switch
 File Size(s): 12GB(NS), 17.6GB(PS4), 16.25GB(XB1), 20GB(PC)
 Region: PAL
 Game Page: Warriors Orochi 4 Game Page
 

Review copy provided by KOEI Tecmo Games Europe.

It feels like ages since we were last graced with a Warriors Orochi title (2012 for WO3), and after an anniversary collaboration (Warriors All-Stars) being the closest we have had it isn’t surprising that many of the Warriors fanbase have been hankering for a proper Warriors Orochi title. Based on both Dynasty Warriors 8 (up to 8 Empires) and Samurai Warriors 4 (up to 4 II), the current Warriors Orochi series lineup now hits 170 unique playable characters. But does this make the game good? Let’s delve in deeper and find out!

Right off the bat, Warriors Orochi 4 doesn’t offer much varied content which we were absolutely spoilt with by it’s prior title Warriors Orochi 3. There is the core Story Mode, and then there is a side-mode “Battle Arena” – which we’ll go into more detail later down in the review.

So for Story Mode, you start out as Naomasa Ii, Naotora Ii and Tadakatsu Honda, on your way to an upcoming disturbance when all of a sudden you are enveloped in this weird mist. The trio of warriors sensing something is up become more cautious but their duty dictates they continue onwards. Lo and behold they then run into an ambush by Lu Bu’s men. Not having remembered anything of the prior Warriors Orochi events, this strikes them all as confusing, but none the less the chopping commences.

After more battles it is found out that many of the Warriors within the game had similar experiences, a weird mist enveloping them and then bringing them to this weird misshapen yet familiar world. The usual alliances form and you end up figuring out what is going on. It seems a new world has been created by the almighty Greek God Zeus, and with the power of 8 serpent bracelets he wishes to enjoy some fun time with his playthings – the humans. Perseus, the half God son of Zeus steals some of the bracelets and made his escape from Olympus, but in the chaos the bracelets he took were lost. Can our heroes unite once more, find these bracelets and stand up to Zeus and his Olympian forces?

Scattered between battles you will return to your camp. Though instead of a small area for you to traverse around, this is simply a set of (sometimes confusing) string of menus. Within your camp you can sortie your team, set up your support team (a select few characters that boost general attributes depending on your choice), upgrade their stats with skill points you earn by levelling up. Each character has a skill tree that you can upgrade including basic stats such as Strength, Defense and Health, along with increasing the amount of attacks they can perform and more. Also in the camp you can equip weapons, fuse weapons (installing skills to them) or selling / dismantle them. Along with all this your camp also has a skill tree, where you can upgrade various parts of the camp using the games currency “gems”. There is also a function from the camp where you can play a “mock battle” that lets you mess about with your chosen character – think of it like practice mode. The main thing about the camp though is initiating the next battle, where you’ll get the option to play the next story battle or some of the side-story battles that crop up over the course of the game.

Now with the story premise (which is hit and miss, but enough to keep you hooked) and camp mechanics out of the way, let’s talk the main reason we are here – the combat mechanics. Warriors Orochi 4 directly rips the characters from their respective game series, so Dynasty Warriors characters all have their EX attacks and Samurai Warriors characters have their Hyper attacks all still in tact (not edited forms like Warriors All-Stars). The big new mechanic is the Sacred Treasures, which replace the Skill attacks featured in prior Warriors Orochi titles. You are able to perform four different types of these attacks, basic magic attack (R+Y), charge magic attack (R+X), Unique magic attack (R+A) and Unity magic attack (SL+RL). Basic and Charge are depicted by the Sacred Treasure type your character wields, while the Unique magic attack is character specific. Unity magic attack is where your party of three and selected support characters come together to create a giant ball of magic that you unleash upon the poor fellas in your general vicinity (funnily enough quite a few of these look like your character trying to pull off a Kamehameha!).

These magic attacks play a vital role in the game as their are new types of enemies. These types of enemies are heavily resistant to general attacks but are weak to Magic attacks. The enemies come in the form of Wraiths, that can buff all nearby enemies with this general attack resistant forcing you to kill them (or just the Wraith) with magic based attacks. There are also mythological enemies such as Cyclops’ and Griffons, which too require to be defeated via magic based attacks. To use magic based attacks you will need to fill up a Magic metre, which will slowly charge up as the battle progresses. You can also come across weird artefacts sticking out of the ground, where if you hold R near you can charge your magic bar up fully. You also have a separate metre for Unity Magic attack, which will fill up by using magic attacks and fighting in general. All this together brings a more strategical approach to your combat instead of the standard combo attacks.

Along with the new Sacred Treasure system, there is a new Switch system, that allows you to switch to another character mid-combo to deal a boost in damage along with continuing to doll out the hits continuously. If you time things right you can unleash devastating combos upon all you face. Yet another new feature in the game (and the main focus) is the Deification system, which is what the power of the Serpent bracelets come into place. Certain characters within the game have a Deification form, which when unlocked through Story progressions enables them to transform into a Godly form. This is the equivalent to a super powered Rage mode (which the non Deification characters have). It is very stylish and looks very good and fun to play around with, though you have a limited amount of time in this mode (unless Plot dictates otherwise).

Now let’s move on to the side-mode Battle Arena. In short it’s a clearly tacked on addition to the game which really serves little purpose aside saying “Hey we have an online mode you can compete with others against”. Battle Arena is a single map with three bases, two teams of three (can be played with up to 6 players online) and your goal is to fight each other while trying to capture each others bases. You also have a limited time to do this in, whoever has the most bases or has progressed the most in conquering when the time limit ends wins. That’s it. You can play against bots in single player but they aren’t the smartest tools in the shed. Really it’s just a boring waste of time and completely lets down what is otherwise a really good core game. May be worth a laugh or two but you definitely won’t be revisiting this mode for more.

That’s about it for the game itself, we ran in to some technical hiccups with the Nintendo Switch version of the game (played in handheld mode) where the frame-rate will dip rarely and the draw distance isn’t as far as the PS4 version. Though this didn’t hamper the experience of the game at all on Switch, and most certainly isn’t anything near the problematic Warriors Orochi 2 XBOX 360 port (*shudders*). The game can be played in co-op form both online and offline with ease, with online allowing you to set up game rooms for more comprehensive fun or simply join directly to a game.

Our final thoughts? Well the game’s core is great, it brings back the essence of what a Warriors game is meant to be, but refined into a glimmering gem. However there really is only the Story Mode here to entertain you with. If you are happy to just experience that then this is a must get for Warriors or Hack n Slash fans out there, but if you are expecting more variety (like Warriors Orochi 3), then perhaps best to wait for a price drop or for the inevitable “Ultimate” edition in the coming years.

REVIEW: Arcade Archives – RYGAR

Posted by Shaun Player on Sep 15, 2018
Posted in: All, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

 

 Critic: Shaun Player
 Date of Review: Sept 15th, 2018
 Version: Nintendo Switch
 File Size(s): 75.0MB
 Region: PAL
 Game Page: RYGAR Game Page

 

RYGAR – known as Warrior of Argus in Japan – is a classic Arcade side-scrolling Platformer by Tecmo from the 1980’s, and with the capabilities of today’s generation of consoles we are seeing more and more true Arcade ports hit the systems. Thanks to HAMSTER’s faithful Arcade Archives series, we now have the opportunity to play RYGAR at our leisure from home (or on the go with the Switch) without the worry for our pennies being sucked up.

You play as RYGAR, a legendary – but dead – Warrior whom has risen from the grave to take down the Dominator. Set 4.5 billion years after the creation of Earth, you wield your Diskamor (a Yo-Yo type bladed wheel) to succeed in your adventure. There isn’t much story beyond that for the Arcade edition of the game, and quite frankly there doesn’t need to be.

Each level is separated into “Rounds”, which will pit you against a long side-scrolling stretch of land that you will have to navigate by platforming and launching your Diskamor at foes – along with a timer pushing you forward. The goal is to reach the end of the level with as high of a score as you can accumulate. You can do this by defeating enemies, smashing statues, and getting to the end without losing lives or in a speedy manor. This isn’t an easy feat by any definition of the word, but it is satisfying when you get your groove down.

However, this game is very trialling, as you’ll soon realise if you stand still for too long, or try and defeat every enemy you will only meet your doom. You have no health points, and only a select few lives. Every hit you take is a life lost. Thankfully the game is lenient in letting you respawn right where you died with all enemies on screen (and bonus items) removed from the screen, allowing you to get a fresh start.

The best way to get through a level is by getting use to dodging and avoiding enemies and booking it to the end as efficiently as possible. You will have pits to jump over, projectiles to dodge and hordes of oncoming enemies to avoid. You are able to jump on enemies to stun them for a short period, however this is hit and miss as the hit box is very particular with where you have to land, otherwise it’s a life lost.

This also leads to some other issues with the game, sometimes button inputs will feel delayed, so you’ll end up not jumping when you meant to, and there are also random times you won’t fling your Diskamor in mid-air, leading to a lot of unplanned lost lives. When you run out of lives (up to 5 depending on the settings you pick) you will get a game over, and have to start from Round 1 again.

There is a variety of enemies you will come across in your perilous journey, which will require different tactics to take down, if you so choose to. The game is very simple in that you can only jump and do a basic attack, so tactics will rely on when to strike, having to jump on them first or having to strike them from behind. You can also use your attack to hit oncoming projectiles if things get too hectic.

As you progress through each Round, the levels design will change up, more platforming challenges will appear and tougher enemies will spawn. There are some that feel very cheap, especially those that appear very quickly out of holes in the background. The ultimate goal is first and foremost to get as high of a score as you can, so it is meant to be played over and over again (like many of the Arcade games of that era).

The Arcade Archives version allows you to tweak various settings within the game, allowing you to increase live amount (up to 5), allow a continue option so when you run out you can have a select amount of continues to further progress, as well as things such as tweak how many points you need to get an extra life or make the game even harder if you’re the masochist type. You can also play two player with a friend locally, where you will take it in turns each time you lose a life (or complete a Round).

Is this game worth your time and money? Well the Arcade Archive series is a rather cheap purchase, though it depends how much you like high score chasers. You can get a lot of play time out of it if you are, or if not you probably won’t play it more than 5 or 10 minutes. There isn’t much motivation aside the score to push you through the game. As an Arcade game itself, it is fun, and definitely has that “one more try” addiction to it, just at least this time it isn’t costing you money each time!

REVIEW: Dynasty Warriors 9 ‘Additional Scenarios Pack’ DLC

Posted by Shaun Player on Aug 15, 2018
Posted in: All, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 10 Comments

 

 Critic: Shaun Player
 Date of Review: Aug 15th, 2018
 Version: PS4
 File Size(s): 810.3MB
 Region: PAL
 Game Page: Dynasty Warriors 9 Game Page

 

Note: For our original review of the base game Dynasty Warriors 9, click here.

We knew, that even before the release of Dynasty Warriors 9 back in February 2018 that there was a miriad of DLC planned for post-release. The meat of this DLC Season Pass was the allure of the ‘Additional Scenarios Pack’, the last pack that released back in June. We announced back then that we planned to review these four new stories as an addition to our original review of the base game.

To start us off, there are four characters that have now been granted with unique storylines. These are the four characters that have been unique NPCs up until this point; Hua Xiong, Dong Bai, Yuan Shu and Xiahouji. These four stories take on a more loose fictional take on history, to try and add some fun and flair to their story arcs.

Right off the bat I want to say that these four characters are clones, with Hua Xiong donning Xu Zhu’s Club moveset, Dong Bai using Dong Zhuo’s chain flail, Yuan Shu using Yuan Shao’s rapier and Xiahouji using Xing Cai’s Sword & Shield. However each character has their own unique musou attack and special flow trigger attack (much like what differentiate the current clones in the base game). So really you aren’t gaining much from a gameplay perspective here.

So if you are hoping to come into this DLC with hopes of gaining new movesets and gameplay with these characters, then turn away now. This is not for you. If you are coming into this DLC wanting to experience some new fun story arcs focused on these characters, now that is where you might get some worth.

Each character has their own unique missions spliced within the missions you see in the other characters stories. Hua Xiong’s is setting out to prove he is the mightiest warrior, and his missions start out purely just bashing a bunch of bandits around to prove himself. Throughout his story he grows a bigger rivalry with Lu Bu, whom barely even acknowledges his existence. Giving slight twists to scenarios such as the Dong Zhuo Coalition. His moveset fits him rather well – considering we are stuck with clones – with a slow brutish pace.

Dong Bai is a very fictional focused story, where after initially doing deeds for her grandfather Dong Zhuo, she goes on a massive pursuit for revenge against Lu Bu. After losing everything, her army, her officer Zhang Liao, and the wealth of the Imperial army – she strikes out to recoup her losses and destroy Lu Bu. Her unique scenarios tend to focus on revenge plots or little missions that are dealing with the rowing Guo Si and Li Jue – who at the time are striving to take over Dong Zhuo’s legacy. Her moveset really doesn’t match her, she is slick and fast but the flail she wields just feels tacked on, and only using it purely because it matched with Dong Zhuo.

Yuan Shu (who out of the four has been the best experience) is a greedy tyrannical moron. He thinks very highly of himself and always fails to get what he wants with Cao Cao and Yuan Shao constantly one upping him. His unique scenarios start off with focusing on the Ten Eunuch rebellion, where you alongside the forces of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao eliminate the tyranny of the Eunuchs. It is quite interesting how things play out, and helps that Yuan Shu’s attitude exudes strongly throughout. His moveset, although does seem tacked on (and actually is the weapon I gave him during my Empires creations) does seem to fit him well. If Omega Force were to continue forward with Yuan Shu it would be nice to see that he has the Rapier and Yuan Shao is given different treatment.

Xiahouji (who I found to be the weakest of the set) is as fictional as you can get, and very much relies on the mainstay scenarios that are already included with many of the Shu characters. Her unique scenario is mainly using her meekness to pursue Zhang Fei’s affections. With her just randomly joining in during Shu focused scenarios only to have Zhang Fei tell her off. Repeat ad nauseum for a good while. When she becomes an official officer of Shu it just repeats the usual scenarios you expect during those chapters. It gets boring pretty fast, especially when a lot of Shu’s scenarios are a slog already. Her moveset, which is saved by that the Sword and Shield is rather fun to play using works well. Though it doesn’t suit her personality or style at all.

All in all, each individual character’s stories are of a fair length, normally being 2 or more chapters. There are a lot of scenes that are missing voice acting, which just screams a lazy cop out, but maybe that is for the best when it comes to the English VA. But the real question is, is this worth checking out? If you bought the Season Pass, sure is. It’ll add a fair amount more play time, and some of the characters moments are genuinely decent. However if you didn’t, do NOT spend the ridiculous high price tag for the pack alone. It is certainly not worth that.