Dynasty Warriors 8

The Dynasty Warriors franchise is quite the long-running one, becoming eventually known for its epically scaled battles involving China’s Three Kingdoms. The commonplace playstyle of the series centers on the player controlling a hero from the timeline as they fight through screen-filling waves of enemies while playing out the note-worthy battles during the era. Heroes from the Wei, Wu, Shu, and Jin kingdoms dazzle with all sorts of exaggerated screen-filling attacks. The tides of battle constantly shift as the plot throws monkey wrenches to disrupt the strategy of the players’ side. Players also get to experience the same crucial timeline events from virtually every involved party, offering the player different viewpoints of the same battles. Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition for the Nintendo Switch continues with this model and combines the original Dynasty Warriors 8 with Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends.

This Definitive Edition also includes most of the DLC released to date as well as extra character costumes and side-story scenarios for many of the heroes. Story and Presentation The story is properly paced and structured. Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition did well to divide the core story across the different kingdoms and factions. Not only is each kingdom’s story lengthy, they blend well with one another as they give different perspectives to each battle. Thanks to that, I never got that “been there, done that” feeling when I would play the same battle more than once as different kingdoms. You get to experience each side’s unique insights and motivations.

The narration before each battle helps to tie the core story’s progression to each battle, helping you understand the purpose of every fight you are in. Not to mention, there is a LOT of story to play through. Presentation and visuals are good, staying on par with the quality of later entries to the Dynasty Warriors franchise. Stages are vast and designed with a good degree of variety.

The best part of the game’s presentation for me resided in the character animations and audio. The music treated you to mostly fast-tempo and high-octane rock to keep you amped throughout the large-scale battles. Music also paired well with the changes in the tides of battle, like whenever there was an unexpected strategic twist or hero appearance. While my preference was to stick with Japanese voice acting, voice acting was quite respectable in both English and Japanese, whether it be in battle or in cutscenes. For whatever reason, the Japanese acting simply felt closer to home. The character animations and designs were top notch.

Dynasty Warriors 8 (真・三國無双7, Shin Sangoku Musou 7) is the eighth main installment of the Dynasty Warriors series. It is based on the seventh title's system and visuals. According to the producer.

Attacks both large and small were exciting to watch, fitting each character’s personality and identity quite well. The fact that there are so many enemies on screen to comically juggle only adds to the icing on the cake. The game’s generous roster encourages you to try out all of the heroes, just to see what their unique attacks look like. In a game that centers around and relies on the core mechanic of constantly bashing hundreds of enemies at a time, the last thing you would want is for characters movement or animation to repeated across characters. You don’t have that here. Each character is so unique and varied, you are truly encouraged to try them all, just to see how fancy everyone’s attacks are.

The presentation’s successes could be thanks to the intrigue of the core material, the Three Kingdoms war, or due to the engaging battle visuals and musical score. Nevertheless, the story and presentation of Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition holds up well. Gameplay Players control heroes on a 360-degree plane, where each hero features a normal attack, strong attack, Musou Attack, jump, and Switch Counter. Depending on the order used, normal and strong attacks can be chained together to trigger a variety of combo attacks. The Musou Attack acts the way a “super” would in most fighting games.

They are stronger attacks that uses up gauges that fill up naturally by fighting. When used, the hero is featured in a short cinematic before performing an elaborate attack.

Each hero in Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition brandishes up to three different Musou attacks. The newest edition to Dynasty Warriors 8’s fighting system is the implementation of the Three-Point system. This is a sort of Rock, Paper, Scissors mechanic where the all of the game’s weapons carry one of three affinities: Heaven, Earth, and Man. This triangular system has Man beating Heaven, Heaven beating Earth, and Earth beating Man. For example, a hero with a Heaven weapon will do more damage as well as receive less damage against an opponent wielding an Earth weapon. If the opponent with the dominant affinity weapon does enough damage to the wielder of weaker affinity, they will trigger a Storm Rush.