Hack, Slash, and Button Mash | Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Review

<p>In the interest of full disclosure&comma; I have never played a game in the Dynasty Warriors franchise before this review&period; Being around video games for most of my life&comma; I definitely was aware of the franchise&period; Admittedly&comma; I had a passing interest but for whatever reason&comma; I never pulled the trigger on picking the game up before this month&period; Now&comma; with the next-gen systems here&comma; it felt like a good jumping in point&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Dynasty Warriors 8&colon; Xtreme Legends The Complete Edition<&sol;em> for the PS4 and PS Vita contains the base game of Dynasty Warriors 8&comma; which was released in July of 2013&comma; as well as the Xtreme Legends expansion&period; For those who already own the PS3 version&comma; there is an update for the expansion at a cheaper cost&period; As a curious mind is opt to do&comma; I had to know the backstory before I could truly appreciate the furious hack&comma; slash and button mash action that I was seeing before me on the screen&period; <em>Dynasty Warriors 8&colon; Xtreme Legends The Complete Edition<&sol;em> is somewhat based off of the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Romance of the Three Kingdoms” Chinese novels by Luo Guanzhong&comma; a 14th-century writer&period; The game features four main factions&colon; Shu&comma; Wei&comma; Wu and Jin&period; Of those 4 factions there 82 playable characters in the game&period; Each character has its own story&comma; which intertwine with each other the longer you play through the game&period; In order to keep things fresh&comma; which is hard to do in a story like this&comma; each warrior will come equipped with their own set of moves&comma; combos&comma; and weapons&period; These attributes can be upgraded as you further progress through their story&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114547&sol;dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-31&period;jpg"><img class&equals;" wp-image-60595 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114547&sol;dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-31-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-3" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"337" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since I was playing this on the PS4&comma; my expectations from a visual standpoint were pretty high&period; Unfortunately&comma; these expectations were not realized as everything from the menus&comma; cutscenes and gameplay felt like a mid-cycle PS3 release&period; While the fidelity of the game was impressive&comma; the repetitive dialogue coupled with an 80s-esque guitar track had me reaching for the mute button&period; What I was impressed with was the sheer amount of characters on the screen at one time&period; Whether they were enemies or friendlies&comma; there had to be somewhere between 100-200 characters on the screen at one point&comma; the PS4’s processing power more than up to the task to handle the plethora of characters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The first time you slay around 100 characters at a time&comma; you can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all&period; However&comma; that satisfaction quickly wears off as you rinse repeat&period; It would be a much more satisfying experience if there were less characters and the actual combos could be pulled off&period; Instead&comma; the screen is too flooded to tell the difference between friend and foes&period; As you button mash&comma; your character is wailing awhile like a mindless idiot&period; Often at times you feel like you have a group of enemies lined up for a good combo and for whatever reason the combo doesn’t connect&comma; maybe because the hit detection is not as precise as it could be&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114537&sol;dynastywarriors&lowbar;8&lowbar;bagogames&period;png"><img class&equals;" wp-image-60598 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114537&sol;dynastywarriors&lowbar;8&lowbar;bagogames-1024x576&period;png" alt&equals;"dynastywarriors&lowbar;8&lowbar;bagogames" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"337" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A shining moment for the game has to be when you can play as the general of Han Dynasty&comma; Lu Bu&period; He is noticeably larger than other characters and therefore his EX attacks are the fiercest of the bunch&period; His story is part of the expansion and as he gets bored with the competition on the battlefield&comma; he betrays his faction and saddles up with a new group&period; His story is shorter than some of the other characters&comma; which is unfortunate as I’m sure fans of this franchise wanted more hands on time with Lu Bu&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game does come with other modes&colon; Free&comma; Ambition and&comma; Challenge mode&period; Playing these modes&comma; you can earn experience points that will help develop your character&period; Challenge mode seemed to be the most fun out of all the extra modes&period; It contains five different courses where you compete to get the highest score via online leaderboards&period; As you progress&comma; you will earn Weapon Element Gems to increase the power of your attacks&comma; which in turn makes it easier to complete the course&period; While these modes can be fun to play through however&comma; I can’t imagine many people trying them out too extensively when there are 82 characters in Story mode to tackle&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114555&sol;dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-21&period;jpg"><img class&equals;" wp-image-60593 aligncenter" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;04&sol;05114555&sol;dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-21-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-complete-edition-bagogames-2" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"337" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Dynasty Warriors 8&colon; Xtreme Legends The Complete Edition<&sol;em> will be a disappointment to many who go into the game thinking that they are getting a next-gen Musou experience&period; Instead the game feels more like a retread with a tacked on story&period; For fans of the franchise&comma; it will be hard to turn this one down as playing with Lu Bu’s character is truly a fun experience&period; For those teetering on the fence about whether to jump in to a Musou game for the first time&comma; it might be prudent to hold off until a true next-gen experience is be delivered to the masses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;