Regression and experimentation that went too far
To say I've been dreading to playing this game for a bit since I've started my personal bender into musou titles would be a huge understatement. My original experience playing the untranslated PSP version as a kid wasn't great not due to the fact I had no idea what was being said but just how boring the game was and during the years I kind of attributed it to being just the PSP version. Trying to reinvent the wheel in a series mostly known for one thing has to be one of the biggest gambles you can do as a developer, you can either garner new fans and the current fans can be happy with what's created or you fail to garner new attention and alienated your existing fans in the process. Sadly it's not hard to see where this entry went.
The general storytelling takes an overall downgrade as you only get seventeen musou modes in total with only a few characters of each force getting their own story that sadly aren't that long either. To make matters worse is that in this entry, characters were actually removed and there were no new additions to the roster which really stings in a series that was constantly improving upon itself at this point. There really isn't much to say in the general story and character front since there isn't much here shockingly. Also can't say I'm fond of the new designs other barring Zhao Yun's design with all the silver which I think is pretty cool.
If you've been a fan of this series at this point and played this game, you already know why people don't like this entry at all: Renbu. A quick explanation would be that the branching system the series has been known for at this point gone and replaced with one button infinite combos that only have one branch. This means you rarely press a button with another button anymore and the game just promotes you to spam one button endlessly now. I know the genre is extremely notorious for the extreme amounts of button spamming but I assure you this system makes it way worse. The traditional weapon system is essentially gone as well with only three weapons that are essentially just different types more than an upgrade path. Each of these types change how hard you attack and how renbu functions for you. To add more insult to injury with the the roster removal, you'd think they would keep unique move sets to the game? Hell no. The people that didn't get musou modes this time around are clones. It sounds surreal that there's less characters in the game and cloned move sets within the roster now. There's a skill tree system I do sort of like since I don't like farming for drops and prefer natural level progression which is something. Probably a lot more intricate changes like the addition of swimming and climbing ladders, changing how you invade bases, horses leveling up which I can go into but for the sake of my own sanity I don't want to get that in depth with it.
There are very few positives here at least. The soundtrack is decent with the obvious standout being WELCOME TO CHINA. A very loud statement with the flutes going off pretty hard. The visual bump going to the PlayStation 3 is extremely appreciated, I will definitely say the game looks way better but that is kind of a given with the generational lap. An extremely odd fact: This title did end up getting a PS2 version with more content and removed a few of the clones too which kinda spat on the faces of those that bought the next gen versions at the time since they never got this content either. No Xtreme Legends for this one too which probably might've helped a bit but I think the writing was on the wall at this point.
I've probably glossed over a lot of things on this title but this is the first time I'm starting to feel the burnout from my personal musou marathon and thinking about this game or talking about it anymore is giving me a headache at the time of typing this. If you enjoyed this title then more power to you, honestly. I can understand why they wanted to change things up, these games essentially got abysmal scores critically and probably wanted to make something that felt different enough to change their perspective of them. Sadly it failed on every front and Omega Force probably found themselves back on the drawing board.
It goes without saying but if you have a faint interest in this series then please do not play this as your first one, it's completely different from the rest of the series for the worse and only should be played for a diehard fan's curiosity or for the sake of completion.
To say I've been dreading to playing this game for a bit since I've started my personal bender into musou titles would be a huge understatement. My original experience playing the untranslated PSP version as a kid wasn't great not due to the fact I had no idea what was being said but just how boring the game was and during the years I kind of attributed it to being just the PSP version. Trying to reinvent the wheel in a series mostly known for one thing has to be one of the biggest gambles you can do as a developer, you can either garner new fans and the current fans can be happy with what's created or you fail to garner new attention and alienated your existing fans in the process. Sadly it's not hard to see where this entry went.
The general storytelling takes an overall downgrade as you only get seventeen musou modes in total with only a few characters of each force getting their own story that sadly aren't that long either. To make matters worse is that in this entry, characters were actually removed and there were no new additions to the roster which really stings in a series that was constantly improving upon itself at this point. There really isn't much to say in the general story and character front since there isn't much here shockingly. Also can't say I'm fond of the new designs other barring Zhao Yun's design with all the silver which I think is pretty cool.
If you've been a fan of this series at this point and played this game, you already know why people don't like this entry at all: Renbu. A quick explanation would be that the branching system the series has been known for at this point gone and replaced with one button infinite combos that only have one branch. This means you rarely press a button with another button anymore and the game just promotes you to spam one button endlessly now. I know the genre is extremely notorious for the extreme amounts of button spamming but I assure you this system makes it way worse. The traditional weapon system is essentially gone as well with only three weapons that are essentially just different types more than an upgrade path. Each of these types change how hard you attack and how renbu functions for you. To add more insult to injury with the the roster removal, you'd think they would keep unique move sets to the game? Hell no. The people that didn't get musou modes this time around are clones. It sounds surreal that there's less characters in the game and cloned move sets within the roster now. There's a skill tree system I do sort of like since I don't like farming for drops and prefer natural level progression which is something. Probably a lot more intricate changes like the addition of swimming and climbing ladders, changing how you invade bases, horses leveling up which I can go into but for the sake of my own sanity I don't want to get that in depth with it.
There are very few positives here at least. The soundtrack is decent with the obvious standout being WELCOME TO CHINA. A very loud statement with the flutes going off pretty hard. The visual bump going to the PlayStation 3 is extremely appreciated, I will definitely say the game looks way better but that is kind of a given with the generational lap. An extremely odd fact: This title did end up getting a PS2 version with more content and removed a few of the clones too which kinda spat on the faces of those that bought the next gen versions at the time since they never got this content either. No Xtreme Legends for this one too which probably might've helped a bit but I think the writing was on the wall at this point.
I've probably glossed over a lot of things on this title but this is the first time I'm starting to feel the burnout from my personal musou marathon and thinking about this game or talking about it anymore is giving me a headache at the time of typing this. If you enjoyed this title then more power to you, honestly. I can understand why they wanted to change things up, these games essentially got abysmal scores critically and probably wanted to make something that felt different enough to change their perspective of them. Sadly it failed on every front and Omega Force probably found themselves back on the drawing board.
It goes without saying but if you have a faint interest in this series then please do not play this as your first one, it's completely different from the rest of the series for the worse and only should be played for a diehard fan's curiosity or for the sake of completion.