ExAndOh
2004
The idea of creating a musou during the Sengoku period must have been a flash of inspiration from the folks at Omega Force and Koei. Despite following the way of becoming a musou series itself, Samurai Warriors had a different plan in mind. The first ever iteration was having a team of players fighting a boss online but felt the online infrastructure was too early to let that happen and focused more into the game we got today. Part of me thinks this eventually translated into what would become Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce but that's another topic for another day.
Samurai Warriors is interesting because it veers into a different direction from the base of Dynasty Warriors 3 in terms of gameplay and tone, the color palette is dark and subdued due to the tone and while I think it kinda fits due to how they really want to portray Nobunaga as this literal demon king but it also comes across as having same color scale as a seventh generation first person shooter with how brown and gray it can get sometimes. The standard array of modes are here with story modes for each of the characters which is an small fifteen compared to other rosters and four extra characters if you got the Xtreme Legends disc too. With that said, the story modes are pretty cool and a bit more centralized than what you'd normally see in something like this at the time. You can even screw up and be completely fail it too and miss out on the fifth stage at times. I don't have the complete idea on the full timeline of this era as this is my real first time experiencing this era so I can't speak if it even does a decent job this time around even though some battles are pretty nuts especially the Honnōji incident.
The gameplay in Samurai Warriors is pretty different. For starters, you get up to an eight regular combo in this one. New weapon tiers gets you to this spot pretty quickly and instead of new charge tiers after the third attack, you get additional moves in your existing charge attack modifiers. It takes a bit to get used to but I appreciate them trying something different here instead of relying on their traditional six hit combo system that they've been using before. The maps and stages are pretty cool from big fields to even full on indoor castle stages with traps and lack of vision which creates the feeling of besieging indoors which you never really got in Dynasty Warriors. Battles are a bit more varied due to the objective mission system that lets you do specific objectives that will grant you extras or change the tide of battle itself which I think works if you yearned for a bit more direction in what to do in a musou stage other than going straight to the enemy commander.
The standard modes are here including story and free mode as I've mentioned before. Creating an officer is extremely disappointing as you essentially just pick an pre-made character and that's pretty much it. You also go through some training mini games to increase your skill but it's nothing to write home about. Survival Mode is pretty cool as you go through floors in a castle trying to survive against traps and a lot of soldiers. The final boss is a pretty cool easter egg which I won't spoil but worth a shot nonetheless. The soundtrack is definitely different from Dynasty Warriors and leaning into a more electronic sound. I think it's decent but I haven't heard any stand out tracks I want to gush about sadly.
It seems a bit barebones, a little lacking in focus and a bit uglier than its counterparts but for the first title of a series that is trying to differentiate itself, it could always be worse. Even with the color palette, I kinda appreciate what it did for the atmosphere of the title honestly. I almost actually like it in a sense. A good stepping stone and from what I've heard about Samurai Warriors 2, it finally came into its own.
Samurai Warriors is interesting because it veers into a different direction from the base of Dynasty Warriors 3 in terms of gameplay and tone, the color palette is dark and subdued due to the tone and while I think it kinda fits due to how they really want to portray Nobunaga as this literal demon king but it also comes across as having same color scale as a seventh generation first person shooter with how brown and gray it can get sometimes. The standard array of modes are here with story modes for each of the characters which is an small fifteen compared to other rosters and four extra characters if you got the Xtreme Legends disc too. With that said, the story modes are pretty cool and a bit more centralized than what you'd normally see in something like this at the time. You can even screw up and be completely fail it too and miss out on the fifth stage at times. I don't have the complete idea on the full timeline of this era as this is my real first time experiencing this era so I can't speak if it even does a decent job this time around even though some battles are pretty nuts especially the Honnōji incident.
The gameplay in Samurai Warriors is pretty different. For starters, you get up to an eight regular combo in this one. New weapon tiers gets you to this spot pretty quickly and instead of new charge tiers after the third attack, you get additional moves in your existing charge attack modifiers. It takes a bit to get used to but I appreciate them trying something different here instead of relying on their traditional six hit combo system that they've been using before. The maps and stages are pretty cool from big fields to even full on indoor castle stages with traps and lack of vision which creates the feeling of besieging indoors which you never really got in Dynasty Warriors. Battles are a bit more varied due to the objective mission system that lets you do specific objectives that will grant you extras or change the tide of battle itself which I think works if you yearned for a bit more direction in what to do in a musou stage other than going straight to the enemy commander.
The standard modes are here including story and free mode as I've mentioned before. Creating an officer is extremely disappointing as you essentially just pick an pre-made character and that's pretty much it. You also go through some training mini games to increase your skill but it's nothing to write home about. Survival Mode is pretty cool as you go through floors in a castle trying to survive against traps and a lot of soldiers. The final boss is a pretty cool easter egg which I won't spoil but worth a shot nonetheless. The soundtrack is definitely different from Dynasty Warriors and leaning into a more electronic sound. I think it's decent but I haven't heard any stand out tracks I want to gush about sadly.
It seems a bit barebones, a little lacking in focus and a bit uglier than its counterparts but for the first title of a series that is trying to differentiate itself, it could always be worse. Even with the color palette, I kinda appreciate what it did for the atmosphere of the title honestly. I almost actually like it in a sense. A good stepping stone and from what I've heard about Samurai Warriors 2, it finally came into its own.
Three Hopes should feel like a personal home run in the making. Three Houses which was one of my favorite games of 2019 blending in together with the Warriors/Musou formula to make something that hope to replicate the magic of the previous title. For the most part, it does. The game is pretty fun and seeing the characters again is pretty great in a brand new perspective but the way the story goes in this one, the overall gameplay and the structure of how this game progress really hampered my experience to the point it felt needlessly padded.
Golden Wildfire (the route I went) was overall just okay but kind of disappointing considering if you know how Claude is already by the time you finish his route in Three Houses. It kinda feels what I can describe is what the writers did to Tyrion Lannister during the later seasons of Game of Thrones. The events themselves are decent with some really cool moments I should add but they are very few and far between. The characters are essentially the same with a few of them still being one tone like Raphael and one of them I actually ended up liking more which is Lorenz of all people. Shez feels like an actual character as well despite being an self insert which is kind of refreshing as well and they bounce off everyone pretty well especially with the dynamic between them and Byleth. If you're expecting more Byleth, then I'll just say don't expect too much sadly in terms of the story department that is which was kinda disappointing. On the topic of their new designs, I can't really say I like most of them. A few upgrades here and there but few in far between.
With any Warriors spin off title, you play as a team of playable characters against a huge horde of enemies. Mowing down legions of soldiers never gets old and this iteration is really no different. The main difference is the light strategic element in that you can take your officers and actually have them do specific things instead of just standing around since AI in musou games can be pretty bad unless you have them specifically do something. The cool thing is that they actually can get stuff done by themselves sometimes too which reduces the work you have to do. You essentially have a powered up mode called Awakening, special musou attacks which are called warrior specials, the standard move sets for classes, combat arts which are special abilities you can use and guard break which will all sound very familiar if you played a warriors collaboration title before. The only time I didn't have much fun actually in the battles was when I played an archer or a mage character since they felt incredibly clunky and slow compared to the other classes. Another personal opinion is that I feel like classic doesn't really fit with the high action gameplay especially on hard where your uncontrollable units can get one shot and removing playable characters from the roster for your entire playthrough feels kind of annoying considering there's no free mode or anything. Don't know if the original Fire Emblem Warriors was like this too since I haven't played that one. The actual act of playing the game is actually pretty fun for the most part but that's where the positives stop for me.
Now musou games in general can be grindy in general but it does not work at all for Three Hopes. Each chapter feels way longer than it should be with the mandatory side battles you have to do which personally kinda kill the pacing pretty hard. The missions are short but they're extremely repetitive in nature that it feels like you do the same three mission types throughout the entire game and never really changes in variety. Keep in mind it took me a whopping 35 hours to beat a route and that's with me kinda checking out at the end because I was tired of this format a lot. I think making each route shorter would have extremely worked in the game's favor as it also extremely incentivizes you to replay it and you'll actually be more inclined to do so but I don't think I can put up with another grindfest to get the tolerable story out of this. Something I dislike too is how the class system works with this title in that everyone mostly just feels like a clone and kind of disincentivizes you from trying out other characters that specialize in those classes. Granted you can make any character any class and work off the complete freedom of that but it just feels you'd have to pool more resources as it is to do that. This doesn't help that half of these classes are just weaker versions, mages and archers which aren't that much fun to play already as it is. Each character has a unique musou attack and some unique perks and attributes but that's really where it ends. You get a few more unlockables when you beat the game but I'd kinda be relegated into playing the game again which I'm already finding it to be a tough sell.
With all that said, I found Three Hopes to be pretty enjoyable overall nonetheless. The grindy format of the whole game rubs off the wrong way to me but it was cool seeing the characters, the gameplay overall was pretty fun with incredible music you'd expect from Three Houses too. If you enjoy Three Houses, it's essentially more than that and the musou gameplay is pretty fun in this one if you never played a musou game. If you love musous but never played Three Houses or enjoyed it, it's a little bit of a harder sell since I feel that's the main appeal of this one. There are better Warrior games for musou fans to play but Three Hopes is probably the best you can muster if you're a Fire Emblem fan too.
Golden Wildfire (the route I went) was overall just okay but kind of disappointing considering if you know how Claude is already by the time you finish his route in Three Houses. It kinda feels what I can describe is what the writers did to Tyrion Lannister during the later seasons of Game of Thrones. The events themselves are decent with some really cool moments I should add but they are very few and far between. The characters are essentially the same with a few of them still being one tone like Raphael and one of them I actually ended up liking more which is Lorenz of all people. Shez feels like an actual character as well despite being an self insert which is kind of refreshing as well and they bounce off everyone pretty well especially with the dynamic between them and Byleth. If you're expecting more Byleth, then I'll just say don't expect too much sadly in terms of the story department that is which was kinda disappointing. On the topic of their new designs, I can't really say I like most of them. A few upgrades here and there but few in far between.
With any Warriors spin off title, you play as a team of playable characters against a huge horde of enemies. Mowing down legions of soldiers never gets old and this iteration is really no different. The main difference is the light strategic element in that you can take your officers and actually have them do specific things instead of just standing around since AI in musou games can be pretty bad unless you have them specifically do something. The cool thing is that they actually can get stuff done by themselves sometimes too which reduces the work you have to do. You essentially have a powered up mode called Awakening, special musou attacks which are called warrior specials, the standard move sets for classes, combat arts which are special abilities you can use and guard break which will all sound very familiar if you played a warriors collaboration title before. The only time I didn't have much fun actually in the battles was when I played an archer or a mage character since they felt incredibly clunky and slow compared to the other classes. Another personal opinion is that I feel like classic doesn't really fit with the high action gameplay especially on hard where your uncontrollable units can get one shot and removing playable characters from the roster for your entire playthrough feels kind of annoying considering there's no free mode or anything. Don't know if the original Fire Emblem Warriors was like this too since I haven't played that one. The actual act of playing the game is actually pretty fun for the most part but that's where the positives stop for me.
Now musou games in general can be grindy in general but it does not work at all for Three Hopes. Each chapter feels way longer than it should be with the mandatory side battles you have to do which personally kinda kill the pacing pretty hard. The missions are short but they're extremely repetitive in nature that it feels like you do the same three mission types throughout the entire game and never really changes in variety. Keep in mind it took me a whopping 35 hours to beat a route and that's with me kinda checking out at the end because I was tired of this format a lot. I think making each route shorter would have extremely worked in the game's favor as it also extremely incentivizes you to replay it and you'll actually be more inclined to do so but I don't think I can put up with another grindfest to get the tolerable story out of this. Something I dislike too is how the class system works with this title in that everyone mostly just feels like a clone and kind of disincentivizes you from trying out other characters that specialize in those classes. Granted you can make any character any class and work off the complete freedom of that but it just feels you'd have to pool more resources as it is to do that. This doesn't help that half of these classes are just weaker versions, mages and archers which aren't that much fun to play already as it is. Each character has a unique musou attack and some unique perks and attributes but that's really where it ends. You get a few more unlockables when you beat the game but I'd kinda be relegated into playing the game again which I'm already finding it to be a tough sell.
With all that said, I found Three Hopes to be pretty enjoyable overall nonetheless. The grindy format of the whole game rubs off the wrong way to me but it was cool seeing the characters, the gameplay overall was pretty fun with incredible music you'd expect from Three Houses too. If you enjoy Three Houses, it's essentially more than that and the musou gameplay is pretty fun in this one if you never played a musou game. If you love musous but never played Three Houses or enjoyed it, it's a little bit of a harder sell since I feel that's the main appeal of this one. There are better Warrior games for musou fans to play but Three Hopes is probably the best you can muster if you're a Fire Emblem fan too.
So you're here to try and bring an end to the chaos...
Xtreme Legends for Dynasty Warriors 5 doesn't provide much content other than a few new modes, new items, an improved edit mode, and a power up system that lets you trade in books you receive during completed battles for stat increases you can use on any character. A pretty great catch up mechanic so each mission provides you with something that can help any character. I'd end my thoughts here but I'd be completely remiss to go over one mode that I wish existed in more titles: Destiny Mode.
Destiny Mode is only in this iteration of Dynasty Warriors and it's such an cool mode conceptually and tonally. 5 is all about remember what was with the intro of the original having troops come out of something like the Terracotta Army along with a larger emphasis on giving information about what exactly happened during this tumultuous era but I digress. Destiny Mode starts you off with listening to a a hopeful, somber and nostalgic melody of strings with the image of an old man hoping you'll finally be the one to make a difference. The general idea is that you create your own character and select an officer to work under, you're essentially a private in how limited your skillset is. Nobody expects much from you at this point and you do what you can and working under your favorite officer is a pretty cool experience. You can even defect if you wanted and even go double agent after rejecting an initial defection offer. You'll eventually build your own legacy and the mode ends after several battles but the game allowing you, the player to make an impact during this time of chaos yourself feels like the game giving you something in return. These warriors and their tales are just lost memories in the wind if it isn't for us playing them, preserving them and remembering them which I feel was more of a focus for the 5th iteration in the west and why it kinda hit home for me.
Despite lacking content just as much as any other mode, Destiny Mode makes up for this extremely hard and definitely worth adding to your base Dynasty Warriors 5 experience. Wouldn't really recommend this one by itself but at this point, I'll say that about every Xtreme Legends game at this point. Don't miss out on this one. if you're a fan of Dynasty Warriors, play Destiny mode and create your own story.
Xtreme Legends for Dynasty Warriors 5 doesn't provide much content other than a few new modes, new items, an improved edit mode, and a power up system that lets you trade in books you receive during completed battles for stat increases you can use on any character. A pretty great catch up mechanic so each mission provides you with something that can help any character. I'd end my thoughts here but I'd be completely remiss to go over one mode that I wish existed in more titles: Destiny Mode.
Destiny Mode is only in this iteration of Dynasty Warriors and it's such an cool mode conceptually and tonally. 5 is all about remember what was with the intro of the original having troops come out of something like the Terracotta Army along with a larger emphasis on giving information about what exactly happened during this tumultuous era but I digress. Destiny Mode starts you off with listening to a a hopeful, somber and nostalgic melody of strings with the image of an old man hoping you'll finally be the one to make a difference. The general idea is that you create your own character and select an officer to work under, you're essentially a private in how limited your skillset is. Nobody expects much from you at this point and you do what you can and working under your favorite officer is a pretty cool experience. You can even defect if you wanted and even go double agent after rejecting an initial defection offer. You'll eventually build your own legacy and the mode ends after several battles but the game allowing you, the player to make an impact during this time of chaos yourself feels like the game giving you something in return. These warriors and their tales are just lost memories in the wind if it isn't for us playing them, preserving them and remembering them which I feel was more of a focus for the 5th iteration in the west and why it kinda hit home for me.
Despite lacking content just as much as any other mode, Destiny Mode makes up for this extremely hard and definitely worth adding to your base Dynasty Warriors 5 experience. Wouldn't really recommend this one by itself but at this point, I'll say that about every Xtreme Legends game at this point. Don't miss out on this one. if you're a fan of Dynasty Warriors, play Destiny mode and create your own story.
2005
A true warrior of the Three Kingdoms
It truly was a long time coming, the retelling of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms time and time again. Putting down the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the siege at Hulao Gate, desperate times at the Red Cliffs which is to be know as the battle of Chibi leading up to the final battle at the Wuzhang Plains. Romanticizations and the dramatics of this age of turmoil forever engraved into my brain, one of the final classical titles in the musous that is Dynasty Warriors 5 manages to provide one final swan song of a performance for the PlayStation 2.
The individual stories make a return here and they feel more personal as they go for a more point of view perspective including going over some unique cutscenes and events for every character along with the characters in the same faction responding to your own situation that really helps puts you in their shoes in a much more effective manner. I actually kind of like this method of story telling even though it feels a bit disjointed depending on who you start with and what exactly happens but it gives a better understand of what each warrior is coming from along with some great voice acting here which is already a far cry from previous titles. Stories that will forever live on time immemorial past this life and website.
The art of war has never been more refined and fluid. Gone is the dreaded lock on and now allowing you to turn mid combo and move sets have been more refined and varied. Last ditch efforts know as true musou attacks have been improved twofold giving each attack a final flourish apart from what we already know. Musou rage is your trump card, faster attacks and allowing for an extremely powered up musou attack for a limited time. The only notable difference is the game's difficulty has gone down a fair bit with soldiers dying fast and aren't as aggressive with retaining that difficulty in the officers and the main commander with the health of a super boss even on normal. Weapons have a weight class as well with light class being weaker but faster to execute with heavy being slower to execute but does more damage but I think the heavy isn't worth the power up so you should end up using light or medium for a better experience. Even then, I'd still prefer this by a huge margin. Something cathartic about being a bit mindless in the chaos we're trying to stop which is the reason we're fighting in the first place.
Apart from the standard free mode and challenge modes, creating your own officer is much better this time around and the progression of items is a bit more intricate as well. Orbs and mounts are received from doing very specific conditions in battle and weapons return to being item drops in the field but a bit more streamlined in the sense if you find two boxes next to each other, odds are it's a weapon and item drop together. The soundtrack this time around feels a little more subdued and really relies on heavy guitar usage but still a pretty solid sound overall with great tracks like Fate Corrodes Me.
History repeats itself with every entry and yet there's a different twinge of nostalgia after beating this one. I never actually played the base game and only the Empires variant of 5 which I loved to death. There's something about this one that's just fun and streamlined that makes it easy to get into one. If you want to get into the vast mountain range that is musou that I would highly recommend starting with this one as Dynasty Warriors 5 is one of the many peaks of this himalayan genre.
"These tales, passed on for generations, have endured the tests of time and continue to fascinate their listeners even today."
It truly was a long time coming, the retelling of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms time and time again. Putting down the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the siege at Hulao Gate, desperate times at the Red Cliffs which is to be know as the battle of Chibi leading up to the final battle at the Wuzhang Plains. Romanticizations and the dramatics of this age of turmoil forever engraved into my brain, one of the final classical titles in the musous that is Dynasty Warriors 5 manages to provide one final swan song of a performance for the PlayStation 2.
The individual stories make a return here and they feel more personal as they go for a more point of view perspective including going over some unique cutscenes and events for every character along with the characters in the same faction responding to your own situation that really helps puts you in their shoes in a much more effective manner. I actually kind of like this method of story telling even though it feels a bit disjointed depending on who you start with and what exactly happens but it gives a better understand of what each warrior is coming from along with some great voice acting here which is already a far cry from previous titles. Stories that will forever live on time immemorial past this life and website.
The art of war has never been more refined and fluid. Gone is the dreaded lock on and now allowing you to turn mid combo and move sets have been more refined and varied. Last ditch efforts know as true musou attacks have been improved twofold giving each attack a final flourish apart from what we already know. Musou rage is your trump card, faster attacks and allowing for an extremely powered up musou attack for a limited time. The only notable difference is the game's difficulty has gone down a fair bit with soldiers dying fast and aren't as aggressive with retaining that difficulty in the officers and the main commander with the health of a super boss even on normal. Weapons have a weight class as well with light class being weaker but faster to execute with heavy being slower to execute but does more damage but I think the heavy isn't worth the power up so you should end up using light or medium for a better experience. Even then, I'd still prefer this by a huge margin. Something cathartic about being a bit mindless in the chaos we're trying to stop which is the reason we're fighting in the first place.
Apart from the standard free mode and challenge modes, creating your own officer is much better this time around and the progression of items is a bit more intricate as well. Orbs and mounts are received from doing very specific conditions in battle and weapons return to being item drops in the field but a bit more streamlined in the sense if you find two boxes next to each other, odds are it's a weapon and item drop together. The soundtrack this time around feels a little more subdued and really relies on heavy guitar usage but still a pretty solid sound overall with great tracks like Fate Corrodes Me.
History repeats itself with every entry and yet there's a different twinge of nostalgia after beating this one. I never actually played the base game and only the Empires variant of 5 which I loved to death. There's something about this one that's just fun and streamlined that makes it easy to get into one. If you want to get into the vast mountain range that is musou that I would highly recommend starting with this one as Dynasty Warriors 5 is one of the many peaks of this himalayan genre.
"These tales, passed on for generations, have endured the tests of time and continue to fascinate their listeners even today."
Rumor or reality?
I'm extremely conflicted about how I feel about this game. Some obvious excellent elements are here with the extremely likable and relatable characters and incredibly ridiculous story I didn't expect barring some of the most tedious gameplay I have ever played in a japanese role playing game. I've managed to try both versions and with some outside advice went with the PSX version to complete despite being more tedious than I expected although playing the PSP version and completely brushing off the combat somehow didn't sit right with me.
The story and the characters are truly what redeems this game in my eyes are for a lot of people the important part of Persona 2 in general. The story goes in directions I really didn't expect and provide some meaning about the consequences of our actions being in our youth affecting who we are. The characters easily deserve spots as some of the developer's most well written with how they are portrayed and presented in the story and how everything ties together with one of the most bittersweet endings I've seen in a JRPG.
So in full honesty here, I've kinda been dreading playing this game. I can mostly say I am not a fan of old megaten gameplay barring the original Soul Hackers for being enough fast paced and not completely brainless in itself which seems to be a problem with how old megaten JRPGs seem to be. If you played the PlayStation Portable version, the general notion would be to play on easy and completely ignore this facet of the game which I was almost tempted to do but I didn't personally like the notion of skipping a facet of the game entirely and just rating the narrative elements which is good since it feels kinda disingenuous personally. Now the PSX version removes the easy factor and makes you have to actually learn the system itself but sad to see the system is extremely slow and not satisfying to me either. All of this encompassed with an extremely high encounter rate which made it hard to ignore this element of the game really bogs it down to me since while I can ignore bad gameplay with a great narrative/characters, there's a limit and this game reached it fairly early.
I still think people should really give this game a shot on either version they truly want since you'll be paying for it with your time if anything. Not gonna lie and say I'm glad I played the PSX version instead but I can say I'm personally proud for getting through it. Major gameplay grievances aside, Persona 2: Innocent Sin definitely deserves the praise it gets but I feel it should be put with an asterisk next to it since it feels like having to ignore the elephant in the room.
I'm extremely conflicted about how I feel about this game. Some obvious excellent elements are here with the extremely likable and relatable characters and incredibly ridiculous story I didn't expect barring some of the most tedious gameplay I have ever played in a japanese role playing game. I've managed to try both versions and with some outside advice went with the PSX version to complete despite being more tedious than I expected although playing the PSP version and completely brushing off the combat somehow didn't sit right with me.
The story and the characters are truly what redeems this game in my eyes are for a lot of people the important part of Persona 2 in general. The story goes in directions I really didn't expect and provide some meaning about the consequences of our actions being in our youth affecting who we are. The characters easily deserve spots as some of the developer's most well written with how they are portrayed and presented in the story and how everything ties together with one of the most bittersweet endings I've seen in a JRPG.
So in full honesty here, I've kinda been dreading playing this game. I can mostly say I am not a fan of old megaten gameplay barring the original Soul Hackers for being enough fast paced and not completely brainless in itself which seems to be a problem with how old megaten JRPGs seem to be. If you played the PlayStation Portable version, the general notion would be to play on easy and completely ignore this facet of the game which I was almost tempted to do but I didn't personally like the notion of skipping a facet of the game entirely and just rating the narrative elements which is good since it feels kinda disingenuous personally. Now the PSX version removes the easy factor and makes you have to actually learn the system itself but sad to see the system is extremely slow and not satisfying to me either. All of this encompassed with an extremely high encounter rate which made it hard to ignore this element of the game really bogs it down to me since while I can ignore bad gameplay with a great narrative/characters, there's a limit and this game reached it fairly early.
I still think people should really give this game a shot on either version they truly want since you'll be paying for it with your time if anything. Not gonna lie and say I'm glad I played the PSX version instead but I can say I'm personally proud for getting through it. Major gameplay grievances aside, Persona 2: Innocent Sin definitely deserves the praise it gets but I feel it should be put with an asterisk next to it since it feels like having to ignore the elephant in the room.
2007
Human advancement but at what cost?
Truly one one the gaming marvels of how to build a world and put it center stage, Bioshock manages convey the feeling of dread and failure from the result of one businessman's folly while still managing to feel the lingering horror coming from those exact failures. What I learned to appreciate from Bioshock is that it's a first person shooter that really doesn't follow any trends at the time and 2007 was a huge year for first person shooters as it is with the likes of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Crysis and the release of the Orange Box. It doesn't really excel at shooting, the role playing mechanics are a bit lackluster and the enemy variety is not the best so what makes Bioshock work? Everything else.
I think what hooked me extremely hard from the beginning is how Rapture is presented to you and mixing in a feeling of sadness and horror that doesn't go away for a while. Rapture is probably one of the most fully realized cities I can think of. A complete dark and dingy experience the entire way through. Old abandoned sections of the city falling apart at the seams, old defense systems still functioning and killing anything that moves, the titular duo of the Little Sister collecting what's left and the Big Daddy serving as their guardian dog during the process, the small remnats of life playing out through the residual life from audio logs and the result of your altered genetics. I really do like the variety in areas too despite following the same architectural design philosophy for Rapture as it is. You explore hospitals, living areas, entertainment distracts and even their own spin on a public park. It really feels like Rapture is the main character of Bioshock more than Jack is, who doesn't really say much and just does what people say but you could say it might be the point in some way. The few living characters in this game are excellent and their introductions are done extremely well. Despite most of the game's turning wheels being audio logs to the point that actual discussions with the player is audio log centric despite being in the same room, the voice actors actually gave great performance that you can feel how frustrated, ambitious and sadness that themselves becoming a product of their own environment.
Definitely not a first person shooter in the way we know now that focuses on the raw mechanical skill, Bioshock actually leans more into survival horror if anything. The shooting is serviceable and you only have a few weapons granted by different ammo types with a few distinct ones like freezing while most of them being electrical, more damage to human-like/mechinical and the etcera. Controlling Jack works perfectly fine, controller or mouse and keyboard. I found myself using the controller scheme since I found it a bit more intuitive with the plasmid being on one trigger and the weapon control being on the other. The customization and progression throughout your fight for survival relies on plasmids and tonics that provide active abilities and passives that delve into every main mechanic in the game being fighting, hacking and physical prowess. I think it does a decent job for what it delivers although I almost wished for a bit more customization than what was offered.
I can't imagine Bioshock without Rapture since the entire mood, atmosphere and world design essentially steal the show for me here. Everything else is serviceable with a great story and characters but I think Rapture truly elevates it to greatness that seems deserved from my eyes. It's not impossible to build a Rapture of any kind but it's impossible to build a Rapture that surpasses the one we got.
Truly one one the gaming marvels of how to build a world and put it center stage, Bioshock manages convey the feeling of dread and failure from the result of one businessman's folly while still managing to feel the lingering horror coming from those exact failures. What I learned to appreciate from Bioshock is that it's a first person shooter that really doesn't follow any trends at the time and 2007 was a huge year for first person shooters as it is with the likes of Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Crysis and the release of the Orange Box. It doesn't really excel at shooting, the role playing mechanics are a bit lackluster and the enemy variety is not the best so what makes Bioshock work? Everything else.
I think what hooked me extremely hard from the beginning is how Rapture is presented to you and mixing in a feeling of sadness and horror that doesn't go away for a while. Rapture is probably one of the most fully realized cities I can think of. A complete dark and dingy experience the entire way through. Old abandoned sections of the city falling apart at the seams, old defense systems still functioning and killing anything that moves, the titular duo of the Little Sister collecting what's left and the Big Daddy serving as their guardian dog during the process, the small remnats of life playing out through the residual life from audio logs and the result of your altered genetics. I really do like the variety in areas too despite following the same architectural design philosophy for Rapture as it is. You explore hospitals, living areas, entertainment distracts and even their own spin on a public park. It really feels like Rapture is the main character of Bioshock more than Jack is, who doesn't really say much and just does what people say but you could say it might be the point in some way. The few living characters in this game are excellent and their introductions are done extremely well. Despite most of the game's turning wheels being audio logs to the point that actual discussions with the player is audio log centric despite being in the same room, the voice actors actually gave great performance that you can feel how frustrated, ambitious and sadness that themselves becoming a product of their own environment.
Definitely not a first person shooter in the way we know now that focuses on the raw mechanical skill, Bioshock actually leans more into survival horror if anything. The shooting is serviceable and you only have a few weapons granted by different ammo types with a few distinct ones like freezing while most of them being electrical, more damage to human-like/mechinical and the etcera. Controlling Jack works perfectly fine, controller or mouse and keyboard. I found myself using the controller scheme since I found it a bit more intuitive with the plasmid being on one trigger and the weapon control being on the other. The customization and progression throughout your fight for survival relies on plasmids and tonics that provide active abilities and passives that delve into every main mechanic in the game being fighting, hacking and physical prowess. I think it does a decent job for what it delivers although I almost wished for a bit more customization than what was offered.
I can't imagine Bioshock without Rapture since the entire mood, atmosphere and world design essentially steal the show for me here. Everything else is serviceable with a great story and characters but I think Rapture truly elevates it to greatness that seems deserved from my eyes. It's not impossible to build a Rapture of any kind but it's impossible to build a Rapture that surpasses the one we got.
So the same deal with 3 Xtreme Legends is that this is also an "expansion pack" of sorts for the original Dynasty Warriors 4 and can technically be played standalone. As with all of them, I'll be rating these by their standalone value since if you have the original disc, this is literally just additive to the experience you already have.
The main additions here are two new modes being Legend mode and Xtreme mode. Legend mode lets you do one extra special mission for each character and lets you get some cool stuff from it. The missions are kinda disappointing sadly, they aren't that long either. Xtreme mode is where it picks up the slack a little. It's sort of like a survival mission based mode where you do mini missions that earn you gold for upgrades and specific rewards. I was honestly surprised by how diverse this mode was with the events that could happen including doing some side objectives here and there. You can only heal by meat buns that are extremely rare or buying them with gold and you can even buy unique officers to act as your bodyguard which is pretty cool. You can even have your own kingdom and this create specific events on their own too which gives this mode a fair bit of replay value as well.
Other additions include two new difficulties, level 11 weapons, some new items, a new challenge mode and that's pretty much it. No new musou modes either which means if you only have this disc, you can either play Legend or Xtreme mode really. No stories at all and no free mode either which really sucks if you were a kid that got this for christmas and ended up playing the xtreme mode for almost a hundred hours.
Honestly I still like this one just because Xtreme Mode is really fun but if you had to get this game by itself, it's severely lacking even for Xtreme Legends standards. These titles are only good if you got the original since it just gives more but don't play these standalone.
The main additions here are two new modes being Legend mode and Xtreme mode. Legend mode lets you do one extra special mission for each character and lets you get some cool stuff from it. The missions are kinda disappointing sadly, they aren't that long either. Xtreme mode is where it picks up the slack a little. It's sort of like a survival mission based mode where you do mini missions that earn you gold for upgrades and specific rewards. I was honestly surprised by how diverse this mode was with the events that could happen including doing some side objectives here and there. You can only heal by meat buns that are extremely rare or buying them with gold and you can even buy unique officers to act as your bodyguard which is pretty cool. You can even have your own kingdom and this create specific events on their own too which gives this mode a fair bit of replay value as well.
Other additions include two new difficulties, level 11 weapons, some new items, a new challenge mode and that's pretty much it. No new musou modes either which means if you only have this disc, you can either play Legend or Xtreme mode really. No stories at all and no free mode either which really sucks if you were a kid that got this for christmas and ended up playing the xtreme mode for almost a hundred hours.
Honestly I still like this one just because Xtreme Mode is really fun but if you had to get this game by itself, it's severely lacking even for Xtreme Legends standards. These titles are only good if you got the original since it just gives more but don't play these standalone.
2003
One man army
Dynasty Warriors 4 Xtreme Legends is probably the most I spent playing the series as a kid to the point that all of the sounds and music are still engraved into my brain. The dying grunts of soldiers, the slashing sounds of Zhou Tai pulling some sick samurai shit with the katana, the mix of rock and chinese instruments playing in the background. I really should love this game more than the previous entry but it also feels like a sidegrade more than anything, one step forward and a one step back kind of deal.
The big main differences this time around is how musou mode works and weapon progression. Musou mode isn't reliant on character specific campaigns but more overall the whole faction in general. You can fortunately switch characters during the campaign but it's a bit hard to recommend since switching to a fresh character that has a level 1 weapon in the final act with no stats will make the game much harder than it needs to be. The overall presentation is better all around the better. Much better graphics and models, voice acting that can actually be taken seriously to most people, better cutscenes and more elaborate events during important battles. One good thing is the map feels more smaller and varied this time around so you're spending less time running around and if you get a saddle, your horse is actually marked on the map so you always remember where it is (finally). You'd probably think with faction specific musou modes that replay value would be completely shot out the window but that's where "the hypotheticals" comes in. Playing stages in a specific order, doing a specific thing in a stage or in general can trigger secret chapters in your playthrough nobody else would get else otherwise. Someone you let live might come back to haunt you in a future secret chapter and I think this makes the mode pretty cool in general and I think tells a more cohesive story for the specific faction for the most part.
To say this game is different would be a huge understatement, weapon progression comes in the form of experience instead of relying on weapon drops this time around. I'm sort of mixed on this system leaning into the negative since you can spend more time than needed with the first and second weapons but it does steadily progress you into those important weapons with each battle nonetheless. You only really get experience from killing officers and generals which kind of pushes you into killing them more often than not which I don't like at all since the best thing about these games is deciding whether you just want to rush the objective or take your time and get a thousand KOs and get your "true warrior of the three kingdoms praise" from the game.
There's a lot more gameplay changes to gloss over too with mechanical play, bodyguards, the new dueling mechanic and the most egregious part about this game that really prevents me from enjoying it as much: strict lock-on. The move sets in general feel much better and more varied than the last game, charge strings get more attacks with each tier of weapon you get specifically with the charge string that stuns or staggers. Bodyguards are no longer reliant on staying alive to develop at all so you can go nuts with less babysitting, which is what I would say if it wasn't for the commanders in some of these missions being completely useless. I had this mission where our main commander just storms in a trap with no morale while everyone else was getting murdered. I couldn't even go help them since the commander literally dies in thirty seconds if left alone against soldiers with him having full health already which made the mission way more tedious and harder than it needed to be. It doesn't help the AI for friendlies aren't that great either. Now I realize you can circumvent this by switching to the character that is the commander itself for that specific mission but odds are you aren't leveled up in weapons and overall stats and it'll probably be just as hard. The difficulty curve here was weird as it was pretty easy for the first two acts and then later on gets around Dynasty Warriors 3 tiers of aggression and it felt like they got more aggressive than them during the final act. Duels are a new addition and it's hard for me to gauge whether it was a good or bad idea. After playing the first game, I mostly realize this is them trying to appease to their fighting game roots with 1v1 duels against notable generals again but it also just kinda disconnects from the pacing of the whole game a bit. It's weird to talk about immersion in a musou game but dueling does detract from that. I think the idea was cool but the execution was severely flawed here since it does kinda feel half assed.
Now you're probably thinking, "the difficulty is there, that's great!" but I have some bad news for you. Probably the one thing that really hampered my enjoyment of the game is the insanely strong lock on this game has this time around for some reason. Allow me to give an example: You are playing as a sword user and you are surrounded by five enemies, you start your combo aiming for the general but your lock on goes for one of the privates instead and you already locked in your stun combo with no way to redirect, you already lost a third of your health in normal mode. It's moments like these that can make or break your entire experience and it especially sucks when you don't use weapons with a lot of range. It can literally save your life and kill you and I'm not fond of the idea of a game completely locking your change to course correct. If Dynasty Warriors 4 lets you change your direction while attacking in your combos, this easily would've been a better game than 3 at least on a mechanical level but I really found this the most annoying part as you'll be hitting air with no way to correct on top of some of the most aggressive troop AI this time around.
The standard slew of modes are here in the original experience. Musou, Free, Versus and Challenge modes make an obvious return but the most interesting part is the Edit mode. That's right you can create your own officers! Sadly considering this is their first iteration of this mechanic, it's extremely limited but them allowing this does technically allow for some form of player expression.
I can't leave my thoughts of Dynasty Warriors 4 without talking about the soundtrack. It's probably the best soundtrack in mainline how it blends the beautiful sounds of the chinese instruments with rock that further portray the dire straits of some of these stages. Avenging Battle, one of the many ballads of battle is a perfect example of what I mean. The violent guitars with the calm strings of the erhu.
It's different but it's still just as fun is the best way I can describe this specific mainline title. It elevates in so many ways but the effort in its experimentation wasn't all a success sadly. A fan favorite for a really good reason.
Dynasty Warriors 4 Xtreme Legends is probably the most I spent playing the series as a kid to the point that all of the sounds and music are still engraved into my brain. The dying grunts of soldiers, the slashing sounds of Zhou Tai pulling some sick samurai shit with the katana, the mix of rock and chinese instruments playing in the background. I really should love this game more than the previous entry but it also feels like a sidegrade more than anything, one step forward and a one step back kind of deal.
The big main differences this time around is how musou mode works and weapon progression. Musou mode isn't reliant on character specific campaigns but more overall the whole faction in general. You can fortunately switch characters during the campaign but it's a bit hard to recommend since switching to a fresh character that has a level 1 weapon in the final act with no stats will make the game much harder than it needs to be. The overall presentation is better all around the better. Much better graphics and models, voice acting that can actually be taken seriously to most people, better cutscenes and more elaborate events during important battles. One good thing is the map feels more smaller and varied this time around so you're spending less time running around and if you get a saddle, your horse is actually marked on the map so you always remember where it is (finally). You'd probably think with faction specific musou modes that replay value would be completely shot out the window but that's where "the hypotheticals" comes in. Playing stages in a specific order, doing a specific thing in a stage or in general can trigger secret chapters in your playthrough nobody else would get else otherwise. Someone you let live might come back to haunt you in a future secret chapter and I think this makes the mode pretty cool in general and I think tells a more cohesive story for the specific faction for the most part.
To say this game is different would be a huge understatement, weapon progression comes in the form of experience instead of relying on weapon drops this time around. I'm sort of mixed on this system leaning into the negative since you can spend more time than needed with the first and second weapons but it does steadily progress you into those important weapons with each battle nonetheless. You only really get experience from killing officers and generals which kind of pushes you into killing them more often than not which I don't like at all since the best thing about these games is deciding whether you just want to rush the objective or take your time and get a thousand KOs and get your "true warrior of the three kingdoms praise" from the game.
There's a lot more gameplay changes to gloss over too with mechanical play, bodyguards, the new dueling mechanic and the most egregious part about this game that really prevents me from enjoying it as much: strict lock-on. The move sets in general feel much better and more varied than the last game, charge strings get more attacks with each tier of weapon you get specifically with the charge string that stuns or staggers. Bodyguards are no longer reliant on staying alive to develop at all so you can go nuts with less babysitting, which is what I would say if it wasn't for the commanders in some of these missions being completely useless. I had this mission where our main commander just storms in a trap with no morale while everyone else was getting murdered. I couldn't even go help them since the commander literally dies in thirty seconds if left alone against soldiers with him having full health already which made the mission way more tedious and harder than it needed to be. It doesn't help the AI for friendlies aren't that great either. Now I realize you can circumvent this by switching to the character that is the commander itself for that specific mission but odds are you aren't leveled up in weapons and overall stats and it'll probably be just as hard. The difficulty curve here was weird as it was pretty easy for the first two acts and then later on gets around Dynasty Warriors 3 tiers of aggression and it felt like they got more aggressive than them during the final act. Duels are a new addition and it's hard for me to gauge whether it was a good or bad idea. After playing the first game, I mostly realize this is them trying to appease to their fighting game roots with 1v1 duels against notable generals again but it also just kinda disconnects from the pacing of the whole game a bit. It's weird to talk about immersion in a musou game but dueling does detract from that. I think the idea was cool but the execution was severely flawed here since it does kinda feel half assed.
Now you're probably thinking, "the difficulty is there, that's great!" but I have some bad news for you. Probably the one thing that really hampered my enjoyment of the game is the insanely strong lock on this game has this time around for some reason. Allow me to give an example: You are playing as a sword user and you are surrounded by five enemies, you start your combo aiming for the general but your lock on goes for one of the privates instead and you already locked in your stun combo with no way to redirect, you already lost a third of your health in normal mode. It's moments like these that can make or break your entire experience and it especially sucks when you don't use weapons with a lot of range. It can literally save your life and kill you and I'm not fond of the idea of a game completely locking your change to course correct. If Dynasty Warriors 4 lets you change your direction while attacking in your combos, this easily would've been a better game than 3 at least on a mechanical level but I really found this the most annoying part as you'll be hitting air with no way to correct on top of some of the most aggressive troop AI this time around.
The standard slew of modes are here in the original experience. Musou, Free, Versus and Challenge modes make an obvious return but the most interesting part is the Edit mode. That's right you can create your own officers! Sadly considering this is their first iteration of this mechanic, it's extremely limited but them allowing this does technically allow for some form of player expression.
I can't leave my thoughts of Dynasty Warriors 4 without talking about the soundtrack. It's probably the best soundtrack in mainline how it blends the beautiful sounds of the chinese instruments with rock that further portray the dire straits of some of these stages. Avenging Battle, one of the many ballads of battle is a perfect example of what I mean. The violent guitars with the calm strings of the erhu.
It's different but it's still just as fun is the best way I can describe this specific mainline title. It elevates in so many ways but the effort in its experimentation wasn't all a success sadly. A fan favorite for a really good reason.
Pure energetic and soul restoring tag team action
I'd like to preface that I am not a fighting game guy at all in the modern times. I'm not good at them at all and a complete casual in this space. Funny enough, this technically isn't the first time I ever played this game, it's actually the first game I ever got for the PS2 at the time since my stepdad was a huge tekken fan at the time and where I ended up becoming a fan myself. Definitely had positive experiences back then but then I wondered if the magic is still there, laying in dormant for the past twenty two years. To put it bluntly, I missed this game so much.
Something about the whole experience is just extremely enjoyable from start to finish no matter what mode you play. Amazing visuals for a launch title, beautiful stages, one of the best fighting game soundtracks in my opinion, surprisingly feels easy to pick up and beat from a casual perspective (against Normal CPU). Back when fighting games always kept content heavy from the start, you had essentially every character up to this point (barring Gon and Doctor Bosconovitch), all your usual modes and one of the best extra modes Tekken ever introduced: Tekken Bowl. The amount of time I've spent bowling in this game alone probably surpassed all the bowling I've done in any video game ever and combined.
Hazy school days. White forest. Flashing lights of the carousel. The ugly evil. Who are you?
Even with unlocking everything, I still come back to this one every now and then. It almost takes you back in a sense. Could be the nostalgia talking but I wouldn't like it more now than I did before if it was. Man where does the time go?
I'd like to preface that I am not a fighting game guy at all in the modern times. I'm not good at them at all and a complete casual in this space. Funny enough, this technically isn't the first time I ever played this game, it's actually the first game I ever got for the PS2 at the time since my stepdad was a huge tekken fan at the time and where I ended up becoming a fan myself. Definitely had positive experiences back then but then I wondered if the magic is still there, laying in dormant for the past twenty two years. To put it bluntly, I missed this game so much.
Something about the whole experience is just extremely enjoyable from start to finish no matter what mode you play. Amazing visuals for a launch title, beautiful stages, one of the best fighting game soundtracks in my opinion, surprisingly feels easy to pick up and beat from a casual perspective (against Normal CPU). Back when fighting games always kept content heavy from the start, you had essentially every character up to this point (barring Gon and Doctor Bosconovitch), all your usual modes and one of the best extra modes Tekken ever introduced: Tekken Bowl. The amount of time I've spent bowling in this game alone probably surpassed all the bowling I've done in any video game ever and combined.
Hazy school days. White forest. Flashing lights of the carousel. The ugly evil. Who are you?
Even with unlocking everything, I still come back to this one every now and then. It almost takes you back in a sense. Could be the nostalgia talking but I wouldn't like it more now than I did before if it was. Man where does the time go?
2022
I wouldn't really call this a game and more of an interactive demo of what the Steam Deck's unique control scheme and functions can really do. It's only third minutes and free so it doesn't overstay its welcome at least and kept me entertained for that much. It's really not trying to be anything more and less and I kinda appreciate it for that.
While Xtreme Legends original intention is to be additive to the original Dynasty Warriors experience, for the most part until recently you can technically play these expansion packs standalone which is what I actually ended up doing for 3 as a kid since I didn't know better.
For starters, this is a great expansion for the original game. It adds new characters, a fifth weapon, some new stages, musou modes for the "other" faction of characters, a new easier and harder difficulty settings and more challenge modes. It's just more Dynasty Warriors 3 which isn't a bad thing.
Now sadly considering this game can be played standalone, it can be also be completely lackluster in itself. Only having the musou modes for the new characters and a few stages leave a lot to be desired. You'd only really be getting ten percent of the original experience with just Xtreme Legends alone.
If you want to access the new content, I would highly suggest it being additive to Dynasty Warriors 3 instead of it being standalone of course. Word of warning from a kid that actually sunk dozens of hours into just this one alone.
For starters, this is a great expansion for the original game. It adds new characters, a fifth weapon, some new stages, musou modes for the "other" faction of characters, a new easier and harder difficulty settings and more challenge modes. It's just more Dynasty Warriors 3 which isn't a bad thing.
Now sadly considering this game can be played standalone, it can be also be completely lackluster in itself. Only having the musou modes for the new characters and a few stages leave a lot to be desired. You'd only really be getting ten percent of the original experience with just Xtreme Legends alone.
If you want to access the new content, I would highly suggest it being additive to Dynasty Warriors 3 instead of it being standalone of course. Word of warning from a kid that actually sunk dozens of hours into just this one alone.
2001
Christmas 2002
A Sears in a shopping mall, late night
In the full spirit of christmas shopping at the time while my parents were looking at clothes in a different section, I went alone to the electronics section to head to the video games kiosks to alleviate the boredom since my GameBoy Advance was completely out of battery. Only one of the kiosks were actually on and it was playing a copy of Dynasty Warriors 3 or at least that's what the demo disc loaded if it was one. I think the notion of mowing down a huge amount of soldiers was something of a brand new notion of fun for me growing up mostly playing Pokemon mostly before that point. The funniest part about this is that despite playing 3 and 4 in some way, I only ended up getting the Xtreme Legends variant and nothing else which is essentially only 10% of the game itself. My own chagrin is that I never played the original versions of these or the combination of the two until this point.
I truly feel like Dynasty Warriors 3 took a huge leap for the series and brought it into some prominance going forward. If Dynasty Warriors 2 built the foundation, Dynasty Warriors 3 built the whole goddamn house. Where do I even begin with what was added? I won't even go into the Xtreme Legends content either and there's still so much. Four weapons for each character (five with Xtreme Legends) that enhance your moveset to a whopping six chain with stats to roll for. A brand new item system that brings more customization and variety into including special effects, stat boosts and the ability to bring Red Hare into battle. Way more characters with their own musou mode each. A plethora of game modes to boot and more events and stages that further flesh out the three kingdom eras. Going into every minute detail would be an extremely herculean task and test my own mental capacity so I rather just go into why I liked this entry in the series.
I think something you realize going back into this entry specifically is the perfect blend of aggression and pressure. Easily one of the toughest entries in the series and while I do prefer the difficulty boost compared to later entries, it does come with some frustrations that kinda hindered my experience back into going into Easy. One of the biggest ones is attempting to level up bodyguards in musou mode on Normal. Playing regularly is fun but those starter two privates die to a sneeze that it felt like babysitting just for them to actually get experience for the stage since that's the only way they develop themselves. Maps are pretty huge too and without a horse item, you're gonna be spending most of the time running around empty fields unless you take all the time to defeat enemies but comes the inherit risk of just dying to an unfortunate musou combo at the end that can waste thirty minutes down the drain. Don't get me wrong, I love the difficulty here since it keeps me focused but I think you should grab some items and upgrades for certain gameplay mechanics before fully attempting it.
The elephant in the room has to be the voice acting which I think is okay but it can be pretty egregious (in a good way personally). Character designs in 3 are some of my favorite with how colorful each design has and how practical they are. Playing a vast majority of the characters myself, they each feel pretty unique and fun especially Lu Bu which is essentially easy mode in itself. It's not a Dynasty Warriors games at this point of the series without a solid soundtrack to boot.
I really think this game is where the series rose into prominence and found its stride especially with the addition of Xtreme Legends adding more content into the game down the line and future spin offs to boot after this. I'm more surprised this still holds up despite some of the gameplay quirks that come with it but it's more to show how strong and familiar the musou formula has been for years. Musou is adapting now it's never bad to forget where we once were.
A Sears in a shopping mall, late night
In the full spirit of christmas shopping at the time while my parents were looking at clothes in a different section, I went alone to the electronics section to head to the video games kiosks to alleviate the boredom since my GameBoy Advance was completely out of battery. Only one of the kiosks were actually on and it was playing a copy of Dynasty Warriors 3 or at least that's what the demo disc loaded if it was one. I think the notion of mowing down a huge amount of soldiers was something of a brand new notion of fun for me growing up mostly playing Pokemon mostly before that point. The funniest part about this is that despite playing 3 and 4 in some way, I only ended up getting the Xtreme Legends variant and nothing else which is essentially only 10% of the game itself. My own chagrin is that I never played the original versions of these or the combination of the two until this point.
I truly feel like Dynasty Warriors 3 took a huge leap for the series and brought it into some prominance going forward. If Dynasty Warriors 2 built the foundation, Dynasty Warriors 3 built the whole goddamn house. Where do I even begin with what was added? I won't even go into the Xtreme Legends content either and there's still so much. Four weapons for each character (five with Xtreme Legends) that enhance your moveset to a whopping six chain with stats to roll for. A brand new item system that brings more customization and variety into including special effects, stat boosts and the ability to bring Red Hare into battle. Way more characters with their own musou mode each. A plethora of game modes to boot and more events and stages that further flesh out the three kingdom eras. Going into every minute detail would be an extremely herculean task and test my own mental capacity so I rather just go into why I liked this entry in the series.
I think something you realize going back into this entry specifically is the perfect blend of aggression and pressure. Easily one of the toughest entries in the series and while I do prefer the difficulty boost compared to later entries, it does come with some frustrations that kinda hindered my experience back into going into Easy. One of the biggest ones is attempting to level up bodyguards in musou mode on Normal. Playing regularly is fun but those starter two privates die to a sneeze that it felt like babysitting just for them to actually get experience for the stage since that's the only way they develop themselves. Maps are pretty huge too and without a horse item, you're gonna be spending most of the time running around empty fields unless you take all the time to defeat enemies but comes the inherit risk of just dying to an unfortunate musou combo at the end that can waste thirty minutes down the drain. Don't get me wrong, I love the difficulty here since it keeps me focused but I think you should grab some items and upgrades for certain gameplay mechanics before fully attempting it.
The elephant in the room has to be the voice acting which I think is okay but it can be pretty egregious (in a good way personally). Character designs in 3 are some of my favorite with how colorful each design has and how practical they are. Playing a vast majority of the characters myself, they each feel pretty unique and fun especially Lu Bu which is essentially easy mode in itself. It's not a Dynasty Warriors games at this point of the series without a solid soundtrack to boot.
I really think this game is where the series rose into prominence and found its stride especially with the addition of Xtreme Legends adding more content into the game down the line and future spin offs to boot after this. I'm more surprised this still holds up despite some of the gameplay quirks that come with it but it's more to show how strong and familiar the musou formula has been for years. Musou is adapting now it's never bad to forget where we once were.
I felt the rise of that old familiar feeling
An extremely good follow-up to the original Max Payne that is leaps and bounds from the original game in so many ways but the overall premise of the scenario and writing which I found to be weaker than the original premise for the story. That said, this game is a true technical marvel especially for a 2003 game and playing it nineteen years later still holds up extremely well especially in the texture work and models. On paper it just seems like a straight improvement over the original but I feel like it lost a bit of its edge as well. Funnily enough this is the Max Payne I've spent the most time in just because of the gameplay and the mods are even more out there especially the cinema mod.
The overall conspiracy feels less inspired than the original and Max's personal anguish this time around is the full center and focus of this narrative. I couldn't even put my finger on it either but there's just some questionable moments in the story that I found off putting and the lack of great metaphors really hamper my overall enjoyment of the game. The nightmare levels don't even feel like nightmares in this one but more like psychedelic trips this time around. It loses that nervousness the first game manages to invoke in me but that's not to say they aren't completely bad. I will say the the little story flourishes in the enemy conversations add so much to the experience per usual and hearing how the answering machine actually remembered my call later is a great touch. The television shows have more effort put into them and you can actually see the stills used properly now as well.
That said, Max Payne 2 improves in every regard elsewhere though that it's not even funny. In the span of two years, almost every graphical asset as been improved. Weapon models, shell casing, animations, the texture work even still holds up incredibly well too. The addition of ragdolls while not remotely a huge deal now manages to be something incredible immersive especially when time is slowed to a crawl. Even more so is the improvement to Bullet Time where instead of time slowing down at a fixed amount, time slows down is based on how many enemies you kill illustrated by the golden luster of the hourglass. It will get to the point where you're acting in seconds and the enemies are almost completely still in frame all accompanied by a cool as fuck reloading animation. Even the sound of the weapons feel like they have more of an impact as well.
I can gush about the technical aspect of the second game all day but I wanted to talk about the other general improvements to gameplay. Melee and grenades finally have a hotkey of their own instead of having to select it from a menu, new weapons adding better weapon variety in the earlier acts without having to wait until Act III to use an assault rifle of any kind are many examples here. You even play as a second character during specific chapters but she isn't much different from Max other than the weapons she starts with but it's more for story purposes if anything. I will say the game introduces a few segments and chapters that felt like were added for the sake of variety instead of just being straight up fun like guiding a very slow escort for the entire chapter. Protecting someone from high above isn't too bad but without the little segments of having to move around, it would get tedious pretty fast. I will say though I felt the game to be much easier than the first title by a huge margin, I died way less and felt like enemies did way less damage in general. The adaptive difficulty seems to be present in the second title but to what extent, it definitely feels less which might be a good or bad thing but learning towards bad considering quick saving is still present.
I felt like the overall story of Max Payne 2 didn't have that much of an impact for me this time around. Max's tragic love story felt kind of forced in my honest opinion or maybe a way for Max to cope with the events of the first game. Personal experience aside, I do remember my stepfather playing this one too on the PS2 so it's not like I'm viewing this title with brand new eyes either. Technically, it's a much better game in every way and I still highly recommend playing this one nonetheless. This game is also getting a remake with the first game which I really don't feel like it needs in all honesty. This game still holds up incredibly well from a technical point that I think you shouldn't wait for the remake for this one at all. Play this as it is on PC.
An extremely good follow-up to the original Max Payne that is leaps and bounds from the original game in so many ways but the overall premise of the scenario and writing which I found to be weaker than the original premise for the story. That said, this game is a true technical marvel especially for a 2003 game and playing it nineteen years later still holds up extremely well especially in the texture work and models. On paper it just seems like a straight improvement over the original but I feel like it lost a bit of its edge as well. Funnily enough this is the Max Payne I've spent the most time in just because of the gameplay and the mods are even more out there especially the cinema mod.
The overall conspiracy feels less inspired than the original and Max's personal anguish this time around is the full center and focus of this narrative. I couldn't even put my finger on it either but there's just some questionable moments in the story that I found off putting and the lack of great metaphors really hamper my overall enjoyment of the game. The nightmare levels don't even feel like nightmares in this one but more like psychedelic trips this time around. It loses that nervousness the first game manages to invoke in me but that's not to say they aren't completely bad. I will say the the little story flourishes in the enemy conversations add so much to the experience per usual and hearing how the answering machine actually remembered my call later is a great touch. The television shows have more effort put into them and you can actually see the stills used properly now as well.
That said, Max Payne 2 improves in every regard elsewhere though that it's not even funny. In the span of two years, almost every graphical asset as been improved. Weapon models, shell casing, animations, the texture work even still holds up incredibly well too. The addition of ragdolls while not remotely a huge deal now manages to be something incredible immersive especially when time is slowed to a crawl. Even more so is the improvement to Bullet Time where instead of time slowing down at a fixed amount, time slows down is based on how many enemies you kill illustrated by the golden luster of the hourglass. It will get to the point where you're acting in seconds and the enemies are almost completely still in frame all accompanied by a cool as fuck reloading animation. Even the sound of the weapons feel like they have more of an impact as well.
I can gush about the technical aspect of the second game all day but I wanted to talk about the other general improvements to gameplay. Melee and grenades finally have a hotkey of their own instead of having to select it from a menu, new weapons adding better weapon variety in the earlier acts without having to wait until Act III to use an assault rifle of any kind are many examples here. You even play as a second character during specific chapters but she isn't much different from Max other than the weapons she starts with but it's more for story purposes if anything. I will say the game introduces a few segments and chapters that felt like were added for the sake of variety instead of just being straight up fun like guiding a very slow escort for the entire chapter. Protecting someone from high above isn't too bad but without the little segments of having to move around, it would get tedious pretty fast. I will say though I felt the game to be much easier than the first title by a huge margin, I died way less and felt like enemies did way less damage in general. The adaptive difficulty seems to be present in the second title but to what extent, it definitely feels less which might be a good or bad thing but learning towards bad considering quick saving is still present.
I felt like the overall story of Max Payne 2 didn't have that much of an impact for me this time around. Max's tragic love story felt kind of forced in my honest opinion or maybe a way for Max to cope with the events of the first game. Personal experience aside, I do remember my stepfather playing this one too on the PS2 so it's not like I'm viewing this title with brand new eyes either. Technically, it's a much better game in every way and I still highly recommend playing this one nonetheless. This game is also getting a remake with the first game which I really don't feel like it needs in all honesty. This game still holds up incredibly well from a technical point that I think you shouldn't wait for the remake for this one at all. Play this as it is on PC.
2001
A bit closer to heaven
I can't exactly remember the specific year and date at this point but it was during the early 2000s when my stepdad bought a copy of Max Payne for the PS2 and played it in the living room to the chagrin of him constantly dying because he never used bullet time at all. He managed to beat the whole game on PS2 without using bullet time which kinda sounds unheard of when I heard about it at the time. My experiences with the game at first didn't stop there either. I remember seeing him playing the nightmare level and much to its namesake because of how my mind worked and a fear of blood at the time, I ended up getting nightmares for two weeks because of it. I couldn't process what I even saw because I was around the age of seven and nine when this happened. I pretty much never touched the game again until I was a teenager with a laptop and able to get it online playing it for the first time and actually being able to digest what I experienced. Eventually replayed the game in a constant fervor using various mods such as the kung fu mod.
It's hard to argue how much effort Remedy has put into this neo-noir third person shooter. The act of slowing down time, events playing out via comic strips, wearing the obvious influences on its back almost feels like a miracle to me. Just for the notion of introducing one of my favorite mechanics in video games ever, Bullet Time. Something about slowing down and seeing the literal projectiles flying over you must have been no small technical feat for the Finnish developer at the time.
Even with knowing every single story beat and level by heart, playing some of the levels still manages to give me a cold sweat of sorts especially the nightmare levels. It feels like a part of me still gets paralyzed from the thought even though I know it isn't real anymore. You can purely play Max Payne as a regular third person shooter but I feel you'll miss out a bit. Listening to the enemies' conversations, even watching the in world television shows after hearing them an insurmountable amount of time never gets old.
The art of gunplay still feels satisfying to a great degree. A huge variety of weapons at your disposal including full on spray and pray like the ingrams or the accurate and slow sniper rifle, each gun feels great to use to a degree. A minor quirk of the gameplay is the difficulty on Fugitive (the standard and the only one you can pick on the first playthrough). It follows an interesting dynamic difficulty mechanic where it goes off how often you're dying in a predetermined amount of time. Dying too much will lower the difficulty but not dying at all after a while will ramp it up. Can't stress enough either that you shouldn't quick load immediately since the difficulty only lowers when you complete the death animation. If I can give you a single piece of advice for playing this game is to save often. It'll save you some frustrating headaches as enemies can come out of almost every corner and one shot you even on regular settings.
I really wish I can talk more about this game. The writing really speaks for itself, it all comes together like a tinfoil conspiracy theory. The gameplay is still great and simple to a huge benefit of just aiming and shooting with a spread. Best way to play it is on PC (with a fix all patch to restore sound and make it actually work for some computers) and or Xbox since I heard that's a decent version too. Avoid the PS2 version as it's a more lackluster version of the game overall. With news of a remake on the horizon, I'm cautiously optimistic that Remedy will be able to do it justice but I still recommend playing the original since I really feel like you'll lose out a bit of the charm that went into the original !
I can't exactly remember the specific year and date at this point but it was during the early 2000s when my stepdad bought a copy of Max Payne for the PS2 and played it in the living room to the chagrin of him constantly dying because he never used bullet time at all. He managed to beat the whole game on PS2 without using bullet time which kinda sounds unheard of when I heard about it at the time. My experiences with the game at first didn't stop there either. I remember seeing him playing the nightmare level and much to its namesake because of how my mind worked and a fear of blood at the time, I ended up getting nightmares for two weeks because of it. I couldn't process what I even saw because I was around the age of seven and nine when this happened. I pretty much never touched the game again until I was a teenager with a laptop and able to get it online playing it for the first time and actually being able to digest what I experienced. Eventually replayed the game in a constant fervor using various mods such as the kung fu mod.
It's hard to argue how much effort Remedy has put into this neo-noir third person shooter. The act of slowing down time, events playing out via comic strips, wearing the obvious influences on its back almost feels like a miracle to me. Just for the notion of introducing one of my favorite mechanics in video games ever, Bullet Time. Something about slowing down and seeing the literal projectiles flying over you must have been no small technical feat for the Finnish developer at the time.
Even with knowing every single story beat and level by heart, playing some of the levels still manages to give me a cold sweat of sorts especially the nightmare levels. It feels like a part of me still gets paralyzed from the thought even though I know it isn't real anymore. You can purely play Max Payne as a regular third person shooter but I feel you'll miss out a bit. Listening to the enemies' conversations, even watching the in world television shows after hearing them an insurmountable amount of time never gets old.
The art of gunplay still feels satisfying to a great degree. A huge variety of weapons at your disposal including full on spray and pray like the ingrams or the accurate and slow sniper rifle, each gun feels great to use to a degree. A minor quirk of the gameplay is the difficulty on Fugitive (the standard and the only one you can pick on the first playthrough). It follows an interesting dynamic difficulty mechanic where it goes off how often you're dying in a predetermined amount of time. Dying too much will lower the difficulty but not dying at all after a while will ramp it up. Can't stress enough either that you shouldn't quick load immediately since the difficulty only lowers when you complete the death animation. If I can give you a single piece of advice for playing this game is to save often. It'll save you some frustrating headaches as enemies can come out of almost every corner and one shot you even on regular settings.
I really wish I can talk more about this game. The writing really speaks for itself, it all comes together like a tinfoil conspiracy theory. The gameplay is still great and simple to a huge benefit of just aiming and shooting with a spread. Best way to play it is on PC (with a fix all patch to restore sound and make it actually work for some computers) and or Xbox since I heard that's a decent version too. Avoid the PS2 version as it's a more lackluster version of the game overall. With news of a remake on the horizon, I'm cautiously optimistic that Remedy will be able to do it justice but I still recommend playing the original since I really feel like you'll lose out a bit of the charm that went into the original !
I put down my weapon, look around at all my companions and feel relief.
Thinking "finally, another day down".
Then I think of tomorrow and the tremors are back.
Will I see the same faces when I wake...?
Will I even be around to see them?
This game really feels like they put a lot of love for the fans in this one. It's probably my second favorite Xeno game purely from a gameplay standpoint but there's a lot of care that was put into this title from a narrative, character driven and thematic standpoint that feels hard to ignore even when it fumbles a little to the goal. Even putting recency bias aside, I had high expectations for this title and happy to say it met them and then some. Xenoblade 3 represents the best that both games have to offer with a heart wrenching narrative, a great ensemble main cast of the six Ouroboros and the usual workings of a great xeno title with music and gameplay to boot.
The characters are one of the best things about this title as they feel extremely realistic for the setting and have amazing chemistry with each other. Relationships flourishing naturally and each of them having their grand time in the spotlight and it's not just for a couple of minutes either. Noah and Mio are obviously the focus still but it really does feel like the rest of the cast aren't just cardboard cutouts after their initial arc ends giving them a huge specific side quest chain for each character with animated cutscenes and voice acting that feels like it belongs in the main story. It's always charming seeing the camp interactions with each develop as the game goes on and the scenes where they bounce thoughts off each other really help in their overall development down the line. I even enjoyed most of the side quests here and especially the hero quests which flesh them out pretty well and got me invested in each of their stories.
The pacing can be pretty slow but I didn't mind that much since I felt like it was important to build the characters up before exposing what's happening behind the scenes. I think in terms of what happens in the overall narrative is decent in terms of the actual events that happen within the story and building up to the eventual confrontation with the true evil. I do think if I had to complain about one thing about the overall structure of the writing then it's probably the villains. N, M and J and D are great but the Consuls and Moebius feel a little under cooked and felt more of a quantity vs quality situation which I feel like they could've scaled back and developed a few of them instead of having so many that share the same comically evil attitude for most of the side quests and go into their motives more. Takahashi wasn't lying when he said you can play 3 by itself because this really feels like a standalone title apart from a few references and appreciation for some the characters you'll see. It doesn't feel that surprising either considering the last two titles are mostly standalone too and despite being the third game in a trilogy marketed as the culmination of the past two games, it was never about closure of the series but bringing the best of the two worlds together with their characters, locations and gameplay. I would still recommend playing the past two games but if you want to play 3 that bad then you really can, you won't be that lost.
I will always be surprised when modern JRPGs sometimes refuse to put in job systems in some of their titles instead of relying on purely blank slates or character focused builds and mechanics. This is honestly the best Xenoblade gameplay and it's not even close. Multiple jobs and roles give a new style of playing and building characters that feels fresh and really lets you get creative with the combat. If the marketing of the culmination of the series wasn't blatant enough, you'll always have three Keves (Xenoblade 1 timer based arts) arts and three Agnus (Xenoblade 2 auto attack charge based arts) and have the ability to combine their effects as well. Each character feels fast to play on their own but you also have the option of finally being able to switch characters in combat, combine into Ouroboros to stave off death and powered up based on how well you're playing already and chain attacks which stops time and lets you pile on damage. I could write two thousands words explaining the combat alone but you'll probably just watch some youtube video about it or read a class guide anyway so I'm gonna save my sanity and just say the customization, the variety of playstyles and even the new dash makes combat feel so smooth that it makes it hard to go back honestly. Xenoblade games have never been starved for content but this game is really ramps up what you can do here.
It's a Xenoblade game so it pretty much warranted to have good music and I was thinking it was the weakest soundtrack yet until I realized they legit saved all the good tracks until the post game which is kinda funny: Click this or Click this at your expense as these are music spoilers and don't say I didn't warn you. Some of the field tracks give off some nice tranquil and serene vibes which feels like being in the calm in the middle of a huge storm that is constant warfare and death like Ribbi Flats and Erythia Sea. I will say though despite how much I love the chain attack theme, there really should be an option to turn it off during specific fights or completely since it'll overwrite the unique battle themes which can be pretty jarring in certain scenarios.
As someone that played mostly every notable Xeno game now at this point, I'm really happy with how 3 turned out. It fumbled a bit in the home stretch but I really enjoyed the ending sequence and it made me feel extremely sad having to say goodbye to them which is extremely rare for me but alls well that ends well. If you're a fan of any of the Xenoblade games, you're probably playing this and beat it already but I think it's the best of both worlds just like Noah, Mio, Eunie, Taion, Lanz and Sena are.
Thinking "finally, another day down".
Then I think of tomorrow and the tremors are back.
Will I see the same faces when I wake...?
Will I even be around to see them?
This game really feels like they put a lot of love for the fans in this one. It's probably my second favorite Xeno game purely from a gameplay standpoint but there's a lot of care that was put into this title from a narrative, character driven and thematic standpoint that feels hard to ignore even when it fumbles a little to the goal. Even putting recency bias aside, I had high expectations for this title and happy to say it met them and then some. Xenoblade 3 represents the best that both games have to offer with a heart wrenching narrative, a great ensemble main cast of the six Ouroboros and the usual workings of a great xeno title with music and gameplay to boot.
The characters are one of the best things about this title as they feel extremely realistic for the setting and have amazing chemistry with each other. Relationships flourishing naturally and each of them having their grand time in the spotlight and it's not just for a couple of minutes either. Noah and Mio are obviously the focus still but it really does feel like the rest of the cast aren't just cardboard cutouts after their initial arc ends giving them a huge specific side quest chain for each character with animated cutscenes and voice acting that feels like it belongs in the main story. It's always charming seeing the camp interactions with each develop as the game goes on and the scenes where they bounce thoughts off each other really help in their overall development down the line. I even enjoyed most of the side quests here and especially the hero quests which flesh them out pretty well and got me invested in each of their stories.
The pacing can be pretty slow but I didn't mind that much since I felt like it was important to build the characters up before exposing what's happening behind the scenes. I think in terms of what happens in the overall narrative is decent in terms of the actual events that happen within the story and building up to the eventual confrontation with the true evil. I do think if I had to complain about one thing about the overall structure of the writing then it's probably the villains. N, M and J and D are great but the Consuls and Moebius feel a little under cooked and felt more of a quantity vs quality situation which I feel like they could've scaled back and developed a few of them instead of having so many that share the same comically evil attitude for most of the side quests and go into their motives more. Takahashi wasn't lying when he said you can play 3 by itself because this really feels like a standalone title apart from a few references and appreciation for some the characters you'll see. It doesn't feel that surprising either considering the last two titles are mostly standalone too and despite being the third game in a trilogy marketed as the culmination of the past two games, it was never about closure of the series but bringing the best of the two worlds together with their characters, locations and gameplay. I would still recommend playing the past two games but if you want to play 3 that bad then you really can, you won't be that lost.
I will always be surprised when modern JRPGs sometimes refuse to put in job systems in some of their titles instead of relying on purely blank slates or character focused builds and mechanics. This is honestly the best Xenoblade gameplay and it's not even close. Multiple jobs and roles give a new style of playing and building characters that feels fresh and really lets you get creative with the combat. If the marketing of the culmination of the series wasn't blatant enough, you'll always have three Keves (Xenoblade 1 timer based arts) arts and three Agnus (Xenoblade 2 auto attack charge based arts) and have the ability to combine their effects as well. Each character feels fast to play on their own but you also have the option of finally being able to switch characters in combat, combine into Ouroboros to stave off death and powered up based on how well you're playing already and chain attacks which stops time and lets you pile on damage. I could write two thousands words explaining the combat alone but you'll probably just watch some youtube video about it or read a class guide anyway so I'm gonna save my sanity and just say the customization, the variety of playstyles and even the new dash makes combat feel so smooth that it makes it hard to go back honestly. Xenoblade games have never been starved for content but this game is really ramps up what you can do here.
It's a Xenoblade game so it pretty much warranted to have good music and I was thinking it was the weakest soundtrack yet until I realized they legit saved all the good tracks until the post game which is kinda funny: Click this or Click this at your expense as these are music spoilers and don't say I didn't warn you. Some of the field tracks give off some nice tranquil and serene vibes which feels like being in the calm in the middle of a huge storm that is constant warfare and death like Ribbi Flats and Erythia Sea. I will say though despite how much I love the chain attack theme, there really should be an option to turn it off during specific fights or completely since it'll overwrite the unique battle themes which can be pretty jarring in certain scenarios.
As someone that played mostly every notable Xeno game now at this point, I'm really happy with how 3 turned out. It fumbled a bit in the home stretch but I really enjoyed the ending sequence and it made me feel extremely sad having to say goodbye to them which is extremely rare for me but alls well that ends well. If you're a fan of any of the Xenoblade games, you're probably playing this and beat it already but I think it's the best of both worlds just like Noah, Mio, Eunie, Taion, Lanz and Sena are.