Dynasty Warriors 8 Review | WGTC

Nick from We Got This Covered wrote:

The eighth instalment of the hack and slash Dynasty Warriors franchise, developed by Omega Force and published by Tecmo Koei, is one of the more promising titles in the series. Dynasty Warriors 8 has an incredibly deep story line, visually impressive graphics, and the most varied gameplay options of any other game based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel.

[Xof]

I'm honestly very surprised by the game.

Some parts of it are just so much better than any other of the current-gen musou games... and other parts are just so much worse. It's certainly a game of extremes.

[Master-H]

How does the gameplay feel? is it fast paced and light like DW7 or slower and more weighty like the old ones like DW3/4 .
Also does the normal difficulty still feel too easy or they upgraded the AI a lil from DW7?

[Xof]

The gameplay feels great. It's the one aspect they polished to perfection. Combat has a lot more depth and is fast and fluid, there are different weapon types with a rock-paper-scissors dynamic--you can switch between any two weapons in battle--and everything just flows really well.

The AI is one of those things that's gotten worse. I've only been playing on normal and hard, but contrasting it to normal/hard in prior games... it's a definite step down.

Enemies are very docile. There are a lot of them, and they'll bunch up on you, but in a mass of 200 soldiers you'll maybe get one guy who pokes you with a spear. Enemy cavalry and archers appear to be broken (at those difficulties at least) as I've never seen them attack (12 hours of play). What's really annoying is that enemy officer AI is just terrible. 90% of the time all they'll do is guard. Constantly.

And the strategic AI is even more disappointing. Bases and capture points are gone. Now, endless streams of enemies will spawn at set points indefinitely and stream toward scripted goals, they no longer route when flag-bearers are defeated... and there are essentially no more allied troops so there's no more incentive to kill non-officer enemies.

....

True to musou form, it's very much a case of "two steps forward, two steps back." For example, the engine is much more detailed this time around... but at the cost of diminished draw distances and mud-colored skies.

...

But it's good enough that I'm very hopeful for the inevitable EMPRIRES version. The gameplay is much better than ANY prior game, and the narrative is equal to or better (in equal measure) to DW7, so if you're a musou fan it's a safe buy, I think.

[Tdmd]

@Maste-H (#1.2.1)
Why was 7 a disappointment to you?

[Tdmd]

@Xof (#1.1.1)

Great honest analysis, dude! Thank you and bubble up! After a long time away from the series, I'd thought it was about time to get back, but where to go back to? 7 with cheaper price or 8, with all the latest improvements? Now that I've learned about the AI issues with 8, I'll definetely go for 7 and save myself some cash.

[Master-H]

I haven't played 8 yet , but honestly 7 was a disappointment compared to last gen DW games, also the difficulty isn't balanced in 7, on normal the game is too easy i think only Lu BU is a lil tough, on hard and chaos the generals are stronger but it feels cheap because arrows is what kill me the most. my advice is to at least check out some gameplay vids of the two to decide.

[Master-H]

Well before i got 7 the last DW game i fully played was DW4, i tried DW5 a lil bit never finished it, Dw7 to me was too easy it didn't feel challenging at all , and when u upped the difficulty to chaos it kinda feels cheap because of all the arrows, also Mosuo mode (the story campaign) is fixed so that every battle you play as a one preset character that's related to the story, meaning you can't play the whole Shu story for example with just Lie Bei which greatly reduced the replay value for me, Also they took CO-Op out of story mode, also some of my favorite character's main weapons got changed, like Zhang Liao and Gang Ning, also in DW7 you can change weapons anytime with any characters but every character has a main weapon that hes more compatible with that you can do a special move with, but imo a lot of those weapons didnt feel great and i personally played most of the campaign with just Guan Yu's spear because it felt better , so the weapon system is good because it gives you options but to me it kinda made the characters lose their uniqueness , another thing the Duel system from DW4 is not there, another minor negative for me was that weapons with the wind element felt annoying to use but i might just be nitpicking, also the game doesnt have free mode, it has some other mode i forgot what's it called but i didnt play it because i was bored with the game at that point, the graphics is nothing above average but the animations aren't always smooth , sometimes you can feel the clunkiness of the moves, now the positives of the game for me were two things , first how they tell the story is fantastic with the pre-mission dialog and cut scenes i think it's the best part of the game and makes you very interested in knowing what happens next in the story, the other good thing is that mouso attacks are awesome, and some characters have two different mouso attacks.

[Xof]

7's main draw was the competently-told narrative... which, like I said, 8 has as well. So if you've been away from the series for a while, definitely get 8. The gameplay improvements are well worth it.

[Tdmd]

@Xof

Maybe, but what's the point of improved mechanics when, as you said, enemies won't attack you? I had every intention of getting 8 'till that statement of yours.

"Enemies are very docile. There are a lot of them, and they'll bunch up on you, but in a mass of 200 soldiers you'll maybe get one guy who pokes you with a spear. Enemy cavalry and archers appear to be broken (at those difficulties at least) as I've never seen them attack (12 hours of play). What's really annoying is that enemy officer AI is just terrible. 90% of the time all they'll do is guard. Constantly."

This sounds like a broken game to me. Wasn't it boring to you?

[Xof]

I think I mis-spoke a bit. When I say enemy officer, I mean the generic officers. Actual playable characters still provide a challenge--albeit only on the highest difficulties. There's enough challenge to the game that it's fun, but at the same time lacking in enough areas to constantly be noticeable.

Well, like I said, I have high hopes for Empires. So, if you're not looking to return to the series right away, I'd suggest waiting for that. If you do want to jump in right away, and are choosing between 7 and 8, choose 8.

One thing I forgot to mention that IS broken is the leveling system. Seriously, expect to go from level 1-20 on a normal map.