Dynasty Warriors

It seems to have been recorded in the Records, so Lu Bu shooting the halberd has some historical basis, at least.

For a really silly fictional event involving archers, though, there was that Wei archery competition which Cao Cao held at the Bronze Bird Tower - first prize being a silk robe:

• Cao Xiu hits the bullseye;
• Wen Ping hits the bullseye;
• Cao Hong hits the bullseye;
• Zhang He hits the bullseye while shooting backwards;
• Xiahou Yuan hits the bullseye while bent over backwards;
• Xu Huang hits the twig holding the silk robe up;
• ...and then Xu Chu just pops out of nowhere and mugs Xu Huang for it, and the resulting brawl ruins the robe, so Cao Cao has to hand out robes for everybody.

Now that's a bonus mission I'd like to see.

edited 25th May '15 10:00:13 AM by Pyrite

That story is the kind of "punch before talk" shit that is the lifeblood of all the joke stages. Why that hasn't been a joke stage yet is almost criminal.

On an unrelated note, has anyone seen the DW Blast character designs? Baffling additions, like Zhang Fei's "wife" Xiahou Ji nonwithstanding, some of them are really cool. Why it took this long for us to get any semblance of unique designs for Liao Hua or Cheng Pu is beyond me.

The Shu additions, in particular, are wonderful. They're some of the most Chinese looking designs in Dynasty Warriors.

edited 25th May '15 5:39:20 AM by mrsunshinesprinkles

Hmm links? pics? I didn't even know Blast existed.

Eh? *Googles* http://koei.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Shin_Sangoku_Musou_Blast_Character_Images

Hmm interesting, the next real DW game will probably have over one hundred characters then.

Most of the guy designs are quite odd but wow I like almost all the new girl designs. Especially Cao Jie and Jia Nanfeng.

God Nanfeng is so fitting.

EDIT: I like Sun Luyu and Wang Yue a lot too. Although with Wang Yue and Wang Tao in, Guan Suo now has 3 wives in DW. Wait Meng Huo's daughter Huaman is also in this, that is 4 wives.

Edit2: Xiahouji is a girl who is always with a teddy bear... Wtf now how is that going to go with Xing Cai being her daughter.

Edit3: Dong Bai, Dong Zhuo's granddaughter, is a goth loli. Somehow quite fitting.

edited 25th May '15 8:32:08 AM by Memers

Having Jia Nanfeng and no Sima Yan is weird.

If she really will be in the next DW, though...that will be interesting. If they pull through with showing Jin's collapse, that would take a colossal pair of balls.

Her design really is lovely. Sinister, yet elegant, but most importantly, she is a grown woman, yet her clothes actually cover her up. Bold new territory for Tecmo Koei.

The real question on Lady Xiahou is how the truffing hell can they sugar coat Zhang Fei abducting and forcefully marrying a 14 year old. The awkward sugar coating of Liu Bei's actions gets jarring enough in 8.

Yuan Shu, Li Jue and Guo Si look posolutely delightful. We need more unforgivable monsters to be playable.

edited 25th May '15 10:31:52 AM by mrsunshinesprinkles

That's a lot of dudes.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them became "canon" in the next DW game (since DW has sporked designs from spin off games before, like with Cai Wenji) but a lot of them are too minor to really do much with.

Like, while I'd love to see the likes of Yuan Shu, Bianshi, Liao Hua and such become canon, we also got folks like Ma Su, Wang Lang, and various Yellow Turban officers I saw in there, who'd show up in a single stage at most.

Though, I am amused to see Dong Bai, Dong Zhuo's granddaughter who is mainly known to me as being a damsel in distress in DW6: Empires. According to the Koei Wiki, she did nothing of note but basically get made an adult and promoted early due to Zhuo's nepotism.

Also, Cao Jie, while also not likely to be playable (since Emperior Xian is a bit player at most), gets points for basically telling Cao Pi to go suck it.

EDIT: Oh hey, they included He Jin's sister too. But not He Jin, weird. Both of them would be good additions if you wanted to focus on the early game fall of the Han political intrigue.

edited 25th May '15 12:13:56 PM by Otherarrow

Okay I have question. What's your favorite Dynasty Warriors song / music? I personally like Thousand Suns (DW 7 version), Arena, and Teary Edge to name a few.

Thousand Suns DW 8, no contest

Capricious Wind/Seventh Journey/Crest of Thirst

@Arrow: Realistically speaking, not a lot of them will be playable for reals yo, but it would be interesting if they were. More importantly, it would be interesting to see how the hell that would happen.

x4 The game seems to have given her a rather interesting plot.

From the wikia.

edited 25th May '15 9:23:06 PM by Memers

That's... quite interesting. History is much more harsh, though, I know that. It could even shake those who likes Zhang Fei.

Do you have the plots for others?

Ahuh...Ahumm...Uhm...

Alright, disregarding historical context, because bringing that up would be a losing battle....That's basically modern Sun Shangxiang's story. Whatever hopes I had for Ms. Xiahou are a bit dashed now. Unless she shows personality beyond being Zhang Fei's love interest, once she hooks up with Zhang Fei.

Or if it turns out that bunny of hers is her weapon.

edited 25th May '15 11:53:39 PM by mrsunshinesprinkles

Or if SSX is reverted back to her old personality, letting Ms. Xiahou take up her new personality?

Tumblr account with fantastic historical / DW comparisons. I do have a small problem with how he practically ignores Romance in discussing the differences in characterisation, since it's hard to blame Koei for using Romance as their source material instead of the actual historical records, but it's an excellent read otherwise.

edited 26th May '15 8:14:14 PM by Pyrite

My problem is more like that he is too heavily onto the historical portrayal and makes it like the liberal addition by KOEI means jack shit and if the character in history is horrid, then there is no way one can like the character.

I follow that blog. It's great. The man cites his sources, so the articles are guaranteed to be legit, and they're more interesting to read than the Wikipedia articles.

I mentioned Pang Tong earlier, but I'll do it again; his musou spam setup's insane. I am blowing through the hardest stages on Chaos without much effort, and in record time.

He does make it clear that that's his own personal preference, though. He doesn't force that perspective onto you.

edited 26th May '15 9:22:08 PM by mrsunshinesprinkles

That's actually the other side of my issue with his ignoring of Romance: without it, it feels as though the analysis is missing a link showing how the characterisation changed so drastically between works, whether it's Flanderisation or a complete about-face. Many of the issues he blames Koei for actually have their roots in Romance and earlier material, even if they weren't as blatant back then.

(Of course, he does have an understandable anti-Shu bias.)

edited 26th May '15 9:57:54 PM by Pyrite

And now, for the announcement that shocks absolutely no one.

That's right, friends, a new Dynasty Warriors game. Truly, this earth shattering revelation comes only once in a lifetime.

It was mentioned, long before, that they wanted to change up the game system for something fresh. Boy, does that sound familiar, eh?

I think the articles did a good job at linking the characters to their historical counterparts (At the conclusions at least). I will concede that barely mentioning Romance is a missed opportunity, but I'm not personally bothered by it.

edited 27th May '15 12:13:00 AM by mrsunshinesprinkles

Just don't mess things up like roster cut or Renbu System.

I find it hilarious how the guy hates Zhuge Liang so much. Also the little "tumblrism" kind of shows in regards to like every chick showing a bit of skin, jeez.

It wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't every single design (Hyperbole, but still).

That's the perfect example of one of Tecmo Koei's bigger problems; sexism that reaches ridiculous heights. Many of the females are more like satelites than characters, and many of them have about two dimensions going for them. The characters also rarely break out of that realm of conventionally attractive; with the dudes, we have our pretty boys, fat bastards, old men, and so on and so forth, while that's never been the case for Koei ladies. It's either you have the rack of a Goddess, or you're a Qiao sister, and thus, literally the worst.

You might say "well ancient China", but Dynasty Warriors both takes creative liberties, and in real life, there were strong women in the Three Kingdoms that took matters to their own hands.

A perfect example of how weird it got is with Warriors Orochi 3. Almost all the women in any given story event seemed to be struggling to withstand the ever fearsome might of your average mook, before the men shoved them aside, and showed them how it's done. You spent an entire level rescuing women kidnapped by Dong Zhuo, and Joan of Arc was in distress, before she was rescued by Magoichi, I mean come on.

That's not saying all women in the series are terrible, and it has been getting better as of late. We've got more than our fair share of tough ladies, and some of them even cover themselves up, but that undercurrent is still there.

edited 27th May '15 11:23:43 PM by mrsunshinesprinkles

The biggest problem I have against history buffs is that most of their comments leers into passive aggressive statements, like stating that if you like Shu or Zhuge Liang, you're all just deluding yourselves to lies propagated by Luo Guanzhong and then KOEI and that the more 'proper' fans is the one who knows the truth of history and how much of a suckage Shu and Zhuge Liang are in real history. All done in a way of passive aggressive manner that even if they mention it like "You can like whatever you like", it's having vibes of talking crap about those who actually like Shu via ROTK and are like "Okay, they are not that good in history, but their presentation in story is enjoyable."

Which is why when it comes to history stuffs, I really would just rather stay away.

edited 27th May '15 11:42:20 PM by ChrisX

-Looks at the DW 8 DLC weapons-

Well, those look fun. Before I end up buying them, though, do they come with Extreme/Empires anyway?

@Chrisx: Fair enough.

@Tropay: Apparently the Emei Piercers are hilariously good. Dunno about the others though.

I can form an opinion on the Dragon Column though; what the fuck. It's weird enough they managed to put a bench in, and weirder that they made it Liu Shan's new Ex weapon in Empires.

I'm playing Huang Zhong on a horse on Chaos and oh man Huang Zhong on a horse. Doing this, along with the normal Cyclone-Flash-Slash-Jubilation-Velocity-Thunder weapon setup makes for a very weird experience.

You want the enemy to have an affinity advantage over you, or block you because of elemental activations. You can destroy enemy officers in literally seconds, but you don't kill as many peons. It's insane.

...I feel like this Bodyguard thing is glitched.

Every time my bodyguard summons me, I end up talking with someone I maxed my bonds with ages ago.

Also, who's the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to downgrade the Merchant when it's maxed out?