There’s nothing like deep gameplay to keep a lot of flaws out of the eyes of gamers. I have always believed that if you make a good game, then gamers will forgive you for lackluster moments. That’s pretty much how I can sum up the experience with Dynasty Warriors 8 – Empires. It’s a game that visually seems like it is stuck in 2011, but screams on the inside that it’s ready for the Playstation 4/Xbox One era.
Without further delay, let’s talk.
The gameplay for Dynasty Warriors 8 – Empires is nothing short of brilliant. It has the depth you would expect when it comes to the usual fighting structure. You’re assigned certain tasks and you’ve got to systematically take out leadership to conquer kingdoms, people and countries. It’s the type of gameplay you would expect from DW and it isn’t short on delivering that with Empires. You’ll also find a lot of wonderful moments of hack and slash slices of heaven to enjoy. It’s my favorite, mindless part of the game and THE thing I look forward to when it comes to playing this series.
There is more beyond just that, though.
There’s more intelligence involved with the gameplay in Empires. You get to do quite a bit before the battle begins. Gathering up military leaders/generals suite your fancy? The game has that in it. Playing a game of politics by inviting leaders over to create alliances? Included and that doesn’t always work depending on how you’re situated in the game (power/money/people/etc.). How about trying to manage the economic structure of your kingdom by creating alliances, completing quests (raiding, accomplishing tasks, assassinations) and such? Also included in Empires and it makes for one helluva fun experience when you’re looking for a little bit more than just a typical raid/conquer scenario.
What I also found fascinating, and this is something I don’t recall in seeing in Xtreme Legends (DW8), is that Empires is far more involved with the entire structure of the kingdom system. It has really dipped into the Civilization/Populous pond and come out with so many avenues to allow the player to succeed beautifully and fail miserably. It puts Dynasty Warriors in an entirely new structured world where you just don’t fight to gain power, you have to do a lot more. This puts quite a bit of depth behind what is traditionally a fighting game. It makes it far less one-dimensional, though I think there are some improvements that could be made to make it a bit more streamlined. Regardless, the depth makes the gameplay more engaging and certainly makes the experience more satisfying.
With that said, the main draw, at least for me, is the raid/conquer scenario. The mindless fun that can spring out of that is endless. You still have certain objectives to meet in raids/battles that you can score extra points for, which helps to add a bit more strategy to the hack/slash nature of this series. The girth of the battles is something to behold, as you literally have to strategize how you’re going to approach teams of enemies and how best to dispense them. Now, included with that, and something that experienced players should know by now, is that you’re basically going to be a one-man army in this game. Your’e going to do the majority of the fighting and conquering and, quite often, bailing out your comrades that find themselves in sticky situations. That part in particular has forever annoyed me about this game series, as it needs a bit more NPC involvement. It always seems like that is severely lacking. Regardless, I do always feel like a conquering hero when I win battles.
All in all, gameplay is the reason you want to play this game, especially if you’re a fan of the series.
Graphically, I have to knock Dynasty Warriors yet again. This is the second go around with the current generation hardware and it really hasn’t improved that much in terms of quality. There are moments were the clothing during the non-battle scenes looks like it could be on the graphical cusp of PlayStation 4 quality, but as soon as the battles begin again, we’re back to bland textures and PlayStation 3 high-quality material. While I certainly understand that Koei Tecmo Games is probably just starting some projects that show off their developer capabilities in regards to current generation hardware, it honestly just seems like they didn’t try to improve. The clothing has pixilated shadows on it (see head bands for details), the player and NPC movements seem a bit underwhelming in terms of frame rate and the textures just aren’t as detailed as they could be. Even the environments look a bit lackluster, though I will say they have improved when it comes to depth of field. Other than that, you’re looking at some great gameplay that has gotten slightly deeper, but the visuals and presentation is still on par with last generation intentions.
Having said that, my intention isn’t to be cruel towards the developers at Omega Force, but it does seem like opportunities are being wasted when it comes to making this game something really special as an entire package. We’ll see how the next one does in this category. As of right now, just expect more of what you saw from the last DW8.
At the end of the day, is this game worth the cost and is it worth your time. Yes and yes. If you’re a fan of the series and want to continue the deep adventure that Omega Force has put together in previous Dynasty Warriors, then definitely don’t pass this one up. It’s got depth, a great leveling system and enough content to warrant the price of admission, which is $49.99. There’s so much to do in the game and so many ways you can cultivate your character’s path. It’s incredibly deep for a DW game.
