Dynasty Warriors 8 announced.

[ZhouTaiRoks]

First announcement made in this week's Famitsu. (info from Koei Warriors)
Main website here. (goes live in a day from now)

Expecting to break over 70 characters now, Wei's Li Dian (yes!) and Yue Jin make their first playable appearances as well as an unannounced male Wu general as of yet.

Li Dian is stated to use a "wheel halberd" , was notable for his calm yet cheerful personality as well as his involvement in the defense of Hefei. Yue Jin is similarly known for his defense of Hefei along with Zhang Liao and Li Dian, in this title he is said to fight with twin hook swords. (a long sought after weapon type in the series)

The title is expected to be released at some point in 2013, however it seems only Playstation 3 plans are being made at this point.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Character renders and screenshots.

 

[Alfiniti]

I hope they go back to the formula of Dynasty Warriors 3 for the Musou Mode. I really liked how it was like a surprise for me everytime I played. I would finish the story mode after beating it with one general, but then when I go back to the selection screen there would be a new general waiting for me to complete his story. It doesn't have to be like this but I would like the game to allow you to play as every character in the Musou Mode and not just a select few, through a few scenarios. I would like to be able to play one character for a full campaign, but I don't think what they did with Dynasty Warriors 7 was something different and wasn't bad but it just didn't do for me.

 

[Tiamatican]

Li Dian and Yue Jin? Nice. Yue Jin has long been missing. Li Dian's cool. I probably wouldn't have included him, but I have no problem with him being used. My thoughts for new Wei officers were Yue Jin, Yu Jin, and Cao Zhen, in that order. Cao Hong and Li Dian were the other two I thought would make sense.

I wonder who else they'll be bringing in. I'm hoping for Cheng Pu for Wu. His continuing omission is terrible.

I also hope this does go to the 360 when it comes over to North America. I'm not buying a PS3, and I'd hate to not get to play this one.

 

[Tiamatican]

Lu Su has been announced for Wu. Along with returns for Lu Xun, Lu Meng and Sun Quan.

Not a choice I would've made. I have nothing against Lu Su, but honestly, the tactician characters are usually the least interesting to play. Cheng Pu and Han Dang are much more deserving.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Han Dang should be revealed the next time more Wu characters are announced. Somebody leaked the new character list a week or so ago and Koei had them take down the list from their blog/website.

Spoiler

Shu: Guan Xing and Zhang Bao
Wei: Yue Jin and Li Dian
Wu: Lu Su and Han Dang
Jin: Jia Chong, Zhang Chunua and Wen Yang

Looking forward to Wen Yang, for that famous steel whip he wielded.

 

[Tiamatican]

Han Dang should be revealed the next time more Wu characters are announced. Somebody leaked the new character list a week or so ago and Koei had them take down the list from their blog/website.

Spoiler

Shu: Guan Xing and Zhang Bao
Wei: Yue Jin and Li Dian
Wu: Lu Su and Han Dang
Jin: Jia Chong, Zhang Chunua and Wen Yang

Looking forward to Wen Yang, for that famous steel whip he wielded.

Still no Cheng Pu?! Dammit, Koei! What do you guys have against Cheng Pu? He already has a named weapon!

The Shu additions are kinda no-brainers. The Jin choices are pretty interesting.

I wonder what weapons they'll all be using. Lu Su seems to use a polearm. We know what Yue Jin and Li Dian are using. It'll be interesting to see what the others use.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Han Dang should be revealed the next time more Wu characters are announced. Somebody leaked the new character list a week or so ago and Koei had them take down the list from their blog/website.

Spoiler

Shu: Guan Xing and Zhang Bao
Wei: Yue Jin and Li Dian
Wu: Lu Su and Han Dang
Jin: Jia Chong, Zhang Chunua and Wen Yang

Looking forward to Wen Yang, for that famous steel whip he wielded.

Still no Cheng Pu?! Dammit, Koei! What do you guys have against Cheng Pu? He already has a named weapon!

The Shu additions are kinda no-brainers. The Jin choices are pretty interesting.

I wonder what weapons they'll all be using. Lu Su seems to use a polearm. We know what Yue Jin and Li Dian are using. It'll be interesting to see what the others use.

I think i forgot one other... and presumably another was just announced.

Spoiler

Shu: Guan Yinping
Other: Chen Gong

Yinping is Guan Yu's fictional daughter btw.

 

[Tiamatican]

Interesting options, I guess. I don't think they really need to add more characters to Shu, though. It's already the largest kingdom by far. Chen Gong's an interesting choice, I guess. But I would've preferred Yuan Shu (or Ji Ling representing Yuan Shu) for the Others.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Yes, i agree Chen Gong is an interesting choice and emphasizes a possible Lu Bu campaign for the future once again.

Shu as we know it is a lie at this point. Four fictional characters and several who did next to nothing in actual history.

Still i suppose if Ma Chao can build a career on fleeing from battle and terrorizing country folk, anything can be reinterpreted for storytelling.

 

[Tiamatican]

Shu as we know it is a lie at this point. Four fictional characters and several who did next to nothing in actual history.

Still i suppose if Ma Chao can build a career on fleeing from battle and terrorizing country folk, anything can be reinterpreted for storytelling.

Heh. Good point. I guess it's because Shu had so few people who were really notable. Most of them came early. And quite a few were notable for screwing up. I kinda wish they'd use Liao Hua. I think he'd be a good addition to Shu.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Shu as we know it is a lie at this point. Four fictional characters and several who did next to nothing in actual history.

Still i suppose if Ma Chao can build a career on fleeing from battle and terrorizing country folk, anything can be reinterpreted for storytelling.

Heh. Good point. I guess it's because Shu had so few people who were really notable. Most of them came early. And quite a few were notable for screwing up. I kinda wish they'd use Liao Hua. I think he'd be a good addition to Shu.

Both subjects go hand in hand sadly.

Liao Hua probably would never work given his age. He would only work if he were introduced in the second half of Shu-Han's forty two year lifespan and even then he wouldn't be relavent in much asides from being a face in the crowd in vain. The family angle just works more as a storytelling device in the three brothers' children rather than resorting to people who were just there.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Looks like the leak was accurate. Zhang Bao, Guan Xing and Guan Yinping have been revealed this week.

Zhang Bao is said to use a "wide snake-sword" (basically a large one handed broad sword), Xing uses arm blades and Yinping uses a double edged flail mace.

Liu Shan, Xing Cai, Zhang Bao, Guan Ping, Guan Suo, Guan Xing and Guan Yinping. Seven of the three brother's kids now. Absolutely nuts.

 

[-Misery]

Guan Yu's bringing his entire family into the game.

 

[Tiamatican]

They're obvious choices. But my bigger problem is that they're bringing in three new generals for Shu, which is already the largest kingdom, and only two each for Wu and Wei. That's stupid. Shu is packed enough as it is. This puts Shu at 21, Wu and Wei at 18 each, and Jin at 12.

I'm still disappointed in Wu's additions. Han Dang's cool, but Cheng Pu would make more sense. And Lu Su was great, but Wu could use a couple more later generals. Sun Shao. Or Zhu Ran would be a great choice. But no, instead we're getting Lu Su, whose greatest accomplishment in the book was being appropriately awed by Zhuge Liang.

 

[-Misery]

Yeah, and Wu lasted the longest out of the original three but Shu gets the most characters. Shu is a very famous faction I guess.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Koei is padding out Shu-Han only due to the extent of their participation, which should be obvious. The series follows the depiction Romance of the Three Kingdoms portrays (Luo Guanzhong was a notorious Shu-Han sympathiser) and adds it's own tone and perspective to the Jin side of the story to close. Truth be told the characters of Bao, Xing and Yinping should/could have been created earlier or might have been in the development process for a while or so now which was why they were able to jump on board so easily. What i'm more than concerned with is the treatment Koei give them rather than actually developing them. (will they similarly be treated only as benchwarming living legacies like Xing Cai and Guan Suo despite their actual involvement in history?)

Lu Su is a great addition imo. He alone moved Sun Quan along onto the idea of establishing his supremacy against Cao Cao and other warlords, became Quan's frontline commander of military after Zhou Yu's death and maintained relations between two countries for the better part of twenty years. In RotK, Lu Su is only used as an everyman character to reflect Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu's intelligence and rivallry with one another, and Luo Guanzhong more than often had Shu take credit for alot of Wu's achievements throughout the first half of the era downplaying them as supporting antagonists.

I agree on the focus that Koei should concentrate on later era characters (and more over) to add further to the Jin side of the story, Jia Chong for example has alot of influence and involvement in the Jin side, such as willingly sacrificing his own career and credibility to place the Sima clan in power as well as being Shi and Zhao's personal advisor for the majority of their lives. So as you imagine i was honestly surprised why he wasn't introduced in the last game amongst Jin's starting nine.

 

[-Misery]

Yeap, it's up to Koei if they want to develop the new characters and give them a proper storyline rather than having them just being there for certain battles. Looking at the number of characters they are adding in, I have a feeling only a few will get a proper character development.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Interestingly, several of the characters taken from the previous poll results that allowed Guo Jia to surface in Xtreme Legends are also debuting in this game.

Here is the previous results:

1st place - Guo Jia (Wei)
2nd place - Yue Jin (Wei)
3rd place - Pang De (Wei)
4th place - Xun Yu (Wei)
5th place - Lu Su (Wu)
6th place - Chen Gong (unalligned)
7th place - Xu Shu (Shu)
8th place - Lu Kang (Wu)
9th place - Yue Jin (Wei)
10th place - Zhang Chunhua (Jin)
11th place - Ma Yunlu (Shu)

Guo Jia, Yue Jin, Pang De, Lu Su and Xu Shu have made it in so far and the previous leak even promises Chen Gong and Zhang Chunhua soon enough.

 

[_AbBaNdOn]

I have been playing DW Gundam 3 alot lately and I think I like it more than DW/SW. The maps are basically just rooms with short hallways connecting them. Battles take 15 minutes tops on easy/normal. After every battles your leveling up, building relationships, unlocking things, earning money to buy/upgrade/unlock more stuff, finding blueprints. Its way more addictive. The thing I really like is Gundam has your normal attack combo strings but they also added in the ability to launch into dash combo's after a normal combo. For example x-x-x-y(area attack)-a(dash)-x-x-x-y(dash attack).

I was wanting Dynasty Warriors to go the way of Batman or Assassin's Creed with its combat. But if they give us the dash combo's from gundam that would rock. And then it would be cool to not just get weapons for the character you are using but weapons from all the guys you defeated in battle with random stats and slot counts like in Gundam. It took me 40 hours before I got a cool gundam blueprint for the one I had been using the most in the game.

If the maps were more focused(rooms/hallways) I think that would be cool too. I enjoy the 30-45 minute battles in DW but that can get boring doing those one after another. When its just 15 minutes your just getting into it and you have to stop and it just makes you want to jump into the next battle to kick some more ass.
I was also let down with DW7 man... after playing Strikeforce and having towns and LOOT it was hard going back to the same old thing...

I love DW and even own a few of them but its time to reimagine the whole thing and create something new.

PS: its better come to 360 also...or atleast DW8 Empires. I only buy the empire versions cuz thats the one that lets you have custom officers and fight over territory. Im missing the samurai warrior games too =/

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Yep, that leak is looking more and more accurate as each reveal is made. Jia Chong and Zhang Chunhua (Sima Yi's wife) revealed this week now.

Jia Chong uses a "Dancer's Blade" (?) and Zhang Chunhua uses finger wires as weapons.

 

[-Misery]

Sima Yi's wife looks more like Diao Chan to Lu Bu than the Yue Ying to Zhuge Liang, ya dig?

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Get hype!

 

[-Misery]

I noticed the chain meter has changed to the same as the WO series, ie bigger chain combos. That's....kinda weird.

Also I hope the new feature that they will add in the story mode is something that of the ME series where cosequences will accumulate over te course of the entire campaign for a certain force.

Also I think the time limit shit is back. Damnit.

 

[ZhouTaiRoks]

Theres been mention of what-if stages at Jump Festa where this trailer was shown. Alternate storylines and stages being opened if certain events are not fulfilled or key officers die and such forth. The weapon affinity addition was shown too, weapons are gauged by color in the in-game GUI as either red, blue or green given their triangular affinity (heaven, earth and man) and work in a balanced manner against one another. (etc > Heaven > Earth > Man > Heaven > etc)

Also the leveling system from Warriors Orochi 3 seems to be implemented into this game too, Koei seems to have noticed the roster is exceptionally large at this point and is treating it with the exp share function that made using and leveling characters in WO3 more managable. (this is most likely because could be looking at 78+ characters with this title)

 

[Moopderp]

I was just playing dynasty warriors 4 earlier. Loved that game. Maybe I'll buy the next one that comes out.