overdrive's Dynasty Warriors 8 review

Nice comprehensive review, Rob! You make the fiction and real-life history behind the game sound interesting. Too bad the gameplay didn't inspire you as much.

Ever play the arcade game Warriors of Fate? I played it years ago; it's inspired by the same book and historical period! Acc. to Wikipedia, a lot of this was lost in the English version though.

It was a Capcom beat 'em up like Final Fight. I remember there being rideable horses, and an emphasis on weapons you could pick up.

Thanks for reading. Yeah, playing Destiny of an Emperor got me interesting in the historical period...I just wish I liked the games based on it a bit more. Destiny kind of fizzled out for me late in the game when enemy tactics got really hateful (instant-killing one of your generals, healing all damage done to their generals) and the vast majority of generals' motivation came down to "WHERE'S MY ENEMY?" being said by them before fighting. This game did a better job of showing that history (or at least a dramatized version of it), but with how its combat is, it's one of those games where you shut your brain off and just work through battle after battle.

I am a bit saddened by how I never heard of that fighting game. I guess the American version changed all the Chinese generals to just generic random bosses, but as a huge fan of Final Fight, I likely would have had a good bit of fun playing that one.

Have you looked into Wo Long, overdrive? The demo is on the PlayStation Store right now and the game hits soon. It's a Souls-like in the vein of the Nioh games, developed by Team Ninja. The story covers some of the same stuff and features characters that should be familiar to you, though in a different context. You might like it, if the difficulty isn't an issue.

It's a consideration. The thing is, while I've loved everything I've played in the Souls line, for some reason, the first Nioh didn't click with me and I abandoned it about 2/3 of the way through the main quest (after buying the DLC because I figured I'd love it...D'OH!).

Not really just one thing that turned me off on Nioh...more of a death-by-1000-cuts sort of thing where all these little flaws just added up during the course of me playing it until around when Elden Ring came out and I decided I'd way rather play it than Nioh.

Just to name a few:

Ungodly amounts of repetition with the Twilight realms and all the side quests that take place over parts of regular levels.

I prefer the more "metroidvania" style of FROM to the self-contained levels of Nioh.

Small bestiary, so you'll be fighting the same damn Oni in every level. FROM tended to introduce new foes throughout the game; here, you'll be fighting the big red guys with the breakable horn as mini-bosses in the first stage and they'll still be around in that capacity throughout the entire game.

Wasn't overly keen on the Diablo-esque loot collection for weapons, where you're constantly going to a sub-screen to see if you found something better. I like that in Diablo-esque games, but I didn't like how it transferred to this sort of game.

I've always liked to be BIG MELEE POWER in these games. Felt this game went out of its way to punish me for playing that way. Mainly with bosses: They either were BIG MELEE POWER, but where one hit by them could take off 3/4 of my life OR they were so nimble that I felt like a blundering oaf trying to get close enough to damage them.

HATED the health potion allocation where you get three in each new land and have to collect little critters to gradually gain more...and then go to another land to start that over.

Those last two combined to suck the life out of me. First level of a new land, so I started with 3 and maybe collected enough critters to get it up to 4 before reaching the boss. Said boss was the one in a burning building against a quick guy who uses his magic power to fly away from you when you corner him and has a bow to damage you from afar --- really making my style look sad with my big-ass weapon and its wide swings. After burning through my storehouse potions, I was stuck trying to grind them (horribly slow process, as I could only use my critter collection to get an additional 5% chance or so of them dropping from enemies).

In short, I've had more fun... Is kind of funny that one of the best-rated Souls-likes has been my least favorite of the sub-genre that I've played, but sometimes, that's how it is!

Based on the experience you've described, along with who developed it, I wouldn't blame you for following a "try before you buy" approach with Wo Long...

Is Wo Long PS5 only or is it on 4 and 5? Wondering because I checked out the demos featured on PS Plus and it wasn't there for me. You know, in case I want something to kill my self esteem for the moments when Crash Bandicoot 4 isn't doing it.

It is on both PS4 and PS5, as far as I know, but they might not make the demo available for all platforms. If that's the case, it's a game to watch when they add it to the service outright, as they likely will at some point. I think it might be a Game Pass game at the moment, so perhaps there's a temporary exclusivity deal. It's difficult to keep up with all these things...