Toukiden Demo Impressions

Toukiden is pretty much Monster Hunter.

That's the brunt of it, really.  It's not surprising - all the media beforehand suggested as much - but it also manages to not be disappointing through some magic of tweaking the basics of the Monster Hunter gameplay mechanics.  Still, the skeleton, most of the muscle and indeed, some flesh that resembles Monster Hunter is present, even though it's got a convincing costume of something else on top of it.

That costume is good, however - Toukiden's aesthetic is fairly interesting despite carrying a lot of the browns one would expect from a Demon War-torn country, as that simply makes the more striking bits shine all the more.  The cutscenes are standard KOEI fare as well, which means they're incredibly nice to watch and easy to enjoy with how deceptively good they look.  And really, just the game itself looks pretty good from the character designs and outfits, to the weapon designs and the Oni themselves.  Even the canned faces and such that you get through Create-a-Warrior (which is your only way to have a character, rather than my initial thought of having a cast of characters to select from like most Warriors games) are fairly good-looking, though I use that from an aesthetic point of view, and not one from personal tastes.  More to do with the model, the look than my appreciation of them.

I suppose I should clarify that I'm no Monster Hunter expert - far from it - as my only real experience was playing the demo for one of the PSP games for three non-consecutive hours and not 'getting it', and then watching a friend stream hours of Monster Hunter 3 footage while also similarly not understanding it.  So I appreciate that there might be a difference in 'feel' and an overall difference in the experience because of that.  However, I also know what I see, and what I see in Toukiden is something that is very, very close to the same -thing- that Monster Hunter is.  The maps are the same segmented affairs in which there are monsters (and I assume they can eventually move between them).  Missions are handed out in the same way, with even the same weights of Important -> Not Important (but you need to do some to unlock the next) -> Important -> Chapter Close.  There's still a little town that you can meet up with others in, you can still gamble with getting buffs before missions, you can still upgrade and create weapons and armor and while that all seems generic, it all has the same approach to it that the comparisons between both games are inevitable.

The weapons are different, at least in most cases, and they offer a suitable amount of variety for the combat to keep you switching up at the very start until one just clicks.  I myself really really wanted to enjoy the Gauntlets as I love punching people, but they're the strongest base weapons in the game which means they have to have a disadvantage.  Of course, that disadvantage (quite bogglingly so, really) is that they're the slowest weapons in the game as well.  So then I went to the other extreme with the Twin Knives which I believe (though I'm not sure) are the fastest, but weakest base weapons of the group, and I'm enjoying that much more.  I find that I quite like really fast combat as opposed to slow, but strong.  I imagine maybe the Katana and the Sickle/Chain will offer that as well, but I haven't really tried them out.  There's a lot of ground to cover in the demo yet, which is a good thing as it really lets you sink your teeth into what the game will have to offer.

All in all, the game seems competent enough, perhaps even -good-, though that remains to be seen as I am giving this my maximum amount of skepticism because KOEI and Monster Hunter are both involved.  I've yet to see whether or not the 'purification' mechanic is a game-changer - essentially holding R next to a fallen foe or severed boss part to rid it from the world and sometimes give you an item - but I can't really imagine it being so which is really why I didn't bring it up in any big capacity.  I pre-ordered it, as I'm wont to do with just about everything that has the KOEI name on it, and I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it, but how much is what remains to be seen.  I'm hoping for "a lot" personally.

why would you fight with giant weights on your hands, that just seems silly

Because I Don't Talk About KOEI Enough...

I'm gonna be honest and say that I don't -know- how I manage to come up with so many occasions to talk about KOEI games in general, in that I don't actively look for them.  I guess news just...sort of crops up and me being a whore mass consumer of KOEI things in general, I can just extrapolate enough words from what is very simple announcements and turn it into a post or two.  It happens, and I haven't heard any complaining directly, so I assume you folks don't mind all that much.  Which is good!  Because I'm just gonna...keep doing it, I assume, until KOEI milks out every last bit of goodwill that I have towards them which will likely take a while despite my constant bitching criticisms.  Anyway, this post will be chock-full of new and less-new KOEI goodies that I decided to talk on tonight because I can't think otherwise since my back hurts again.

The above is a trailer for Nobunaga's Ambition:  Creation for PS4, which in itself is just a port of the game of the same name for PS3 and PC that was released last year.  I'm sure I could get some information about the game from the internet, but the fact is, it's probably not going to get localized, so I'm not looking too much into it, even though it would be fucking perfect for Remote Play (if not an outright Vita version, but no, that makes too much sense) and that fact alone makes me all the more sad that I'll never play it.  Of course, I -have- reached out to TecmoKOEI USA's official Twitter about it, but I really doubt that I'm going to hear back from them because, well, you know.  KOEI.  The fact that the account went inactive for months and only resurfaced -yesterday- says more than enough for the prospects of it being used as more than a means to congratulate themselves for whatever small accomplishes they make and no, I'm not bitter at all.

I'm not sure why they chose to go with what appears to be the Honnō-ji Incident for the intro cinematic to a Nobunaga's Ambition game either, but....well, that's at least -one- way to show off your pretty graphics, and especially so on an updated piece of hardware.  Reports indicate that Creation will run at 1080p and 60fps on the PS4 which is hardly surprising (unless you don't trust KOEI's technical acuity) but impressive nonetheless.  You'll also be able to command up to 1,000 men at a time (I assume they're not using the traditional 'units' anymore) rather than only 300 which is certainly something that will add quite a bit to the gameplay.  Regardless of anything, it's going to be a smooth entry (re-entry?) into the Nobunaga's Ambition series and I -do- hold out a little hope of seeing it come out in the West, but that's just it - a little hope.  Still enough to speak on, however, as I did.

There's some good news about Samurai Warriors 4, beyond the (old) news that it might (probably will) come here in the Summer.  The news, specifically, is that Create-a-Samurai is making a return in the base game, and not waiting for one of the expansions to introduce it.  Create-a-Samurai (or Create-a-Warrior for a general application in the Warriors games in general) is fairly self-explanatory, but it's a mode that allows you to customize your own character in name, appearance and fighting style to take into battle.  In the original Samurai Warriors, they handled it in a rather cool way, where you went through 'courses' to train specific aspects of your character, shaping their base attributes to contribute to their overall growth.  I'm not sure if there'll be a similar sort of thing in 4, but it sounds like there's -something- beyond "make your character, okay cool, go kill stuff".

The post mentions that officers will pose questions to you, to which your answers will help mold an image of how they see your character, which I'm sure will have an affect on their build.  Unless it's a fame/infamy type deal in which it won't matter in the least and will be another one for the "waste of effort" pile.  There's also a mention of a map where you can pick missions and if that's true, then that's certainly a departure for Samurai Warriors at least, though it brings it a little more in-line with what the Dynasty Warriors games have been doing with Conquest Mode and the like.  Unless it's specifically for Create-a-Warrior mode, which would be really cool, and reminiscent of Destiny Mode from Dynasty Warriors 5: Xtreme Legends.  Also known as "one of the reasons DW5 was fucking awesome".

Destiny Mode was a mode in which your character started out as a grunt in the personal army of an officer of your choice.  When I say a grunt, that's explicitly what I mean - your moveset was a three-hit combo, you had shit for health and were more of a liability than anything else, yet were still expected to power through and destroy officers.  With each victory, you gained skill points to bring your character up to par to an -actual- warrior of the ages (buying the ability to have longer combos, musou attacks, etc.) while also bringing glory to whoever you were pledged to, which you could change at certain points if you felt like it.  However, the person you ended up with at the end of the last mission was the person whose weapon set you took after (I believe), so you needed to make sure to stay the course if you wanted someone in particular.  Still, it was empowering, playing some podunk little soldier that moved up to the big leagues (even giving you jobs such as Base Captain and the like) and I'm amazed that KOEI hasn't used it again.  I doubt that Samurai Warriors 4 will use it, but goddamn, I can hope for that too.

Aside from the (probable) release of Samurai Warriors 4 to us, we still don't really know anything about anything else.  Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends is heading this way as we already know, but there's plenty of other games that could get an announcement for Stateside travel as well.  Samurai Warriors 2 HD+XL/Empires, Warriors Orochi 3 Special or whatever the name is, Nobunaga's Ambition, Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam and I'm sure a few other things I'm forgetting right now.  Hopefully the revival of KOEI's North American Twitter means good things, but in situations where KOEI is concerned, Hope and two quarters'll just get you fifty cents.  Still, I never expected the Vita vesion of DW8+XL to be announced for us (because KOEI would be the ones to be dicks like that) and that's happening, so who knows anymore.  It's a strange, confusing and maybe not all-together terrible world we're living in now.

yes, I know I said hope a lot, I don't care

Of Course, More KOEI Things

The image above is fairly obvious enough, but it's also confirmed by a close to official source that Dynasty Warriors 8:  Xtreme Legends for PS3 and Dynasty Warriors 8:  Complete Edition for PS4 and Vita are going to see releases in North America and Europe.  The Complete Edition, obvious as it may be, will include Xtreme Legends, but the base game as well, featuring a 'complete' compilation of both titles, which is all sorts of handy and economical.  Also the only way possible for PS4 and Vita owners to play Dynasty Warriors 8 without...doing so on the PS3.  Which makes things a wee bit difficult, even if the games will support cross-save, and I believe they do.  Hilariously, for as many games as I own with Cross-save, and games that are better suited for it, I assure you, this will probably be the first time I ever use the feature.  Because I'll be damned if I'm not going to carry over my meticulously groomed Dynasty Warriors 8 save by the time I'm done with it.

Details are scarce as usual - even KOEI hasn't put up a press release or anything of that source, simply posting an image on Twitter and then leaving it to their Community Manager to pass out the little bits of details that he could infer.  Therefore, the information may or may not be absolutely reliable, but I'm erring on the side of "yes" given that KOEI has more or less thrust his statements to the forefront as their own and not bothered to correct anything he said.  Thus, I'm inclined to believe that there will be physical releases of all three products, given that there will apparently be English voices and -maybe- Japanese voices as well, instead of the other way around.  This is more than ideal for me, as I'm sure you all know.

I'm getting the Vita version.  Full stop.  However, I'm not quite sure whether or not I'll pick up the PS4 version of the Complete Edition, or just get Xtreme Legends for PS3.  I imagine I'm going to play the console and Vita versions in tandem regardless because of Cross-Save, but I don't know whether I'll want to 'complete' my library on PS3 that much more, or simply begin a new one with the PS4 beyond inFamous:  Second Son, Watch_Dogs and potentially Metal Gear Solid:  Ground Zeroes.  Aw, who am I kidding, I'm getting GZ and I'll grin like an idiot when I set K-Pop music to play in the helicopter section, flash back to Peace Walker and then be mildly disturbed that I find it fitting now.  Regardless, it is quite the quandary.

I'm wary of picking up the PS4 version because it will be KOEI's first attempt with new hardware and it will be a port - not something native.  KOEI's games aren't technical wonders to start with and while Dynasty Warriors 8 runs smooth for the most part (Chibi and a couple other stages get really chuggy at times) I'm not willing to put my faith in their ability to take full advantage of the power inside the PS4.  On the other hand, if they do manage it, I'll constantly kick myself when I'm playing the PS3 version knowing that it could be smoother and prettier on the PS4 that I will presumably have by that point.  Granted, I could find it some time down the line, but...I'm not really sure if I'm comfortable buying Dynasty Warriors 8 three times, given the issues I have with it, even if I do think it's rather fantastic.  Which is to say I will probably do it anyway because I am kind of a whore like that.

this better just be the first of a few localization announcements KOEI makes - Samurai Warriors 2 HD Complete, plz

Ahahahahahahahaha

This...this is just too much.

Maybe it's because I'm neck-deep in Dynasty Warriors 8, or maybe it's just because I never thought something like this would happen because the last time something like this was pitched, it was turned down.  Maybe it's just because that last piece could truly mean this is Panic Mode Nintendo doing whatever the hell they can to try and spur sales.  Or maybe it's just because they picked honestly one of their least ideal franchises to add the Warriors treatment to.  I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it just makes me laugh when I try to wrap my head around it.

There's practically no information on the game - even the logo hasn't been created, nor is "Hyrule Warriors" necessarily the final name of the product.  So there's really not even that much for me to talk about beyond speculation.  As far as speculation goes, well, I'm not really sure what to think.  Being a Dynasty Warriors game means having access to -everyone- who is a unique character (and potentially even some who aren't), but being a Nintendo game means not...usually getting to be the bad guy.  So Ganondorf might seem like a lock for the actual game, but I'm wary on saying he'll be playable.  He should be, by all means, but I'm not sure.  I can't imagine them saying "Oh, here's a Dynasty Warriors game where you only play Link" and being able to keep a straight face, but I also don't know quite how many characters they can scrounge up.  Malon?  Zelda?  Shiek?  ....Tingle?  Perhaps the different -kinds- of Link over the years with different attacks based on the game, but even that's a bit boring.

It'll be interesting to find out about as it gets further along in development, as that trailer was clearly not from finished product footage.  Beta at the -latest-, though I'm willing to bet it's still pre-beta.  I guess if I'm taking a guess as to a release time, I'll say....Summer?  Seems long enough to finish it up and put it out the door, depending on the amount of work involved, but what do I know?  I can't see it taking til next Holiday season if it's meant to be a stop-gap between now and the next -actual- Zelda game, but it's clearly not ready yet either, so it's a hard guess.  Still, Summer is what I'm going with.  Who knows, maybe I'll have bought a Wii U by then!  Probably not, but I think this pretty much confirms a purchase in the future unless it just looks -really- bad somehow.  I...don't see that happening.

the only real worse candidates that I could think of were Star Fox and Metroid - can you imagine the dumb?

Weapon Farming in Dynasty Warriors 8 Made Easy

I'm constantly amazed, as I'm sure you all are, at just how much I can talk about a single Dynasty Warriors game as I'm playing it and indeed for a time thereafter.  It seems like every day brings a brand new topic about the game that I can take and pull apart until I can present it in possibly the most long-winded way possible, and it's something that I've found I can't really do for many other things.  So, whatever, I can do it and I like to do it, so that's what I'm going to do.  I'm aware that most of you are probably not as interested in Dynasty Warriors or really any flavor of game KOEI releases as I am, but I hope the deluge of content over the games is not off-putting.  Because, I mean, I'm gonna keep doing it.

Going with the theme of the last Dynasty Warriors 8 post, we're going to talk about trophies.  Or rather -a- trophy.  We're going to cover the Herculean amount of effort that goes into a single trophy called Weapon Collector that, as you might have guessed, tasks you with collecting all the weapons in the game.  You see, the whole weapon system in Dynasty Warriors 8 got a bit of an overhaul that more or less makes it a very different beast from the games before it except, in a sense, Dynasty Warriors 6.  That's not as bad a thing as that comparison might lead you to believe, however, so don't get ahead of me.  The weapons all have an element attached to them that is either Heaven, Earth or Man, which recalls to DW6's Standard, Skill and Strength types of weapons, though they don't have the same sort of effects and really I guess the only similarity is that they all shared red, green and blue and I swear I was going somewhere with that, but forgot.

Anyway, that's -one- of the categories of the weapons, though.  There's actually two beyond the Elemental Shift, and its all about rarity.  Common Weapons have Orbs, but rare weapons and the Fifth Weapon for each character have Stars instead.  These merely denote uniqueness and nothing else, because as you'll learn, each character has Four Orb weapons and Three Star weapons.  (Well, Sword has like four Star weapons, but you get one from Ambition Mode and it's not important)  You need to collect one of each of these seven weapons for every single character in the game for the trophy which is just a Silver trophy even though it will be the actual second-most grindy thing you do in the game.  Yes, Ambition Mode in all its splendor and magnificence has been bumped to third, with Bond-grinding still likely holding first place.  Though, in all honesty, Weapon Farming might just usurp it, it's that bad.

How can it be so bad, you might be innocently asking?  Well, it's pretty simple.  Of the three Star weapons per character, only -one- of them is a guaranteed drop.  That is the Fifth Weapon which have unlock conditions (readily visible in the Gallery once you've beaten every single Story Mode Stage) that you have to follow on Hard Mode.  You have to do that with every single one of the 77 characters included in the game.  That's the easy part, because the thing you want to do is get Xiahou Yuan's Fifth Weapon first.  It's called the Bow of Destruction, and if there were ever a more appropriate moniker, I don't know of it.  You see, what makes the Bow of Destruction so special is that it has an element on it called Cyclone, which is at level 10.  Cyclone breaks through an enemy's guard with charge attacks.  The weapon also has multiple charge attacks that have multiple hits within it that do Wind damage which seems to take a percentage of health rather than do -damage-.  What this means is that a single charge attack from the Bow of Destruction (one that has the multi-wind shots at least, which are C2, 5 and 6) will straight-up murder any officer, even on Chaos difficulty provided the full attack hits them.  Even if it doesn't, it's not hard to do a follow-up and basically it just means that you will not have to worry about the damage -you- do.

What about the other two Star weapons for each character?  Well, first what you want to do is get your Fortune Hunter skill leveled up, which increases your Luck.  Level 10 at minimum, though you'll likely want up to about 15 unless you're crazy and want to grind it up to 20.  Why would that be crazy?  Well, because the way you level the skill up is by defeating officers on a map after you've attained 1,500 KOs.  On the same map.  There are precious few maps that will allow you to rack up that many kills while also leaving enough chattel for you to reap in an attempt to level up the skill (Because, of course, not every single one and in fact most will not do it since it's based on some weird RNG), but if you are feeling particularly interested, then the Yellow Turban Conflict stage is what you want.

This is Zhang Jiao's Story stage and it offers a -lot- of officers plus a handy little infinite spawn of mooks that you can inflate your score with in the course of a few minutes.  All you need to do is rescue Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang and wait for Huangfu Song to change the direction of their approach.  This will divert forces to the lower left portion (south of Zhang Bao) and the square at the southernmost point before you go East into a base will just, as stated, spawn infinite amounts of soldiers after you defeat both Base captains in the neighboring areas.  Get up to 1,500 KOs (or more if you feel like it, I don't know if it affects your chances) and then go around slaughtering officers until you take down He Jin.  You should hopefully get at least 2 levels if not more, and...then you just do it again until you're happy.  Better chances if you perform the stage on Chaos Difficulty, and of course you don't have to use Zhang Jiao when selecting from Free Mode.  In fact, I would recommend it.  I personally used a Level 99 Lu Bu who has max stats and his Fifth Weapon - since it's an early map it's not difficult at all, even on Chaos, so you won't have to spam Cyclone abuse.

So now that you have Fortune Hunter up at a decent level, you'll want to equip that and go to Shu's section in Free Mode and pick the very last stage - Capture of Wei - Wei Forces.  You see, it's not simple enough that you just kill a bunch of officers for a chance at Star weapons.  No, you have to kill unique characters, since generics possess only the -barest- chance of actually dropping them, where Uniques, especially with a proper Fortune Hunter score, have a chance that approaches reasonable and contrary to what I thought prior, they have a chance of dropping weapons that -aren't- theirs.  Capture of Wei on the Wei side offers you a small-ish map (or at least a map where only 30% of it is used) that has no less than 11 Unique Officers (Jiang Wei, Huang Zhong, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhang Bao, Liu Shan, Guan Xing, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Zhuge Liang and Guan Ping) in a short timeframe.  Plus it has one more benefit which I will explain to you momentarily.

I've found in my runs tonight that with Level 15 Fortune Hunter, you can expect to walk away from the map with -at least- one Star weapon, which is good.  Not great since there's, you know, 154 Star Weapons in the game not counting Fifth Weapons (Jesus Christ), but it could be worse, and it's honestly a relatively short map.  There -is- a bit of an issue with the scripting, however, in that sometimes Guan Ping and Ma Chao simply refuse to advance on you or on the Wei Main Camp, and Guan Ping is ridiculously out of the way if he doesn't meaning you lose out on a potential chance unless you charge his ass, and even if he does charge, he always charges with Liu Bei (as does Zhuge Liang) who you do not want to kill immediately because it will end the stage and if you kill Liu Bei and, say, Zhuge Liang at the same time, Liang will not drop a weapon.  Which is incredibly frustrating.

The key thing about any and all forms of grinding and farming is the amount of time invested because obviously you want to cut the amount of time spent down as much as possible.  Because grinding/farming is fucking obnoxiously boring and games that rely on it for anything in excess are made by developers who are dumb and also stupid.  And are also jerks.  The good thing with Dynasty Warriors 8 and the way weapons unlock is that there's a little bit of a trick that cuts -way- down on the amount of down-time you have in between runs of the map.  As in, cuts it down to damn-near zero.  You want to know what that funny little trick is?

Let Liu Bei kill you. 

(After killing all his officers.  It's not even difficult to let it happen, since Capture of Wei - Wei Side is an end-story mission which means it's max difficulty and then you have Chaos on top of that...yeah, characters do a lot of damage.  )

You see, when you lose a stage, a message comes up asking if you'd like to restart from the beginning, which it will do so without any load time (unless there's a cinematic at the start, I imagine) allowing you to get right into it.  And at least with Star weapons (honestly haven't tested with Orb weapons, honestly don't even care) they seem to work on an unlock system in a sense.  Because they're unique, once you have them, you -have- them unless you sell them or something else.  So say you get Guan Xing to drop the Sky Splitter which is one of Guan Ping's Star weapons and then you do as I say and allow Liu Bei to kill you.  When you restart the stage, you can check your weapons and look at that, you still have the Sky Splitter.  This way, you cut out the load into the main menu, the load into the stage selection, into the character selection and loading up the stage proper.  That is a tangible amount of minutes and given that you're damn near guaranteed one or two weapons per run (if not more, one particularly generous run netted me four) using that stage and Fortune Hunter 15, it will potentially shave -hours- off of your general farming, especially if you would use a different method.  I would advise, however, that you end a Farm sessions with a victory - I doubt if it really matters if you quit to menu after a defeat rather than replaying and winning, but it's...best not to take chances, yeah?

I'm personally up to 90% of the entire Weapons Catalog filled, so it shouldn't be too terribly long before I can get to bond-grinding and then...simply being done with Dynasty Warriors 8 until Xtreme Legends comes out in some fashion.  Since I will most likely be getting it provided it's physical -or at the very least it's localized for the Vita-.  I'm being optimistic that Xtreme Legends is going to get localized (it's barely been out in Japan yet, so I'm not too worried about lack of announcement) but I wouldn't be surprised if KOEI pulls the same bullshit as they did with 7 and cut the English VAs for a little cost and cut out the Disk production for the same reason.  (Because, once again, no dubs = no disk is bullshit)  If it's localized for the Vita, unless it's just a dreadfully shitty port, I'll at least be alright with downloading that since it will be far smaller than the ~11 gigs that standard KOEI fare seems to be on PS3.  I'd say I don't know -why- I'm bothering, but it's obvious - Zhu Ran is in Xtreme Legends.  I can't wait for an official announcement so I can do another "Let's Talk About the New Characters" and probably just devote an entire post to Zhu Ran.  Just you wait.

Update!:  I figure it's appropriate to do a tl;dr of my method here for the folks who...somehow stumble across this and want to be Weapon Collecting Masochists.

• Get the Bow of Destruction - It's Xiahou Yuan's Fifth Weapon.  The game tells you how to get it.
• Buff Up a Fighter of Your Choice (Potentially Optional) - Abuse the Academy in your Ambition Mode town and use some (most/all) of that gold you've stockpiled playing every single Story Mode mission.  Get someone to Level 99, buff their stats to 1,000, go all out.  I went with Lu Bu, obv. but you go with whoever works for you.
• Upgrade Fortune Hunter - Go to Yellow Turban Conflict (Zhang Jiao's story stage) on Chaos Difficulty in Free Mode, rescue Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang and go to the southwest corner (south of Zhang Bao) where Peons spawn infinitely.  Massacre 1,500+ and then go to town on all the officers in the stage.  Repeat as needed; Bare Minimum Level 10, Recommended 15+.
• Farm Farm Farm - Go to Shu's Missions in Free Mode and pick Capture of Wei - Wei Forces (or find it in the Xuchang maps, maybe).  Equipped with Fortune Hunter and the Bow of Destruction, you should be able to wrangle 1-4 Star Weapons from the 11 officers present per run.  Let Liu Bei kill you to immediately restart the stage.  You'll retain your Star weapons and save a lot of loading time.  Repeat until the trophy dings!

As another side update, I got my Weapon Collector trophy so yay me!  Also Bond-Grinding is definitely number one most grindy, awful thing in DW8.  No question.

okay, I do still wonder sometimes why I do this to myself

Ambition Mode? Ambition Mode.

I'd put it off long enough, going into the unproven territory that was Ambition Mode because I had a rather...sinking feeling about it, looking at the trophy descriptions that associated itself with the mode.   To be fair, most of them were founded, even if not completely or as -bad- as I mad them out to be in my head.  That isn't to say it was a walk in the park or it wasn't grindy as hell, however, because believe me, it wasn't and it was in that order.  So of course I'm going to put aside a little time to delve into to intricacies of the system for any of you reading this who decide that you want to challenge it yourself.  Or because you just enjoy me being over-analytical or what have you in regards to video game things.

First off, you're playing Ambition Mode for the trophies.  Let's not kid ourselves.  There's nothing in the confines of Ambition Mode that you cannot get easily in Story or Free Mode, aside from very, very easy experience, but even that's a bit of a moot point in the long run.  So, you're opening up Ambition Mode and playing it for the trophies.  Let's take a look at which ones, then.

• Facility Construction
• Facility Expansion
• The Birth of a Leader
• Friends to the End
• The Path of Ambition
• A Collector of Rarities
• A Majestic Manner
• The Height of Prosperity
• The Ties That Bind Us
• The Land of Plenty
• Heaven and Earth
• Unwavering Ambition

There are also a few trophies that aren't Ambition Mode's per se, but you need to play it (extensively) to get them.

• Animal Collector
• Vocal Enthusiast (Oh boy, this one)
• Movie Collector

So, yes, of the games forty trophies (not counting the Plat), fifteen of them are tied up in Ambition Mode in one form or another, so really, if you're playing Ambition Mode, it's for them.   Ambition Mode is shallow and forgettable enough in the scheme of things that you don't -need- to go into it and though you can, you'll likely be disappointed by what you discover within.  It's not that Ambition Mode is bad in so many words or ideas, but it's just that it's the same sort of set up as it was in Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends and even Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce.  It's a framing device that pretends to move and grow with your actions, but to say that it does so in a meaningful, vibrant or dynamic way is being a bit too generous.  Rather, it simply feels...mechanical.

The end-all goal of Ambition Mode is to build a Tongquetai to house the Emperor who will be attracted to your lands because the Tongquetai is going to be magnificent.  And yes, if you're googling Tongquetai, you're wondering just what in the fuck I'm talking about because the majority of the entries seem to be about a movie called "The Assassins" which is exactly not what you want the Emperor around!  Of course, it's not some sort of meta-commentary or anything, the building is just, of course, some really nice looking mansion deal.  Anyway, to get the materials to build the Tongquetai, you have to first build up facilities in a little poor start-up town, of course, and they will eventually...just sort of -have- the materials somehow.  Just go with it.

So to get a Tongquetai, you have to build Facilities.  How do you build Facilities?  Well...actually you crush your enemies and force them to fight for you recruit them to your cause.  But how do you build -up- Facilities (which is the important part)?  You gather materials.  There are two types of Materials in Ambition Mode:  Weapon and Facility and I'll give you two guesses as to which one you should be paying attention to.  This is what you are going to spend 80% of your time in Ambition Mode fretting over, is getting goddamn Materials for your facilities to level them up for their benefits and also just to get the Tongquetai so you're able to focus on the even more grindy bits of the mode.  Because yes, getting Materials and in fact just getting your Tongquetai/the City built up is the least grindy portion of the entire subset of the game.  Wrap your head around that one.

Now, this is a good time to stop for a moment and breakdown the -other- things you need to 'collect' for Ambition Mode, and the perils thereof.  On top of Materials to build up Facilities, you need Allies to necessitate their construction in the first place and Fame to allow you to recruit more Allies because apparently they're your posse and you can only have a big posse if you're famous and it's not like you get famous for -having- a big posse or that fame and followers come hand-in-hand or anything silly.  Anyway, I'm sure you can see the sort of feed-the-meter logistics at work, and it's not going to surprise you in the least when I say that the missions in Ambition Mode are geared towards getting you the specified resources in direct transfusions of 15-30 minute battles.  (That usually take anywhere from 1-20 minutes to complete)  As such, you have missions that grant you Fame moreso than the others, missions that grant you more enemies to defeat and thus more Allies to recruit, and missions where Materials drop more often.

There's a problem with all of this, however.  Honestly, there's a problem with nearly every facet of this whole set-up, unfortunately, and it's almost hilarious in its own ineptitude.  KOEI commits a cardinal sin against common sense in regards to collecting and building that's so basic it makes my head hurt.  Ambition Mode's mission rewards aren't that great on their own because the goal is for you to run through multiple in a sitting, since you can chain battles.  This is important to know.  Over the course of 3-5 battles, of course, you're going to have a -lot- of gains to your totals instead of just the piddly one battle.  However, there are several times when this is inadvisable to do.  Like, say, whenever you fill up one of the meters.  Because you have to physically go back to camp, wreck your streak, just so the game can show you a building going up and saying "Yay, now you can gain more fame arbitrarily!" before you can actually gain more fame.  So...chaining battles becomes less a necessity for actually building up your town and more solely a necessity for fucking trophies.

Let's get back to those, shall we?  Specifically the ones titled The Birth of a Leader, The Path of Ambition and Unwavering Ambition, which are gained from doing 5, 20 and 50 chain battles respectively.  Note that at any point before actually finishing the City and whatnot when you don't even have to worry about Fame and all that, doing 20 battles will push you to your meter in at least one category, meaning you're wasting a -lot- of time in all reality.  This is to say nothing of the fact that the Animal Collector trophy is -also- tangled in the Chain Battle mess since you have to do 30, 60, 90 and 100 chain battles for four unique animals that count towards the trophy you get for collecting animals.  They are Shadow Runner, Hex Mark, Red Hare and the War Elephant respectively and of those, Red Hare is the one that is worth it, meaning a lot of people who don't -know- what's up will get Red Hare and then immediately fucking quit doing chain battles because they're terrible and discover that "whoops, you were ten battles away from never having to chain battle again!"

The really funny bit about this all is that because of the silliness with Battles in general and their drops, and Chaining Battles, you could end up spending a lot of time on the Battle portion of the mode when really the most lucrative thing you could do is just focus on your town as much as possible.  The only thing you really -need- from battles is Allies and Fame which you're going to earn over the course of everything else -anyway-, so you don't really have to make special outings for them specifically.  Materials, however, are another matter entirely.  You -could- spend about a minute total with loading and actually doing a mission to end up with ~2-6 Facility Materials, or you could be smart.  Being smart requires you to have the Barracks (one of the core buildings), the Stables (optional, really, but necessary for max yield), the Farmer (again, -technically- optional, but you want it) and the Merchant which is another core building.  Once you have these, you are ready to begin farming.

One of the nice things about the Merchant, or the only nice thing about it I should say, is that it lets you exchange Materials for the other variety of it.  So Weapon Materials for Facility Materials and vice versa.  One weapon material exchanges to two facility materials, which is very good and it works the other way around for weapon materials again which is less good, but you don't -need- weapon materials.  What this ratio means is that what you -want- are Weapon Materials because they are vital for your Facility Material gathering.  Your Barracks allows you to send troops off to other areas from whence they will return with things, specifically Materials of a certain type.  That means you want to send them off to Weapon Material places.  Similarly, feeding the animals in the Stables gives you materials that are sometimes weapon and sometimes facility so either way you win, technically.  The supervisor that you assign at the Farmer also has a chance of giving you up to ten materials as well.

So the routine, essentially, is going to your Barracks, getting materials and sending them out again, going to the Stables, getting Materials, going to the Farmer to check if the Supervisor gives you materials and then going to the Merchant.  All told, you have a chance to have something like 24-30 Weapon Materials from the three places you visit around your town which translates into 48-60 Facility Materials.  Low-level buildings require 1-2 Materials to level up and higher leveled ones (40-50 generally, 50 is max Level) require 9-10.  Either way, you can make a nice dent with 48-60 Materials and the time it takes to gather them is negligible.  Especially compared to the minute or so that you'll spend just getting half a dozen from actually having to -work- for them.  Regardless, the one tip that has to be echoed for this process is for the love of God, don't fall for KOEI's Trap Card.

The Merchant, as one of the four core buildings, will need to be leveled up to max for the Tongquetai to be built.  So you, naturally, will probably just go "Well, I'll do that first" because why not?  Well, you don't want to do that because at level 50, the Merchent goes into late-game mode by assuming you don't need Facility Materials anymore and thus drops the exchange rate between Materials to 1:1.  Good for getting Weapon Materials, bad for getting Facility Materials.  It will cause you to need to go at this twice as long and that's something you want to avoid at all costs.  I'm sure I don't have to tell you that.  So yes, the moral of the story is Don't Level up the Merchant to 50 until the very end.  You'll thank me for that.

So you do Chain Battles for Animals for Animal Collector, you gather up allies and fame and materials to eventually upgrade the town to full (which gains you Facility Construction and Facility Expansion for your first of each respectively), gaining the trophies mentioned a few paragraphs ago as well as A Collector of Rarities (for completing all the Duels which show up every four missions until you've beaten them all), A Majestic Manner (Max Fame), The Height of Prosperity (All the Facilities built), The Ties that Bind Us (all 720 allies recruited) and Heaven and Earth (Finally complete the Tongquetai and welcome the Emperor to your city).  Doing that will get you the Ending Credits for Ambition Mode which counts as a movie for the Movie Collector trophy, given you've already beaten the Story Modes completely to see each Kingdom's Historical and Hypothetical Credits.

That leaves you with The Land of Plenty which you get after gaining 1,000 Materials which...you will do eventually.  It also leaves you with Vocal Enthusiast, and Friends to the End.  Friends to the End is easy enough - gain max bond with one of the 78 other characters in the game, which you will do by toting them around from battle to battle as your bodyguard.  Vocal Enthusiast is one of those tricky, roundabout trophies, however.  You see, when you get max bond with an officer, you unlock some of their voice clips in the Gallery.  Which is well and good, but you don't unlock them -all- for that character, because you see, what you have to do is max bond with that character.

Twice.

Once as a Male officer, once as a Female Officer.  Vocal Enthusiast requires you to have unlocked every voice clip in the game.  Which means gaining Max Bond with Every Officer in the game.  Twice.  Remember how I said Material Grinding was the least grindy bit of Ambition mode?  There you go.

So yes, Ambition Mode is....well, it's honestly a neat concept, but goddamn if KOEI does not how to properly introduce Sim elements to the game.  Which is hilarious when you consider that KOEI fucking specializes in Sim games.  But that's just one of the things that makes KOEI the company that it is.  The terrible, awful, no good, very bad company that it is.  That I will continuously buy products from because goddamnit, nobody else is making them.

Vocal Enthusiast is a bronze trophy, by the way, just as one last 'fuck you' from KOEI

Yes, I'm Talking About Dynasty Warriors 8 Again

Today, I have finally beaten the final Story Mode mission contained within Dynasty Warriors 8 and by my approximation, I'm roughly 35% complete with the game now.  Four full story modes and 9 or 10 unaffiliated "Other" Story Missions (basically taking the "Other" characters who are famous but not among the ranks of Wei, Wu, Shu or Later Wei/Jin and taking an a-historical account of a famous battle of their in most cases, generally one that they -lost- historically) all told.  The four story modes also had branching paths at the 2/3rds mark, meaning when you got to the branch you were...half done.  Since you had to do -both- branches eventually and combined they were usually like eight missions or so on their own.  All of that is pretty much only 35% of the game in terms of 'completeness' which I'm gauging by the Trophy List for convenience.

Basically what I'm saying is that Dynasty Warriors 8 is surprisingly packed with content.  Perhaps too much so.

With Story mode done completely, as in I've unlocked all branches, beaten every stage and gotten every star for performing special tasks (Which I don't think is actually necessary for a trophy in the case of missions where it's not necessary to do the star to unlock a branch, but, eh, completionist) I have Free mode and Ambition mode left ahead of me, neither of which I've even strayed into at all.  Free mode is unexpectedly daunting for what it honestly is:  in Free Mode, you just get to pick a battle, pick a side and play any character in it, meaning if you want to be Sun Jian fighting for Shu in the defense of Chengdu from the forces of Later Wei, then have at it, you can totes do that.  The daunting part comes into play when you realize there are a -ton- of stages that are mostly unique maps (granted, maps like Luoyang Castle and Xucheng get used for several missions, but you don't tend to notice right away) and you have to play each one at least once for one of the shiny silver trophies the game has to offer.  I'm -pretty sure- that means only once total, not only once as each possible faction, because the latter would be fucking insanity.

Ambition Mode is a complete unknown to me, however.  I can make an educated guess and say that it's likely like Legend Mode from Dynasty Warriors 7:  Xtreme Legends which I have bitched about in the past, but with less of a finite structure, given that there are trophies for winning 5, 20 and 100 battles straight within Ambition mode.  I'm...not entirely sure this is a good thing nor can I be certain it's something that will be unwelcome.  A bulk of the trophies come from Ambition mode, in all honesty which is a little strange - not only does Ambition mode seem to be something that would be in Xtreme Legends, but there's so few trophies attached to the actual Story mode (directly, the collection stuff necessitates them regardless) given the obvious effort put into it.  Honestly, it's almost a little disheartening, but on the other hand I'm hoping that much harder that Ambition mode proves to be worth it.

Now that I've played the story through, however, I've gotten a feel for the new characters and I gotta say, by and large, they're pretty good.  Jia Chong is top-tier along with Guan Xing (for his musou and rage musou) and Zhang Chunhua, though not especially for her moveset.  Li Dian and Wen Yang, however, are unfortunately bad on....well, most counts, really.  Their movesets are boring (Dian's is slow as well) and their characterizations are more or less off-putting.  Wen Yang is just bland and uninspired (mild play-ups to him being Later Wei's Zhao Yun when he has nowhere near the charisma needed) where Li Dian is just....so intentionally 'look how weird I am' that it's frustrating.  The other new additions run somewhere in the middle skewed more to the Jia Chong/Guan Xing side, thankfully, though Zuo Ci is disappointingly not as much of a beast as he was in Dynasty Warriors 5.

I'm still finding myself impressed with DW8 even if I'm not just blown away like I was with DW7.  Since 8 focused on a lot of refinement and addition, or at least tries to, it's obvious that it'd be more subtle with its great things, but they're still there and they're still great.  I almost cannot believe yet that every character is unique, something that I've literally been wanting from the series since I first started playing it, and it's finally happened.  I can only imagine that it's going to remain like this going forward - no real reason to migrate Sima Shi back to a regular rapier now that he's got a Lightning Sword and no reason to give Zhurong Throwing Knives again now that she's got her Boomerang back, after all.  Which isn't to say that I anticipate everyone keeping their -exact- weapons for Dynasty Warriors 9, just that I don't see them cloning anyone back up.  Huang Gai in particular is probably going to get his Cudgel back at -some- point since I don't believe anyone is just running around with a one-handed club.  And I can always dream about Pang De just using a goddamn coffin in battle.  Maybe one day.

it's wild that I'm already thinking about a Dynasty Warriors 9, because good lord that's a high number comparatively

Dynasty Warriors 8 is Damn Good

After my foray into Beyond: Two Souls that ended with me liking it, but not necessarily ready to jump back into it for the trophies, I turned to my backlog, specifically games from this year, and decided that I should probably play one of them.  Preferably one that I hadn't played yet.  There's an embarrassingly high amount of games that could be included in this, but in the end I decided on going to my comfort zone because I need comfort these days.  So I grabbed Dynasty Warriors 8 which I purchased way back when it came out in July, unwrapped it (yes, it was still in plastic, yes that kind of made me a little ill) and tossed it into my PS3 with the intent on cutting swaths through Feudal China.  Something I've done countless times before and will do countless times yet.

I got that with Dynasty Warriors 8.  I got that in spades.  Originally, you'll remember that I really liked Dynasty Warriors 7 because it changed up the formula immensely, bringing more and more cinematic bits into it and really incorporating them in a worthwhile way, while also completely overhauling the weapon system with weapon switching and such.  I eventually concluded, though perhaps not in a post, that Dynasty Warriors 7 is the best Dynasty Warriors since 3 which is the absolute best through nostalgia-rimmed glasses at least (since I haven't played it in a long time).  8 was shaping up to be 7, but with more stuff, which by all metrics should have put it at 'better' than 7 itself.

I'm not so sure I would put it on that level, however.  Initially, I definitely would not have, but the more I play it, the more I start appreciating it and the effort that went into it, while also slowly realizing awesome things about it.  Some things are a straight step backwards - the game is overall less cinematic and less story-focused if for the simple fact that the little text-dumps in-between missions are not narrated for the first time since...ever and the text is rather small to boot, and you can no longer equip new weapons mid-battle thanks to the Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic they've almost arbitrarily added to weapons now - but everything else is either maintained or improved upon.  Including one thing that's like a fucking revelation after playing the games for as long as I have been.

You see, in previous iterations, there have always been some characters that simply have the same exact moveset since they share a tenuous weapon choice.  So Cao Cao would play almost exactly like Sun Jian who would play almost exactly like Liu Bei because they all wielded a Longsword and while there was some personalization, it wasn't a -lot-.  It's been in the games with varying degrees with Dynasty Warriors 6 being the worst of it where there were honestly maybe a dozen movesets spread across the 50-some characters in the roster.  In Dynasty Warriors 7, they tried to mitigate the clone issue by assigning "EX" attacks, which were attacks unique to that character with their preferred weapon.  So even though Liu Shan, Sima Shi and Yuan Shao all fought with a Rapier, they had different EX attacks assigned to a different charge, not to mention the different musou attacks.  Dynasty Warriors 8 has a more...elegant solution that is almost mind-blowing in the realization that they've finally done it.

There are no clones.  Everyone has their own weapon type which in turn has its own moveset with nary an overlap between them.  Liu Shan wields a Rapier where Sima Shi wields a "Lightning Sword" where Yuan Shao wields an "Extension Blade" which are all -basically- rapiers, but entirely different weapons in their own right with different moves and the whole spread.  Cao Cao wields a General's Swod where Sun Jian wields a Nine-Rings Blade where Sun Quan wields a Sword (seriously, just basic sword) where Sima Zhao wields a Striking Sword and they're all -wildly- different as you might expect from my previous mentions.  It's honestly a little surreal, having a scenario in which everyone has their own weapon, but it's been something that has needed to happen for a while and it's almost astounding that they finally managed it.  It's strangely liberating even.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors 8 attempts to be a complete refinement of 7 and in a lot of ways, it truly is - maps are nice, large and details, character models look nice (except in cutscenes where they're very...plastic-y), there's like seven weapons of each type and that whole non-clone thing is wonderful.  While it's a step back in a couple important areas, it's not -that- bad, even if it's enough to allow me to continue lofting Dynasty Warriors 7 up high for naught but the best of accolades.  It's enough to get me hyped up for Dynasty Warriors 8:  Xtreme Legends...which probably won't get a physical release over here.  More than a little depressing seeing as I can't reliably download a single goddamn gig these days thanks to what I'm assuming is Playstation 4 traffic.  Still...it has Zhu Ran, so I might just have to find a way.

when I realized that there were no cloned movesets, I literally had no goddamn clue what to do, it was that shocking

Toukiden Is On the Way West

The last time I said anything substantial about Toukiden was over a year ago when it was revealed, from which it eventually released, sold and did all that over in Japan with nary a word of western shores in its sights.  For some reason, I had thought Toukiden being localized was a foregone conclusion so when I heard that it was officially announced, I was a little confused at first.  "Didn't we know this already?," I said and it turns out that we did not.  So, good news everyone, Toukiden is releasing in North America (on carts! also digitally) as Toukiden:  [The?] Age of Demons.  (I'm seeing conflicting reports on whether or not the 'The' is there.  It is superfluous anyway.)  As far as I know, Toukiden isn't a real word, but it's damn fun to say, and a lot easier to figure out how to pronounce than Ys:  Memories of Celceta, which I learned from experience last wednesday, but that's a topic for a different night.

That's the good news about the situation.  The bad news begins to to the tune of the knowledge that the game is yet another Monster Hunter clone, but an actual really real one this time, not something that's just called a Monster Hunter clone because of poor reporting.  However everything in that trailer above screams Monster Hunter, from the segmented maps, to the giant monsters, to the four-player co-op with the bars on the upper left side literally like the MH UI (though not unique to that game) to the hub town and you get the point.  It's Monster Hunter with a side of Monster Hunter on a Monster Hunter plate in a Monster Hunter restaurant that calls itself Toukiden from KOEI and it's more than a little disappointing.

I'd personally hoped for something a little....less like that, clearly.  While my enjoyment of the KOEI games is well-known here, I don't necessarily want them to only make hack-n-slash games, so while that's what I expected with this, I would have been happy to have been wrong in most cases.  Perhaps with a proper Action-Adventure title, something along the lines of a Ninja Gaiden game, but actually fun, would have been great.  As it is, I'm assured that Toukiden will at least be a little more fast-paced than Monster Hunter which is one of my issues with it, and I'm hoping there's more variation to the game than "go here, kill monster", but I don't know what to expect and I don't want to spoil it for myself by reading impressions on the Japanese version of it.  It will serve me better to simply blindly pre-order and buy it and hopefully not be disappointed.

That is part of the other half of the bad news.  The game is releasing in February of 2014 which is right dead-smack in the middle of Christmas II which just so happens to include March this year, meaning they decided to release it the Sega way; at a time where it has the least chance of being bought 'just because'.  I'll be buying it because KOEI has so many fucking games to localize and I don't want them to be able to use their own shitty logic to leverage less and less localization projects because I fucking -want- to play these things.  I want Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends on my Vita, preferably with Dynasty Warriors 8 built into it, because I still don't know how DW8XL being on Vita/PS4 is going to work when DW8 proper is on PS3 and the selling thing of Xtreme Legends in the past has always been connecting the two games to expand on the original.  Despite my whinging, it does look like a nice game and seems capable of tricking everyone into forgetting that it's not actual Monster Hunter, but rather something close enough like it that they can just play it instead.  Because damned if a Monster Hunter wouldn't help matters.  CAPCOM.

I just want to run around maps and cut things and not worry about small areas and hrrrgh

KOEI, Seriously, Please Start Announcing Localizations

KOEI really, really, really likes the Vita...

....in Japan.

No less than four Warriors titles are in production for the device at the moment, and it borders on absurd at just how much attention the Vita's getting from KOEI, even if it -is- half ports.  Yet, when those ports are Samurai Warriors 2 (and Xtreme Legends -and- Empires) and Warriors Orochi 3 (as an enhanced version of the game, same as PS3's enhanced version) you will be surprised at just how fucking okay I am with this.  Those two games join the line-up alongside Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends (potentially 8 somewhere along the line too?) and the newly announced Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam which are both being developed for PS3 -and- Vita.  And that's all of just what I know about, who the hell knows if there's other stuff that I've missed completely, because it's entirely possible.

The first reaction to this is supposed to be a level of cautious optimism, of course.  They're not exclusive games to the Vita, but they're being developed for it nonetheless, and that likely fosters a sort of side-by-side mentality about them.  Consumers will only buy one or the other by-and-large of course (KOEI ain't gonna touch Cross-buy with a ten foot pole) but it broadens the pool of potential buyers at the very least if you put both out, and there's no reason -not- to.  That they're coming to the Vita at all is a good sign no matter how you look at it.  I basically mention that side-by-side mentality for the localization aspect of the games, of course.  Speaking of...

The next reaction is the slow, creeping disdain and cynicism that one has naturally fostered for KOEI by this point when it comes to actually releasing games outside of Japan.  We did get the original Warriors Orochi 3 (as digital-only for PS3 which is something that I have ranted about enough), and we did get Samurai Warriors 2, Xtreme Legends and Empires way back in the day easy enough as well.  DW8:XL seems a given to come out over here, but I'm not pinning any hopes on disc-based, and Shin Dynasty Warriors Gundam....is the sticky one of the bunch.  We don't know anything about it really - is it just another DW: G game with a new name? - so it's hard to say one way or another, especially with Namco Bandai being involved on top of KOEI.  Warriors Orochi 3 coming out over here originally might even be a strike against its chances since WO3 Ultimate is a (highly) enhanced version of it.  But we'll just have to see on that, I suppose.

Now, as mentioned, the really sticky thing to wonder about if -any- of these games come out is format.  KOEI surprised the hell out of me by announcing DW8 on disc with a proper localization and such, but I expect that to be the exception rather than the rule moving forward.  I have zero problems throwing money at people at GameStop for a copy of a KOEI game on a disc.  Zero.  While I've raised a stink about digital-only in the past (and it's still an issue, though definitely something I've chilled out on some), I only have a few issues with throwing digital money at PSN for a copy of a KOEI game in digital form.  Those issues are primarily "How big is it" and "That's going to take fucking forever to download".  Which was a legitimate concern with my current PS3 - the fans kick on to 100% or seems like it, which means it's not long for this world.  It takes the better part of six hours to download one gig of data, I'd bet, so something like WO3 which was eleven gigs?  Ridiculous.  Cannot, will not ever happen unless I cart my system to someone else and it manages to not die after I delete 22 gigs of data to accommodate the strange way PSN downloads work with full games or something.

When I get a shiny new PS3 with 500 gigs of storage space this will....be far less of an issue.  It'll obviously still take fucking forever to download, but the great thing is that I might actually be able to let it.  In the end, it's all about just being able to buy and play a game that you want to play.  So when there's an unreasonable barrier, of course it's going to be frustrating, but I guess the option then just becomes "Make it work".  So maybe I will.  I can tell you with certainty that if the games come out in the West on Vita, I don't care what format, I will buy the ever-loving shit out of them.  I will make a KOEI page and it will have all the bubbles for Dynasty Warriors Next and Toukiden and whatever of the above titles actually come out, even if I have to buy them all digitally.  I will eschew whatever I have to in an effort to have multiple KOEI Warriors games at my fingertips.  And I will seriously consider a 32 gig stick if need-be.  You just have to make it happen, KOEI.

there is honestly nothing about the prospect of any of those four Warriors games on my Vita that I don't love

Conquest, I Choose You!

It's been a while since I've actually talked about Pokemon Conquest and that's mostly because of the fact that until recently, as in a couple days ago, the game was not in my possession.  That has been remedied, obviously, and in my latest little wealth of things to do where I still find things lacking, I have decided to throw it into my 3DS and have a go with it.  I will say that it is pretty much exactly what it offers on the tin - it is clearly a cross-over of Pokemon and KOEI's version of Feudal Japan, though not necessarily Nobunaga's Ambition; clearly the sprites of the Warriors are from Samurai Warriors 3, you know the game that was Wii-exclusive in America which was fucking annoying for someone who buys every goddamn retail Warriors game he can play at least in theory.  Though, regardless of the backdrop and the main characters being from Samurai Warriors, you can clearly tell that there are Game Freak or The Pokemon Company fingers in the writing pie, which I can't say in all honesty is a good move.  Either that or KOEI's writers played a Pokemon game and copied its basic concept....which is what Game Freak does anyway.  Either way.

There's not a whole lot of meat to the story, at least not at the start.  "There are pokemon, Warriors are people who can communicate 'wordlessly' with pokemon (except they verbally command them anyway) and some Warriors rule one of the seventeen kingdoms of the land.  You are the new ruler of Aurora.  So....have fun with that." is basically the entirety of the intro, and then you are handed off to Oichi the tutorial queen for a little while until the game starts progressively opening up.  It's light-hearted and lacking, as your first 'major' goal is to conquer the kingdom right next to you....which is not a challenge in the least.  Ignis (it's a Fire Kingdom) is ruled by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (this stops making sense...really fast) and is there to be steam-rolled by you with your Eevee and Oichi with her Jigglypuff.  After that, Fontaine and Greenleaf (Water and Grass respectively GEE CAN YOU SEE THE THEME IT'S ALMOST LIKE THE FIRST THREE KINGDOMS ARE FIRE, WATER AND GRASS LIKE THE STARTER POKEMON IN EVERY POKEMON GAME EVER) open up and once you conquer them with similarly lacking amounts of aplomb, you get the 'story' of the game as it were.

There is apparently a rumor/legend in Ransei (the area Conquest takes place in) that whoever unites the seventeen kingdoms under the same banner will awaken 'the legendary pokemon' and apparently be granted its power for ill or good.  And rumors state that Oda Nobunaga (see?  Hideyoshi having his own kingdom already makes no sense at all) is working towards that goal so he can...wait for it...wait for it.....destroy the Ransei region.

Ugh.

This right here is why I say that somebody who usually works on Pokemon games had their hand in the story.  Because this right here?  This is a carbon-copy of every Team ambition from Ruby/Sapphire on in so many words.  Sure, some of the teams aren't hoping for global destruction, but rather world dominance or something but close enough.  My question is why?  Why is this necessary?  Why does Nobunaga have to want to destroy the land?  Is it there to paint him as an obvious bad guy?  There are other ways, better ways to do this.  Ways that just involve him being kind of a dick which makes sense instead of being cartoonishly evil which -doesn't- make sense.  I honestly thought Pokemon Conquest would be refreshing since it's...not really conducive to having a Team "Something", but that right there makes Nobunaga him a one-man Team Nobunaga with a hair-brained scheme for a legendary pokemon who will ultimately be thwarted by a child.

Of course the story and setting is only half of the set-up with the actual gameplay being the other part of it.  Though it bills itself as a Nobunaga's Ambition game, I'm going to say that it's a very, very 'lite' version of the franchise which I'm not impressed with in the slightest.  You have Kingdoms (should be Fiefdoms) that you conquer to add to your own dominion and each Kingdom has their own buildings (none of which you place unless that comes later on, which is possible) and you have your officers that can do things, but none of it is simulation-related, as in one of the things that is kind of a draw to the Nobunaga's Ambition (and those types of games in general) but rather centered on your Pokemon.  You can train them with random battles (some of which give you other Warriors if you fulfill conditions) make their energy values go up and buy them items to equip on them for use in battle, things like that so far.  Which...leaves a lot to be desired, in all honesty.

Battles are obviously not the standard Pokemon fare, and are instead more of a tactical/strategy RPG system that you might see in the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem and similar.  So far into the game, though I suspect it's the case for the entirety of it, every Warrior only has one Pokemon to their name and that Pokemon only has one move of their own which flies in the face of Pokemon logic if nothing else.  In a sense, that sort of categorizes every pokemon that's included into a..."Class" ala normal SRPGs in terms of how they can attack, in that Charmanders and Tepigs appear to be akin to "Archers" since their Ember attack can only hit from two blocks away (meaning a block between you and the enemy), while a lot of others have strange attack ranges as well.  Anything with Vine whip hits the square in front of them and to the left and right of that square at once, making it really powerful if your enemies are all lined up.  While moves are common between a few pokemon, everyone also has a "Warrior" move which seems to be at least slightly unique.  Warrior moves can be activated once per battle and range from vastly increasing your move range (base Eevee skill), Healing nearby (all?) allies (base Jigglypuff skill) or just upping the chance of inflicting a status ailment (my warrior with Charmander has this), though there are other variations, of course.

Admittedly my exposure to the game isn't nearly full yet, and it still has quite a bit of time to impress me.  I know Pokemon can at least Evolve, which I assume changes their move if nothing else, and I eagerly await making my Eevee into a Glaceon because Glaceons are awesome.  Likewise, I'm going to try to nab me a Warrior with a Pikachu with the goal to make it a Raichu because it wouldn't be me playing a Pokemon game if I didn't grab up a Raichu.  That alone makes me want to at least continue into the game even though I feel it's a bit shallow at the moment, because that little hint of depth encourages me that there will be more.  Maybe I'm wrong, but that's something I'm going to find out, that's for sure.  And you know, maybe I'll just unify Japan in the meantime if I'm not too busy and all.

Let's Talk About the New Characters in Dynasty Warriors 8 - Jin Edition

Time for the final iteration of this series of posts talking about the additions to the roster for the up-coming Dynasty Warriors 8.  Jin is perhaps one of the more tricky kingdoms to talk about because of the fact that it wasn't actually known as Jin until the war of the era was just about done.  Up until that point, it was still known as Wei (or Cao Wei, historically) so it's honestly a bit hard to say where the line is.  So hard that even KOEI had no real idea where to draw it with their initial cast for DW7 that included Xiahou Ba, someone that defected to Shu almost instantly after the Simas rose to the power that would eventually allow them to take control of the empire, reducing the Caos rule to figurehead at best.  That is, of course, generally the line as it seems to be, however - as soon as Sima Yi seized power from Cao Shuang, that's generally where it feels like Wei ends and Jin begins.  As luck would have it, the three new players for Jin do manage to reinforce that.

Jia Chong is up first, and he's definitely a Jin man through and through.  He rose to prominence after Sima Yi passed on and Sima Shi took over, continuing to serve even as Sima Shi died as well, passing on the kingdom to Sima Zhao.  Chong was also one of the two people who were crucial in stopping Cao Mao (one of the Wei Emperors) from seizing power back for the Cao family during an attempted coup.  He wasn't the one who killed Mao directly, but his subordinate and even though he wasn't executed for the 'crime', his name was always associated with the murder of Cao Mao.  (The direct line from Wiki is "From that point on, however, Jia's reputation among the people was one of regicide." which, completely out of context, is awesome.)  Chong was also instrumental in helping suppress the myriad of rebellions that plagued Cao Wei during the entire Sima clan reign prior to the actual claiming of Jin as its own Dynasty.  Though, he did serve after Jin was claimed and reluctantly lead many invasions into Wu until Wu finally surrendered, bringing the whole of China together.  So, in essence, Jia Chong -is- Jin through-and-through, and it's a good thing they went with him as a unique.  He fights with throwing axes which is just...awesome and I have absolutely no complaints at all.

Wen Yang is next, and he is a shining example of something I touched on before, in that just being a unique character in a Dynasty Warriors game was only half the point, where the other half was the actual presentation of it.  I can't say Wen Yang is a consummate Jin officer because he and his father were part of one of the rebellions -against- the Simas, but he joined them after it was quelled and was later on known for his valor and skill in battle.  See, the issue here is that there are relatively few officers of the era that were known for wielding a specific weapon since in most cases they just used a sword, a bow or a polearm.  But, of course, if everyone just had a sword, a bow or a polearm, it would be kind of a boring game as DW6 with its insane amount of polearms and cloned movesets can attest to.  So my thinking is that when you -get- someone who was known for wielding a non-traditional weapon give him that fucking weapon.  In this case, Wen Yang was famous for using a steel whip in battle which is -astounding-, but then you look on the KOEI site and his weapon is listed as....javelin.  A double-tipped javelin at that.  At this point, it almost seems like a waste and I genuinely wonder if his moveset is even going to be unique to him.  Unfortunate, since he doesn't have a -lot- attributed to him, but his reputation was there.

Last up is Zhang Chunhua, who was actually one of the few ladies of the period that actually has something credited to her name.  You see, Chunhua was Sima Yi's wife and in the times before he was employed by Cao Cao, he was, well, simply enjoying not being part of the strife of the era.  But he had talents that were known of and, according to one account, Cao Cao sent an official envoy requesting his service, but he declined citing poor health.  However, one of his maids saw him moving about in a manner that clearly suggested he wasn't ill and it worried Chunhua that the maid might send word to Cao Cao and get them all in trouble for ignoring an official request.  She was so worried, in fact, that she straight-up murdered the maid to keep her silent.  This is...roughly the only thing attributed to her in the whole of the era aside from giving birth to Sima Shi, Sima Zhao and a couple other children, but still, it's more than -some- of the others get.  As sort of a cute joke, I assume, Zheng Chunhua wields what are basically whip-gloves (pictured above) which were Sima Yi's weapons in Dynasty Warriors 6 for some ungodly reason.

Since there are no new additions to the Others category, (which is a grave oversight in my opinion) this will be the last of these posts for now.  I -would- mention something in a blurb about Zuo Ci here as he's being reintroduced to the Others portion of the cast after a two game absence, but he's a mystic, and mystics have a lot of bullshit around them, so it's hard to talk about them in a historical sense.  If you're one of the fine folks who've read each of these, I thank you because I honestly do enjoy history, so I enjoy sharing it.  I hope you found it at least mildly entertaining and/or informational if you read it at all.  In the meantime, I'll just be getting excited at the prospect of being able to play a Dynasty Warriors game again.  A game that isn't Dynasty Warriors Next.  Which I have so much grinding to do in.  So much grinding.

seriously, how do you not give the guy famous for wielding a friggin' steel whip a friggin' steel whip, I don't even

Let's Talk About the New Characters in Dynasty Warriors 8 - Wu Edition

Tonight, we round third base and discuss Wu's additions to Dynasty Warriors 8.  As with Wei, there are only two to pick and initially, I felt that perhaps one of the picks was a bit of a wasted one.  However, after a bit of further study, I do have to say that KOEI did good again with their picks this time around even if one of them wasn't -technically- a warrior of the time.  It's still a rather good showing, especially after Shu's picks and while I haven't looked too deeply into Jin's, I'm willing to say that the streak probably ends here for the most part.  Good run and all of that, but KOEI just cannot resist novelty characters and/or characters that just had absolutely no bearing on the era according to history -or- the novel on which they base the games off of for the most part.  Still, be happy for what they got right and such.

Let's speak of the pictured above first, which is a man by the name of Lu Su.  This was the guy that I thought originally didn't really need a spot since, first and foremost, he was a strategist and an advisor, but credit where it's due, the dude -did- lead troops into battle.  Not often, but enough to add General to his repertoire, eventually leading to his title of "General Across the River".  Not one of the best title names, as there are some real gems, but not bad either.  However, the reason why Lu Su is important is basically that you look at a majority of the decisions Sun Quan made, the big ones, and you have to realize that Lu Su is the reason Quan made most of them.  Su advocated resisting Cao Cao's larger forces when everyone else suggested surrender and bid that they team up with Liu Bei for a little-known conflict known as the Battle of Red Cliffs.  You know, just a tiny battle that we certainly haven't heard of and certainly wasn't turned into a John Woo movie or anything. 

He also spoke to lending Jing territory to Liu Bei when he came and asked to be named governor of the area to establish a home for himself and his followers.  He was the only one who suggested it would be a good idea, as it would strengthen their relationship as it was forged by their cooperation in the Battle of Red Cliffs.  Further, he was the only one to suggest that Liu Bei be allowed to retain part of Jing territory (which Wu had loaned to Shu) after Shu had established itself further west and doing so eventually allowed Wu to seize a big opportunity in what was Lu Meng's invasion of Jing which had occurred while Guan Yu was busy with Cao Cao's forces at Fan Castle.  This occurred two years after Lu Su's death, of course, but had he not argued to maintain things as they were, that opportunity might not have presented itself.  This is among other examples, so Lu Su was basically the guy behind the guy, if you will.  As such, I'm completely fine with him being a character since he's basically Sun Quan's Zhuge Liang or Sima Yi.  The character page says his weapon is a Rake, but looking at the above screenshot, I'm not....quite sure what to call that.  Let's just go with it, I suppose.

The other character added to the game was Han Dang and this was a very good move indeed.  Han Dang is one of those few, few officers that survived what is essentially a goodly portion of the major struggle of the era.  He joined up with Sun Jian at the start when Sun Jian and the rest of China were participating in quelling the Yellow Turbans and ended up staying with Wu until he died two years after Sun Quan, Sun Jian's second son, had declared himself Emperor of Wu.  Name an important battle that Wu was in and Han Dang was probably in it.  That alone is impressive since he was often right in the thick of things and managed to survive the battlefield which is not something that just anybody could claim.  It could be said that it was because of his need to inspire his men to fight as one no matter what, to trust in that unity, as well as the respect he showed everyone around him.  They don't always have to be the dude who turned the tide of a battle or something like that - sometimes they just have to be a cool dude which Han Dang was.  His weapon will be a Short Pike, apparently.

These two additions are, as stated, definitely indications of progress which is a very, very good thing of course.  It's not perfect just yet, but it could never be, I'm sure as it's not only the inclusion of characters, but their portrayal that is important and while KOEI may deliver on the former, they often fail at the latter.  That is my chief concern where it concerns adding Zhu Ran to the roster which is as much of an inevitability as anything, given how badass Zhu Ran was.  Other notable Wu inclusions would be Pan Zhang, He Qi and Xu Sheng which sort of shows just how much is left in the pool considering there are quite a few other notables (Including Sun Quan's sons) that could be added, especially for long-game purposes.  With Xtreme Legends favoring Wei for 7 and Empires (damnit, KOEI) favoring Shu, perhaps Xtreme Legends for 8 will put a few Wu characters into play?  We'll see!  Hopefully.  (Physical product, KOEI, seriously)

Zhu Ran, baddest dude in the land, bitches

Let's Talk About the New Characters in Dynasty Warriors 8 - Wei Edition

Tonight, we resume our history lesson/rant by speaking on the Wei side of the Dynasty Warriors 8 character additions.  Of the three main kingdoms, Shu (the kingdom that's had more officers for several iterations) was the only one to receive three new characters (of course) with Wei and Wu only seeing the addition of two new characters per faction with the remaining three showing up in Jin's roster.  Would you be surprised if I stated that Wu and Wei are the two factions of the three that actually need the characters because they actually have them in history?  No?  Yeah, I didn't figure as much.  Because you guys are smart, and I yell about it enough that it's fairly obvious.  Regardless, the two Wei picks were good ones, if nothing else.

The first character introduced was Li Dian which was a fine, fine choice, given that he was actually a character who had some bearing and impact on the era in a big way.  In fact, a -lot- of Wei officers would fall into this category, meaning there are still plenty of misrepresentation issues to be addressed, but this shows that they're at least working on it, as did two....one of the characters they added for DW7: Xtreme Legends (as well as the one they re-added).  Li Dian wasn't much of a warrior to start off with, doing more studying than anything, but that proved to be his benefit later in life when that insight gave him some particular observational skills.  Like being able to see a blatant ambush attempt by the Shu army even when his fellows couldn't and then riding in to the rescue when an ambush (surprise!) happened.  Unfortunately, KOEI seems to lose the plot in their portrayal of him, as he's being painted as an easygoing, flippant guy when he was historically known to be very duty-first and respectful as well as smart.  Their portrayal is kind of further exaggerated by his weapon, called a Wheeled Halberd which is....a thing.  Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose.

The second introduction is long, long overdue in Yue Jin who is one of the more famous generals in the whole of Wei's history.  Like Li Dian, Yue Jin is one of the people who were basically with Cao Cao from the beginning (which oddly contrasts with KOEI's vision of the long-game as mentioned, but they're overdue as stated, so eh), but unlike Li Dian, Yue Jin was one of the Five Elite Generals of Wei which is....kind of a big deal and kind of makes it all the more strange that, here we are, eight mainline titles in and he's only now being made a unique character.  What makes characters that were actually relevant interesting, however, is that you actually can figure on just what battles they'll be prominent in, especially considering their new-ness which naturally means they'll be the focus of those battles.  The historic Battle of Guandu will definitely see a heavy bit of time go to Yue Jin now that he's unique and likely some for the Hefei Campaign (which will be one or two missions simply titled "The Battle of Hefei" of course).  With the latter, considering Li Dian is a unique as well, I expect a take on Hefei that hasn't been taken yet, in what is described here:

Before Cao Cao left to attack Zhang Lu, he left his representative Xue Ti with a letter that read "Open when the enemy arrives" on the envelope. As Sun Quan's army was already advancing towards Hefei, the defending generals then opened the letter as instructed. It stated, "When Sun Quan arrives, generals Zhang (Liao) and Li (Dian) will engage him; General Yue (Jin) will remain behind to defend and not go to battle." The generals were puzzled by the instructions. It was well known that Li Dian and Zhang Liao had a personal feud, and Yue Jin lacked experience on defending a fortress, even though he was renowned to be the best vanguard in Cao Cao's forces. As the three of them did not get along well with each other, Zhang Liao feared that they might disobey orders. He said, "Our lord is away at war. By the time his reinforcements reach here, we're already done for. So he is actually instructing us to take advantage of the situation, when the enemy has just arrived and not fully gathered yet, to attack them and devastate their morale so as to calm our men and strengthen our defences. Victory or defeat, it all depends on this battle. Why are the two of you still hesitating?" Li Dian was moved and he said, "This is a national crisis. We'll see how your strategy works out. How can I allow my personal affairs take precedence over my official duties?" Zhang Liao then selected 800 "die-hard" soldiers overnight in preparation for the upcoming battle, and threw a banquet for his men.

Which was previously just handled by a beefed up Zhang Liao sort of appearing near Sun Quan's main camp and assaulting the shit out of it.  Of course, if you were a Wu officer, that meant get your ass to the main camp, but if you were a Wei officer it generally meant you had to set it up beforehand and then Zhang Liao would eventually retreat since nobody but you could usually rout the enemy commander.  He could take out anyone else who was in the main camp (and often did.  Near-automatically) but never the Commander.  This new spin on it, however, could place a more personal angle on it (as well as give Li Dian and Yue Jin legitimate characterization) and make the mission all the more badass if it's honestly just you and the two others against the entire Wu army at that point.  I will take it.

Li Dian and Yue Jin are honestly two prime picks, but they needed a third slot and it needed to be Yu Jin, the final of the Five Elite Generals of Wei.  I won't get into it anymore than that, because I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he's introduced in the eventual Xtreme Legends iteration of the game, given 7 opened the series to that possibility.  At which time I'll go into a little more description (unless Xtreme Legends is Download-only in which case KOEI can once again resume fucking off) since there's nothing worse than going "Oh hey, I can talk about this....but I already did like half a year ago".  All in all, where Shu's picks honestly seemed wasted (If you want to give actual Shu officers a slot, go for Liao Hua or Wang Ping at least) but Wei's seem so on the money that it's a shame there weren't more of them.  Of course, it's not...like there aren't superficial characters in Wei either.  Still, it's a good job by KOEI and that deserves at least a little praise!

seriously, how do you make Cai Wenji before the last two Elite Generals, I don't even