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

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

The other night, I very nearly got side-tracked into a long-winded rant about the new characters added in the latest installment of the Dynasty Warriors franchise, but I stopped myself, rationalizing that it would simply be better to just give myself a post to let it out.  Because it's going to take quite a while to air out enough history nerdiness and frustration that I am allowed to have, even for a game that I am pointedly excited for.  And then I started thinking about it and got sort of intimidated on just going full-bore on this stuff because, again, it's just a lot of stuff.  Combine that with a mood shift last night and, well, I just didn't have it in me to actually do the write-up.  So today I thought, "Oh, I know, I'll just split it all up since I will yell a lot about Shu and Wu at least" and, well, that's honestly kind of a good idea.

KOEI's choices with the last two games seem focused on the long-game; that is, telling the end-tale of the war even though it's not quite as.....good, as the middle of it.  It's an odd choice, admittedly, but I'm just telling myself it's simply leading up to The War of the Eight Princes, where things kind of get interesting again for a little bit.  I'm not...quite sure what they'd do with the scenario (It's a little weird to include it in a Dynasty Warriors game, but not big enough for its own series) and if they were going to do anything with the surrounding time periods, they'd be much more inclined to take on the Warring States period ending with the establishment of the Qin Dynasty or perhaps even going beyond the fall of the Qin Dynasty and into the establishing of the Han Dynasty seeing as the Han plays a central plot point to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms towards the start of the whole thing.  Regardless, the end-game is the focus for now and Shu's three new characters emphasize that rather effectively.

It should, of course be noted once more that Dynasty Warriors has always, always erred more on the side of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novelization than history itself, so it's honestly no surprise that two of the new characters are children of Guan Yu with that as their sole claim to fame in the historical side of things.  Guan Yu was kind of a big deal in history, but not nearly as much as he was made in the novelization and, indeed, culture afterwards even going so far as being deified by Taoism and Buddhism.  Arguably enough, even the third new character is merely an extension of Guan Yu's family in a sense.  This is why we don't play Dynasty Warriors for historical accuracy.

Guan Xing, arguably Guan Yu's least important son (his only competition is a son that probably didn't exist in history) was more of an official than an officer or general in the historical texts, only seeing a couple years of prominence before his death to little or no fanfare.  So, of course in the Novelization, he was a capable warrior who challenged another officer for the honor of leading the vanguard during an attack on Wu territory for vengeance shortly after the fall of Fan Castle, which resulted in Guan Yu's capture and death.  Eventually he succeeded in killing the man who lead the unit that captured Guan Yu (Kind of - for one, two officers were given credit and for two, the novel states that Guan Yu's ghost stopped the man in his tracks to allow Xing to score the killing blow which is kind of lame), earning back his father's weapon which he presumably used for the rest of his military career.  However, in Dynasty Warriors 8, he'll wield something called "Wingblades" which I hope are not Lu Xun's twin swords because that would just be lazy.  Even as somebody who got the novel treatment, he didn't see -that- much importance levied onto him.

Guan Yinping was apparently the daughter of Guan Yu and by that virtue it simply meant she didn't do a thing historically.  (If the lack of Wikipedia link wasn't enough of a hint)  The female characters in Dynasty Warriors by and large rarely had any sort of presence in the era, if they existed at all, and more often than not were just people to be married off to solidify an alliance for however long it lasted.  Sun Shangxiang is one of the more notable instances of this, being married off to Liu Bei by Sun Quan (her brother) in an effort to stabilize tensions between their organizations (neither had claimed King or Emperor of their domain by this point, so Kingdom is the wrong word to use).  Similarly, Sun Quan suggested a marriage between one of his sons and Guan Yinping, though Guan Yu rejected it.  That is, uh...pretty much all there is to tell about her really.  She's going to be wielding a Dual-Headed Mace (which you can kind of see in the screenshot above, but can see it better here) which is neat if not hilariously inappropriate.

Finally, Zhang Bao kind of continues in Guan Xing's footsteps in being absolutely useless in history, but made huge in the novelization because of who he was.  Zhang Bao was the oldest son of Zhang Fei who was one of Shu's fiercest warriors and oath brother to Guan Yu and Liu Bei himself.  In history, he apparently died young, but of course in the novelization he didn't and went on to be that officer that feuded with Guan Xing in an attempt to lead the vanguard on a campaign against Wu.  (See?  Mentioned it earlier and everything.)  The reason I state that his inclusion is likely due in part to Guan Xing is because their story will likely revolve around being forced to become oath brothers (like Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu were) which made them sort of a team in the novelization from that point on.  I'm curious as to whether or not they'll keep the novelization's take on his death (Falling into a valley, basically) or if they'll do something else with it.  His weapon is called a Flail Sword despite obviously looking more like an oversized Katar at best.

I am going to take this moment to go on a little rant about Xu Shu who is completely and totally in the wrong faction.  Since I didn't get to see him in Dynasty Warriors 7:  Empires (Fucking KOEI) when he was added, I didn't pay a lot of attention.  However, turns out he's listed in Shu when...he just wasn't, really.  Much like Xiahou Ba being in Jin (Xiahou Ba fled Wei before it even became Jin), but I attributed Xiahou Ba's presence as a need for officers in Jin rather than Shu.  Xu Shu being in Shu makes no sense since he basically only served in Wei.  The story basically goes that Xu Shu met up with Liu Bei as Bei led thousands from their homes, fleeing Cao Cao's territory that eventually culminated in the Battle of Changban where Cao Cao's forces caught up with Liu Bei's own.  At most, Xu Shu advised Liu Bei in this battle before hearing that his mother was in Cao Cao's possession, leading him to state "Hey, I wish I coulda joined you, but I need my mom", essentially, and join up with Cao Cao where he stayed until he died decades later.  Instead of trying to take his mother to Liu Bei's territories to join up with him or something.  His return in Dynasty Warriors 8 still in Shu's over-inflated roster only adds to the silliness and bore mentioning.

This....is pretty much exactly why I decided to do separate posts for the new characters.  I am hopefully going to do other posts for Wei, Wu and Jin (no new Other characters this go around, unfortunately), but those will be another night.  Shu was just the one that nearly set me off on a rant (which, you see how long this went) so I figured it was better to do that one first.  Expect something similarly verbose when it comes to Wu not only because of who -was- added, but who -wasn't- added as well, for better or worse.  That's....something I'll explain when I get to it.  In the meantime, time to just be all excited that I'm going to get to buy and play a new Dynasty Warriors game!  It's a surprising amount of giddiness that I feel at the prospect.

I am just such a nerd

Legend Mode and Other Xtreme Legends Issues

I should preface this post with the fact that I really like Dynasty Warriors 7 Xtreme Legends as it is, essentially, more Dynasty Warriors 7 which is as much of a good thing as it can be.  I realize upon thinking it out that I'm more or less going to tear into everything that is 7XL and throw down all the tatters here as examples of my problems with the game, which will leave a negative opinion hanging over it all.  So I really want it known that, despite the bitching I'm about to do, I enjoy the game and don't regret my purchase of it.  This is really vital to spend a little bit of time talking on, as you might guess from the amount of time I spent talking on it.

With that out of the way, I have to start with Legend Mode which is basically the entire draw of the game.  The new characters are good, the new weapons are fantastic, the remix option assuredly breathes a whole new realm of life into the base game and Challenge mode....exists, but Legend Mode is where the bulk of the effort went and it shows.  Basically, in Legend Mode, you pick your Ruler and your Adjutant (both of which don't matter much at all, except you play as the ruler which can be changed freely to no negative impact) and are given a 'desolate' city to reinvigorate by going out and killing men by the thousands in the missions tailor-made (or not, I'll explain in a bit) for the mode.  I'm not even going to pretend that this is deep in any fashion and it's clearly another attempt at a hub city ala Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce, yet somehow more shallow.

Once you unlock a utility (blacksmith, weapon dealer, strategist, etc.) they remain forever and you can use their services to your hearts content.  The Weapon Dealer will, unsurprisingly, sell you weapons (of which there are six new categories I believe), the Blacksmith functions exactly like it does in the base game; you give it a weapon and money and he'll slowly unlock the seal on your weapon.  I have no use for this as I loaded my Dynasty Warriors 7 save into the game which has the added benefit of carrying over everything I unlocked like seals, which was, of course, everything since I platinum'd the game.  The Merchant will scour one of the handful of provinces of the land and come back with treasure and/or weapons according to some random formula that only it knows and the Strategist will sell you manuals to increase your stats.  Which is very, very useful for obvious reasons.

There is, by that merit, absolutely nothing to do in the city as it serves as only a hub from which you upgrade your character, get more money/weapons and go into missions.  There's a token effort of development, in that the city can have a 'mood' (which is either Desolate, Orderly, Carefree or Friendly) which has some sort of effect on the city (carefree being the most useful as all prices are halved because nobody cares, get it) and it changes between missions.  Well, mostly between Orderly and Carefree, with Friendly only coming up after your Adjutant has been your Adjutant for some length of time that I couldn't discern.  When it reaches friendly, you talk to them, get an item (manual of some stat booster) and then go about your way.  Or, if you're me, you immediately replace them, as getting them to friendly gives you their 'devotion line' which gives you access to their Legend Mode voice gallery.  There's a trophy for hearing everyone's devotion lines, of course.  Well, a few.  One for women, one for men, and then one for everyone, if I'm not mistaken.

Legend Mode is a disappointment in a very minor way as I was having flashbacks to Dynasty Warriors 4's take on roughly the same concept, in that every character had one battle tailor-made for them and their exploits, whereas that was sort of the case here, but not for every character and some of the missions were just....ridiculous.  The manual claims that if you play the stage as the Recommended Warrior, you'll get more scenes and such, but from my experience, you get the same amount of scenes no matter who you are, unfortunately.  I might be wrong, or it might be a consequence of seeing the 'ending' of the game (brought about when the Emperor comes to stay in your town for being so awesome or something) which is just the credits.  Or it might be a clever ruse to get you to play as characters you might not have played in the base game, or rather just developing some of the underdeveloped characters (ones that didn't feature heavily into their respective story) which is rather welcome.

Unfortunately, I kind of just roll my eyes when one stage is playing as Xiao Qiao (wife of Zhou Yu, historically wasn't a warrior at all, of course) during Chi Bi (or Red Cliffs as you might know it by) escorting Zhuge Liang to the altar where he shifts the direction of the winds and then protecting him as he's doing it.  That sort of level is a step above inane which is beyond frustrating, but there are levels that really make up for it.  Whether it's because it's more 'accurate' than the norm or what, the Battle of Jieting with Yue Ying as a recommended character is rather nice as it details the infamous battle where Zhuge Liang's student, Ma Su made such a big blunder that he was executed in shame for it.

Not to get off on a history tangent, but, basically during the Northern Campaigns of Zhuge Liang towards the latter half of the war, Shu was in a constant state of trying to take the northwest area of China from Wei and failing miserably at it.  They managed to get the really important location of Jieting which Zhuge Liang entrusted the defense of to his student, Ma Su.  Ma Su had the bright idea to make camp atop the mountain (likely for the best vantage point possible) despite being told it was an incredibly bad idea by his underlings, as it left them unable to properly defend their water sources.  This is, of course, always reason enough to not do something, but Ma Su didn't listen and, sure enough, Wei cut off their water supply to force them off.  It was a decisive victory for Wei and Shu lost many, many troops in it, which was the direct reason for Ma Su's execution.  Of course, there are conflicting reports saying that he might've been killed while imprisoned awaiting execution, he might've simply escaped, or perhaps was just held indefinitely, but whatever the case, it was the last thing of note that Ma Su did.

Right, anyway, a really positive addition to the Legend Mode roster of stages (which play out from left to right in rising Star Rankings, starting at one, ending in 10) is the inclusion of some Classic Dynasty Warriors stages recreated with DW7 assets.  These stages all have whatever modes they offered in the game they came from (Meaning some battles like The Battle/Siege of Fan Castle have three different versions) and are enough of a blend of past and present to offer nostalgia with out sacrificing much, if anything, in enjoyment.  There's not quite enough of them, but there's more as DLC for DW7 (specifically, they won't work with basic DW7XL as they require Conquest mode to be played) that it was surely done that way on purpose; if you want that nostalgia you gotta pay for it.

Also of interest is the addition of personal Titles that every character earns (up to 10, I believe) by performing certain tasks under certain difficulty restrictions.  These range from "Simple" to "Goddamn Nigh-Impossible" depending on whether or not other Titles offer bonuses appropriate to assist with getting the higher titles.  For instance, Lu Bu's top title is earned by defeating 1000 foes on a Ten Star ranked level on Nightmare difficulty (which is new to XL, is higher than Chaos which is higher than Hard) without using a musou attack and while keeping his health above 70% full.  On its own, this is patently impossible, let's not mince words on that.  Everything in Nightmare, even with the max defense possible, hits like a goddamn truck and there's not one damn thing you can do about it.  However, the bonus of one of Lu Bu's other Titles is that attacks made with a speed weapon transfer health from the target to the player.  This, coupled with the strongest Speed weapon I have (Base attack of 56 whereas the best Halberd I have so far has a base attack of 83) and good seal distribution makes it possible, though difficult.  Especially with the no musou restriction as musou attacks are really your lifeblood in Nightmare mode.

Once you really see all that Legend Mode has to offer you do, unfortunately, get a sense of "That's it?", which is disappointing, however there is still every single level of Conquest mode available to you in a technical sense as well.  But the good missions make up for it, and it's a fun little toy to play around with on the set that is Dynasty Warriors 7, but that's all it really is is a new toy; an addition.  Collecting all the new weapons put in the game (Some by beating stages on Chaos and under certain circumstances like "Swiftly complete the objective" or "Beat X, Y, and Z Officers personally", some by, likely doing the same or similar on Nightmare mode.) is a fun distraction and basically the only one you have full control over.  I'm sure I could play a game of "This is how I would make it better", but I won't bother.  Xtreme Legends is almost always the one I find little reason to play (excluding Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends as basically everything Samurai Warriors 2 was fantastic), whereas Empires is always the game that gets you to play more and more.  And there likely will be a Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires and, provided I have the opportunity, I will buy the hell out of that, too.

300th Post Special

So, I completely forgot that I actually planned Tuesday to do this post yesterday, but I'm happy with what I did yesterday anyway, so it doesn't matter.  Only reason I'm bothered at all is because I scrambled for an hour at least to find something to write about and then completely forgot that I already had an idea until I hit post and it told me the post was successful.  Right at that moment, even; "Post Successful!" "Damnit, I had an idea."  I briefly considered doing an immediate Bonus Post for this, but then decided to just roll with doing it today, hoping I'd get a little more in mind with the subject here sometime between last night and posting tonight.  I didn't, really, but I've watched 300 enough times that I remember enough.

Anyways, yesterday was my 300th post on here and while I've said I don't want to make a big deal about every iteration of 50 or so, there's kind of a stark difference here between "Yay, I have 150 posts" and "Man, 300 posts already".  I'd venture a guess to say the same gap is present between 300 and 500 and 400 will likely go by without so much as a whimper.  Maybe, I don't know, we'll just have to get that far first.  Anyways again, the idea with this post is that, since it's the 300 301st post, I will spend a little time talking about making 300 posts and then move on to the movie 300 which I am pretty happy with.  I probably won't get as into it as a Popcorn On, but more than just a passing mention.

I really don't know why, but 300 feels like a really important number to me when it concerns the amount of posts I've done.  Maybe it's because it's actually right there on the side that confirms, yes, 300 posts, or maybe it's because 300 is pretty close to 365; the amount of days in a general year.  While I've missed days here and there, I still think 365 posts is a good day since it means, irrefutably, that I definitely kept up my New Year's Resolution and stuck with this for at least a year.  Not out of a sense of obligation or anything like that, but just because I actually, really enjoy doing it and exercised a little responsibility in ensuring that I kept doing something I enjoyed.  Which, while it doesn't sound difficult, I'm pretty sure there are those out there who understand that it really is not easy to keep up with something even if you enjoy it.

Regardless, that's enough of me saying "Yay, 300 posts is cool", time to move onto saying "300 the movie is pretty cool."

So, longtime readers might know that I really value plot and story above all else in such a way that I'm willing to forgive other short-comings if something offers me something well-thought-out, well-performed, and/or is just very good.  Obviously, 300 does not fall into this camp as the story is pretty much history but kind of dumb.  On the other hand, 300 doesn't need to be smart because it makes no attempts at thinking it is more than eye-candy; not in the most obvious way of course, but in the way it's so stylized and the way it unfolds.  An overabundance of  slow-mo either annoys you or brings up that primal satisfaction hiding within us all as slow-mo is pretty much when all the awesome things happen.  Spears impaling enemies, a heroic deathmarch by one of the main protagonists, etc., the slow-mo is there to highlight the moments that might go unnoticed otherwise, for better or worse.

For those outside of the know, 300 was based on the historic battle of Thermopylae in which a small group of soldiers (More than 300, of course, some sources would number the entire force of about 7,000 men, though the affiliations were varied; some Spartan, some Thespians, etc.) under the leadership of King Leonidas of Sparta, survived an attack of the expansive Persian army for seven days before being surrounded and, later, routed.  Though the initial force was in the thousands, after the second day of combat, Leonidas dismissed the bulk of the forces when he learned that they had been betrayed which would ultimately lead to their demise.  Thanks to the strategic location of the Hot Gates, even the small force of ~1,400 troops was apparently able to last quite a while, resulting in a fantastic last-stand tale if nothing else.  Were a road not basically handed to the Persians that allowed them to destroy that strategic advantage, it's difficult to say just how much longer they could have lasted.

Obviously the only thing the movie really captures in relation to actual history is the spirit of the battle and some characters involved, but, well, when it comes to movies not really much else is needed.  When you just want to sit down and watch a badass action movie, that's all you want to do and you sometimes just need to have certain things that fill that niche.  300 will do that and do it well, provided you aren't against fast-forwarding through parts that....really have no bearing on the movie whatsoever and are unfortunate inclusions that serve to only bring the overall product down.  For every scene involving Leonidas' wife, for instance, we could just have more scenes of Persian death and that's what we want from this movie, nothing else.  But again, I make no claims that this movie is perfect, merely a clear choice for someone who wants to sit down and watch a stylish combat movie that doesn't pretend it has a 'deep, involving' plot.

So there's that.  Happy 300 posts to me and such.  I finally found a way to talk about 300 (the movie) without doing a Popcorn On for it, and it's actually double-topical since, on top of the post count, in less than an hour, theaters all across the East Coast will start showing The Immortals which is, if you didn't know already, made by pretty much the same team who did 300 and is kind of the same idea.  In that it just wants to be a badass action/war movie.  So there you go.  Coincidence or carefully crafted plot?  You decide.

(It was a coincidence.  A happy one.)

Upcoming Purchases: Dynasty Warriors 7 Xtreme Legends

So, I'm not really planning on getting a whole lot for myself, game-wise, until the end of the year, which means the games I am getting are things that I obviously care for quite a bit, games that are important enough to me that I have to spend the money I barely have to obtain them.  Which means, if I care enough, if I want it enough to buy it, it's enough that I can also concisely explain my want as well, right?  So, hopefully here will be where I can mete out my reasons for my purchases when they're getting...well, slightly closer to release.  Also, just as a note, I apologize here because I am going to go History Nerd on this post.

November 15th is fairly close which is DW7:XL's announced release date, so, barring any issues around that day will be when I get my hands upon the latest installment of historical chinese genocide.  Although, as in the past, Xtreme Legends isn't a new installment so much as it's the equivalent to an expansion pack for PC games (or, as we know them now "DLC" apparently) since it's not a whole new game, but rather a bunch of additions added on to the main game.  For those out of the loop, there's been an Xtreme Legends version for every Main-Series Dynasty Warriors game since 3 (though they skipped 6, presumably because they'd just already started working on 7) and they've all been much the same as what we can expect from 7:XL, but with something semi-surprising:  New characters.

While hearing "New characters" and "Xtreme Legends" in the same sentence isn't in itself something out of the ordinary, hearing it for Dynasty Warriors is a bit different, since no Xtreme Legends has -added- new characters to the main game before.  Dynasty Warriors 3:  Xtreme Legends allowed you access to the stories of the seven "Other" characters, but they were included in the main game already.  The Empires series of games is normally where you can look for the new characters or real big changes (see:  Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires with new movesets for a gripload of characters), and hopefully this isn't telling of a doing-away with Empires, since that was really just hitting its stride.

There's quite a few oddities with the new characters being implemented with DW7:XL as well, which makes it, to me, that much more interesting.  When it was announced that three characters would be added, I instinctively turned to the Three Kingdoms aspect and anticipated one from each kingdom with Jin and the "Others" being unfortunately left to the wayside once more.  Guo Jia, announced at the same time, would have been the Wei installment, I dared hope of Zhu Ran being added in for Wu and I didn't even -know- who could be added for Shu, but I was assured that whoever it was would have been completely overblown and overplayed since that is how KOEI rolls with Shu.  (And, well, a lot of other sources, in all honesty.)  However, word later released that the other two characters were, drumroll please....also in Wei.

I was completely floored with this, as I assumed three characters being added to one faction would end up leaving it towering in the roster, but then I checked it out and, in all honesty, Wei -needed- the characters.  Numbering at 14 without Jin (What would eventually become Jin was, in essence started by Wei's top strategist, Sima Yi who was relegated to the Jin forces for roster purposes) and 13 with their existence, Wei became the kingdom to have the least officers out of the main three.  Wu numbered in at 16, and Shu at 17, so having it 16, 16, and 17 is much more even now.  Ironically, if you look at the historics of it all, Wei still has the largest pool of notable people they could 'General-ize' (DW Fan-Term, basically means make into a unique character) out of the others, so for them to have gone as the least-numbered in the roster?  That's....a little funny to me.

Anyways, the oddities with the roster don't end at that, as one of the characters in particular is fairly unique in that she is a woman who might have actually existed as a warrior in the time.  Wang Yi, wife of Zhao Ang, wasn't what you could call a prominent figure in the history of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or the era it was based off of, but to be credited by name as a woman who may have fought in an actual battle, considering the time they were in, is actually kind of a big deal.  If we are to believe what we're told, during a conflict (and a prolonged one at that) with Ma Chao, Wang Yi took up a bow and arrow and actually fought alongside her husbands men as they attempted to repel Ma Chao's forces, raising their morale in doing so as a shining example of loyalty.  The long and short of it, unfortunately, looks like they didn't succeed in holding Ji Castle, but throughout the whole conflict (several different engagements, of course, since that's how battles used to be) Wang Yi fought and advised her husband on the best ways to succeed.  That they didn't, well....seems a bit unimportant in the face of the history here.

Of course, in DW:XL7, she'll fight with Sai, which completely negates just about everything.  That she's even a character kind of does that as well, since as I said, it appears that she only fought in one battle and then disappeared in the eyes of historians, but, well, details.  Joining her and Guo Jia (who will fight with an orb and scepter and, presumably by extension of that, magic which actually isn't a first) will be Pang De, who I believe I have complained about re: his Dynasty Warriors interpretation before and will have to do so again.  Introduced in Dynasty Warriors 5, Pang De was one of the several characters cut in the transition from 5 to 6, though personally that exclusion didn't really mean much.  In 5, his weapons were a pair of Halberds that he wielded rather slowly (I would call it "Matter-of-Factly", considering they were slow, but fairly precise) and said weapons were handed off to Zhang Liao (who previously used a, er...long Halberd) in the move to 6 who showed us all how a man wields twin halberds.

Unsurprisingly, his re-addition to the cast brings a particular stench of laziness as he will once again wield a pair of halberds (likely with the majority of Zhang Liao's moveset) rather than a new and, frankly more interesting weapon.  This is the part that I'm sure I've brought up before, but I'll re-tread it anyway, by the way.  Pang De was fairly known (in the novel, at least) for his several bouts with Guan Yu which resulted in a rather heated rivalry where De was concerned at least.  It was said that at one point (and this is where I'm finding discrepancies which unfortunately sullies my perfect vision) that he commissioned a coffin made to Guan Yu's specifications (as Guan Yu was a rather large man) and started to drag it into battle to show his determination of felling Yunchang (Guan Yu's style name).  The alternate account states that he simply had the coffin made to show that he would either win the next battle he met Guan Yu at or die.

This is my build-up, of course, into suggesting that his weapon should have been a coffin rather than anything else.  It's no more ridiculous than Twin Iron Fans or a fire-spewing magic staff, despite the visage of a giant man smacking other men with a large wooden box, so it's not that it would be too crazy or anything like that.  It would likely rely a lot on capture-combat, much like Ding Feng, a character added for 7 who fights with gauntlets, so it's not like it's that foreign a concept either.  Unfortunately, it seems that I'm really the only person who sees it this way, but oh well.  At least I can come on here and talk about how awesome my idea would be and never get proven wrong!

Character nerding out aside, Xtreme Legends 7 also looks to add the usual fare for Xtreme Legends games:  A Mode that sounds an awful lot like a blend of the Xtreme Mode from previous Xtreme Legends games and something out of Empires called the "Legend Scenario" where a player controls a character through more difficult versions of battles used throughout the campaign, can bring along another character of their choosing and furnish a castle as the progression goes.  I'm more than a little confused and intrigued by this mode based on the sole description I have to explain it, so I'll have to report back on how it is once I have the game.  Aside from that, there's also a "Hero Scenario" mode which sounds like a retread of something similar from DW4:XL which seems to be showing off specific battles (with specific characters) that a character may be known from.  Something like Gan Ning's flawless night raid, Zhang Fei's defense of Chang Ban bridge or, for something a bit larger scale, Lu Meng's participation at the battle of Fan Castle.

There's a score of other new things being added in, such as new weapons and the return of the disk-swapping to have the 'full' DW7+XL experience, but what I've touched on, I feel, is the important bits.  They're why I'm buying the game, in the end, really.  Well, them and the barebones destruction at a large scale that the game, as a base, provides constantly.

Popcorn On - Hero

So, I got this a couple weeks ago and watched it a few days later, but haven't really had a lot of occasion to talk about it til now.  Now being that I've been thinking about it again and, honestly?  I'm not sure what to think about this movie.  So maybe if I write it out, it'll help me really figure it out.  And in the process give you guys sort of a pros/cons look at the movie from my perspectives and opinions.

Now, the first thing I'll point out, which I have to point out is that, well, you guys know I don't like wire-fu nonsense.  And this movie is rife with it.  But at the same time, it's not super bad with it, and doesn't completely use it as a crutch.  So while I sort of like the fight scenes, I can't really remember one beyond the awful parts I don't like.  Well, okay, a couple parts, but the movie seems more about the drama than the action.

It's really hard to explain the plot of the movie without spoiling what is "The Twist" that comes into play half-way or a little earlier through the film.  So, rather than dance around it, and with the fact that it's given away on the friggin' DVD case, I'm just going to spoiler it here and, basically throughout the entire article.  This is your fair warning, that if you want to watch the movie unblemished by pre-knowledge, you should probably stop reading now and wait til you've seen it.

The main character of the film is simply known as Nameless.  Yet he is a prefect of a small area under the King of Qin's domain.  (For those not in the know, a Prefect is sort of like a Governor or similar; basically in charge of running an area)  Nameless has dedicated his life to practicing his swordplay for reasons that aren't disclosed until fairly late in the film, but are apparent much earlier than that; those reasons being that he is bent on revenge against the man who killed his parents.  Because of that swordplay technique, he has been granted an audience with the King of Qin, as he has defeated three deadly assassins that the King put a bounty on after they tried to kill him and failed.

In true Tarantino style, the movie starts pretty much at the end and cuts back to earlier times to progress the movie along.  The first fight is between Nameless and the first Assassin, Long Sky, who specializes in a spear fighting style.  And it's probably the first really sour taste the movie gave me that almost made me stop watching it.  Because Nameless and Long Sky don't actually fight at the start; after Long Sky fights off a few guards like they're nothing, he and Nameless stand before one another in what is essentially a Go parlor and rather than fight with their weapons....they fight with their minds.

Except not really.  Without the movie magic, it would just be two guys standing in front of each other with a pretty neat song playing in the background for ten minutes.  The way they explain it is that it's a battle of wills, in that each of them have been able to size the other up and can play out the whole fight in their minds to determine the victor.  Then once one was decided in their minds, they fought for real.  Which lasted....not too long and unsurprisingly, Nameless wins.  I mean, absolutely zero surprise, the reason he's there is because he has the end of Sky's spear.

From there, the movie goes on to have Nameless get moved closer to the King.  As celebration for taking out more than one assassin, he is allowed within 20 paces of the King to drink with him.  As well as getting a ton of gold and land to rule over.  This is important, of course, but you don't really get why until the end.  Anyways, after that, the swords of the other two assassins, Broken Sword and Flying Snow are exposed, and the King asks him how he managed to defeat them, as they worked together as a deadly pair, for they were truly devoted to one another.

Without going too much into it, since it's a really really long section of movie with a log of exposition and not a lot of action, Nameless recounts a tale of how he gained their trust by assisting in warding off an attack of Qin archers and then managed to turn them against one another through sheer jealousy.  After Snow killed Sword, Snow's emotions were too unchecked and Nameless was able to defeat her easily.

Then the movie does something I really, really have to respect.  At this point in the story, the King and Nameless have been fairly pleasant to one another, but the King hasn't had a lot of his personality shown.  Sure, he wants to rule the land but....eh.  Whatever, who doesn't.  But here, the King really kicks into high-gear by immediately calling Bullshit on Nameless' story.  He muses that Nameless is actually working with the three assassins, as he knows from his dealings with Snow and Sword that they wouldn't turn on one another.

And the best part?  He's right.  Mostly.

After the King tells his version of what he thinks happened with the entire plot, Nameless concedes the fact that he is indeed an Assassin working to take him down, for the King of Qin's armies destroyed his village and killed his family.  And then proceeds to tell the King the entire story of what really happened.

Basically, because Nameless has perfected this badass technique, they think he's the only person who will be able to successfully assassinate the King of Qin, and concoct this scheme to get him close enough to perform this technique which requires him to be within, you guessed it, 20 paces.  The battle with Sky happened mostly as he said it did, except the strike he took Sky down with wasn't fatal and he was recovering off somewhere from it.  A similar thing had to happen with Snow, who essentially stabs Sword to make sure she fights Nameless instead of him.  (He isn't killed by the stab, either.  She's pretty accurate herself!)

Here's where the movie really starts building to the ending climax.  Sword is essentially the reason why the first assassination attempt failed.  He fought the King while Snow held off the guards and during that fight, saw the true nature of the King.  He then refused to kill him, because, in his opinion, the King had the ability to unite the land under a peaceful rule.  (Spoiler:  He's right, too.)  In telling this to both Snow and Nameless, he effectively draws a battle line between the two of them by stating that the King will not be killed while he still breathes.

Throughout the movie, the toll of everything starts becoming more and more clear, and in the end, Nameless realizes the truth, much as Sword had.  After making his decision on whether to kill the King or not, which I won't say (I will say the King gives Nameless his sword to choose with), Sword and Snow have a confrontation over their conflicting beliefs regarding the king, and decide to fight for their convictions.  In order to make Snow believe him, that he wants to be with her, that he truly wants a land of peace, he doesn't block a fatal strike and Snow accidentally kills him, forcing her to see the truth as well.

The rest of the ending, I just won't say, as it really is pretty neat.  But I'm really not sure.  I like the story, I really like the style and use of color, but I didn't like the action, and that's sort of the Anti-What-I-Got-The-Movie-For.  A good story in a Kung-Fu/Action movie is a bonus, not a selling point.  Still, all in all, I would say that it was a worthwhile experience, and really insist that anyone who hasn't seen it (which, if you haven't seen it by this point in reading this, what the hell is wrong with you, I warned you) to do so, to form their own opinions on it.  As for whether I'll watch it again...I'm not sure.  I might.  Which might be sort of telling on my opinion of it as well.

Oh my God, why did I decide this was a good idea?

Alright.  So, just to let those who haven't played DW7 yet, which is probably most of you, there is a mode called Conquest Mode.

Conquest mode is basically where they take China, divide it up into little coins to represent different battles and cities.  You've got a mish-mash of Legendary Battles, battles for weapons, "Free" battles, etc. etc.  It's good fun, honestly, and obviously beating a level unlocks the ones around it, if any.  There's a reward for unlocking the whole map, of course, which as you can see might be a little time-consuming.

But that's not what I'm interested in.  You see, they've implemented a few wandering figures into the map; depending on your bond with officers, they'll start wondering between cities and you can visit them to pal around a bit, as well as there being the existence of traveling merchants and Scholars (who appear all the time when you unlock all of the cities.)  The scholars, which is a neat touch I must say, ask you questions about the era in fives, and if you manage to get at least four out of five correct in a series, you get a monetary reward.  Which, now that I'm trying to buy up the big bad weapons, is necessary.  (Black Dragon Halberd alone is something like 65,000 gold(!))

Now, I might come off as a semi-expert of the time, but I'm not that good, as, for instance, I didn't really know the name of the officer whose older sister married Yue Ying's father.  Or whose death made Zhuge Liang so distraught that he cried so hard he coughed up blood.  I mean, it's multiple choice, so there's always the chance you'll get lucky, but we want maximum profit here, as there's a trophy and a weapon in it for answering every single question the Scholar's ask.  Which in turn opens a path for another trophy (getting all the weapons), and likely another (acquiring a hefty sum of accumulated gold over the course of the game) and etc.  So it's not like this is a one-and-done thing, it's a vital cog in the machine of getting shit.

Here's all the questions.

I'm going to assume you opened that, noticed how small the scroll bar got, went, "Holy Shit" and closed it.  Or perhaps you read a little and wondered if there was a rhyme or reason to any of that.  The answer is no.  No there is not; the questions appear in random order, which means the order they're in in that document is so disheveled, it might as well be like looking at a Rorschach.  So I went to myself, "There needs to be some order here."

I don't know if it's completely logical, but I always sort of default to Alphabetizing things.  It just seems to be the simplest method of organization.  So, knowing that the questions were ordered in the random order -of- a random order, I decided the best thing to do was have them alphabetical.

....I'm sure you can see where this is going.

You see.....for some reason, I thought it was a bright idea to copy those things, section by section, into a blank document in OpenOffice, open another, and transfer the questions over after ordering them properly.  The easy questions weren't so bad!  Formatted as they are, double-spaced between questions, it took up about eight and a half pages in 10 point font.  Not too bad.  It went by rather quickly, all things considered.

Then I went on to Normal.

This, uh.....this was not wise.  I looked for a picture to properly convey how bad a mistake this was.  I could not find one.

Just to give you an idea of how big a mistake this was;  The normal questions took up 20 pages of an OO document.

Re-read that.  Here.  I will help.

The normal questions took up 20 pages of an OO document.

The normal questions took up 20 pages of an OO document.

The normal questions took up 20 pages of an OO document.


This would be the point in time where I came here and posted the placeholder post that was here a bit ago.  And is gone now.  Now, you may ask, "Why didn't you simply give up?"

And to that, I answer, "I have no fucking clue."  Maybe it's just that my brain was all

or something.

But the fact of the matter is that I did it.  I did it.  Powered through the Normal and finished up Hard and Chaos (which, by the way, combined?  Weren't even 20 pages.) and then sat back, taking in my victory.  When suddenly, a thought came to mind.

"Well, I did it.  But now what?"  It's not like I can submit it anywhere; it's honestly copy-paste work from the original guy's guide (which, to be fair, is word-for-word transcribed from the game), and as a pure text document, it's worthless to me, since, well, you can't read text documents on a PSP (which is what I was using to check the questions in real-time while answering.).  So I did the only sensible thing one could do at this point:  I emailed the FAQ writer and said, "Hey, I, uh, restructured your guide to be easier to read.  Do you want it?" in the hopes that he will say "Why, yes, of course" and take it and incorporate it over the current layout and possibly give me a bit of credit for apparently having some sort of awful OCD.

He hasn't gotten back to me yet, which is understandable, given it's 3 AM and I sent the email off literally before I started this post.  But I will update this with the response.  I'm sure you're all dying to learn what happens next.

Goddamn, Dynasty Warriors 7 is Good.

I really hate to do a post like this just about one specific moment of the game, but, honestly, I have to.  At the very least (even though I wanted, and still do, to cover the Three Kingdoms era in a series of posts) I can offer a little history behind the whole set-up so that you guys can also know the badassery that took place today.

I will preface this with the fact that I don't even like Shu.  In the novel (which most people take as the actual history despite being made in the 14th century, and what DW takes it's basing off of), Shu is way, way overplayed.  I'll get more into it when I actually get around to describing the events of the era, but suffice to say that, yeah, Shu wasn't nearly as great as Luo Guanzhong wants you to believe.  (Nor were the other kingdoms, honestly.)

But anyways, of the famous battles of the time/novel, the Battle at Chang Ban is fairly known of, where Liu Bei, who would eventually become the leader of the Kingdom of Shu, his followers and peasants that have banded to his cause are fleeing from Cao Cao, who would eventually become the leader of the Kingdom of Wei, and his army.  Because of all the peasants, Liu Bei's army was slowed and Cao Cao's was able to catch up to him at Chang Ban, where Liu Bei's forces stood to hold them off so they would be able to resume their retreat.

This is Zhao Yun in Dynasty Warriors 7.  Not pictured:  His Spear.

 Here's where a bit of the story overtakes the history, where Liu Bei's son, Liu Chan/Shan (depends on who translated) was left in one of the camps.  One of Liu Bei's retainers, Zhao Yun, took it upon himself to go retrieve the baby before Cao Cao's men found him, because, well, who knows what would have happened.  It's a really awesome little tale that's recounted as the first part of the battle of Chang Ban in DW7, where you control Zhao Yun as he searches the bases for the child, eventually finding him and then heading back to the rendezvous site, slaying dudes and generals alike on the way back.

That's not the badass part.  The badass part is what happened after, which, again, is mostly novelized 'editorializing'.  Zhang Fei, one of Liu Bei's two Oath Brothers, waited at the Chang Ban bridge, knowing that Cao Cao's army would pursue Liu Bei by it.  According to the novel, when Cao Cao's army arrived at the bridge, Zhang Fei stood there alone and let out a mighty roar, proclaiming who he was, and daring any to come challenge him.  So mighty was the roar, that everybody went, "Y'know what, screw this" and left.  In the novel, somebody was literally scared to death.

This is Zhang Fei in Dynasty Warriors 7.  Not Pictured:  His Twin Spear.

But, and more preferably, in the Dynasty Warriors series, Zhang Fei has always fought off any who got close to the bridge, whether you were playing as Wei or Shu.  And, of course, if you were playing as Zhang Fei, it was up to you.  The second part of Chang Ban starts by putting you in the shoes of Zhang Fei as he starts the scene described above, which is admittedly pretty impressive.  And when the actual gameplay starts, the Chang Ban bridge erupts in flame (which, Zhang Fei destroyed the bridge after his stand, so this isn't completely bad) and Cao Cao's army approaches.  There is, basically, nothing you can, or should want, to do but face them.

And by God, is it satsifying.  The sheer amount of enemies in this is astounding.  The game usually announces your kills by the hundreds, saying, "(character) has defeated (#00) enemies!", and it's usually prioritized, so it happens basically right after you've done it.  I'm telling you this to let you know just how awesome the moment I had was.  At one point, during the slaughter, I looked down at my kill count.  It was something in the 800s.  The message that came up when I happened to look?

"Zhang Fei has defeated 300 enemies!"

So, between all the chatter that could have put off this announcement, which, there's not all that much, and the point I looked, I killed 500 people.  And it wasn't even a surprise, honestly.  Since it is basically you and one other general versus what is literally meant to be an army, and not little groups of people with a specific general (even if it is a generic one) leading them.

I have never, ever felt so good while playing as Shu.  And I don't think any interpretation of the Chang Ban bridge could top that.