Dynasty Warriors 8 (PS3) Review
We liked?
- Fans will enjoy it.
- Lots of game modes.
- Tons of content.
Not so much?
- Looks and plays A LOT like Dynasty Warriors 7
- Controls and visual pop-up make it feel technically outdated
Dynasty Warriors 8 feels like more of the same, but fans will likely forgive the game’s technical quirks and issues, and appreciate the new modes and features.
In April of 2011, I reviewed Dynasty Warriors 7 for our sister site BrutalGamer.com (you can read the review here). I like to believe that I know a little bit about video games. After all, I have 30 decades of experience. But I’m willing to admit defeat. Perhaps this last decade has softened me up, whether it’s just the way video games are, or the fact that I have a family of my own, which translates into less time and money to dedicate towards video games. But I swear to God, outside of the title screens which clearly tell me that I’m playing Dynasty Warriors 8, if I had just been dumped right into the game’s tutorial or the middle of a campaign, I would have thought I was playing the same game from more two years ago.
If there is one thing that the video game industry is good at it’s iteration. Any halfway successful franchise, whether it’s through the demand of the fans or the demand for money, typically as a sequel, perhaps two, three… or maybe even eight. I understand that, and I’m all for sequels — as long as they grow and expand upon the titles before them. I don’t expect innovation out of every consecutive release, but I do expect a new and better experience.
Unfortunately, with Dynasty Warriors 8, it really felt like I was playing Dynasty Warriors 7. I’ll admit, that I don’t have the best memory, especially with a title that didn’t particularly stand out to me from more than 2 years ago, but the games opening tutorial, the characters, the campaigns, and even the controls and technical glitches were identical to what I remember in Dynasty Warriors 7.
While writing this, I did something that no reviewer really should — I looked at other gaming industry impressions of Dynasty Warriors 8. While I already had my mind made up to the review score, I still wanted to see if I was crazy or unreasonable, and apparently I am — sort of. There were some pretty favorable reviews from bigger named industry sites. One in particular paraphrased that this eighth installment was one of the best game in the series.
To me, the controls felt extremely stiff, and the transitory animation, the seamless blending from one action into the other, was non-existent. This is something that team behind the original God of War nailed down more than a decade ago – on an older piece of technology. Regardless of how similar Dynasty Warriors 8 felt like its predecessor, the controls are archaic – it doesn’t take somebody with decades of experience like me to know that Dynasty Warrior 8′s controls feels old.
Not only do the controls feel old, but there are visual glitches that should be considered unforgivable by today’s standards. There is pop-in like you wouldn’t believe! People have complained for years that games like Grand Theft Auto IV had the occasional pop-up in the distance as the system rendered objects and people, and more recently, they’ve complained about the muddied look when the high-resolution textures don’t pull through right away, and you’re greeted with an image that looks like a computer image that was saved at the lowest-quality setting. Those are nothing compared to the pop-in with Dynasty Warriors 8. You don’t even have to go past the game’s opening tutorial to be in the middle of a wide open area, and suddenly dozens of enemies suddenly pop-in, as if they were suddenly willed into existence to simply try and kick your ass.
I mean, really? Really??
What I realized is that Dynasty Warriors 8 isn’t a game for just anybody. This is a game — a sequel — that exists because of the fans. Dynasty Warriors 8 may have made a lot of money, or it may not, but what I’m sure it did was attract its loyal fan base. After reading through both industry and user reviews, people like Dynasty Warriors 8, because they’re fans of the series and/or they appreciate the franchise.
That’s not to say that Dynasty Warriors 8 is a bad game — although I do think that it has some really unforgivable glitches and the controls feel so old that they may have been found alongside an ancient relic.
While I feel that there are a lot of areas for improvement, the Dynasty Warriors 8 makes up for some of by offering a fairly robust set of features and game modes. The campaign/story mode seems to be fairly large, allowing you to play the game through the perspective of four different kingdoms: Wei, Wu, Shu, and Jin, including each kingdom’s cast of characters.
Those who have enjoyed past Dynasty Warriors games, especially Dynasty Warriors 7, will enjoy the rich back story and alternative history of Dynasty Warriors 8.
Story-mode can also be played cooperatively, both with local “couch co-op” or online through the PlayStation Network. Co-op is a feature that is new to the series. Also new is a free mode, for those moments of quick pick-up-and-play. (If there really is such a thing with these types of games – ha!)
Another additional feature, which I didn’t dedicate a lot of time to, was the ambition mode where the player is tasked to build a base and tower in order to get an Emperor to visit it. This base can be added to and expanded upon by taking part in a variety of different battles.
Overall, I have to admit, I didn’t particularly care for Dynasty Warriors 8. It’s not really my kind of game, and if I hadn’t been tasked to review it, I would have never picked it up on my own. That being said, fans of the series will probably like it, in fact, they’ll probably like it a lot. While it features a lot of, what I feel are, outdated controls and visuals, there are a lot of new modes that Dynasty Warriors enthusiasts will enjoy.
Dynasty Warriors 8, at least on the PlayStation 3, is available on Blu-ray disc or as a digital download through the PlayStation Network. The digital version is 19GB in size, and took me approximately 2 hours to download and install.