Let's talk about: Dynasty Warriors 3

[Cheebs]

Gungrave got my "kill em all" fighting spirit back up, so I decided to build on that by going out and getting Dynasty Warriors 3 for Xbox. Hmmmm.... Final Fight where you can take on 40 enemies at once and each stage lasts 30 min or more? Don't mind if I do! Yes, it is quite repetative, but the buzz hasn't worn off yet, so it can keep repeating for the time being. It is quite a rush leaving your own army behind and running alone head first into a swarm of enemies. I'll take em' all on! Can't fault this one for intensity....

What I can fault it for is PS2 level graphics (that means bad) with horrible fog and pop in on characters. It also sports the worst soundtrack I've heard in ages (generic "rock" in ancient China?) and voice overs that do not deserve to exist on this earth. I swear, if you can't find an actor, just write the damn words on the screen.

Asthetics aside, I'm enjoying this one. And I'm an A1 graphics whore too! Imagine that...

[Xero_Kaiser]

have mercy on your eardrums and put the audio in Japanese. as for the music...rock fits fine for an action game. would you rather take out armies while listening to.....whatever they listened to way the hell back then?

[Despair]

Well, You could've gotten Xbox version Chibi Its fixes some of the pop up and slow down problems, and makes graphics looks prettier, a bit

[Spanky McGee]

But he did get the XBOX version Despair...

[Cheebs]

Originally posted by Xero_Kaiser
have mercy on your eardrums and put the audio in Japanese. as for the music...rock fits fine for an action game. would you rather take out armies while listening to.....whatever they listened to way the hell back then?

There is a Japanese option! Woo Hoo! My ears thank you.

[Xero_Kaiser]

Originally posted by Chibi Nappa
There is a Japanese option! Woo Hoo! My ears thank you.

hehe, after I heard the US voices I stopped what I was doing and ran screaming to the options menu

I usually don't mind US dubs....but damn those were bad

[Despair]

Damn, I didnt noticed that he got Xbox version

[Cheebs]

Originally posted by goatse.cx
But he did get the XBOX version Despair...

Sadly, yes. The pop in and fox run rampant on the Xbox version as well. #%^@$'n lowest common demoninator....

[AaronChance]

DW3 is one the best games I've played in a while. The more I play it, the more neat stuff it shows me, and I've been playing the Xbox version way too much since it was released.

It's not repetitive (at least no more than any other game) when you learn the ins and outs of the game and also play at at least normal difficulty. Easy is for chumps (or for beating Lu Bu, the cheap mother f...). The goal is usually to kill the generals and only to cut through the other soldiers in order to reach them, though sometimes you'll have to wipe out entire battlions to get certain events to happen, though there's nothing like wiping out 30-40 troops single-handed.

Anyway, you have 40+ generals to chose from (once you get them all unlocked that is, which takes a lot of time in itself) who all play differently so there's someone to suit anyone's fighting style. Some generals are best at taking on large crowds of soldiers, others are more focused on general killing, some are fast but weak, others are slow and strong, and still others mix up these values in interesting ways.

Each have four different weapon types to earn, the harderest and best being the fourth weapon. I only have one of these so far, but it took me four hours of effort to obtain. -_-;;

All of the generals have stats to raise up to make them better, which you do by defeating enemy generals and scoring as many points as you can. The amazing upside of this is you can raise one general up really high then use him as a bodyguard for your newbie general, giving someone who can really watch his back. Be careful he doesn't take those sweet general kills from you though.

Each of the Monsou generals (about 30 out of the rest) have 3 endings to get, though they all seem pretty similar to me so far. There are also 40 or so items that each general can use which have to be found, though like their weapons there are actually many different possible values for many of these items, with the better ones naturally only found in hard mode.

The combat system isn't as simple as it may seem at first. You have your normal attack, a special attack, and a monsou attack (super). Attacks can be done in combo strings than can only be broken by a monsou and it's possible (but really really hard) to lock an enemy in an almost infinite combo. The best I can do is 10 though I haven't really tried for better. There are two kinds of monsou attacks, normal and true monsou, the latter only happening when your life it red, and these attacks are different for each character. There are several special attacks, whose type is determined by where they come in a combo. For instance:

N = normal attack S = special attack

NNS = stun attack
NNNS = knockdown attack
NNNNS = juggle launcher

The ones after that vary from character to character, though even the stun, knockdown, and juggle attacks work differently for each character. One character even gets an extra hit after his knockdown so its more like NNNSN for him. Also, some of these attacks are only available when you gain your 2nd, 3rd, or 4th weapon. I think you need 2nd before you can juggle for instance.

Probably a lot I'm leaving out. This game has just a lot to it. Check out the faqs on the PS2 version for more info.

[Xero_Kaiser]

oh yeah, I remember coming up with all sorts of combos. You could set up infinites easy with the right weapons

the highest non-infinite, non-repeating combo I could do was 28 hits (only had the 2nd or 3rd weapon for that guy) and ending combos with supers kicked ass