GRcade

Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires - Free Alliances Version is now available through the PS Store on PS4. It appears to be a 'demo' of the retail game, with various play modes available and the ability to play online with owners of the full retail version. There are in-game purchase options but I'm not sure how necessary these are to try the game out. If you've never played Warriors - or not tried it for a while - it may be worth a look.

It's a large download, though - 19.5Gb. Quite a size for a demo!

Lotus wrote:Thanks chaps. My lingering memory of the first game was a god-awful French accent that a barman had. Think you had to visit him to get missions, before choosing which side to fight for. Actually looking forward to re-playing it now.

Yep, he's back.

...and Bladestorm Nightmare is out on PC. £50. Fifty Snoops. Some people are saying it's locked at 30fps too.

Think i'll pass for now, that's too rich for my blood.

Trelliz wrote:...and Bladestorm Nightmare is out on PC. £50. Fifty Snoops. Some people are saying it's locked at 30fps too.

Think i'll pass for now, that's too rich for my blood.

The pricing of all the games on pc is horrific, I'd be tempted to try something like Empires but they're still selling it for 40 or 50 quid with a bunch of DLC that's been there since launch

DW8 has been half price a few times which makes it more reasonable, but half for bladestorm is still £25. They can call me when it's 75% and then we might talk, depending on if it is locked to 30fps. If so then that's never happening.

Pirated Empires to give it a try and it's really bad. Kingdom stuff is massively limited compared even to stuff like unmodded mount and blade and the battles themselves take forever because you have to kill 200 odd peasants to capture anything.
Also it sticks to the trend 8 set of the pc game being a ps360 port rather than a ps4 quality port.

I'll eventually try Bladestorm but it's a big ass download for what's probably gonna be another ugly turd of a game, for now the best course of action on pc is still to get xtreme legends when it goes on sale.

Jumped on here and now I'm reminded that I need to put some more time into Bladestorm, haven't even touched Nightmare mode. It's a good game though - a proper videogame game if ever there was one. I also need to continue my advance through DW8 on Vita, which has been backburned for a couple of months now. At least did another Hyrule Warriors mission yesterday, and it continues to be a brilliant game.

My Warriors collection is growing! I have Samurai Warriors 4-II on the way, which means that my band of battling warriors now stands as:

> Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition (PS4)
> Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires (PS4)
> Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate (PS4)
> Samurai Warriors 4 (PS4)
> Samurai Warriors 4-II (PS4)
> Bladestorm: Nightmare (PS4)
> Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)

I rarely buy disc versions of games for the PS4 now but I have with these as the covers always look cool; they're so bold and dramatic!

I haven't gone for the Dragon Warriors game as I know very littlle about that series. Looking ahead, I'm excited about Samurai Warriors 4 Empires and Arslan: The Warriors of Legend (cell-shaded manga action) arriving in March.

It feels odd that I've become fond of the Warriors franchise despite not paying any attention to it over the years. I think it's because the arcade, Japanese over-the-top styling is currently a little out of fashion and I like being able to experience it in these games.

I would have gotten SW 4-II and maybe even DW8 Empires on PC if they A) had English VO and B) weren't so ludicrously expensive. Even with the steam sale they were still £28 and £20 respectively; not quite at impulse territory. I still have DW8XLCE on PC and Bladestorm and Warriors Orochi 3 on Xbone, so am not exactly wanting for new titles.

English VO in Dynasty Warriors

I find being yelled at in a cacophony of shouty japanese for 30+ minutes really grating, especially as sometimes the subtitles go by so fast you can miss subtle but important objective changes etc. Ultimately its a game series about carving through loads of dudes across a big battlefield, is the nuance of the original VO that important? Also it's normally strawberry floating hilarous:

I'll give you those points, it's more just saying terrible VO is desirable and the lack of it turns you off a game that I find humorous!

I do often find it a problem with missing subtitles for objectives, but switching the VO doesn't help me considering if I'm playing on portable I likely have the sound off anyway.

I think I'm more accepting of Japanese audio having watched my fair share of subbed shows

That vid was from DW3 I think, and it's come a long way since then. I would rather have that than a cacophony of high-pitched yelling in japanese. I don't mind subbed audio in tv shows etc., however at least the dialogue changes rather than 30 minutes straight of shouting.

Unfortunately DW8XLCE and Bladestorm seem to be the last ones with english VO, I imagine as a money-saving measure.

Bladestorm VO is not what I would call good. But I do enjoy the strange attempts at accents they attempt

Yay! My copy of Samurai Warriors 4-II on PS4 has arrived!

...hang-on... no manual. Not even a single bit of paper folded in half. I rarely buy a disc version of a game nowdays, but I continued to do so for Koei Tecmo-published games as they still included colour manuals (albeit gradually shrinking ones). Well, that now seems to have stopped.

I am rather disappointed.

Koei is releasing Berserk and the Band of the Hawk in UK / Europe on 24 February!

I'm not familiar with the manga / anime but this Warriors-styled game looks hyper-violent, a bit odd in places... and pretty cool .



EDIT: Uh, yeah. There are some *very* odd moments .

Berserk hasn't exactly reviewed brilliantly and - with my new-found ability to hold off from buying games - I haven't spashed out the money on it. But... I will be keeping an eye out for it once the price drops. I have long moved over to digital downloading on PS4 but I still like to pickup Warriors titles in disc format; even though they no longer have paper manuals.

So, uh, yeah, Awaiting a price drop.

Dynasty Warriors 9 is on the way . It's open-world and looks pretty neat. Check out this first trailer:

Okay... the reviews are out and there is a wide variance in opinion. The average mark currently rests at 70 so it would appear that some aspects of the game are working well although, generally, the new open-world style of gameplay is getting a mixed reception.

In particular, Jim Sterling - a fan of the franchise and someone whom I quite like reading the opinions of - is *really* unhappy with it. He rants here for thirty minutes and his next Jimquisition vid is gonna give a kicking to Koei Tecmo.

I still want to try the game out but not until there is a deep price reduction.