Character customization and variety break down the game's simplicity problems, but it's not enough for the standard
In Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce you play as one of forty-two characters whose names and biographies are based on their historical counterparts from the Three Kingdoms era. Thirty-six of these characters are separated into three factions--Wu, Wei, and Shu--while the remaining six are independent.
After choosing a character from one of the three factions at the beginning you will play through multiple missions as him/her to increase weapon stats, to progress the story, and to obtain random 'materials', which are the currency for each of the six facilities that will accompany you. Each of these facilities want to evolve (after you receive and place a set number of Officer Cards, which appear between your facilities at random) and you will need them to evolve to progress easier, so you will be using the material currency to purchase their products as well as to literally bump them up a level in what they can supply you. Of the six facilities there are:
* The Blacksmith ---> upgrades existing weapons and makes you weapons
* The Orbatologist (made up term for an orb supplier) ---> gives you minor weapon perks
* The Taoist ---> gives you personal skills (ex: your dash speed becomes longer)
* The Entrepreneur ---> sells you (the only instance you will use your second currency, gold, hence the term 'sells') equipable items (ex: a meatbun, which increases health with a limit of ten per mission)
* The Barterer ---> trades material for material
* The Storehouse Manager ---> let's you look at your acquired materials
In missions you use the d-pad to use items, a for mid-air floating or mid-air x or y attacks, x for light attacks, y for charge attacks, b for a Fury transformation, LB for block, and RB for dash. Combos range from x + y to one or two other combinations. The objectives in these missions range from beating the crap out of an officer, a set of officers, or a collosal beast. Three cpus (as three original officers) or three friends in online co-op can help you in this, as well as card tactics, which add minor temporary effects.
---- Review:
--------- Pros:
* Being able to choose virtually any character you like at the beginning is good because no matter what the game puts you through that character is meant to be your avatar, your inspiration for continuing
* The learning curve is decent, every concept has its own tutorial, and the game is easy to get back into
* The facilities system cuts away at the simplicity of the game by adding replayability and encouraging customization
* Fury transformations allow each character to stand out better than they could without it, they enhance the effectiveness of your inputs, and they respectfully pay homage to the warriors of that day
* Since most chi skills take effect once you enter your Fury state and to get to your Fury state you must use the x and y buttons for a set period of time, the simple combat mechanics are offset to an extent
* Chi skills add a unique glow to your character, adding an extra light layer of customization incentive
* There are many weapon types to choose from, and with the ability to equip a second weapon of your choice, variety gets patted on the back and it becomes less like a button masher
* At higher weapon levels your weapon will gain an elemental effect accompanied by a string of new sound effects, and the appearances of each weapon for every type are usually very different
* With equip-able items for the purpose of offense, revitalization, or defense as well as assignable tactic cards, less concentration is put on the x and y buttons, and more on what to rely on and feel the effects of
* Since each of the missions are separated into areas marked by checkpoints and a number of one through eight (depending on how big the environments are) each area is given concentration, tactic cards can work hand in hand, and communication between players is bettered
* Colossal beasts let you take a break from what would otherwise lead to monotony by at least being different, and are always relative to a certain person or faction, and thus add symbolism and personality to the game
--------- Pros (2):
* Online co-op is helpful, social, and it hands an alternative to the player
* In co-op you may trade material to one another and trade officers, which serves to stifle material farming or encourage it, and allows players to be helped by a cpu(s) if they can't be helped directly by a friend
* Players in co-op may have more effective tactics at their disposal to slightly help other players, and positive performances on their part will give you more exp at the end of each mission
* Each faction's story is fairly long, and it's easy to swap from one faction's story to another's
* You are rewarded with achievements for every chapter completed during your first playthrough, giving you a mildly better idea of where you are in your faction's story and how many chapters are left for you to do
* Being rewarded with more effective upgrades and items once certain facilities are bumped up to their next level maintains a sense of progression, not from just your character, and the interdependence between the system and your character adds some realism
* Each of the three menu screen variations (in city, pre-mission, and during mission) have good interfaces and do a great job not getting in your way
* There are frequent downloadable content packs that add additional missions
* In co-op you have eight different emotion based actions via the L trigger, which can provide very mild entertainment and/or relief
* Since each character and event is based on historical records or the novel of the Three Kingdoms era, improvements to the game, or suggestions that may lead to improvements, can be even more straightforward
* Certain orb equips may add a new fine level of strategy to the gameplay
-------- Cons:
* Each playable character--aside from about two--merely have a keyword to represent what kind of person they are, etc., making each of them much more dull than they could have been, and not giving the respect that the historical figures of that era would deserve
* There are a lot of non-playable entities from the Three Kingdoms in the game, but since all of them are categorized into just a few different character models/a few different voice actors, giving them unique names is next to pointless and makes each event they take a part in bare-boned
* The cpus that manage each facility for you only have relatively three lines to say, two motions, and never leave their spots or show activity, making them uninteresting
* Despite the fact that the facilities are your only hub, the area that they reside in is very small, and there's little to do but interact for a minute or two with a facility manager and then leave to do a mission, putting less incentive on working on the facilities/buying from them, and more on doing whatever you can that's different
* The game suffers from a jitteriness technical defect: an enemy officer who's in the air may start a humping motion as he's floating because the game doesn't want him to drop to the ground, or a part of a colossal beast will jitter around before an attack
* Having five different colossal beasts is better than just two or three, but each beast is only faced once, they have very few attacks, they do not follow an attack pattern, each attack is either ineffective or very cheap looking, and you can't fight them any differently from an enemy officer but they have 10x the HP, making it a cumbersome, subpar experience
* The colossal beasts will occasionally lock up completely
* Despite the fact that there are many missions, there are very few environments, and since each mission has limited dialogue and is comprised of many more random officers than non-random, they become unmemorable and repetitive
* There are very few enemies on the screen at once, and slow-downs happen very commonly if that number is disturbed in any way
* A lot of the missions between the three factions are copied and pasted even if one or more of the three never took a part in those events in history, and you will find yourself doing the exact same thing in missions over and over and over
* The basic level up system is badly managed because for every officer you gain access to in a faction's story, they will start at level one, so you will need to go out of your way to babysit their development
-------- Cons (2):
* In co-op, once a person chooses a mission and confirms it only he can unconfirm it -- no one else can confirm a mission of there own at that time. He can also keep repeating this if he's the first one to the noticeboard (the sub-mission menu), thus rewarding you for being inconsiderate to other players
* You may only join online rooms that aren't on the pre-mission menu screen or in a mission, meaning at least 1/3 of the community is split from the rest
* There are occasional connection errors in online hub rooms and game lock-ups as you play missions in co-op
* There is no time limit associated with readying up for missions, and no way to block certain players unless you're playing with Live friends, so it is easy for you to be interrupted
* The level system also applies to online play and the entire group will see the "Defeat" logo if one of their members meets the defeat conditions in a mission, giving players no reason to play with people who are of a lower level than themselves and encouraging private play between people who want to play publicly
* The graphics are dated; it looks like a polished PS2 game
* The soundtrack is very limited and you can't customize what songs to listen to in each mission
* A third of the achievements in the game are for playing insanely long, and since the other 2/3 are for regular tasks you will complete as you progress through the story, practically none of them encourage skill
* Various systems in the game are either completely random (the officer card system -> tactics) or overly tedious and distracting (the material system)
* There are barely any cutscenes, and for the few they have, they're mildly rehashed from previous games and repeated after every chapter, making each story seem less and less fulfilling when they're played
* The basic enemies and weapons are only used as a means to make missions longer and to annoy you when you're taking on officers (the only thing you will ever be doing)
* There is a bonus objective for every mission, but your reward is gold, a currency that you will never need to use, and they hardly come close to adding a dynamic to their corresponding mission so there's no reason doing them
* Ally AI have bad path finding abilities, are bad in general, and become physically weaker for every additional cpu you add to your offline party
* The game suffers from poor physics (such as stuttering when your on the ledge of an archer's watchtower), the animations are choppy (there is no transition between your first and second weapons), and the controls need improvement (you will have to tap the control stick in certain patterns to do your air attacks, there is too big of a gap in time when you throw projectiles, you can heal yourself at full HP or give yourself boosts that are already active)
------- Conclusion:
Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce's online co-op, its customization options, and its many characters and weapon types are good factors, but without a better online system, and with huge amounts of boring, cheap copy and pasted missions that'll leave you wondering why you're still playing, it doesn't live up to the standard. Hopefully one day Tecmo will take over the development of it and we'll see a Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta as a prospect. My suggestion: buy used.