KaiTenSatsuma
05-24-2006, 07:37 AM
The Dynasty series is well known for its reenactments of battles in ancient china, with three kingdoms along with other smaller towns and groups.
Ok first off, this game will take a while to get used to, the fighting curve may take a while to learn, even though are only two buttons to use for fighting, each character has specific types of combos, some characters for crowd clearing, others for speed and others for concentrating on single opponents.
battle is pretty much you, other generals and your bodyguards, the other soldiers are pretty much fodder for you to kill for healing items and defense and attack upgrades (temporary ones from the fodder, 2x increases for 30 seconds, great defense and offense boosts) generals drop items, weapons and permanent attack and defense modifiers, so it is suggested playing the early levels a few times over until your stats are where you want them, only generals drop new weapons, that is, weapons you don’t have yet. Every other weapon drop is a statistic addition to the weapon you currently have, harder modes usually wield better stats, more stats, and higher probability of getting a next weapon (therefore it is suggested you level up a fair bit, then go back to early stages on hard mode and keep killing until you get a good weapon or the next weapon)
the battle maps are large, to give a better feeling of a full scale battle, with many armies fighting at once, unless you have a fast running character or an item to upgrade your running speed, you will want to steal a horse from another general or horse rider. Horses however may buck you off if your rank isn’t high enough (ranks are upgraded by kicking ass and taking names in battle, beating generals in particular is a good boost to your rank points.) battles often throw in set events such as an enemy or ally charge or spells being cast by enemies or allies. Battles can be very difficult at some times, and some generals are nigh unbeatable early in the game (Lu Bu at Hao Gate for example, will beat you to a pulp, on any mode…. Yet killing him yields a mount to ride at the beginning of battle.)
Morale plays a large part in battle, morale is the will to fight of your or the enemies troops, morale can be increased by defeating enemy generals in rapid succession, the faster you kick the crap out of them, the higher your morale boosts, more morale means better fighting from your troops, and worse fighting from your enemies, the same can happen to your own men. If your morale is low and the battle is a losing one, it is smart to do the finishing objective, usually killing a leader or beating them or such.
Securing enemy gates allows you to work on cutting off the flow of enemy units into the battle, the more gates secured, the easier the battle will be, though capturing gates keeps you from handling enemy generals, either secure gates early in the battle, or wait until it is almost over to keep them from making a comeback, or just stand at a gate that is owned by an army with loads of troops and start slaughtering, a good way to get kills and more rank points. Also when you reach 1000 kills in a fight, all troops on your side gain maximum morale!
Graphics are fairly good, not in amazing detail, but the most amazing part is that the game experiences NO slowdown from large amount of troops in battle, that is enough to force awe into people, since even now many games slow down too easily, I believe the game maintains a fair 40-50 FPS constantly, though i cant tell.
One problem is that battles can get repetitive, since you only get one button for combos, and another for special add attacks, you will be running, hacking, running, special combo, more running and ect, though it doesn’t get as tedious as many other games do.
Music is ok, it is pretty much the same 3 tracks, that defiantly do not fit the timeframe of the game, but they are decent, good battle music. Although I wish they had some tenchu-esq music, Tenchu 1 that is, all of the more recent ones lack good music.
Voices are good, though for the life of me i cannot understand why they use Japanese voiceovers in a Chinese game, wouldn’t it have made more sense to add Chinese along with Japanese voiceovers so that people could opt between realism-coolness- and understanding (Chinese, Japanese and English, in that order)
I am told many names are badly translated, since the translators forgot that C in Chinese isn’t like C in English, causing many unintentionally funny names (hehehe "Cao Pi" for example, C is "Ts" in Chinese, so it would be like “Tsao Pey”
Onto the Scoring
Graphics: no slow down, while limiting the enemies shown is strange, it isn’t enough to annoy
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: charge sounds, voices, good music
Sound: 9/10
Control: very little learning curve, easy as pie, camera is a bit slow.
Control: 7/10
Replay ability: MANY characters and many more unlock able ones, collecting weapons, free fight mode, duels, and 2 challenge modes offer loads of replay
Replay ability: 10/10
Overall: very entertaining game, loads of replay value and good fun factor, if you are into slaughtering armies
8/10 ** great buy! **
Ok first off, this game will take a while to get used to, the fighting curve may take a while to learn, even though are only two buttons to use for fighting, each character has specific types of combos, some characters for crowd clearing, others for speed and others for concentrating on single opponents.
battle is pretty much you, other generals and your bodyguards, the other soldiers are pretty much fodder for you to kill for healing items and defense and attack upgrades (temporary ones from the fodder, 2x increases for 30 seconds, great defense and offense boosts) generals drop items, weapons and permanent attack and defense modifiers, so it is suggested playing the early levels a few times over until your stats are where you want them, only generals drop new weapons, that is, weapons you don’t have yet. Every other weapon drop is a statistic addition to the weapon you currently have, harder modes usually wield better stats, more stats, and higher probability of getting a next weapon (therefore it is suggested you level up a fair bit, then go back to early stages on hard mode and keep killing until you get a good weapon or the next weapon)
the battle maps are large, to give a better feeling of a full scale battle, with many armies fighting at once, unless you have a fast running character or an item to upgrade your running speed, you will want to steal a horse from another general or horse rider. Horses however may buck you off if your rank isn’t high enough (ranks are upgraded by kicking ass and taking names in battle, beating generals in particular is a good boost to your rank points.) battles often throw in set events such as an enemy or ally charge or spells being cast by enemies or allies. Battles can be very difficult at some times, and some generals are nigh unbeatable early in the game (Lu Bu at Hao Gate for example, will beat you to a pulp, on any mode…. Yet killing him yields a mount to ride at the beginning of battle.)
Morale plays a large part in battle, morale is the will to fight of your or the enemies troops, morale can be increased by defeating enemy generals in rapid succession, the faster you kick the crap out of them, the higher your morale boosts, more morale means better fighting from your troops, and worse fighting from your enemies, the same can happen to your own men. If your morale is low and the battle is a losing one, it is smart to do the finishing objective, usually killing a leader or beating them or such.
Securing enemy gates allows you to work on cutting off the flow of enemy units into the battle, the more gates secured, the easier the battle will be, though capturing gates keeps you from handling enemy generals, either secure gates early in the battle, or wait until it is almost over to keep them from making a comeback, or just stand at a gate that is owned by an army with loads of troops and start slaughtering, a good way to get kills and more rank points. Also when you reach 1000 kills in a fight, all troops on your side gain maximum morale!
Graphics are fairly good, not in amazing detail, but the most amazing part is that the game experiences NO slowdown from large amount of troops in battle, that is enough to force awe into people, since even now many games slow down too easily, I believe the game maintains a fair 40-50 FPS constantly, though i cant tell.
One problem is that battles can get repetitive, since you only get one button for combos, and another for special add attacks, you will be running, hacking, running, special combo, more running and ect, though it doesn’t get as tedious as many other games do.
Music is ok, it is pretty much the same 3 tracks, that defiantly do not fit the timeframe of the game, but they are decent, good battle music. Although I wish they had some tenchu-esq music, Tenchu 1 that is, all of the more recent ones lack good music.
Voices are good, though for the life of me i cannot understand why they use Japanese voiceovers in a Chinese game, wouldn’t it have made more sense to add Chinese along with Japanese voiceovers so that people could opt between realism-coolness- and understanding (Chinese, Japanese and English, in that order)
I am told many names are badly translated, since the translators forgot that C in Chinese isn’t like C in English, causing many unintentionally funny names (hehehe "Cao Pi" for example, C is "Ts" in Chinese, so it would be like “Tsao Pey”
Onto the Scoring
Graphics: no slow down, while limiting the enemies shown is strange, it isn’t enough to annoy
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: charge sounds, voices, good music
Sound: 9/10
Control: very little learning curve, easy as pie, camera is a bit slow.
Control: 7/10
Replay ability: MANY characters and many more unlock able ones, collecting weapons, free fight mode, duels, and 2 challenge modes offer loads of replay
Replay ability: 10/10
Overall: very entertaining game, loads of replay value and good fun factor, if you are into slaughtering armies
8/10 ** great buy! **