Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce Review

Dynasty Low School.

We join a teacher in a classroom, already in progress…

[image1]Alright class, time to turn on your textbooks. Today we’re going to experience a classic piece of edutainment regarding… ancient Earth China! Pay attention, all of today’s information could be on the exam, so soak it in!

What you’re experiencing, students, is called Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, developed by the historians at the company Koei. What they’ve left us with is a portable experience re-telling the stories of the factions that ran China back those many years ago: the Wu, Wei, and Shu clans. Each one has multiple members who, at a moment’s notice, were ready to break their enemy’s neck, like the documentary Enter the Dragon. Remember? We watched it last week in class.

Now, the history here is rich and has been told many times over by the Koei company… many, many, many times over. And not just of Ancient Earth China history. Everyone remember the Gundam chapter we covered last week? It was the one with the large robots breaking things, which is what robots did back then… whoever let giant robots out into the open is just insane if you ask me. But anyway, this semester… umm…

Listen to that traditional music: It comes through as clear as the day it was made, and with such a rich sound! It’s… well, it repeats a little, but it is kind to the ears, and it works with everything else going on the screen. And thankfully it’s easy to see just about everything, with all of the warriors who reigned in that time period. I would break you all up into small, four-person groups so you can participate together, and you can if you’d like, but it’s not going to help you learn or anything. It won’t change the experience that much or teach anything new…

[image2]There are many traditional weapons for you to choose from here, so take a good look, class! Spears, long swords, twin swords, spears, even canes and war fans! And the more you play, the more you can actually use… but most of them were fairly useless then, as they were very short-range weapons. So it’s obvious what the best choice is.

Pay attention now, here’s the exciting part, I know how you kids love violence! A lot of fighting happened back in those days. And in traditional fashion, all of it involves one person… against an army? Really? Wait, that doesn’t make sense… are they just throwing twelve-year-old hippies at the guy with a spear? And wha- a magician? I don’t think those came around until the Norsemen took over the world in the Too Human demo a year ago!

C’mon! How often will this boss hit me before I hit the ground? The science department should investigate this software, the physics are so frustrating. My legendary ancient Chinese warrior was juggled like a Martian minor caught in a dust storm! That is not how it happened back then. It’s simply baffling how they could have such a rich narrative here (*whispers* that doesn’t entirely make sense and is easy to miss completely) yet have no logic at all in the fighting.

And all of the missions are just the same thing over and over again. Were these people really so bland? They were in a war, and all they did was send one person at a time to go kill hundreds of people and two high-school-leadership dropouts with big weapons and spiky hair and who were possessed by some ancient Chinese demon? No depth, no secret plots, no sneaking, no explosions, no… no voices?!

[image3]Geez, the past wasn’t this boring! Nothing but doing the same attacks over and over again wiping out the rejects from grade school drama performances. And when is this war over, anyway? It seems to take too long… well, the fights do at least. Or feel like they do. They’re amusing for a little while, but there’s nothing to them.

Why did I take up this job? And I have another two periods of this… *cough* I-I’m sorry everybody… was that the bell? *cough* Don’t you hear it too? *cough* Anyway, study the text and tomorrow we’ll see if you have any questions. (I hope they don’t.)