Dynasty Warriors 8, the latest from Tecmo-Koei, offers a refreshing and revitalized take on the popular beat-em-up action from their hit series! Featuring a new ambition mode, which is kind of a base building mode, mixed with an XL feel from previous Dynasty Warrior XL games, as well as a much better story mode between the Jin, Shu, Wei, and Wu dynasties, They make it a must have for any Dynasty Warriors fan!

The story mode feels much more developed than previous versions, staying more true to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story line from the novel of the same name, depicted in beautiful cut scenes. The story mode can also be played with another player, through the Jin, Wu, Wei and Shu dynasties. In most levels, you can play as 3 characters from that particular event, and all progress made in any mode, not just story mode, will carry over to other modes. In my experience, each story mode can be around 5-6 hours long, and the in-game events of the story levels are much better developed and more story-driven than previous versions, with cut scenes in the game, as well as rendered cutscenes, which I must say are very well done. You can also get hypothetical endings to replay the story mode and complete the requirements.

My only complaint about the story mode is that the “Others” campaigns, featuring the Yellow Turban’s Zhang Jiao, Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shao and others, only have one level to play as them, and not a full campaign like the other. dynasties, but it is a minor thing, since the main dynasties have a much better developed history and more involved in cutscenes and games.

Ambition Mode is a base-building game, where you build a city to welcome the Emperor to your city, recruiting new allies, building facilities, and more! You select a single character that you have unlocked and your goal is to build your city, which will benefit all the characters you have collected and moves through all levels from ambition mode to story / free mode, and vice versa. This mode plays like a mix of XL games from previous games, with random enemies and locations, which can be quite interesting. You can play several different battles, such as skirmishes, which are necessary to collect facilities and weapon materials to upgrade your buildings. Unconventional battles are fights where you can get fame, which is necessary to get more allies, and then there are big battles, where you can gather allies to further your cause.

You can build several different buildings, which will help you throughout your gaming experience, as a blacksmith, allowing you to get better weapons, upgrade them, and even reforge and temper and other special abilities. Merchants allows you to exchange materials for other materials (weapon material for installation material and vice versa), as well as buy and sell animals. The academy and training room allow you to level up your characters and boost their stats and levels with gold (the academy). There are several other facilities that will help you, such as the Tea House, Farm Building, and Stable, which will greatly assist all characters, in and out of Ambition mode.

The Ambition mode can also be played online with another player, and they can visit each other’s cities and play the battles together, which I think is a nice addition.

Free mode allows you to play any level that you have unlocked with different levels of difficulty, and you can also play with a friend online, as well as play offline! There’s not much to free mode except for replaying old levels, like in previous games, in case you want to level up characters, play on more difficult difficulties, etc.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun and a huge improvement on the Dynasty Warriors experience, allowing online mode for the main game modes (Free mode, Ambition, Story), as well as offering a large number of characters to unlock. and extensive gameplay in story mode, and lots of gameplay in ambition mode! I recommend this game to any Dynasty Warriors fan, and it’s definitely worth buying, especially if you have friends to play with too!