Dynasty/Samurai/Anime Warriors: Lu Bu and You

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dynasty/Samurai/Anime Warriors: Lu Bu and You

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Mild nitpicks: Samurai Warriors is more of 1560 (Okehazama) to 1614 (Osaka Castle), although the Warring States Period did basically start in 1467-1477 (the Ounin War basically told the warlords "the shogun isn't going to stop the free-for-all that you're all itching for anyway").

It should also be added that part of the reason for DW7 being the new hotness was for it to be the one that introduced Jin. :black101:

Chortles fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jul 5, 2012

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 02:18

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:38

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Scalding Coffee posted:

Does Dynasty Warriors 7 have battles beyond the Wu Zhang Plains?

I got a horrible copy of DW4 where end stages and Cao Cao's hordes show up, the action is now 5 fps until I win. DW5 is so much better in every way.

The entirety of the Jin story mode is set post-Wu Zhang Plains and is the source of my ringtone (OP your call whether or not to link this

Chortles fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Jul 5, 2012

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 03:42

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

GANDHITRON posted:

watching the 1993 TV series for the last few weeks

Watch the 2010 series, it is amazing :stare:

quote:

and I've been thinking about picking up DW7, or maybe sharing Orochi 3 with a buddy. How is the online co-op in both games?

I'd say that DW7 MP is... anemic, or at least it only applies to Conquest Mode from what I understand. (Apparently the only downside of DW7: XL was that it artificially limits juggling so that combos that worked in DW7 can't be done in XL.)

Admittedly I didn't like Conquest Mode, so unfortunately for me DW7 was a play-once-and-never-again run through Musou Mode.

I didn't get XL, but if it pops up on Steam...

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 05:06

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Captain Diarrhoea posted:

E: Lieu Bei! We must defeat CAO CAO. Happy memories.

Liu Bei's name was one of the least butchered, while "Cow Cow" is as long a tradition as "Lu Bu" (it's not pronounced like that either).

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 20:34

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Point taken, but it partially grates on my ears if only because of listening so much to the 2010 live-action series (which at one point features drunken Lu Bu telling Guan Yu and Liu Bei about the time he mistook some random rider for Cao Cao -- because Cao Cao, who was facing away from Lu Bu, pointed at said hapless sap and said it was Cao Cao).

Also, Lu Bu

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 20:41

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

The rest is just small things like certain characters being friends but you don't need to know any of that going in.

Stuff that you don't need to know but which is cool bonuses such as Pang De having a shared past with Ma Chao and Ma Dai, hence rejoining them in the story if playing one of Ma Chao's story branches.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2012 17:51

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

One of the main reasons Musou games are popular is because Sangoku/Sengoku are such popular settings for their core audience of Japanese players.

This, full stop -- a lot of the writing is already done for them thanks to the audience already being immersed in the basics of the story, so as with other Three Kingdoms or Sengoku adaptations they just have to throw in their own tweaks such as their own take on the fall of Shu.

(For example, one take on the Liu Bei-Sun Shangxiang marriage: "Imagine a big, wild, sorority party. -- Except all the sorority sisters have swords. Now imagine Zhao Yun as the cop coming over to end the party." Alternately, in 2010's Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei being obligated to literally swordfight her veil off while he's drunk.)

# ¿ Jul 9, 2012 19:30

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Policenaut posted:

I recall reading an interview awhile back that while Pokemon Musou was the original concept, they couldn't get the CERO rating down to A (equivalent to ESRB's E for Everyone) so they went with Pokemon + Nobunaga's Ambition.

I had believed that it was actually supposed to be akin to what Pokemon Conquest ended up being but with the DW cast and story instead of the Samurai Warriors cast?

Hence my personal joke that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story couldn't be made E-rated. :haw:

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 03:44

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

LoudLoudNoise posted:

Also, does anyone know of a good book that goes through early Chinese history that isn't ROTK, perhaps something a bit more contemporary?

Define "early Chinese history" yet "a bit more contemporary" here?

(I can on the other hand hook you up if you want to see a hella lotta different takes on the ROTK/DW plot NOT done by KOEI...)

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 06:06

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

At this point, that's a LOT of anime and manga that would fit your definition, unless you meant actual prose? Note though that (not surprisingly) most of that is coming out of Japan, but for more recent stuff from a Chinese perspective I would suggest Chen Mou's The Ravages of Time manhua and 2010's live-action TV series Three Kingdoms, both of which take great amounts of creative license for the in-my-opinion better.

For example, from the TV show there's Guan Yu encountering Cao Cao after Chibi (seriously these subsequent 8 minutes are great melodrama), and Liu Bei's wedding night to Sun Quan's sister ("Little Sister Sun" in the show, as her given name is unknown to history and KOEI merely popularized Shangxiang).

Be advised, Liu Bei is drunk throughout that entire second scene...

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 08:07

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

I greatly recommend the 2010 Three Kingdoms TV show and greatly don't recommend The Ravages of Time. It's way too off the wall, and I'll admit that I only read the first chapter, but drat, it's a hosed up chapter.

hosed up yes, but it doesn't have that much relationship to the rest of the plot and probably won't until The Ravages of Time finally ends (it's Sima Yi's eventual death)... if you're willing to read past that first chapter, it eventually bypasses the "dueling between champions" martial arts stuff for :wtc:

amounts of strategizing and intrigues.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2012 21:45

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Be advised that this TV show does use a bunch of creative license (i.e. Xu You appears a lot earlier than he does in the novel and in his one-off cameo in DW7), but also that characters use styles/courtesy names and titles A LOT.

Fortunately a character's first appearance in a given episode usually has their style alongside their name, i.e. "Zhuge Liang styled Kongming", and context will usually signify the titleholder, i.e. Sun Quan sometimes being addressed as the Marquis of Wu (Wu hou) or Cao Cao as His/Your Excellency (ch�ng xi�ng).

Heck, Sun "Shangxiang" is simply "Little Sister Sun" (Sun Xiaomei) in the show.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2012 04:19

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Err Chachi, I'd say that the series is FULL of tearjerkers... such as its version of Sun Jian's death.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2012 05:23

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Twelve by Pies posted:

Having read the novels I'm already used to most of the style names! But I'm definitely going to have to watch the TV series, that looks great.

"Cao Cao has a strange fetish." :haw:

(For those only knowing the story from DW, this is set before Sun Quan's decision to ally with Liu Bei before Chi Bi.)

# ¿ Jul 20, 2012 02:59

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

GANDHITRON posted:

I always played as Lu Su in ROTK 7/8/10 because he was kind of a naive goof in the '93 series. So good for him; can't wait to start watching the 2010 version for this.

In the 2010 series he's got Zhuge Liang's number.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2012 07:11

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it as Aya is a pretty classical sorceress but has no connection to Christianity that I know of. Maybe just being religious at all gives you magical powers...but Nobunaga is shown as being pretty anti-religion in most of his appearances and especially when fighting against the Ikko.

In addition to fighting against the ikko (basically compiled as the Nagashima and Honganji battles in the SW series), he also ordered an attack against the Enryaku Temple (Enryakuji) for backing the Azai-Asakura alliance and otherwise being obstacles to Nobunaga's hegemony, despite it being sacred in to the point that supposedly even the Emperor called on him to desist.

Chortles fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Jul 21, 2012

# ¿ Jul 21, 2012 01:33

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

HenryEx posted:

I figure this is more or less the right place.

If i want to get a RotTK game, which one would be the best to start with? PC platform would be great, PS2 is possible, too. I'll need an English version, though.

Does it have to be one of the "play any officer and live their lives" ones or is ruler-only okay? X (localized only for PS2) and XI (localized for both PC and PS2) are the ones I'm thinking of, though they're also the most interesting to me personally; I haven't really looked at XII, and I'm only aware of two things about it:
#1: Apparently it's supposed to play out with RTS elements.
#2: Wang Yun looks strangely malevolent. :stare:

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 20:02

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

HenryEx posted:

I know nothing, really, about the RotTK games, so i have no concept of officer-living and ruler-only. I guess either is okay.

RTK IX and apparently XI are in the vein of RTK I through VI where you play as a faction ruler (or rather the faction as a whole) and tried to eventually wipe out everyone else through a combination of building up your cities, recruiting troops, making/breaking alliances and wiping out enemies in the field of battle or threatening them into submission... broad similarities to the Total War series, with the caveat that there's a chance/degree of success or failure with a bunch of tasks (i.e. the success of diplomacy, battlefield performance, the amount of troops raised in a single recruiting action) based on the officer assigned and his (or her) stats.

Leadership (LDR) is usually the main battlefield stat for an officer, while INT in battle is for succeeding or preventing ploys such as fire attacks, and WAR or Power (PWR) is reserved for when an officer whose unit is in proximity to an enemy unit successfully challenges that unit's officer to a duel (the loser flees, injured, killed or taken prisoner). Likewise, when recruiting troops the amount raised will be determined by the assigned officer's LDR, Political acumen (POL) or Charisma (CHA), along with city development stats and officers' personal skill buffs.

Examples: Lu Bu is usually top-tier WAR/PWR, usually comes with Red Hare as an item which allows him a guaranteed success at fleeing from a duel, favors Cavalry if a unit type specialization is in the game, has good LDR and alright CHA, but low POL and INT so he's not going to be good at city development and diplomatic actions and is quite susceptible to battlefield tactics such as Misdirect.

RTK VII, VIII, and X on the other hand have you pick an officer to with the aforementioned stats, but instead you're "living out" the character's life, so you can pick a faction ruler at which point the above "try to unify China" comes into play, or you can be a "ronin" and wander, or you can be (or become) a lord's officer and receive a stipend (while taking commands from him), move up the ranks, become the city governor (castellan) or regional governor for a lord, or even revolt against him and become your own faction! Specifically, you also get a bunch of personal actions that you can do alongside carrying out tasks for one's faction.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 22:24

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

This is a pretty good write up. I'd say go for either X or XI. XI is more of a grand strategy game proper while X is more of a simulation game. If you don't know anything about the history of Romance of the Three Kingdoms then I'd go with XI as awesomeness as playing as a the historical figures themselves would be mostly lost.

With the caveat that if you played DW7 you basically already know the story anyway. :haw:

I really did like X when I played it for the sheer amount of stuff one could do personally -- i.e. the option to live out your character's life unaffiliated, drinking in taverns without a care in the world while everyone else fights for hegemony, not least since "wanderer in search of a worthy lord" pops up a bunch in the source material -- but I recall X and XI both having tutorials with a lot of dialogue humor that isn't full of in-jokes.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2012 23:46

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

It finally took Zhang Fei and Guan Yu to get their hands on him :haw:

(Context: Zhuge Liang had "hung up the badge" after Guan Yu and Zhang Fei almost mutinied during Liu Bei's time spent in Wu after the marriage with Sun Quan's sister)

OneDeadman posted:

If I recall correctly, Zhuge Liang is seiging a Castle Sima Yi is hanging out, so he just starts sending ancient Chinese insult gifts (I think women's clothes was one) to him to get Sima Yi to come out.

Zhuge Liang is pretty much the best dude.

Too bad the scheme (yeah it was women's clothes) didn't work... and he could be a massive dick to his own side, see what I posted in the last thread about Guan Yu:

Chortles posted:

Reading the novel, and Zhuge Liang is a hilariously cruel dickbag to Guan Yu regarding the Huarong Valley encounter: Whereas the game has it being so that the threat of a living Cao Cao would allow Liu Bei's force to snatch up Jing, in the novel he "knew" that Cao Cao wasn't fated to die yet, but he picked Guan Yu in particular to get him to stop complaining about not being sent on the pursuit in the first place (and admitted both of these to Liu Bei), had Guan Yu put his life on the line in writing, then he basically gave the returning Guan Yu a verbal handjob, knowing full well that Guan Yu believed he was returning to his own execution.

And here's Zhuge Liang rubbing it in:

the novel posted:

After having allowed the escape of Cao Cao, Guan Yu found his way back to headquarters. By this time the other detachments had returned bringing spoil of horses and weapons and supplies of all kinds. Only Guan Yu came back empty-handed. When he arrived, Zhuge Liang was with his brother congratulating him on his success. When Guan Yu was announced, Zhuge Liang got up and went to welcome him, bearing a cup of wine.

"Joy! O General," said Zhuge Liang. "You have done a deed that overtops the world. You have removed the empire's worst foe and ought to have been met at a distance and felicitated."

Guan Yu muttered inaudibly, and Zhuge Liang continued, "I hope it is not because we have omitted to welcome you on the road that you seem sad."

Turning to those about him, Zhuge Liang said, "Why did you not tell us Guan Yu was coming?"

"I am here to ask for death," said Guan Yu.

Chortles fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jul 25, 2012

# ¿ Jul 25, 2012 00:05

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

... well, I have just been horrified to find that the yaoi fangirls aren't limited to Dynasty Warriors or even to English or Japanese speakers... apparently the Chinese fanbase for "slash" of the 2010 series is loving massive. :stare:

# ¿ Jul 25, 2012 06:34

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Bloodly posted:

It's a massive amount of men of power who do lots of things, some manly, some not. Why is this surprising?

I suppose because I didn't expect how the Chinese fanbase to take as strongly to it as they apparently/evidently did... though I'm not surprised that apparently the great majority of it is Liu Bei/Zhuge Liang... I suppose because it requires the least :effort:

short of Koutetsu Sangokushi where the slash appears less than five seconds into the opening.

At least I ended up finding why the Chinese fan nickname for Cao Cao is "bunny" (perfectly work safe and NOT yaoi)

Samurai Sanders posted:

Also, and this is an interesting thing about musou games compared to other popular Japanese games, the characters actually have actual relationships, just by virtue of the source material. There's anime-ized but nowhere near to the extent of other Japanese games.

This isn't surprising at all considering that adaptation pretty much guarantees some degree of acknowledging the source material's relationships, even if just by virtue of "same kingdom" and general plot points relying on these relationships.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2012 09:14

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Samurai Sanders posted:

Anyway, I'm seeing the complaints people have with this game, it really isn't anywhere near as much fun as Orochi 3 or DW7. It just seems scaled down and made more bland in a lot of ways. I still love having an Okuni story mode though. Good old Okuni, the woman who made the Tokugawa government ban women kabuki performers.

Didn't this involve homosexual performers in her troupe?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2012 09:24

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Apparently there's a Chinese sitcom (?) about gamers that deliberately invokes the DW version of Lu Bu for... who knows what the gently caress, along with Samurai Shodown Hanzo and seemingly one of the Terrorist skins for Counter-Strike... funny to me I suppose, just to see the DW series be so acknowledged, I guess he has a special place in Chinese DW players' hearts as much as in ours, except they may have been more prepared for the name! :haw:

# ¿ Jul 27, 2012 10:57

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

AHAHAHAHA from the beginning of episode 24 of the 2010 series (Guan Yu receiving Red Hare):

quote:

Cao Cao: Over the last two years, Cao Pi has been begging for this horse, but I wouldn't bear to give it away. Son, how did I put it?
Cao Pi: Father, you said that I am not worthy enough for Red Hare...
Cao Cao: You are indeed not worthy enough for it! This horse is meant for a brave warrior, not the likes of you!

# ¿ Aug 6, 2012 23:09

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

You're thinking of the Bakumatsu period (Meiji period is after those conflicts, at least against the Shogunate), but Fu'un Shinsengumi, Domon makes me think of KENGO 3's "indoors" combat gameplay.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 06:26

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Samurai Sanders posted:

You're thinking of the Boshin war, right? I mean, if you mean actually in the Meiji period, what is there to work with?

Yes, as covered in Total War: SHOGUN 2 - Fall of the Samurai (and the Dragon War Pack DLC for SHOGUN 2). As for the Meiji period though, honestly all I could think of would be the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2012 06:53

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

The big difference in SW2 was integrating them into the gameplay of the regular stages instead of a "field/castle/siege" division.

HOLY poo poo LATE EDIT: In the 2010 show, instead of Zhang Fei just bearing the wait with his brothers (for Zhuge Liang to appear) like he does in DW7, he sets Zhuge Liang's house on fire and Zhuge Liang sleeps through it... and the first appearance of the iconic feathers is to fan away the smoke.

Chortles fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Aug 14, 2012

# ¿ Aug 12, 2012 05:54

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Belzac posted:

Limpid Luster, hell yeah. Also I believe that Guan Yu and Zhang Fei through about lighting Zhuge Liang's house on fire in the book but decided against it. Kinda out of character for Guan Yu but the editor pointed out it was foreshadowing for Zhuge Liang's many uses of fire from that chapter on.

Seems to me more a product of the novel's inconsistencies due to over-the-years revisions that led to the modern translations, and the director in this case going through with the fire for laughs.

Speaking of the TV show, Cao Ren's pecs dancing :staredog:

Incidentally:

quote:

Speaking of the Gongjin love, you probably have no idea how fast the Wu love is growing in the Chinese TK fans. That is not only the love of Gongjin, but also the love of Sun Quan, Lu Su, Lu Meng...almost everyone in the Wu faction

I would actually very much like to see DW8 say "gently caress it" and just use the characterizations in TK2010. :allears:

# ¿ Aug 14, 2012 21:52

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

We could have had the guy who played Zhuge Liang in the 1990s series as Cao Cao in the 2010 series with Ken Watanabe as Guan Yu? Or so Wiki claims... now I just imagined it. :psyduck:

# ¿ Aug 24, 2012 21:16

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

I think it was just the overall sense of "oh welp there's no real story in the novel after Zhuge Liang's death except Jiang Wei failing forever" that a bunch of other depictions tended to conclude the story at/with; even the 2010 live-action series ends things with Zhuge Liang's death in the penultimate episode followed by the series finale "Sima Yi's Death", which concludes with exactly that.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2012 05:56

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Chachi posted:

You shut your drat mouth, the series still has a ton of potential yet to tap.

They have yet to make Lu Su from the 2010 television series playable, for starters :haw:

Chortles fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Sep 12, 2012

# ¿ Sep 12, 2012 11:04

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Twelve by Pies posted:

Just wanted to mention I've been slowly going through the 2010 Three Kingdoms series and it's pretty good. It's a bit strange seeing Cao Cao being soft-spoken and treating Liu Bei like a close friend rather than looking shady and uncaring. It was the same way in the novel too, he wasn't portrayed in the best of light there either but he certainly had his good points. I wonder why the DW games try and make him out to be a huge jerkass.

Both the games and the TV series are based on the novel (plus it's easier to Flanderize Cao Cao to "ambition" and Liu Bei to "virtue", Ma Chao to "justice", et al., instead of giving them shades of gray), but the director and actor Chen Jianbin specifically wanted to diverge from the novel and treat him with a modern perspective.

Mind you, the later Sun family arcs and Lu Su are also divergent...

# ¿ Sep 17, 2012 21:57

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

The DW Empires series that was posted about just above you is the closest you'll see to that.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2012 23:57

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

DW8 Kongming you look almost the exact same as in the last game :argh:

# ¿ Nov 2, 2012 22:04

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

SirPhoebos posted:

I remember Zhuge Liang's ghost appearing in the second-to-last Jin campaign. And though it was pretty at first, I was disappointed nothing more was done with it. I was half expecting the entire pass to ignite on fire, but nope, he was in and out of there and there was no further mention of it.

It's a nod to an incident from an encounter in the novel when Zhong Hui had a vision of Zhuge Liang's spirit appearing before him to treat the people of Shu well.

... also, I just saw that DW8 Cao Cao looks almost the same as DW7's :argh:

Zhou Yu and Sun Shangxiang don't... why do you!

# ¿ Nov 5, 2012 10:07

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Twelve by Pies posted:

I wish they'd bring back the event in Wuzhang Plains where Wei Yan rebels against Shu. I think they only had that happen in DW4.

DW6 did have the moment of "oh dear Wei Yan got himself in trouble Zhuge Liang had better fetch him lest Wei Yan defect".

# ¿ Nov 5, 2012 23:18

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Chachi posted:

It's Lu Su

It's not the 2010 live-action series version so it doesn't count :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2012 01:04

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Chachi posted:

Would Chen Gong being on the same leak roster that said he was coming up help salve that a bit?

Also not the 2010 live-action series version :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2012 01:48

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 20:38

Chortles: Dec 29, 2008

Kersch posted:

Plain old Samurai Warriors 2 is probably still my favorite Warriors game, for what it's worth. The Empires games don't have campaign/story modes.

Pretty much, SW2 was basically my favorite Warriors game before DW7.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2012 08:48

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