DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition Review

Right, let’s just get this off my chest straight away, I enjoy fighting games. I love Streetfighter games (huge soft spot for Alpha 2) and love games similar to SEGA’s Streets of Rage. Yes, I’m that kind of gamer. So, when Hyrule Warriors was released back in the days of WiiU, I was very intrigued. It was a day one purchase and, I found it OK. Initially, I absolutely LOVED the insanity of the intense fighting scenes, with the odds seemingly STACKED against you, and with the Zelda characters mixed in, I thought it was pure gold.

However, after a couple of hours, I became bored. The gameplay quickly became repetitive and it felt all too easy to simply ‘hack and slash’ through the hordes of enemies and I was merely button bashing. Yes, it was fun to unleash ultra attacks, but that quickly became a tad dull too.

Well, with the Nintendo Switch selling so well, it’s unsurprising that Hyrule Warriors got a special edition… and now, we have Koei Tecmo releasing Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition (gosh…try saying that quickly) 

Dynasty Warriors is all about you controlling generals of armies. Armies set in Chinese history towards the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms. Pretty cool; and it’s actually amazing when I realised these games have been going for over twenty years and have produced over 30 games. Respect.

As with previous games, each level can get quite deep. The choices you make as you hack and slash through levels can quite quickly create new story paths and how each battle pans out – a lot of thought has gone in to how this affects the player’s path. In fact, the sheer amount of content on offer here is VERY impressive. The long title really does do it justice, as the customisation features and choices the player can make is vast. The game offers the standard story mode, with the expected character choices which reflects the different armies from the sides of history. I will say that one mode that is nice for a player of my ilk is challenge mode, where it simply mixes up the classic formulae and provides new goals; which is perfect for myself who can get all-too quickly bored of constant hacking and slashing through piles and piles of enemies.

Dynasty Warriors is a game with A LOT happening. The player is a warrior, against HUNDREDS of enemies, all that are meant to be fighting back. This, sounds impressive, and even more impressive when we are talking about the portable Nintendo Switch. Well, it kinda works. With such easy to use controls, you’ll quickly feel like you’re having a blast as you dash around slicing and dicing hundreds upon hundreds of enemies, but again, in my humble opinion, you’ll quickly realise, that most of the enemies are fairly motionless and aren’t really gunning for you. This, takes away too much for me as the player and my motivation to defeat the army quickly diminishes.

Koei Tecmo have, however, made a very impressive definitive edition. It’s advertised with all previously DLC, and it certainly feels like it. It has an incredible amount of costumes, weapons etc and, for fans of the series, it most certainly is a fantastic package.

And that’s just it, I cannot deny this series of game has a great following and if you’re a big fan, then this is one hell of a great portable package. But, I just can’t see past the monotonous gameplay. The button bashing as you simply plough through the enemies… sorry. I couldn’t get past it. And for that reason, it’s a 6.

REVIEW CODE: A FREE Nintendo Switch code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.