Lu Bu used to just be a dude, y’know? Sure, the rule of thumb was to just not ever get into a fight with him, but with a high enough level and a good deal of luck, you could take him. Now? Now he can turn into something like the Human Torch, owns what looks like a giant magma lion, and…flies? He might be able to fly.
Dynasty Warriors, you’ve gotten silly.
Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce was originally a PSP title that’s now been ported to the bigger systems. Like Empires, it’s a side game of sorts, with an emphasis on new gameplay rather than just tweaking the formula enough to warrant the next number in the series. Where Empires adds a game-of-Risk element and drops a lot of the battlefield bells and whistles, Strikeforce shrinks the maps to segmented levels with an objective at the end. Insofar as you can have a DW dungeon crawler while still maintaining the setting of ancient Chinese battlefields, this is it.
Along those lines, it also plays heavily with RPG elements. You take missions from a camp that contains item shops, places to learn new techniques, and places to craft elemental and status upgrades for yourself, as well as side missions that are unrelated to the usual DW story missions.
It’s also added the ability to fly and transform into a superpowered version of what’s already a superpowered kung fu warrior.
Ok, let’s try that again: you can now turn into a VISIBLY superpowered kung fu warrior. It’s all very Super Sonic, and not in a good way.
On the other hand, the addition of a secondary weapon of your choice and four player online co-op are welcome. The latter especially: now you and a squad of your friends can maul the Yellow Turbans or Cao Cao all together, adding an arcade beat-em-up feel to the proceedings.
Like any Dynasty Warriors game, how much you enjoy it is directly proportional to how much you enjoy smashing apart waves of anonymous soldiers by pressing a single button repeatedly. But it looks like Koei is at least trying new things with the series.
Dynasty Warriors Strike Force is available for the Playstation 3 and XBox 360 (this review refers to the XBox 360 demo).
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It should be called: Lu Bu – The Transformation!