Brawlers and Beatemups
User avatar
prfsnl_gmr
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 12199
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina

Re: River City and Dynasty Warriors had a baby!

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Jul 21, 2022 4:19 am

Is this any good? I want to like this, but the last one I played, River City Knights of Justice, was very disappointing.
User avatar
Raging Justice
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1290
Joined: Sun May 30, 2021 2:11 pm

Re: River City and Dynasty Warriors had a baby!

by Raging Justice Sat Jul 23, 2022 3:32 pm

prfsnl_gmr wrote:Is this any good? I want to like this, but the last one I played, River City Knights of Justice, was very disappointing.


I have seen a smattering of reviews for it that are fairly positive, though no one is acting like this a major addition to the genre in the vein of Streets of Rage 4 or Shredder's Revenge.

I finished the first chapter and here are my thoughts. It's your standard river city game, which means it's basically an rpg pretending to be a beat 'em up. Effectiveness in combat is less about skill and more about how powerful your moves are and your stats/level.

It's got the usual cartoony feel and humor I'd expect, retelling the well known Romance of the Three Kingdoms story with a River City Flair. It's actually funny how they show the name of every River City character next to their Romance of the Three Kingdoms name in the dialog boxes. It makes it feel like the cast of River City are basically performing a play.

There is lots of towns with food items and equipment you can buy, though unlike most River City games the food items I've encountered don't seem to affect your stats, they just refill your health or give you temporary power ups. You get stats when you level up and can distribute them as you see fit. I've been mostly putting them into health/defense so that I don't have to waste money on health items. There is a food item I have encountered in one village that lets you reset your stats.

You can customize your move set as you find or buy more moves. You also unlock more moves randomly by using certain moves in combat a lot.

The game is somewhat non-linear, with a big map. There's lots of side quests and even optional encounters you can find. Fast travel is available at the cost of 100 coins, which is money you can pretty much get back by doing one battle and picking up the coins dropped by enemies.

One thing I don't like is that there are some platforming segments that will piss you off just like the ones in the old Double Dragon games on the NES. One area had a series of tricky ones that I got past after a fair amount of frustration, only for the game to tell me that I didn't have the requisite ability to get past the next platforming segment, something I wish I had been told before I made it that far. That was a turn the game off in frustration moment.

So, the Dynasty Warriors elements come into the game in a few ways. There are more enemies you fight than in other games like this that I've played. Feels like I'm definitely taking on more people at once than I did in River City Girls or Scott Pilgrim. Though the game gives you some pretty powerful moves and abilities to take down those larger numbers, which is nice because this game has the usual smart, hyper aggressive AI that River City type games always seem to have. The enemies will take every opportunity to beat down your ass even on the lowest difficulty setting that you start the game on. There are Ultimate Attacks you can use that use up what is effectively an MP bar under your health bar. This bar can also be used to activate a super mode where everything slows down like bullet time, and in this state you also gain an additional attack not usually available to you. There are also "Tactics" abilities that I would compare to the cop car in Streets of Rage. The first one that I unlocked summons a troops of archers who rain down fair arrows on every enemy on the screen. This is tied to a special meter that you have to fill up by fighting enemies or picking up randomly dropped scrolls from enemies. These are all abilities that are a bit wild for a River City game, but pretty standard fare if you were playing a Dynasty Warriors or musou game. Also, a lot of the fights have archers firing arrows at you from a distance, another minor detail that feels more Dynasty Warriors than River City.

There is some resource gathering in the game. It's a pretty simple matter of attacking certain things in the environment like hitting trees for wood.

You also have a reputation meter affected by some of your actions and choices, no idea what it is for though.

I like it. Like I said, it's the standard River City formula with just a dash of Dynasty Warriors. It's really more of a River City game than a Dynasty Warriors game though honestly. There's four player co-op, which I haven't tried as I'm pretty much a solo, beat 'em up guy. The game looks fairly long with all these chapters to complete and like three or four difficulty settings to unlock. I believe there's additional characters to unlock, with the River City Girls having already been revealed in the gaming media sites. I can see this game getting a bit repetitive maybe, but that's one of the usual flaws of the genre. The crazy new attacks you keep finding probably alleviates that to some degree though.
User avatar
prfsnl_gmr
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 12199
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina

Re: River City and Dynasty Warriors had a baby!

by prfsnl_gmr Mon Jul 25, 2022 8:20 am

Thank you! I appreciate the very thorough impressions.
User avatar
Raging Justice
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1290
Joined: Sun May 30, 2021 2:11 pm

Re: River City and Dynasty Warriors had a baby!

by Raging Justice Sun Aug 07, 2022 5:24 am

I've put even more time into it and I still dig it. The new attacks you keep getting are awesome. The AI in this game is smart and aggressive, but some of these attacks you get are so OP it balances out. I really like how in boss fights and bigger battles you often have NPCs fighting with you, and they can hold their own. I've also started encountering animals to fight, which feels very Dynasty Warriors. I even ran into a new enemy type that fills the screens with high damage, fire arrows. You have to try and attack him while he charges it up. I also found my first mystery shop and can't wait to see how awesome the attacks it sells are. There's also a secret item I found that makes enemies start dropping money after you hit them with it, so I'm rolling in cash right now

I unlocked a second, water based tactics ability, and it actually affects the environment. The animation when you use it is hilarious. The game gives you items that increase your tactics bar too, so you can use them more. Plus, the second ability costs two bars instead of one, so you need the extra bars for that too.

There is a LOT of platforming by the way...it can get annoying because of the usual issues of a beat 'em up trying to do platforming. It's probably my one knock against the game, but they are all doable with enough persistence
Return to Fighters

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests