To clear up the issue a bit, the bosses in N3 are handled a bit differently than comparable encounters in Dynasty Warriors. To wit, they function kind of like the cinematic grand finale of the stage and are given that kind of pizzazz and presentation, more along the lines of the old beat-em up bosses like in Final Fight. Whereas in Dynasty Warriors, you pretty just get a small cutscene sometimes introducing them and then you fight them at pretty much any time you want (I like to “take breaks” and come back and finish them off later), N3 really isn’t as flexible as all that.
So I guess you could Dynasty Warriors gives you special powerful enemies, whereas N3 throws encounters o’ special doom at you.
I’m not sure if it’s coming in the next update, but the goal is to eventually let you do just that - not only from your PC (though probably not through a web page - more like through an Live PC component), but from your cell phone. Which I think is totally cool. I’d love to get an SMS alert telling me when new content is available on Marketplace, and then I just just right there queue up the download on my Xbox (or PC, or both maybe!) and it’s waiting for me when I get back.
That’s all a part of what the “Live Anywhere” thing they’re doing is.
Also - that N3 demo grew tiresome in about 5 minutes. There seems to be little to no depth to the gameplay. Just mindlessly smack down hordes and hordes of enemies, in a giant cluster-fuck together with hordes of friendly units. When there are zombies to kill in the mall, I think I’ll pass.
Demo doesn’t grab me. I never got into Dynasty Warriors either so take it for what it’s worth. I’m running around hitting X and Y a lot, mostly at random. Every enemy I fight is exactly the same up until the end of the level. There’s a group of goblins, so you flip and twirl and bash through them. It’s fun at first to see them all go flying. Then it wears on you as you have to mop up the stragglers individually. Then you move on, and there’s another identical mob. There also appear to be some archers high up who you can’t kill no matter how much you want to. Maybe you can and I just haven’t figured out how, but it’s not obvious.
I get halfway through the demo, die for no good reason really. I must’ve missed the health potions. Have to start all over again. Second time I find some potions and items so I last much longer, probably 3/4 of the way through. This time I die because there are these armored versions of the goblins who can block pretty well and they have this charge move which knocks me on my ass. At this point I really don’t want to start over and wade through this sea of sameness once again. The lack of checkpoints is asinine in a game like this.
Your group of guards are all snacking on lead paint chips between fights. It’s ridiculous to watch them try and fight a single enemy. They run around randomly, swinging, swinging at the air, at each other, at whatever. You can never be totally sure where they’re going to run off to when you give the “advance” order. It sometimes seems objective-based, sometimes seems like they head for the closest enemy, and sometimes seem like they pick a direction and just run until they hit a wall, then they do a jerky little dance and refuse to listen to you further.
It’s very pretty on the plus side. There are all manner of Ninja Gaiden-like combo moves to pull off, and they all have pretty trails and “WAM POW BANG HOWDY!” effects that shine like an angel’s teeth. There’s something to do with orbs? Souls? I don’t know. Some sort of special mode you can engage when you kill enough and suck up their floating, point-energy like remnants. It makes the screen go funny around the edges, you sprout wings, and your spear turns into a bright blue raygun flinging enemies everywhere. At one point I set off some sort of white-blue nuclear explosion. It appeared that I unfortunately directed this at an uninhabited area of the battlefield, but we all enjoyed the view nonetheless.
Anyway, it’s a pass for me so far. The lack of checkpoints ruin it. I’ve only played it twice and presently I can’t imagine much worse than having to play through that level again.
Died once too at some point into it. I didn’t notice till much later there are things to pick up, nor did I ever bother mopping up all the stragglers, I just ran ahead till I found a new giant mosh pit to play in.
If it had checkpoints I would probably pick it up just because I am a graphics whore, but it doesn’t, and my hands hurt far to much after one failed playthrough, let alone multiple attempts. Never liked the Dynasty Warriors genre either though.
Fun demo. Not as good as Dynasty Warriors due to the missing strategic layer (bases, chokepoints, etc.) but enjoyable for the combos and massive number of enemies on screen. I probably won’t buy it because fuck you developers for not allowing saves or checkpoints, but I beat the demo mission on my first try anyway.
Well, if you don’t “get” button mashers, it’s probably a good bet that any of them will be sort of a waste of your time. :) N3 is one of the games I’ve actually been looking forward to. I’m currently without a net connection to the 360, so it’ll be a while before I can download the demo, though.
Sounds like the few online reviews I’ve read of the game were spot on. N3 is a game that entirely relies on technical novelty that wears off long before the game is beaten.
It’s a total clone of DW, but somehow they made it worse. It’s more boring. The battlefield is less interesting, the variety of enemies fewer. Just big open spaces occasionally punctuated with a tower or a neatly formed regiment of goblins.
I played the demo for about 45 minutes, exploring the map a bit and ranking up 2500 kills. I got near the end, and there was this cutscene with this big ogre guy. As soon as the cutscene was over, I died. Not sure why, but I was really low on life. A goblin probably poked me.
Lame. Once again my 360 is relegated to Dust Collector ™.
