Author: Balambgirl
Date: Jun 30, 08 9:00am (PT)
Subject: Historical Basis
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Well, as everyone is well aware, the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors Series are based on Historical novels and periods. Obviously WO moved away from that a little with the slightly more surreal plot, but it shared mostly the same basis. Now what I am interested in is your views on this historical basis, such as:
What are the problems with basing a game historically?
What are the benefits?
Changes between History and game- why, for better or worse?
Thing From History you'd like to see in the game?
or any other general discussion about the basis of the game.
Author: Artirtico
Date: Jul 01, 08 3:09am (PT)
Subject: re: Historical Basis
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I would say that a major problem with the history being converted into games is that there were very few large scale battles - most of the fights seemed to be very determined on a dual between the top generals. Generally it seems that whichever armies general loses gets routed and has to retreat which wouldn't make very good gamplay...the battles also seem to be largely made up of skimishes which also may not be as interesting to follow as being involved in a larger battle. Then there's the fact that the warriors were much more alike than portrayed in the games, almost all using some kind of spear or sword basically...which may make the gameplay less enjoyable if the movesets were all so similar. Then for the female fans, a historically based game would result in the removal of almost all of the playable women as most didn't actually fight at all...which would effectively result in koei losing that specific audience. Certain generals would also completely overpower others in terms of fighting ability so the balance of characters would be disrupted with people such as Zhuge/Sima etc being far less effective that Zhao Yun/Zhang Liao for example. The removal of any fictional beam/magic attacks would severely weaken them. So yah lots of problems...
As for benefits for basing the games on history, it is firstly more interesting for the people who follow the actual history - they know what should be happening so would expect it to happen. A historically based game would have far more battles even if they were smaller. Many characters wouldn't get so overdramatised if based on the history, which for me would certainly be an improvement.
I don't understand why some characters have had their personalities picked on so much...why can't Wei Yan speak properly? why is Zhang He womanly? why does Xu Zhu only care about food? I strongly dislike changes such as those from the history as they were all amazing generals that have now been ridiculed...somewhat disrespectful really...
The addition of Xing Cai was infuriating, not being historically based whatsoever.
I do think that the larger battles of the game series do work better than a more real account of what happened in the history.
Author: Spear Master
Date: Jul 02, 08 1:03pm (PT)
Subject: re: Historical Basis
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One thing is the fact that playable generals are always so super human. Zhao Yun's feat at Chang Ban can easily be done by any character, enemy soldiers should be more numerious and harder to kill.
Bringing 2 sets of characters from times over a thousand years apart would have definately been hard, I think Koei did a decent job of that.
Author: Balambgirl
Date: Jul 04, 08 12:38pm (PT)
Subject: re: Historical Basis
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I agree with whats been said pretty much.
I especially agree with Artirtico's point about some peoples personalities. They've definitely over exaggerated some peoples characteristics to create some humour, which isn't particularly fair as it some what devalues their character. For example Historically i did not dislike Zhang He, but because of the way they portray him in the game, I've hardly used him.
Some changes are for the better, like the female characters mentioned. They do have to bear in mind it's a game for all , so it was obviously necessary to include a greater range of characters. I don't mind changes like that it's more the ones that aren't necessary that annoy me, like the personalities mentioned above.
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