the demo is now up on psn/xbox live. of course my friends and i tried it out as it is fist, but i did not expect much from it. turns out it's actually a decent game. i dreaded that it would be just another dynasty warriors, but koei seems to have taken it in a different direction. instead of wailing on hundreds of dudes simultaneous because you have a huge weapon that covers the screen, the battles are a little more intimate. certainly you are greatly outnumbered almost all the time, but now they actually made the combat interesting.
you actually need to think about what attacks you're using now, as many of your combo "paths" have different properties depending on your character choice. kenshiro can juggle right off the bat and like all the hokuto shinken masters has certain attacks that put enemies into a crippled state temporarily where they take huge damage. rei, one of the nanto seiken masters, on the other hand cannot juggle off his normal combos, but he has slightly faster attacks and better crowd control. instead of crippling enemies, the nanto seiken fighters can enter a state under certain situations (when you and your opponent attack at the same time or when you stagger them) that allows them to read their opponents' movements, changing some their attacks. rei for example gets some nasty air combos and ridiculous crowd control on his heavy attacks. there's another combat style, "unique," on a few characters but none of them were in the demo (wiki says they're mamiya, jagi, and 'mowhawk' whoever that is)
apart from your normal attacks each character has a plethora of signature arts (vaguely like those musou arts or basara arts; supers really) that you can switch with a touch of the d-pad. different arts take a different amount of "stocks," and there's a lot of variation between each attack. they're based off of each character's signature attacks from the comic/series, so kenshiro naturally starts with his hyakuretsuken/100 crack fist and shit like that.
there are also lots of little touches inspired by fighting games like jump cancels, instant blocks/parries, guard crush, and dashes. it's not a srs tourney fighter by any means but there's much more going on here than people will most likely give it credit for.
there are a few odd things about the controls. they're spot on, but there's a weird start-up to your movements when you're standing still. once you start running your character reacts like pac-man (spot-fucking-on even down to the fidgeting back and forth). it's almost like they got it backwards. there's also a very deliberate pacing to the combos; they felt slow as hell at first but the game is designed around this fact so it's not bad once you get used to it.
overall it has some great potential so check it out
you actually need to think about what attacks you're using now, as many of your combo "paths" have different properties depending on your character choice. kenshiro can juggle right off the bat and like all the hokuto shinken masters has certain attacks that put enemies into a crippled state temporarily where they take huge damage. rei, one of the nanto seiken masters, on the other hand cannot juggle off his normal combos, but he has slightly faster attacks and better crowd control. instead of crippling enemies, the nanto seiken fighters can enter a state under certain situations (when you and your opponent attack at the same time or when you stagger them) that allows them to read their opponents' movements, changing some their attacks. rei for example gets some nasty air combos and ridiculous crowd control on his heavy attacks. there's another combat style, "unique," on a few characters but none of them were in the demo (wiki says they're mamiya, jagi, and 'mowhawk' whoever that is)
apart from your normal attacks each character has a plethora of signature arts (vaguely like those musou arts or basara arts; supers really) that you can switch with a touch of the d-pad. different arts take a different amount of "stocks," and there's a lot of variation between each attack. they're based off of each character's signature attacks from the comic/series, so kenshiro naturally starts with his hyakuretsuken/100 crack fist and shit like that.
there are also lots of little touches inspired by fighting games like jump cancels, instant blocks/parries, guard crush, and dashes. it's not a srs tourney fighter by any means but there's much more going on here than people will most likely give it credit for.
there are a few odd things about the controls. they're spot on, but there's a weird start-up to your movements when you're standing still. once you start running your character reacts like pac-man (spot-fucking-on even down to the fidgeting back and forth). it's almost like they got it backwards. there's also a very deliberate pacing to the combos; they felt slow as hell at first but the game is designed around this fact so it's not bad once you get used to it.
overall it has some great potential so check it out
