➤ Extreme disappointment? 🎮

The release of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends - Complete Edition on Steam is not an absolute novelty: the action series developed by Omega Force, which boasts a fairly substantial following even in the West, has in fact enjoyed several conversions for PC, conversions that however, often they have not crossed the Japanese borders, not even in the digital format alone.

The opportunity to change course with this last episode was greedy, given that there was at the same time the debut on PlayStation 4, which brought with it an appreciable technical improvement: 1080p resolution, elimination of the hitherto inevitable enemy pop-up, more characters displayed simultaneously on the screen, better texture quality and a solid frame rate even in the most hectic situations. Situations that, as fans of this franchise know, occur practically every two seconds. Dynasty Warriors has always been the "button mashing" fair, a frenetic action game in which we take on the role of some of the greatest leaders of Imperial China, obviously "fictionalized" for the occasion, who face entire hostile armies alone and they have incredible power, enough to defeat dozens and dozens of opponents with a single blow.

The PC version of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends is based on the "old gen" editions and disappoints not a little

Complete Edition

Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends - Complete Edition arrives on the Windows platform with the same edition released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, which includes the base game and its "extreme" expansion in a single solution. The latter adds to the experience a new single player campaign with the invincible Lu Bu, some new stages, extra content for Ambition Mode, a new EX attack for each warrior and five playable characters: Fa Zheng, Lu Lingqi, Yu Jin, Chen Gong and Zhu Ran.

Not only outline elements, therefore, but also an optimization of the mechanics that gives a minimum of variety to the offensive maneuvers, a fundamental factor when the gameplay consists solely of trimming combos on combos to free the various areas of each map from the presence of enemy commanders, so as to finally conquer the entire territory and move on to the next one. The many weapons available, to be unlocked during missions and with which to equip our warrior, as well as the renewed system to "counterattack" when an opponent tries to hit us with a special maneuver, should also be seen in this perspective. Small attentions that are extremely appreciated by fans of the series, but which in any case do not improve the impact performance, in our opinion still too "light" when compared with what is offered by a direct competitor like Sengoku Basara. The point is that, however, finally also on PC you can enjoy an episode of Dynasty Warriors, probably the best ever made, and this can only be welcomed with enthusiasm by those who couldn't wait to be able to get their hands on the title. of Omega Force in a Windows environment. The presence of variations on the theme such as the well-known Ambition mode, however, significantly increases the duration of the experience, proposing for example situations in which the battles perform the concrete function of collecting materials to build a magnificent castle, worthy of the Emperor. .

Old gen?

We knew the value and peculiarities of Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends - Complete Edition, and we talked about it in detail in the review of the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions, released last month.

Clearly we expected from the PC edition a technical sector comparable, if not superior, to that of the next gen Sony console, but evidently Tecmo Koei preferred to make a different choice, at least questionable, or to make a conversion that was as light as possible on the front. hardware requirements, so as to increase the possible catchment area. Therefore, despite the possibility of making various graphic adjustments (resolution, texture filter, vertical synchrony and then, specifically, the general quality, the characters, the drawing distance, the details, etc.), the visual rendering of the game is heavily emasculated by the use of the assets of the PlayStation 3 version, which "flatten" the graphics and give it that inevitable "old generation" flavor, in particular as regards the definition of the plots.

Of course, it must be admitted that at least three elements are improved: the frame rate is anchored to 60 frames per second (apart from the cutscenes, which are still at 30 frames per second) even when there is hell on the screen, without uncertainty; and in the same way there is no crazy pop-up that on the (now old) Sony console made enemies appear out of nowhere. In addition, the resolution reaches 1080p, as on PlayStation 4. To counterbalance these small advantages we think the inexplicable lack of cooperative multiplayer mode, a decidedly lacking and cumbersome interface, poor controller support and a system for customization of the controls that leaks from all sides. In addition, many users have experienced crashes, mysterious freezes and endless loading, problems that we fortunately solved by running the game in a Windows 7 compatible mode, but which is not really nice to find in an official release that - it is supposed - has been tested before publication. .

PC System Requirements

Test Setup

Processor: AMD FX 8320
Scheda video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 Jetstream
Memory: 8 GB of RAM
Operating system: Windows 8

Minimum requirements

Processor: 2,4 GHz dual core
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600
Memory: 256 MB in RAM
Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

Recommended Requirements

Processor: 2,8 GHz quad core
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
Memory: 512 MB in RAM
Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8

Comment

Digital Delivery: Steam Prezzo: 49,99€ Resources4Gaming.com

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7.1

Your vote

On the one hand, it is nice that Tecmo Koei has decided to bring Dynasty Warriors to PC again, with one of the best episodes ever made, particularly rich in missions, characters and modes; on the other hand, the choice of using the assets of the PlayStation 3 version rather than the "next gen" ones really disappoints, which translates into a visual impact of the game well below expectations, made less bitter only by factors such as resolution and frame rate . If we add to this the lack of cooperative multiplayer mode, a problematic support for the controller and several problems of software stability, the picture that is emerging is that of a conversion so rich and relevant for fans of the series, but done in a hurry. and without particular care.