Time to do some advertising! I figure I should do this early before it becomes a random obscure post on page 3 or something.
Why you should play Dynasty Warriors 7
Honestly, I rented DW7 on a whim during a free Gamefly trial. Prior to that, I had only played DW3, and that's basically all I was expecting; mindless gameplay, crappy graphics, even crappier voice acting, and some silly cutscenes. Instead, DW7 completely amazed me with doing everything pretty well--maybe even exceptionally in some cases. The graphics won't blow you away at first, but you slowly realize how impressive they are. DW7's selling point is its surprisingly well-done Story Mode; each of the four kingdoms (the fourth is Jin, which united the country at the end of the Three Kingdoms era) has its own campaign, roughly about 6-8 hours long. The voice acting is decent, and the cutscenes are incredibly well done and presented seamlessly with battles.
Here's the intro to Wu's campaign, as an example:
One of the other cool things about DW7 is that it has some great DLC on PSN (360 didn't get a lot, I think). You can buy remastered versions of old costumes from DW3-6 at $1 per game. There are other costume packs you can buy, as well, and while they're a bit pricier ($5 per kingdom), it's still a lot better than what some other companies are charging for a single alternate costume *coughsquareenixcoughnamco*. There are also DLC weapons that are unique and sometimes hilarious, like the Iron Boat:
Here is a list of all the DLC for DW7:
http://koei.wikia.com/wiki/Dynasty_Warriors_7/DLC
Not all of it is out in the US yet (the boomerang and ringblade, as well as the fairytale costumes only recently came out in Japan), but Koei has been very good about supporting DW7 overseas. On the PS3, at least.
TL;DR: If you even remotely like Dynasty Warriors or have any sort of interest in the Three Kingdoms era, you need to play Dynasty Warriors 7. It's got a very well done Story Mode and some cathartically fun, if mindless, gameplay. It's got roughly 65 different characters to choose from, as well as a ton of great DLC. It's also $40 new in a lot of places!
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XS2 is the only good Xenosaga game - Lady Ashe
http://backloggery.com/cwistofu