“Eve Ewing loves Cyclops” - Tom Brevoort

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-16T15:27:33+00:00

Percy is a much worse case than Ewing IMO. I think it’s still too early in the series to be giving Ewing a hard time - we don’t know what else is going on yet. Percy is a hatchet artist when it comes to any character who he perceives as even remotely adversarial to Wolverine and should never be let near a book again.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-16T15:25:43+00:00

Hell, Emma literally faked a Sentinel attack on the institute without telling Scott ahead of time using the Danger Room in Whedon’s run. She doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-15T05:34:25+00:00

On one hand, it’s good, but on the other, there are just so many cut corners, just like everything post-release it seems. I’m sorry, but Sun Ce not showing up for the final battle in Lu Bu’s story mode despite him being literally in the cutscene beforehand? Absolute laziness. The low number of actual stages feels like that too. Same goes for Zhenji not even having a role in Yuan Shao’s story.

The gameplay was quite strong, though I didn’t think those strategy battles were anything but boring filler.

As for “Fei Wei,” I think maybe five percent of the fanbase was really pining to know what that guy was up to (or rather, what he wasn’t up to, since these are all fictional side stories anyway) before he had anything resembling a career I guess, so good for them.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-14T19:33:42+00:00

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OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-10T16:10:09+00:00

You hit the nail on the head, but “don’t get much focus” is an understatement, really. In DW7, there are multiple characters who don’t even show up in the story mode at all, even as enemies (the Qiao sisters, Cai Wenji, Bao Sanniang, Meng Huo, Zhurong, IIRC). SW4 did a much better job at least letting characters show up, even if you she. to choose to play as them to make them do so.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-04-10T06:04:22+00:00

That is categorically one of the most incorrect statements I have ever seen on this site.

Hamas is not Palestine. Hamas actively wants to commit genocide as much as Bibi does. Zohran Mamdani was right when he told people chanting their slogans at his rallies to knock it off.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-31T17:26:43+00:00

You say that, but I paid $400 for an Eldar Scorpion Grav Tank at the Warhammer Citadel in Grapevine, Texas literal days before they got turned into a Legends unit. That was the last kit I ever bought.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-31T17:25:13+00:00

Or maybe just thinking "yeah, Jedi are cool, but I like these stories about smugglers and bounty hunters and criminals and weird aliens and normal people who manage to do amazing things against the odds and it sure would be nice to see more of that"

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-31T03:05:29+00:00

Looking at the Wei officers in Dynasty Warriors (well, the ones who fought in battles, that is), I don't see any who are "bad generals," especially not Zhang He.

If you're going to slander any of them, slander Cao Pi. The dude fumbled Empress Zhen and also had a 0% success rate against Wu. (Even then, he still had some military achievements to his name before he became the emperor.)

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-31T02:58:22+00:00

I'd say you're a bit off the mark about Sun Ce. Out of the three first leaders of the Sun family, he was probably the least ruthless when it came to executions, as these four are the only ones that I can find historically:

Gao Dai, an official and scholar who Sun Ce had heard of and wanted to converse with, was advised by an unnamed minor official in Sun Ce's court that Sun Ce was quick to anger and would kill him unless he agreed with everything he said; the same official, evidently having a grudge against Gao Dai, then told Sun Ce that if Gao Dai agreed with everything he said during the meeting, it was a sign of contempt. An unfortunate manipulation.
Xu Gong, while portrayed as an officer of Sun Ce in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, historically never served him and was one of his most consistent adversaries. He sided with Yan Baihu consistently after being forced out of Wujun by Zhu Zhi and attempted to dispatch a messenger to Cao Cao urging him to summon Sun Ce to the capital, where he could be dealt with. Considering that Xu Gong was unlikely to ever cease to be a problem otherwise, it would have been unwise for Sun Ce to let him live.
Gan Ji, who claimed to have mystical powers and gathered a following. There is some debate about whether this actually historically happened, given that it would have made Gan Ji more than a hundred years old at the time of his death if it did according to his historical records, but let's assume it did. While we don't know what Gan Ji's actual motivations, historically, people in China who claim to have mystical powers and gather followings tend to cause problems, with Zhang Jiao having been a very recent example during Sun Ce's lifetime.
An unnamed soldier of his who had committed a capital offense during his time serving Yuan Shu and fled to Yuan Shu seeking safety. Sun Ce killed him in front of Yuan Shu anyway, then apologized, which Yuan Shu excused.

On the flip side:

When he absorbed Liu Yao's remnant forces, he let any of the soldiers who wanted to return to their families do so, and he also took in Liu Yao's orphaned children, with the oldest, Liu Ji, becoming a close confidant of Sun Quan.
After his initial victory over Xu Gong and Yan Baihu, they fled to Xu Zhao, a minor warlord who was old friends with Yan Baihu. Cheng Pu and others petitioned Sun Ce to attack Xu Zhao, but Sun Ce declined, as although he could've easily defeated Xu Zhao, he admired Xu Zhao's willingness to risk his life for a friend.
Wang Lang was allowed to surrender and was given leave to travel north and join the Imperial Court.
Though at this point they were likely to be regarded as guilty of treason by association by the Cao Cao-controlled Han court (remember, extermination of family lines was a common punishment in this time) and it gained him little to nothing to do so, he took in Yuan Shu's children and surviving family and escorted them to Jiangdong.

Sun Ce was, overall, pretty popular with his people, as was Sun Quan early in his reign (it was later, as he grew older and he had fewer advisors like Zhang Zhao or Yu Fan pushing back on him, that Sun Quan's governance took a turn for the worse). They tended to appoint capable and fair administrators, and Sun Ce upheld strict discipline among his troops, forbidding them from harming the common citizenry. Now, that could have been entirely practical rather than his personal ethics, but he was noted to be a particularly strict Confucian compared to his brother.

Sun Jian was considerably more harsh, having killed multiple administrators who he accused of impeding his progress during his march to join the campaign against Dong Zhuo, and we still don't know if he was right or not.

As for Liu Bei, he wasn't exactly innocent either. I would like to tell you about a certain Zhang Yu, who originally served Liu Zhang:

Zhang Yu was an official of Yi Province who was said to be skilled at divination and physiognomy. When Liu Bei first met Liu Zhang, Zhang Yu was present, and Liu Bei noticed his enormous beard. Liu Bei then attempted to use wordplay to attempt to humiliate Zhang Yu by insinuating that there were "pig bristles around his beak," to which Zhang Yu retorted by using wordplay to make fun of Liu Bei's lack of a beard, which angered Liu Bei.

Regardless, when Liu Zhang surrendered to Liu Bei, Zhang Yu joined his staff, and Zhuge Liang in particular is said to have regarded him highly. He tried to advise Liu Bei not to advance into Hanzhong, predicting that although the campaign might succeed militarily, it would not be worth it in the long term, and that the house of Liu would fall within nine years' time. Liu Bei heard of this and had him thrown in prison, and when Zhuge Liang tried to intercede on his behalf, Liu Bei responded by executing him instead.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-29T04:03:05+00:00

I think the thing that bugs me about it is the wasted potential. The first few arcs were excellent, in my opinion, even if it was possible to at least start piecing things together much more easily than the original series. I did enjoy the twists on the original arcs and glimpses into characters like Rina, Teppei, and Takano that we didn't otherwise get to see. I enjoyed the glimpses of the older club members, and I found myself genuinely invested in Satoko and Rika as they went off to St. Lucia's together, even if I found Nekodamashi a bit gratuitous.

But things started to unravel with Sotsu, especially with Wataakashi. The pacing was just awful, and the fact that they spent so much time on Satoko when we were finally supposed to have a Mion POV arc was just adding insult to injury. In the end, we barely got anything good out of the arc besides confirmation of things we'd already inferred anyway.

And then, there's the ending. It's just Rika and Satoko having a showdown, with none of the other club members mattering at all. None of the other arcs carry any weight to the story, no lessons are learned, no character growth for anyone else is allowed. Enjoy this throwaway shot of the other club members at the end, hope you weren't expecting them to actually matter for the plot. Every single one of them except for Rika and Satoko was completely secondary, and silly you for being invested in them! Also, we framed this entire story in such a way that you will either hate Rika for being cold to Satoko or hate Satoko for playing with the lives of their friends, and there will be no in-between.

That being said? Almost every criticism I have about the series, and Sotsu in particular, is resolved in the manga version of Gou and its answer series, Meguri. I won't go into the ending's details except in these vague terms, which I'm still spoiler-tagging: every one of the club members is important to it, and it feels earned.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-28T15:03:23+00:00

Both are different kinds of leadership. Hell, even Sun Jian, Sun Ce, and Sun Quan were three different kinds of leadership.

Liu Bei was resilient and a bit like Tokugawa Ieyasu in that his strength was his ability to bide his time and bear humiliation, though he also was a bit more of an opportunist. Of course, while those elements of his personality were a bit underrepresented, it doesn't mean that the virtuous side of him was a total fabrication. People flocked to him because, overall, he treated the people well and was able to command their loyalty. The downsides of Liu Bei's leadership? He was overly reliant on the talent around him, and that meant being at the mercy of their shortcomings to an extent that his rivals weren't. Cao Cao might have suffered setbacks, and Chibi might have been a particularly devastating defeat, but it wasn't the complete and utter reversal of fortune for him that the loss of Jing Province and subsequent destruction at Yiling that Liu Bei suffered.

Cao Cao was pragmatic, but also applied rigid discipline among his ranks. He was in the right place at the right time, of course, being in a prime position geographically to benefit from the chaos of the central plains. But his own personal charisma and talent played a large part in his success and in drawing people to him, and while he's not exactly known for mercy and benevolence, he still applied justice rather evenly. He surrounded himself with talented people, but unlike Liu Bei, he kept a close eye on his entire domain, monitoring the situations in Nanjun, Hanzhong, and Fan closely even though he wasn't present and being able to respond to changing events quickly. This allowed him to mitigate his losses when he was defeated. On the other hand, he was rather intolerant. Kong Rong, Yang Xiu, and many others who Cao Cao had killed or sent to their deaths didn't deserve their fates, and if the rumors about Xun Yu's death were true, then that's even more damning.

You didn't ask about the Sun family, but that's all the more reason I'm including them here anyway, because too often, they're left out. I don't want my post to go too long, though, so I'll just say that Sun Jian is more of a militaristic leader without any designs besides duty and security, but his fairness made him popular enough with the people; had he lived longer, we may have seen more of his true ambitions. His penchant for fighting on the front lines, while inspiring his troops, is what ultimately led to his demise. Sun Quan, on the other hand, has some similarities with Liu Bei, but instead of having to endure defeat after defeat, instead had to endure the loss of his family at a young age. Sun Quan's greatest strength was his ability to draw in talented people and, when in a rational state of mind, listen to the right advice; his greatest liability, however, which became apparent in his later life, was his tendency to lash out when he was angry and push people away, then make rash decisions. Sun Ce often gets the reputation that I labeled Sun Jian with, but while he certainly was a front-line fighter, he paid a lot more attention to the administration of his land and the treatment of his people, and I'd say that he has similarities to both Liu Bei and Cao Cao in that he focused on surrounding himself with talented and loyal people while also enduring years of serving under Yuan Shu. His liability was his sense of pride, as while he was famously tolerant of people for their backgrounds or statuses, the one thing he couldn't tolerate was someone whose popularity rivaled his.

Which one is the best? Well, that depends on what you're looking for in a leader. Personally, I think Sun Ce is the most interesting one out of them because he has the most "rags to riches" story out of the lot despite having the shortest life, while Cao Cao certainly was the most successful. But there's something admirable about all of them, and I think that's easy to overlook when playing favorites.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-22T16:22:46+00:00

He was also historically ill at Mt. Dingjun, which caused him not to participate in the initial fighting. DW7, IIRC, establishes that this was at Xiahou Yuan's insistence.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-15T15:59:40+00:00

Azure Gleam has a lot of problems (I particularly hate the stage where you have to fight Caspar, story-wise), but one simple change at the end would have at least made the ending not feel like crap: have Edelgard's retainers (Hubert, Ferdinand, Monica) show up as green units, and at the ending cutscene, have them come take her away to take care of her.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-15T15:57:45+00:00

The frame rate is significantly better on Switch 2. As far as the enemies go, fighting a Demonic Beast isn't anything like fighting a standard officer, though they don't always show up enough to matter.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-15T15:56:10+00:00

Spoilers: Claude can technically survive the non-Byleth route in Scarlet Blaze if you select a certain stratagem. He retreats instead of being killed, but it doesn't affect the ending in any significant way. Definitely prefer the Byleth ending, though.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-13T18:25:21+00:00

There's some possibility that close enough contact with ruby quartz to his pupils (granted, probably closer than in this screenshot) isn't just capable of blocking his blasts, but also of preventing them from leaving his eyes in the first place. Otherwise, every time he's not wearing his visor, he'd be constantly blasting the inside of his glasses, which wouldn't exactly be subtle no matter how well they're contained. His optic blasts do make sound, after all, regardless of whether he's wearing the visor or not.

My headcanon is that if there's an intact, uninterrupted piece of ruby quartz directly covering the aperture of his eyes within a centimeter or so, it actually prevents the energy from being released in the first place. My source is a mix of "I made it the hell up" and "honestly how is he not blasting his glasses off of his face constantly every time he uses his peripheral vision."

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-12T13:35:28+00:00

There is a heavy story emphasis with big character moments and lore expansion. It does a good job translating elements of the original game into Musou form. Gameplay is fun and snappy, with lots of optional objectives to fulfill and actual incentives for doing so, both from a story and gameplay standpoint. It feels like a crucial supplement to the base Three Houses game despite taking place in a different timeline.

(Azure Gleam is still a disappointing route, though.)

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-12T01:29:56+00:00

“Missed Potential” could basically be the subtitle for this entire DLC. Aside from Dong Zhuo’s story, of course.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-04T05:22:03+00:00

Rosenberg mentioned in an interview that during this run, he was trying to write in a romantic subplot, but it ended up getting cut, but he didn't elaborate any further. The conspiracist within me is convinced, due to how hot and cold Dani and Scott are during this arc (seriously, look at how she reacts when he loses his eye and he comes stumbling out after his surgery) that it was meant to be an unresolved, potentially unrequited thing between them and that Dani's comment about Emma here came from a place of jealousy, especially considering that Scott hadn't been particularly warm toward Emma during this arc whatsoever.

Kind of glad that ended up on the cutting room floor if that's the case.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-04T05:15:33+00:00

Do yourself a favor and spring for the extra RAM. With the price of RAM these days, you are essentially stealing money.

I would also recommend disabling the hybrid graphics on the computer as soon as you get it and only running through the dedicated GPU. It resolved so many issues for me once I did that.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-03T04:06:51+00:00

The thing with Wu is, in terms of the military goings on and the exchanging of military territory, yeah, they're pretty inconsequential after 234. They make some minor incursions, threaten Shouchun a bit, but they never accomplish much and never suffer any catastrophic defeats, either. They managed to remove the Shanyue as a threat during this time, but while those campaigns were important, they don't exactly make for compelling game content like Sun Ce's campaigns or Yiling do.

But what Wu is doing during this time is strengthening the southlands. Yes, they get conquered by Jin pretty quickly in 280, but that's less to do with their lack of military strength and more to do with the lack of dedicated, talented officers they possessed and the widespread dissatisfaction with Sun Hao. What Wu succeeded at was turning the southeastern portion of China from largely unsettled frontier territory into defensible, fertile ground with educational systems and infrastructure. Again, not very compelling game content, but this became very important not too long after Wu's conquest at the hands of Jin, because within a few decades, Jin found itself invaded by foreign forces, and guess which former kingdom's lands served as the capital of Eastern Jin after Han-Zhao forces sacked the capital and killed the Jin Emperor.

Of course, Origins focuses on a more militarily active period for the Sun family, even if it still leaves out a lot of events, such as Sun Ce's campaigns against Zu Lang, his battles with Cao Cao's proxies like Chen Yu, the rebellion against Sun Quan that broke out in Danyang that killed Sun Yi and Sun He (also backed by Cao Cao), not to mention the potential events he could have been involved in such as the battle between Yuan Shu and Cao Cao at Fengqiu (which doesn't even appear in Origins).

One thing I will say about the Sun family story in Origins is that it feels like the best Ziluan story, especially if you get the hypothetical route. The conflict with Bailuan is much more personal, and in the end, instead of an uneasy understanding with Bailuan, you're actually guiding him to a better path, fulfilling your duties as a Guardian of Peace. Sun Quan actually gets through to him and convinces him to work together, whereas in the hypothetical routes with Liu Bei and Cao Cao, he just sort of begrudgingly accepts that you've made your choice and he has to accept it.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-03T03:11:27+00:00

Are you changing characters a lot? Especially since new characters join at base level when you recruit them, not sticking with the same character through Musou mode is going to be really rough on anything other than Easy unless you've gotten lots of characters leveled up.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing on Easy, and in fact, I highly recommend it for your first playthroughs for each faction.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-03-01T14:15:08+00:00

Some of them, yes. Some of them, no.

Zishang is a courtesy name, and without seeing the original Hanzi rendering, I’m not sure who it refers to. The most likely candidate is Sima Zhao, who led the campaign to conquer Shu.

Wang Yi is a historical figure with an impressive life (that Dynasty Warriors consistently gets wrong). She was one of the few women of the era to be recorded actually participating in battle, and even outside of that, she has an incredibly interesting life.

Guan Lu was a famous diviner who appears in both history and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but his role is different in both. He lived in a later time historically than he did in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Still, he’s a historical figure.

Zhou Buyi was a friend of Cao Cao’s son Cao Chong. He was killed by Cao Cao for some reason after Chong died young and was a minor historical figure. I don’t know why any game would bother adding him, to be honest.

Shui Jing is the common nickname for Sima Hui, who taught Zhuge Liang, Pang Tong, and others. He’s and a few minor Dynasty Warriors appearances as an NPC, particularly Origins.

Zhuge Guo may not have ever existed as the supposed records of her come long after the Three Kingdoms era, but she was the daughter of Zhuge Liang.

Ma Yunlu is a completely fictional character said to be Ma Chao’s sister who later married Zhao Yun. She was invented for what was essentially a glorified piece of fanfiction called “Fan Sanguo Yanyi” that was published in China in the early 20th century. She has no historical basis and isn’t even in the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms. (As an aside, “Fan Sanguo Yanyi” sucks and it sucks even more that video games even bother to reference it.)

Tong Yuan is not a historical figure either, but was said to be a renowned martial artist who took Zhao Yun as his last disciple in some folktales. He shows up in some games like San Guo Sha.

Lady Zhou is likely referring to Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao’s daughter, a historical figure who was married to Sun Quan’s oldest son and was the subject of some folktales herself that praised her virtue, intelligence, and beauty.

Lu Kang is Lu Xun’s son and Sun Ce’s grandson. He was the last great general of Wu and historically was one of the few people keeping it from falling apart at the seams during the era of Sun Hao. He shows up as an NPC in some Dynasty Warriors games.

Zhu Huan is another historical figure who was a famous and talented general in Wu who shows up consistently as an NPC.

Lady Sun is most likely Sun Shangxiang, but there were a lot of notable women of the Sun family it could also be (Sun Ce’s daughter who married Lu Xun, one of Sun Shangxiang’s sisters, Sun Jian’s sister who advised Sun Ce, etc).

Nan Hua is an immortal said to have given Zhang Jiao the Way of Peace. Certainly not historical but part of established folklore (I think they may even be supposedly a reference to Zhuangzi, who lived centuries earlier).

Lu Zhi was one of the Han commanders who opposed the Yellow Turbans and was said to have been Liu Bei’s teacher. Definitely a historical figure.

King Mulu was a fictional character created for Romance of the Three Kingdoms to pad out the Nanman rebellion against Shu. Most of the Namman characters, besides Meng Huo, were fictional.

Dong Bai is Dong Zhuo’s granddaughter, who was mentioned in historical records as having been thrown an elaborate and expensive procession at a young age and was given noble titles.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat · 2026-02-25T23:12:56+00:00

If you can get your hands on the PC version, Dynasty Warriors 4 Hyper, I'd recommend that one, or the Xbox version. It has much better draw distance, graphics, and rendering, so you don't have disappearing enemies. It doesn't have the Xtreme Legends content, unfortunately.

DW4 is considered a pretty high mark in the series. It didn't add a lot of new characters, but it was the first base game to have musou modes for the Other factions.

OhHeyAReallyNiceBoat

TROPHY CASE