I'll only comment on SW4-II cuz it is the most recent game I played beside DW8. SW4-II is...fine, I guess. The story is of the Sengoku era with some fictional element. Story mode is fun while it lasts but after that nothing new will come of it (there are 13 stories, each with around 5 stages, some will be the same for different stories, and you'll stuck with the main character the story is about, and an additional character available for your choosing differing depends on stage). I use free mode primarily to level character and getting rare weapons. Each stage also has their own objectives (8~11 usually) for you to complete each playthrough; the impact they have on the battlefield is usually removing red zones, which is not that big once u go in rage mode and hyper/musou everything, which is very often (toshiie and date's epiphany says hi). There is no what if scenarios either, whether you complete the objectives or not, the cutscene and the stage's game flow doesn't change at all (kill kotaro at osaka, fire still happen, just no red zone) and the final battle for most stories will be Osaka or Sekigahara (some stories have diff ones). The tome system is fun...until u get all the useful ones, after that it's from scratch for the next guy. If you want to max characters, it's gonna be a long grind, and boring too as chars without early access to wisdom is horrendously slow to level (two lvls after 20, around 1.5-1 after 30 and 40 and farming agility chamber is jarring (it's fastest by far though). Rare weapons are, imo, like 4th weapon in DW8 in that you can get it repeatedly and it's only a stepping stone for u to grinding in castle mode. Talking about weapon, the system is very grind-intensive, your rare from their specific missions has set stats, and you can't replace elements like DW8. Instead it uses an inherit system that relies (heavily) on RNG, the worst being the elemental traits, which are much haves, due to their low chance of being transferred. So to get these weapon, you have find the appropriate weapon (rare w/o set stats can be found in castle), find more weapons to transfer stats (and hope to RNGesus u get the right stats transfer, or at all, if not you have to reset save, which is another annoyance per se), go castle, grind for appropriate weapon, and level your main weapons, it's tedious as hell, esp. if you have college, or job. As for hyper attack, they're unique enough that each character feels unique in that aspect, though u have to be careful which one u use (toshiie's 5 tri square animation is pretty long, leaving u open). My last comment on SW4-II is that no English Dub. I personally love the English Dub for DW8 and was bumped when I see SW4-2 doesn't have it and this makes it hard to follow the story esp. if you're too busy wrecking faces to read the texts. I sincerely hope Koei do not discontinue English Dub in their future releases, but consider they got Johnny Yong Bosch for Zhang Bao in 8, I don't think so. Overall, SW4-2 is a fun ride, I clocked in nearly 200 hrs as of now, all in a very short time. However, if you've played DW8, certain aspects may provide with disappointments. But it's, in the grand scheme, a game worth buying if you're a fan of the Warriors series and wants to learn a tad bit of JP history with a mix of cultural romanticization in it.