The sequel to/remake of
DynastyWarriorsTwo. More battles (plus all of the old battles have had their maps redesigned, for better or for worse), more playable characters, more items, and more assorted cheese.
Why did nobody think to mention that Guan Yu's Escape is hard?
How did we manage to play the game for a semester without noticing that the first charge attack breaks blocks?
I've posted the fragmentary FAQ-in-progress that I'll probably be working on off and on until the release of DW4. It may be found
[here]. --
AndrewSchoonmaker
(there may well be some strategy/gameplay/"story"
SPOILERS below this point)
In my last run-through of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, I managed to keep Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Jian alive... Zhang Jiao wasn't doing so well against Huang Gai, Cao Hong and Zhang Fei :-) At one point, he tried to escape across the river, but Cao Cao and Sun Jian were waiting for him there and joined in the fun. He didn't like this too much, and so went back across, but by that point Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan had joined in the dogpile...
(Almost as embarassing was the fate of Zhang Man Cheng who somewhat belatedly attacked the castle from the south... Cao Hong might have been down there, but I think his army got beat up by a bunch of random Wei soldiers...)
In the "Random Things to do at Hu Lao Gate" file, if you start in Liu Bei's army, bear in mind that Lu Bu can't get to Yuan Shao if Fan Shui gate never falls. On Normal, anyway, the gate *might* fall near the end of the battle, especially if Sun Jian gets more morale or something (say, if you're declared a hero of the three kingdoms). Cao Cao may also manage to make it up top, presuming the assault unit doesn't lose and drop his morale. But Lu Bu will just calmly sit there in the middle of the map, waiting for something to happen. Additionally, if Yuan Shao never goes south, the ambush never happens, either...
Also, if you start in Sun Jian's army (I believe this is where free mode characters start as well) and don't kill Fan Chou (the guy on top of Fan Shui Gate), Cao Cao will take his own sweet time trying to shut down the supply gate at the top of the map. Most of his army will head south and deal with Fan Chou... eventually. However, generally Cao Cao is standing directly in the path of the ambush, when it shows up. If he has enough of a morale advantage (+2 stars is generally enough), he can and will stop the ambush by himself, presuming that you haven't finished Dong Zhuo [N.B. -- I'm sure that this is much harder to accomplish on Hard, due to the morale differences, not to mention Lu Bu...]
I believe I prefer the
DynastyWarriorsThree version of Chang Ban (n.b. -- I haven't yet played the Wei side in DW2). The version in Three has some really cool bits, such as victory by Liu Bei retreating, and a fairly high number of cut-scenes. I also preferred having the Zhang Fei-on-bridge thing be more or less automatic; in Three you really have to work for it (and is the morale boost worth the ~2 minute delay?).
The battle can take some *very* interesting turns in Three, up to and including Zhuge Liang stopping Cao Cao's advance cold... It's also neat that Xu Huang/Dian? Wei's unit will play a sort of "read and react", deploying to reinforce Cao Cao's unit if needed and otherwise helping Zhang He should he need it. The bridge thing -- it's very odd that you can hold off Cao Cao's advance at the bridge when no Shu troops (yourself included) are in the same zip code...
The Wei side of Chang Ban, of course, suffers from none of these handicaps. The peasants will merrily escape even after you've killed their commanding officers, seemingly without going anywhere near the boats, and Liu Bei isn't shy about retreating, either. We won't discuss what Zhang Fei doing the bridge thing does to your morale... Still, with a character who can fight, the battle can still be won. With a character like Sima Yi... *shudder*
"Sun Qian's forces have lead the peasants to safety" ... where by "peasants", they mean "guard captains", and by "safety" they mean "the enemy playable hero". Still, whatever gives them morale... (rrr)
Lu Bu is still broken. After he gets his fourth weapon (which isn't too much of a chore), he becomes
really broken.
VideoGame PlayStation2
?
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