The Dynasty Warriors series has been the most well known fighting high speed, button masher hack & slasher games and always my favorite games in the franchise. not just because its addicting for a button mashing high speed hack & Slashing fighting game, but also because its based of the non-fictional story arc of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, set in ferule China, hundred upon hundred years. as the series including the samurai warriors series continues on, it has introduce a lot of new features and kept its repetitive game play to keep the Gameplay going sequel after sequel making it completely tireless. many Critics says the repetitive nature of this game continues getting dull in every series keeping from getting better and therefore making it boring as hell. which by the way is the most idiotic thing to say because it even has tons of spin offs, including the notorious and famous Nintendo Zelda spin off title Hyrule Warriors. so the game is that well known. then there is the awesome Dynasty Warriors 8, Xtreme Legends and the brand new spin off that is better of them all, Empires.
yes there is ton of Dynasty Warrior Empires games out there and the well known Empire game, Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires which had a lot of things going for it and a lot known features in the game. Ever Since Dynasty warriors 7 Empires. they continue on the series and gives you tone of options. one of them is which you get to customize your own Character to be part of the story of the Realms of the Three Kingdoms. to me, that is a awesome Concept in the games. but Sadly the only dynasty warriors games and spin offs I've played thus far is Samurai Warrior Chronicles 3 which is another Non-Fictional Story Arc game based off Nobunaga's Ambitions.
Hyrule Warriors, a Zelda Dynasty warrior spin off, or a Zelda re-skin of Dynasty Warriors according to Critics (fuck em) and Dynasty Warriors 8, the original, not Xtreme legends.

but then I got ahold of another Dynasty Warrior game which is what I am going to be talking about and which maybe the best dynasty warrior game/ spin off I've Played, Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires.

Now what makes this gamer better than the original and it's Xtreme Legend spin off? well like in other empire games, and Xtreme Legends, you get to customize your own Character like I mention before but you can also do something you couldn't ever done in the series. and that is, customizing your own banner, your own War horse, your own Soldiers and best of all you get to customize your own Scenario. and from my Knowledge from the Dynasty Warrior games I've known and played, never in my lifetime played a game with those kinds of limitless Options, making this game much more tireless than the other Dynasty Warrior games I've played thus far.

now as for the modes in the game. there is empire mode where you can play different scenarios taking place in different battles and era's, the the point of this game is simple; all you have to do is conquer and unite the the entire land as a Ruler or with a Ruler.

free play allows you go to battle immediately and participate in any battle allowing you to play as any of the kingdom officers and your custom characters, Both Empire Mode and Free play mode both have Co-op 2 player mode. just in case your friends Wish to Play with you.

Edit Mode will you allow to customize your own Officers and his/her own musuo and Rage Musuo moveset and weapon(s) of Choice, customize your own Soldier though equipment is very scarce and limited so what you see is what you get, Your own warhorse can customize to own making including making him/her into shadow runner or a Red Hare Horse. also in edit mode you can also Customize your Banner and as I mention and possibly never seen before you can create your own Scenario.

so Yeah the Game gives you Plenty of Options to chose from to customize.
oh yeah you can play online or you can upload your custom Scenario online for other players to play in.

The Rest of the modes are options which change few setting that you see comfortable with, Etc.

now on to the most impressive things about Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires which is back in empire mode.
now you already know how to play the mode and what you have to do. you start off as a free officer to rule the entire land by yourself or you can join another kingdom in their fight of unification of the land by serving that kingdom. when you serve to another kingdom, you become a common Officer all you do around that time as a common officer is to start doing Quests which raises or decreases your virtue which is your fame or your friendship.

your Friendship and Romance with your fellow officers is the key in empire. when you reach to maximum friendship rank (S in the Japanese Version and A in the American version) you can either become a sworn sibling with that person, or you can perform a confession with an opposite gender officer and have ended up marrying that officer becoming your spouse.

while you can only have two Sworn Sibling's and and one spouse. you can receive gifts from them overtime. such as strategies, items or rare cases, new weapons to chose from. one also one of the most well known feature in the game is that when you have spouse. the spouse can have child which you can name and later on he/she will appear in your ranks. but there is a catch though; the game random generates that child character for you, both it's gender, equipment, move set etc. all of them is which is based off of your Custom characters and/or Officer married to the other officer/or Custom Character. so may ended up a boy Character looks like your other character or a custom child character with..horrifying results.

now about strategies. later in the game you can become a Strategist and later on a Marshal, Strategist can perform other actions outside of battle and you can convince your ruler to change strategies but depending on your virtue and Friendship with your ruler and not just your officers can change the game play slightly.

now believe it or not. you can be promoted to ruler very early on into the game but the chances on that is extremely rare during the game. some say you can increase your chance of becoming a ruler early on in the game if you are a sworn sibling to the Ruler of the kingdom your are Serving but even than the chances are very rare. so the only way to be promote Ruler is to get very lucky.

also in battle you can perform Strategies in the battle field to command your troops and fellow officers by pressing on the control pad each has the following commands. up will command the officers and troops to ADVANCE which is proceeding to the enemies main camp or to the enemies kingdom's main officer, they can also raid the enemy's other camps such as supply, offense and defense camps. giving you army higher advantages and allow you to win the battle very easily. which is the main point of the entire game in each battle, you have to take over many camps while defending your own including the camps you have taken as you can before you take on the main enemy's main camp or completing objectives. your actions depending on how you play and what you do during battles and outside of battles will increase or decrease your soldiers or your enemy's morality. morality in dynasty warriors will increase the determination of your troops allowing them act more aggressively to the enemies and increases their focus or the other way around involving with the enemies.

now getting back to commands, pressing down on the control pad with give the defend command. this allows the AI soldiers to defend the your main camp base or other bases you have capture. you can also change the soldiers and your captains defend options and select which base you want to or NEED to defend on the pause menu, which in my opinion is possibly one of the best features in the whole game. mainly because the game like I said, focuses on Strategy and customization.

now one of the best thing about Dynasty Warrior empires is the new weapons that are granted to the previous AND new characters in the game and the icing on the cake you can use the new characters and previous characters old and new fighting style to your custom characters, including the new face for empire of the front box, Xu Zun who use to be the strategist of Zhao Yun but then changes side to the Wei Kingdom.

even there are new weapon types for each weapon and follow the rock-paper-Scissor system from the original Dynasty warriors 8, each weapon can be the exact same thing but three types which is Man, Heaven ,and Earth elements. also you can take two types of weapons of any kind but I highly recommend that you chose the fave weapon of the characters your playing as your primary weapon for obvious reasons. as for accessories it can increase your stats but some decreases your stats such as your attack slightly increases more but it decreases your defense or speed but you can decided however you choose to customizing your Characters weapons and items.
Again focusing on the Strategy and customization feature on 8 Empires.
now lets talk about titles very quick. Titles are usually show what type of warrior of your custom character or officer, your title changes depending on your actions outside of battle either from donating your money, materials and resources to the public allowing them to be supported, taking on quests and raid or defend battles and winning many times without failing, so on and so forth. lets make an example: if you donate most of everything in your kingdom to the people of your kingdom and over time your title will change in benevolent Ruler.

also you speaking of weapons, you can purchase weapons from weapon shops you made during the campaign mode, but there is a catch each weapon you do by is using stronger than the weapons you start off at the beginning of the. but later on in the game you need to upgrade your item and weapon shop to do so. on the menu in the strategy you can upgrade the weapon shop. but they have to be in a different part of the land you have already taken over. so the more weapon or item shops you made, the more stronger and rare weapons and items you can get access to in the game. of course you can get stronger weapons this is where the problem will occur you realize that even with all the upgrades to the weapons shop you've made, you can only get up to level 8 weapons with abilities that is because the weapons you really need to go for are the Star weapons. now believe it now there are two more methods to get stronger star weapons. one of them is which taking down enemies with an officers and using your rage musou attack and taking out many enemies and officers as fast as you can and when you completed the battle you can view which weapon you have gotten a hold of at the end of the battle. now there is a catch to this, first you can't using your custom characters or default officers in the battle otherwise your chances of getting a stronger star weapon. you have to using the main characters to do this. also another gamer suggest that you should set the difficulty higher than it should be which I will not recommended because I'll explain later. now the 3rd method getting stronger weapons including star weapons is given to you as gifts by your Sworn Sibling or Spouse. sometimes they give you weak weapons but the key to this is incredible time and patience sometimes they give you stratagems, some more useful then the ones you use in the battle and some are not as useful.
but eventually you can get the best weapons they can offer to you which is 5-6 star level 10 weapons with level 10 abilities.
but the occurrences is extremely rare. some say you have to increase the difficulty to maximum if you wish to have any chances of this to happen. again, I would not highly recommended to those who doesn't have the time or patience.

now in most other dynasty warrior games usually have a final boss in the end that you may not defeat unless the game tells you or still wanted to fight at your own risk. but in this game there is no such luck there is no final boss in the game. the whole point in the game is take over all pieces of the land, once you claim the entire land, the game is over it shows some cut scenes such as the wedding ceremony of your character and his/her spouse, the bond form of sworn sibling. etc. then shows you and your group walking to the top of your kingdom's castle and say few words and then two birds fly by and the end. that's it no secret ending, no final dialogue, nothing.

now the good thing about Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires is that when you finish the campaign mode. all your setting, weapons and titles you have collected through out the entire campaign will be saved and plus you can register your child character as a registered customized character and you can edit him/her in anyway you like including her musou moves, her outfit, and weapons.
but there is one major flaw I discover in the game. in the previous dynasty warrior 8 installments including Xtreme legends, you can keep your characters level in the way it is. however in Empires whenever you complete the campaign mode, you level and states resets back to 1.

now this possibly is not what I was expecting. the maximum level I can think of in the original is level 99. Xtreme legends is up to 255 (i'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong) but having to hear that you level and stats resets back to beginner standards is not what I was expecting. however there is one thing I can mention is there is a 4th method of getting weapons. as you complete quests or take on raid or defend battles and completely certain objectives in the campaign mode or in free play mode. you gain bonus points which it gets higher in harder difficulties. bonus points allows you perform special functions in the campaign options menu which you can increase your level to level 50 and you bring other the strategies and weapons you have collected and saved. but most of which do cost bonus points. officers deaths and difficulty selection will not effect your bonus points currency HOWEVER bringing over weapons , Stratagems over from your previous campaign file and increasing your characters level to super high levels does so choose carefully because you may not have enough Bonus points to access those features in the game.

you can also buy very special and very powerful weapons, extremely rare Items and accessories and very good and highly useful Stratagems in the game on the options menu in the game and going to bonus points. but still buying em cost points.

even most of the games flaws and nitpicks of the game. the game is still playable regardless.
even though the graphics look like ps3 or ps2 standards. it is not it's key selling point.
the controls are very fluent, the game play is very good, the options and customization is endless and the strategies are good.