7R got royally screwed. I don't even like the original's soundtrack (Aerith's Theme, in its original form, is a lazy rehash of two FF6 tracks), but man, 7R is just... that's video game music on a whole 'nother level. Both the remade tracks and the wholly new ones. I consider it the second-best FF soundtrack (8 still has the best music) and in the running for the best game soundtrack I've heard in the last twenty years. The writing, recording, mixing and production, and how it's all used throughout the game and the subtle variations that occur as the story progresses, it's all simply amazing. I've been playing, recording and producing music for fifteen-ish years and FF7R's soundtrack floored me like nothing has in many years.
I would say DOA is closer to Virtua Fighter than Tekken.
Yeah, DOA is literally a rehash of Virtua Fighter; the first game was built off of VF directly. Of course the DOA series' inventor, Tomonobu Itagaki, also very famously hates Tekken and went out of his way to make the DOA series as un-Tekken like as possible. (Though it should be noted that Itagaki has many, many awful opinions about many subjects, is a terrible person in general, and it's widely agreed that it's a good thing he is gone.) DOA has nothing to do or in common with Tekken other than they're both 3D. Comparing DOA (or VF) to Tekken is like comparing Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. (In fact you can kind of say that DOA is the Injustice to Virtua Fighter's Mortal Kombat.)
Here's a really easy way to grasp why people you wouldn't expect to like DW, do, and can like it to an extent and get invested in it far beyond what you can comprehend:
Fighting games.
Monster hunter.
Pokemon.
Any number of sports titles.
Any number of indie platformers and adventure games.
Professional wrestling, especially the actual real-life show.
Dynasty Warriors.
All can be dumped on quite easily, especially by naive, reductionist jokes. All have far more depth than you can ever take in from a short period of half-heartedly playing. (Or watching, in the case of wrestling.) Generally they're liked most by people who like the idea of the game enough to get them through the first few hours, where the gameplay finally clicks.
No, Dynasty Warriors will probably never be a huge mainstream title. No, it isn't gratifying in the first five minutes, ten minutes, or even hour that you play. There's a lot going on in it that nobody notices until they're already deep in it. But the same can be said of Soulcalibur, Monster Hunter... if you can see how those games built up their following, you can see how musou games got theirs.
I mean, there's some severe whiplash going from Dan getting heavily into Dragonball, then questioning how people could be into Dynasty Warriors.
I don't mind the voice change. Ashly is credited as a writer in this and was (I'm told) involved in picking the new voice actor and coaching/producing the recording sessions, so it seems like a reasonable enough compromise for the sake of getting the game made and out in a timely fashion. It's a shame Square won't agree to proper terms, but as far as the number of times a Japanese publisher hasn't played ball with western talent go, this got off lightly; it's not ideal, but it's good enough that I don't think it actually diminishes the game.
I'm mostly anxious about how the gameplay will hold up for two more episodes, as the 'back talk' doesn't seem like a sufficient enough replacement for rewinding. Still, the fact that I can't resist watching people playing this, after playing this first episode myself twice in a row hours after release, probably should be my indication that I'm going to love this regardless.
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