Quick Look: Arslan: The Warriors of Legend

@oursin_360: I think that's just the nature of the (g)beast when it comes to audio mixing. The problem being that the NY crew don't have the manpower for a dedicated AV engineer like the SF office does. Vinny is in most (if not all?) GBE videos, so he has to try and manage levels and EQ for himself which (in my experience) is almost impossible to do on the fly. It's very hard to get an objective view of your own voice unless it's pre-recorded...




...Basically what I'm trying to say is "pls gibe me job"

As a fan of the anime, and of Dynasty Warriors, this seems pretty good.

This is hard for me to say, but I've gotta admit; I've recently fallen down a deep-ass musou hole in spite of how much I've derided the Warriors series over the years. I think I finally get it!

Dragon Quest heroes was my gateway drug, and in the last couple of months I've played through that, Hyrule Warrirors, One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 and I'm currently chipping away at Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends. With the release of this game it feels like there's no end in sight for me.

While I think having some familiarity with the source material helps (DQ and Zelda being the only franchises I was familiar with going in), I've been really surprised to see how satisfyingly zen these games can be.

I'm a total convert, it seems, but I won't defend Koei Tecmo for it's shitty attitude towards its consumers regarding regugitated relases, over-inflated prices (don't even get me started on their DLC) and horrific PC ports.

After years of seeing games like this, I think I know why they don't click with me. I don't want to have 99% of the game play being swinging a sword, stabbing a spear, or flicking a whip.

I want to explore. I want dialogue trees. I want to go to the kings ball and dance with the princes and steal a kiss. I want to interact, have choices and play more parts of this characters life in this great fantasy setting.

I don't see the point of these fantasy game world and flamboyant characters if all you do with them is have them hit things or ride horses into things....it is a HUGE waste of world building.

Arslan sounds like a computer party in a butt

DAMN! That's some anime-ass anime! Check!

Dynasty Warrior hot mess? Check!

Austin & Vinny bringin' the heat?! FUCK YEAH!!!

If this looked like old Arslan I'd probably a bit more into it. Just a bit.

I'm at the point where I need more from Dynasty Warrior's games.

For what it's worth in terms of authenticity, there are quite a few legit classic Persian names in there. Which on second thought is a tad weird since this is more fantasy Persia then real Persia.

Also Pars is actually short hand for Persia. If you ever go to a place that has Persian restaurants you'll often find stores named Pars this or Pars that.

@totaboy: You're not alone; I thought the same thing.

Man Austin is not lying about the Gundam Dynasty Warriors games. I reviewed the second one way back when and it is ROUGH. Just a pile of garbage.

I'm not really interested in that style of gameplay but if you're into it, and ain't nothing wrong with that there are way worse things to be a fan of like Resident Evil or something, then it seems like you have plenty to choose from which is awesome for the fans. There is that Zelda styled one, Gundam ones, ancient chinese ones, this anime one, I mean it seems cool to have so much choice.

Also I'd like to point out that the real Persia is known for never really having any real slavery despite what shit like the 300 movies would have you believe. In fact, they were very against slavery for the most part, the closest thing being prisoners of war, which were still treated with more respect then what you would expect slaves to be treated like.

Cyrus the Great, one of the oldest kings of Persia is often cited as having the first declaration of Human Rights put into practice. Laws that covers much of Asia and went as far as Greece and other European countries.

Just thought it'd be interesting to point out... for this anime... Dynasty Warrior game...

Definitely a visual improvement on the other Dynasty Warrior games.

I love when Austin shares his unpopular loves because he can make me understand.

A Dynasty Warriors game with a tutorial!?

PUSH DR. MUSOU

Arslan. Arsland. Arseland. Arse Land.

No Lu Bu, No Sell

So much this. Like it can still be funny at times for comedic effect, but it just feels dismissive at times. Goes hand in hand with "oh Japan" or similar things.

As for the game I like the look and enjoy these kinds of games. My worry is that horse combat is a huge part of it, which drains the interest out of me. Still I'm glad to see more licenses for Warriors style games.

I've only played a Kessen game once, but that horse charge gave me immediate flashbacks to Kessen.

Haha, the discussion at 32:40 is priceless.

gundam music is real weird -anime expert Austin :P.

@hassun said:

I think the problem though is that some much of anime relies heavily on tropes that you can know almost exactly how a character's arc is going to be just by knowing the genre of anime and the type of character they are. I mean they even have single words that describe character archetypes and deviate so little from them.

All you need to know about Arslan Senki:

Arslan is by far the prettiest girl in his show.

It was even more hilarious as it was historically accurate I mean why did the catholic church not like birth control? More armies why did Judaism not like self pleasure - more babies more armies. some people consider this the reason for removal of the foreskin Not as true now but in the ancient times he who had the most soldiers won.

Eh... Anime AF and other descriptive terms are totally fine. You usually have more to say about something when it's good. Which is not the case here.

Seriously. My mouth was agape when that calvary charge started and Vinny couldn't be less impressed. >.>

So dope.

Just wanted to let you guys (In case someone has not already). It's pronounced Ars-laaan.

Lusitanians? The lusitanians were a people from pre-roman spain, or the Iberian peninsula. There is an unrelated Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus, which was next to Persia. I wonder if whoever wrote this thing just googled "Iberia" and picked a country name with no additional research whatsoever.

@duluoz: Japanese writers are not known for their strict adherence to realistic western history and culture.

The opening map bit seemed very Valkyria Chronicles.

Basically this, they take a basic source and just go crazy with it inventing all kind of stuff. Not to mention that the whole adherence to culture instantly falls down once everyone in whole world starts speaking Japanese :P.

I never did get around to watching beyond the first episode of Arslan, but I heard good stuff about it.

I've been curious about this, though. One Piece Warriors 3 was excellent, Hyrule Warriors was the dopest shit, and my buddy and I have been playing the fuck out of Warriors Orochi 3 for the last few weeks. I could always use some more Warriors gaming!

@austin_walker you play this and not one piece pirate warriors? disappointed.

naw just kidding (kinda) excited to watch this later. The site needs more weird anime games.

Yo dawg, we heard you like anime so we put some anime in your quick looks so you can anime while you quick look. Cuz nobody cares about indie games anyway, right?

I wish this had the amazing British voice acting of the 90's OVA.

There are no Dynasty Warriors fans, just Dynasty Warriors apologists.

I like this Austin guy.

As someone who is also a lapsed Dynasty Warriors fan who really loved Dynasty Warriors 4 and 5 which came out literally over decade ago, I really appreciate Austin's genuine presentation of this game and expressing something other than callous disdain for another Dynasty Warriors style game from Tecmo Koei.

I'm not interested in playing this, but I am truly interested in seeing what they do with the next Dynasty Warriors game that comes out based on there being a lot of game design improvements over the last few games that company has released recently.

I'm half way into the anime, and it's pretty good! You should watch it if you enjoy battles, drama and not much ecchi.

I don't think I'll play this game, but I will probably watch that anime after seeing this.

@vinny Gloop and Gleep are from The Herculoids and the weird alien looking guy from Thundarr you were thinking of is Ookla the Mok.

I WAS GONNA SAY! Wth, it's obviously the same animators. I am a sucker for that studio, so gonna have to watch this series now, god dammit, no time for new shows:p

I'm going to admit that watching that charge murder kill knockout all those enemies made me feel something very deep within my being.

It's not good if you're using the term "anime" to describe something as bad or uninteresting.

Haven't watched the quick look yet, but I'm just going by the current discussion.

If Arslan is supposed to be Persian, is there a reason the dude's super white, or just ANIME? Seems like most of the dudes he's fighting with at least look Persian by anime standards.

Man, I want some Austin/Jeff quick looks for anime games so much more than I should care to admit.

Don't think that's the connotation they're referring to. When someone says something is very "anime," I imagine they refer to something convoluted with either intense randomness, convoluted explanations, high speed physics defying action, lengthy dialogues/monologues, sexism, or the combination of those. Just referring to the style of anime. It's just that some people don't like anime so to them it's a negative.

...My interpretation of "anime," as a descriptive term for anything not anime.

@flashflood_29: Yes you're right about that. I think that's how it's used in most cases. It's mostly a negative connotation though. It seems less ideal to me than simply stating what about the piece bothers you instead of using a catch-all term. Especially when that term is anime, which can be so much more than those tropes. The criticism shouldn't stop at "it's very anime".

That's just how full tv anime has to be. OVAs have more time and money because they are doing less, but when you've got 24 episodes to fill you've got to cutback on a lot.

WOAH

Jojo's All Star Battle has FANTASTIC music. Yeah Bloody Stream has a fantastic soundtrack too, but ASB's music is amazing as well.

I'm rather divorced from these sorts of games, but I found this watchable. Some of the graphic characterization even worked, like the boy's eyes when he flipped over the wall of the city. I would not play it, but that is personal interest. I hate to say it but found interest in the story.