Quick Look: Arslan: The Warriors of Legend

But "anime" is a term that can totally be applied to things to give them a negative connotation, such as uninteresting or generic.

Much in the same way that "summer blockbuster" can be used to give things a negative connotation in terms of being ridiculous or stupid.

Don't get hung up over the word choice, instead look at the context in which the term is used. I didn't get the idea that they were using the word "anime" as a negative descriptor for this game, more to say "this game is ridiculous in a fun way".

re Chainmail coif

Pretty sure that's just a houndsdtooth pattern scarf.

The thing they need to do to get me into these games is actually make the combat FEEL good, sure it looks spectacular but the absolute lack of any weight to anything when it comes to controlling these games just creates a huge disconnect with what is happening on screen to me. Which results in me feeling super bored almost instantly no matter how cool the subject matter..

Man I bet Sandlot could make the perfect DW-esque game for me, those guys understand what weight can do to make the simplest of actions feel impactfull.

Dragon Quest Heroes is pretty good, it is definitely the most polished game I've seen out of Omega Force. The enemy types allow a lot more variety and the mission objectives are handled in a different way. Your between mission stuff is not a menu its an airship and you get access to a world map. The characters are also pretty diverse. The story is super generic but the writing for the characters is quite entertaining. I highly recommend it as someone who only has a passing interest in the Dynasty Warrior games and hasn't really played them much since PS2.

And the amazing visuals that were in the first episode, Hiromu Arakawa's art is great and all but nothing beats Yoshitaka Amano.

Getting cholera is more 'dope' than this game.

agreed that saying "oh anime" can get lazy at times. outside of dynasty warriors mechanic, the 1-on-1 reminds me of the tales series.

on the topic of historical-ish series, check gankutsuou. it's based on the count of monte cristo. it also has mechs and some supernatural stuff. its "look" is pretty flashy: lots of patterns were used on clothes, backgrounds, etc. in place of solid colors. Anna Sui actually did some designs for it.

Youtube version of this?

toonstruck

This actually looks kinda fun, but I've had my fill of Musou-style games with Dragon Quest: Heroes. Can't play more than one of these games every few years.

As for the anime discussion: I don't think they meant it in a depreciative way, but I agree that we all should finally stop categorizing stuff as just "anime" and actually have a more normal conversation about it.

So that giantbeast PC crashes quite a bit :D

Austin should check out Le Chevalier D'Eon if he hasn't already. It's a very well done historical anime.

The problem with that is, well... that's not the entirety of anime or manga. That's a combination of a lot of the worst aspects (Or, at least, a small number of aspects if one actually likes those things) of the medium glommed into one, using the name of the art form as the descriptor. It's like someone trying to refer to "oh, movies" when they only mean "oh, summer blockbusters", or "oh music" when they only mean "oh modern pop", or "oh comics" when they only mean "Oh superhero comics". Regardless of whether they're using it in a good or bad tone, it says nothing about the actual contents of the medium, or it's a small subset of the contents and style. It's just imprecise, and way more often used dismissively. The imprecision honestly bothers me more than the dismissive-ness.

@austin_walker thank you for that Rush joke.

Oh I agree 100% with the bold. But I wouldn't say intense randomness, convoluted logic, high speed physics defying action and lengthy dialogues/monologues are necessarily negative in themselves. It's just one of those things that some people don't like so THEY use it in a negative connotation. It can be used in good and bad ways, depending on the opinions of the person using it. I find the descriptive use of "anime," to be neutral. If someone tells me something is very anime, I would use their tone and context, and factor in that I enjoy anime, to see if that might mean I do like the thing they're talking about. Maybe said person hates something for the reasons I would like it. It's a very non-descriptive neutral term that doesn't say much without context but hey, you're on a website where the term "dumb," is used in a positive way!

Semantics are fun to talk about.

great video! vinny sounds bored as shit!

I wish Koei would make another Kessen game (Bladestorm may as well be Kessen IV). I don't normally care for RTS games but controlling them from the unit level instead of a zoomed out map view just feels better to me.

I can't seem to find this video on youtube. I use Opera so I can't see any videos on the GB website.

Mmm. Dat pop in. And fog. And framerate.

Nice to see Koei Tecmo making no technological advancements whatsoever in the last 15 years

The wide open map seems really boring. hopefully there isnt too much of that

Short view distance and annoying enemy pop-in still a thing huh? >_>

Pronouncing Cao correctly and then Pi incorrectly is rather impressive.

Ah, the hard crash, just how many of my PC Dynasty Warriors experiences ended. The running narrative really does make this look a lot more appealing than the standard games of this type though.

ARSE-LAN is a terrible, terrible name.

@zombievac: No it's just you being an ass. How about you learn what a word actually means before you start writing about how "terrible" it is . Believe it or not there's more to the world then your culture, language or preferences I know I'm blowing your mind here sorry I'll stop.

@ikramit: Haha, ok then. I said it was a terrible name, and Arslan is even not a real word mind you, it's a slang term. I'm not dissing anyone's culture by saying the title of the game is terrible. Maybe you should simmer down - calling me an ass is probably, just a little bit, worse than me stating a dislike for a game title. Maybe the real ass is the one who decides name-calling is better than dealing with having to read one's benign opinion.

@zombievac: Arslan means lion in turkish it is also used as a name and has mythological significance, I came across as you did completely dismissive, of you in this case.