The Heroes of Three Kingdoms (Universal) By PLAYBEAN

Looks VERY good, graphically and gameplay (Dynasty Warrior fan here...).

Been waiting forever for a DW game on the iOS but I'm sure Playbean will somehow screw this up with obnoxious IAP.

Still, bought for the sake of a DW fix, will give impressions later.

Looking forward to what u have to say... If this game is good, it will make my girlfriend very happy

Hrrm, tough call on this one with so many great releases tonight...

looks great but i do wish the attack speeds were faster. the way they fight seems slightly sluggish but that's probably because i've played too much DW lol

Nice music.

Poor character design (been spoiled by DW series):
Zhao Yun looks awful. Nothing wrong with the character model, just the character design. His spear is offensively inconsistent with popular design.
Guan Yu is missing a cape. His crescent blade's blade is too big and ugly.
Zhang Fei's pose looks ugly.
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My DW rant aside, the IAP is not bad as I thought. There's coins and beans (IAP). Coins are earned through normal gameplay as end mission reward. The coin income rate is alright (~100g per mission [~2:30]) for the first two levels. Permanent items cost between 3k - 15k with a good spread between the two numbers. The only health recovery item (100% btw) costs 550.

The gameplay in short, is DYNASTY WARRIORS on iOS!!! In other words, button mashing greatness with damage numbers . Battles feel exactly like what DW is, except with smaller, and thinner mobs. It feels like a DW lite without sacrificing what makes DW great.

There's a virtual movement pad that works pretty well; a block, normal and charge attack button (no musou ). There are 3 skill buttons and possibly an item on the side.

The graphics are great, with compromises on my iPhone 4. There's slight but noticeable stuttering (and some flashing graphical glitches on enemy models), so the gameplay is not perfectly smooth. However, it does not detach any enjoyment out of the game.

The music is great, and amongst the best three kingdoms music, with suitably bombastic and loud symphonic arrangements.

Final verdict: a slightly technically flawed product, but a great fix for DW fans.

*Edit: @Lawliet
The attack speed is just on par with medium attack speed DW characters. Though the stuttering I've mentioned does create sense of slowness.

On a side note, this game needs a musou attack (Turn-A's nuclear bomb combination musou attack in DW: Gundam 2 comes into mind ).

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Last edited by gunxsword; 05-24-2012 at 04:53 AM.

@gunxsword - thanks for the lowdown. Downloading now.

This game is bad ass and even if it never gets any updates it's worth every cent that I paid for it.

Let me concurr. My experience with DW is limited to playing Samurai Warriors on the 3DS and a bit of time with a couple of DW demos on the PSP, so I can't speak to the authenticity of costumes, moves, weapons, etc. The action, though, is simplified DW through and through. It runs great on the 4S, there's plenty of content, including boss fights and mini-games, and the IAP (which you can argue shouldn't be there in a $3.99 game) is not outrageous. As far as number of enemies on screen, draw distance, etc, the game compares well with Samurai Warriors; this one, however, dispenses with the faux tactical aspects of
SW, which IMO makes it a more enjoyable game.

It should be noted that DW has many detractors, and this game shares basically the same faults: repetitive combat, mindless AI (except for the bosses), overblown storyline, etc.

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Last edited by squarezero; 05-27-2012 at 11:04 AM.