I have been a fan of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms ever since Dynasty Warriors 2 and it's been a different experience in every release, despite the fact that the franchise is built upon the same Three Kingdoms era in China (around 200 AD). You play as one of the renowned officers serving your kingdom (faction in some cases), throwing yourself into the battlefield and ready to give thousands of foes some whipping lessons.

Granted, many of the scenarios' outcome are decided upon whose commanding officer gets defeated but there are other kinds of critical objectives taking place, as well. One I can think of is escorting an important officer to safety out of the battlefield, which means you'll have to fight those who stand in the path and putting the mission into jeopardy. (that's the point, after all)

Every scenario also have a set of different events that will decide the flow of battle and it is up to you if you will carry them out for the benefit of your current scenario or the next one. So the strong point being is that it all comes to strategizing your next move. (like, should you carry out that side objective or protect your commanding officer from incoming attacks?)

Outside the gameplay factor, I must say that the developers have allowed to lift up the character's personalities throughout the story, giving them some kind of intrigue value since you can relate with some of them. Cao Cao, for example, has been relatively portraited as some kind of villain at different points but playing the Wei campaign shows that there are different nuances that defines his human values.

By what I've summed up so far, Dynasty Warriors 8 comes up with different gameplay functions and character designs (both in looks and moves) on a familiar preset based on the Chinese history. Having not played anything since DW5, this was a welcome return when it made its way to Steam and I found it hard to quit when I've gotten into the rampage and progressed through the battlefields and stories. Ever since Dynasty Warriors Online went down, I (as many other fans) only wished the online multiplayer function would come back again on this release but I can only hope it does someday soon.