Should I get this or Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires?

[Eon]

Me and my friend enjoy playing a Dynasty Warriors game now and then and I was thinking about buying Empires when it goes on sale then I notice this on Steam and I was wondering which one I should get?

What are the difference between the:
Combat
Modes
and Character Customization?

Also I know in Empires you were able get get married and have children (I wanted to breed an army of Lu Bus) which I seen some of them turn out as abominations which I liked alot :D
Does that feature also return in this game?

[Kitsune Zeta]

As an owner of both of these on Steam:

SW4-II doesn't have much of a "free mode" - it has story mode (which has a limitation on which characters can be used in a stage - and in some stages, your character selection is forced), and the Free Mode allows you to play any unlocked Story stage with any character pair you want. There's also a Survival / Challenge mode, which can be done with any solo character.

Combat is an interesting change from what I'm used to in the Warriors series - instead of just having a standard->Charge combo set, you also have a Hyper->Alt Hyper combo set as well (which enemy officers will block, knocking you out of them). Other than that, most of what you're familiar with should carry over, moreso if you're used to the Samurai Warriors series already.

Something to note: every weapon you get for a character will start off with the same basic attack value. You will need to upgrade (or, as I like to call it, "fuse down") weapons to get their attack (and other attributes) up to what their actual potentials are. when doing this, try to make sure you're fusing same-attribute weapons, as this can raise the max level of a weapon.

Customization is pretty much limited to 20 Create-a-Warrior slots, with enough custom image slots for each CaW to have a unique set of custom images. There's no "breeding"

If you want lots of replayability, I'd go with DW8E over this.

[Eon]

What modes will you be able to use your created character in?
Do the children offer anything special?

[articulate]

This, or DW8XL. DW8E is for a very special niche crowd. In a niche already quite exclusive no less.

DW8E got old for me, fast. Don't know if they fixed the balancing, have yet to redownload and try it. But even without boosting your starting weapons/levels, you will outlevel even your "ruler" less than 10 battles in. And that means everything becomes a cakewalk. You = level 30. Everyone else = barely level 15.

But back to it being for a niche crowd. I've been told constantly that it's a 'sandbox' game. And boy is it a sandbox alright. You best be creative and like mumbling to yourself because that's what you'll end up doing all the time. There's next to no narrative save; "We(faction you pick/make) are destined to be rulers of this land, by any means necessary!"

[Sir Lui]

Originally posted by Xaessya:

What modes will you be able to use your created character in?
Do the children offer anything special?

For SW4-2 u can use created characters in free mode. As for children I think your refering to DW8 Empires. Children in DW8 Empires can have passed traits from their parents, e.g if the Dad is a Tyrant then these a possiblity that the child will be a tyrant themselves or the child may have the same color hair as their Mother etc.

But combat-wise I think SW4-2 is more fun, DW8 Empires combat/battlefield is rather dull. DW8 Empires is fighting base to base so all the action happens in the base.