Tag Archives: History

Dynasty Warriors 5 Review

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It’s time to take a look at another Dynasty Warriors game. With this title out of the way I have now finished playing through all of the installments that I own. It’s been a pretty fun ride to be sure. This one definitely has the biggest change between entries in the series. It’s really like playing an entire new game which is cool. I definitely like all of the changes made here and he game still gets quite difficult by the end of its run. It’s certainly not a game to underestimate.

The basic plot of the game seems to be the same as all of the other ones. Your goal is to unite China under the same flag as the army you are fighting for. Once you do that, then you will have restored honor and balance to the kingdom. I went with Wu as always. The army’s armor always looked pretty cool and it was nostalgic to play as the same guy from the third game. From there I just went on to clear the campaign which was certainly a lot quicker than the last two games. There are only 5 levels here compared to the usual 7-8 you would have expected. Couple that with the game’s less difficult nature and it was a breeze.

I’d heard about this before but the difficulty in 5 is definitely a lot lower than in the previous two games. You really just mow the enemies down and they don’t fight back quite as much. I would say that the whole game was a cakewalk except that the final level was actually very difficult and felt like one of the installments from the earlier titles. It took me a lot of attempts to clear that one. I did my best to try and complete it the “normal” way but my army would lose morale way too quickly so it would never work out. Finally I just had to try and run straight up to the main villain and then I was able to clear it. This certainly took a good amount of effort.

Most likely the reason for the spike was because my level just wasn’t high enough. Due in part to how easily I would complete the other levels, I hadn’t needed to fight nearly as well as I should have. If I had been a higher level then I’d be beating enemies a lot quicker and naturally that would make a difference with the army morale. That wasn’t how things went down though but it does add to the replay value of the game. You can easily beat the game in under 3 hours if you blast through. However, after that you can also work on getting all of the other characters leveled up and completing their stories as well. In this game each characters gets their own story so that is definitely a lot of stories to run through. It’s definitely not something that will be an easy task nor will it be one that you can do quickly.

The graphics definitely look very good here. You’ve got a lot of little improvements like each enemy having a health bar and also their status not vanishing. In the old games you could easily lose track of a general among the mob because the title would flicker in and out. In this game it stays put the whole time which is appreciated. Characters load up a lot quicker and in general it all just looks quite good. Then you have the soundtrack which has a lot of classic rock themes like the last two. I’m still pretty surprised in general that the games have such a great soundtrack but I’m certainly not going to complain.

The gameplay in Dynasty Warriors 5 plays it straight this time around. You don’t have any missions to find a missing box or anything like that. All of the missions are simply about taking down a boss and unlike previous games they never lock the main villain away. You can run up to him in any of the levels and just test your skills. It won’t be super easy to do so as there are a lot of minions in the way, but 5 certainly makes it possible. I imagine that experienced DW fans would be able to easily get in there and take down the boss. It’s ultimately a strategy that will bite you in the end since your level will stay low but if you’re just planning to quickly beat a campaign then it makes sense. If you do this then I recommend the paralyze combo. It’s two week hits and then a power shot. It trigger a 5-7 hit combo with guaranteed stun. It’s really hard to think of any attack option that is superior to this. Spam it as often as you like. As always make sure to keep your final smash on hand until someone attacks you to instantly combo-break the opposing hit.

If you get a horse then I recommend keeping him around. On Easy mode none of the minions can do anything about him so just jump off when you make it to the boss. The horse won’t be going anywhere either so once you’re done you saddle up and move. The humans run a lot slower than the horses and these levels are massive so I definitely recommend keeping him around. In general it is just so handy to have your own horse and they can be rare to find. Another way to get one is to lure your ally who has a horse into a big battle and once the enemies knock him off you grab the horse and run. I hope in one of the future games you are given the ability to tell your ally to leave the horse. It’s a small feature but one that would be very handy.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors 5 is about as solid as the last two. If anything I would say that it is even better than them thanks to the graphics improving quite a lot and the gameplay feels smoother. The opening cutscene for example is pretty incredible. 5 feels way more polished than the last two and you would have expected that the game would have come out a lot later than it did. It’ll be interesting to see how 6 tries to stop 5. It definitely won’t be easy but the series seems like it’s on an upwards trend so I won’t say that I’d be surprised either. If Dynasty Warriors wants to keep improving I expect that it will be able to do so. If you like beat em ups then you definitely ought to give this one a try.

Overall 8/10

The Young Messiah

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There are some movies that had good intentions and just didn’t work so well and others that had poor intentions from the start. This one is the former and the plot just didn’t do it for me. The film had to take a lot of liberties to be a full length feature film, but at the same time I just can’t picture a lot of this happening. Now, I won’t profess to be a super expert on the Bible where I can tell you 100 quotes or have all the families of David memorized, but I do believe that in the Bible it is heavily implied that Jesus lives a very ordinary life as a kid. He didn’t stand out and that’s why we didn’t hear about the great miracles he performed or his status as the Savior until after he had grown up. This film has him performing many miracles and in front of large crowds at the age of 7. (Apparently anyway based on the poster) He even has to run from the authorities because they find out and it becomes a huge debacle. I’m just not sure about this.

One big plot point in the film is that Jesus is initially a seemingly ordinary child and he doesn’t even know about his abilities. Gradually, he starts to gain knowledge of them and at times he personifies his role as the son of God and then he’ll turn back to normal. It’s almost like his body is slowly being taken over or his mind is being awoken from a long sleep and I’m not sure about that either. Granted, there aren’t really any easy answers for this. Did Jesus just take up one day when he was an adult with his full knowledge or had he always known ever since he was a kid? I actually like to think it was the latter personally. I believe that Jesus was essentially a perfect child and that he simply lived a very quiet life. He wouldn’t lie, steal, or make any moral mistakes that many kids make, but at the same time he would learn how to read and write the same as any other person.

After all, God chose to come to Earth as a man in order to live among us and save as many people as possible. I think it’s definitely feasible that as a result, he wouldn’t have immediately brought about his all knowing mind and other abilities that would make him stand out from the start. That’s why I can picture him knowing that he is Jesus Christ and just gradually growing up normally until it was time for him to act in the public sphere. Furthermore, I imagine that he waited to act until it was the perfect time for him to have an influence on as many people as possible. As a child maybe he knew that less people would be more convinced or that it would hurt in the long run. God knows all eventualities so he would ultimately choose the best route.

As I mentioned, I do think it was a nice effort in concept though. Biblical scholars have made a profession out of reading the Bible and trying to find more details that are hard to catch or can only be noticed by cross checking various books in the Bible and even other sources. You can find out a lot of fascinating things online and I’m sure that they would love to learn more about Jesus as a child. I just think that there isn’t much to find because he just wasn’t standing out at the time. Did Jesus have to content with bullies when he was a kid? Maybe. Did he have to revive a boy who was killed by the Devil in an attempt to frame him? That one’s a far greater stretch, but you never know. The point is, the film had to take a lot of liberties to make this a film, but as long as it doesn’t directly contradict the Bible or attempt subtly make Jesus or other individuals look bad, then it’s fine.

Overall, This can still be a good film to check out if you find the premise interesting. I personally prefer to relive parts of the Bible or listen to scholars speculate what may have happened back in the day based on their findings. I just find those more interesting than a film like this one, but it’ll really depend on the individual. At the very least, you can be sure that the writers probably did their homework on how the scenery and surroundings may have looked so that can be fun to see. It is good to see so many Christian films coming out nowadays and hopefully that trend will continue. The God is Not Dead series is certainly still my favorite, but we have had a nice array of titles that span many different genres. Hillsong, Risen, The Young Messiah, God is Not Dead, and many more. There is something for every Christian to check out. Some of the films didn’t go very well at all like Noah, which changes so many things that I even wonder about the intentions. I certainly would not be surprised in the least to see some “Christian” based films that exist only to discredit and confuse Christians rather than spread awareness. Always be prepared for every trick in the book in this day and age. I’m not sure which film is coming next, but I shall be awaiting the next Christian adventure.