Game:

Dynasty Warriors 3 (2001)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 3:22:14

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General info here: https://pastebin.com/9XVJyHV9
Link to playlist with all the playthroughs: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP_HRkMmTI50Ms_tQ14MwPjP_ceTw5yY

Note: This playthrough uses a relatively recently discovered patch, which disables the auto lock-on system that normally locks the player onto the first enemy they hit with a normal attack, making it impossible to turn afterwards. (see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUzuyzu1k4)

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C3 without the auto lock can be turned, making it easier to manage a crowd, since regular soldiers don't try to mash the guard button to recover from stuns quickly.
C6 can hit multiple times, each hit causing KO screams.
Her Musou Attack kinda sucks, and the most effective way to use it seems to be just tapping the button to do one loop and the finisher. Doing more just makes the finisher miss. Same goes for the fiery True Musou.

Zhurong's story has a specific feature in that every battle has a female commander to defeat, and all the women make an appearance here. And in most stages Meng Huo being under attack is the other common occurrence. Female enemy soldiers show up as well.

Nanman Campaign actually has three commanders, but when playing specifically as Zhurong, you don't have to defeat Zhuge Liang, only Liu Bei and Sun Shangxiang. (In Free Mode you'd have to beat all three)
Zhurong starts in the center right path, but Ma Chao is already behind the allied lines, assaulting the main camp, and approaching Zhuge Liang spawns an ambush. That's all the real differences to the regular Nanman Campaign. Also Ahuinan and Dongtuna don't retreat after 15 minutes either.

Wu Navy Skirmish is a revamp of the old Pirate Attack filler stage, with many more enemies, including multiple playable officers. There is no boat captain to protect either. Zhurong is the commander, going solo against the enemy army. (In Free Mode you do have to protect an AI Zhurong though, you don't get to be the commander.)
Unlike the regular DW3 filler stages, the XL ones do show up in Free Mode.

Chi Bi starts Zhurong off in the completely opposite corner to Meng Huo who's getting assaulted by multiple officers, including Xu Huang with hyper mode buffed stats. That's why rather than clear the top first, I go help Meng Huo. With the stats I have he'd be long dead before I got there.

Hu Lao Gate has a few Weapons and Attack+ drops from officers in the south so I go there first. Meng Huo and Lü Bu ran into each other, so rather than fully clear the south, I had to go back to him so that he wouldn't die on me. Lü Bu is boosted up here, just like the regular Hu Lao Gate.

Shi Ting has ambushes that will quickly decimate the allied forces. There is a unique item here for defending the two bases against said ambushes, not that it helps the allies survive much. Meng Huo died on me too in the first take.

He Fei has Meng Huo trapped in the center, so first thing is to rescue him, which results in a revamp of the Taishi Ci ambushed cutscene. Then the main camp gets ambushed, like in all the other He Feis in XL. At least this time Lü Meng doesn't lure anyone.
Despite the movie before the stage showing Sun Shangxiang in a close up, she's just a regular enemy officer, and not the commander.

He Fei Castle has Meng Huo basically trapped in the center (again) against a ragtag army of the people still alive. This time, Lü Bu is the commander by himself, rather than Diaochan also being a commander. Interestingly, in this version of the stage, the area around the center has lone archers running about rather than full groups, belonging to Diaochan's unit. Also, the archer ambush when you approach the center is still there. That's why near the end I check on Meng Huo's health from afar and don't approach him.

The concept of the stages is okay, but like the others it suffers from 3XL being a budget add-on. The only characters with new spoken lines are the Others characters, and a few lines here and there are present for characters that in the original JP dub are also voiced by the same actors doing the Others character. It could've been done better in the later games, but there was never really a time for it.

PS: Unlike vanilla DW3, defeating Daqiao and Xiaoqiao in their last appearances actually shows their death scenes - in vanilla DW3 Zhenji and Dian Wei have Shiting where the two Qiaos are enemies, and defeating them always shows them retreating there.

Also, finishing Zhurong's story unlocks the Female Nanman troop type as bodyguards.


00:00 Start
00:19 Nanman Campaign
33:28 Wu Navy Skirmish
53:47 The Battle at Chi Bi
01:26:24 The Battle at Hu Lao Gate
01:56:11 The Battle at Shi Ting
02:27:06 The Battle at He Fei
02:55:06 The Siege of He Fei Castle
03:17:41 Ending (Text)
03:19:09 Ending (Cutscenes)

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