I've played a few of the Empires spinoffs and SW2E is definitely the one that I really liked. Can get really repetitive, but I just started a new campaign if the current one felt like a grind in the endgame.

Kind of a cheap cash in, just re-using assets with a shallow strategic layer slapped on top, but it was fun for what it was.

Absolutely exactly. But that's why you conquer half the country as fast as possible so you can amass as many officers as possible, use all your devious ninja **** to wipe out or turn everyone else's officers and destroy their troop count so that even if the enemy officers have absurd difficulty levels you can win through sheer cheapness.

I always felt like the most fun part was when you were at that tipping point right before you finally manage to get the upper hand and establish yourself as a strong empire.

I sold a lot of games earlier this year, just slimming my games shelf down to the essentials. Samurai Warriors 2 Empires got the knife. Kinda regretting that maybe a tiny bit right now :laughing:

But I've still got several other games in the series. Kept all of my favorites.

I had Samurai Warriors 2 and SW2 Empires at the same time years ago (don't have them anymore unfortunately) and they have massive nostalgia for me not just because they were some of my earliest DW games but because I was smoking a lot of weed at the time, and if you don't smoke then you have no idea just how much fun they are when you're baked off your ass. You're just hypnotized by savaging hundreds of peons at a time and the neon visuals are absolutely amazing. If you ever take the plunge into smoking a joint or a bowl or a bong, I implore you to start up a Dynasty Warriors game because they will blow your mind.

I was inspired to talk about these games today because I just ordered the first Gundam game on Amazon. By far my favorite DW story game. I love how the non-main character campaigns get into goofy fanfiction territory. Haman Karn's oddball romance with the main character from the second Gundam series is my favorite thing from those games.

I never actually watched any Gundam, so the campaign mode in Gundam 3 was frequently confusing to say the least.

I promise that, if I ever decide to start smoking weed, I'll lock myself in my apartment and spend a week pretending I'm a fat Chinese guy with bear claws on his hands

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...x-Meng_Huo.png

I've watched a bit of Gundam (the first series is actually a pretty great and well-paced portrayal of war at least for the first half) but only know most of the rest from a crash course from reading internet **** years ago. It definitely helped in knowing what the **** was going on but I really don't know much about Gundam from firsthand experience. There's a lot of terribleness to the series, especially in the 90s and on. It's absorbed just about everything cringy about shonen anime over the years. I kinda want to pick up where I left off with the original Mobile Suit Gundam and work my way through the first two or three series. The second series is supposed to be especially good.

There's also just so damn much of it. I usually stick to anime shows that are only 1-2 seasons long, since I find it more fun to watch a bunch of different things than 500 episodes of the same thing. I don't know how much Gundam there is, but probably more than I'm prepared to dive into.

Just watch the first Mobile Suit Gundam first and don't worry about later series unless you decide you care. It takes its time and is pretty slow-burning and gives you a surprisingly epic tale of warfare for a PG-13 show. It's definitely worth your time, which surprised me as I was a true Gundam hater after seeing later series that were just about selling Gundam toys. I might even watch some tonight if I don't decide to play Tales of Vesperia. So either I'm watching anime or playing a JRPG. ****ing weeb I am I guess.

Ok I might. I'll read up on it a bit at least.

Haven't watched as much anime as I used to during 2018. I've still got a Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig box set that I haven't watched more than one episode of long ago. Should get around to finishing that some day.

I don't watch nearly as much anime as I used to either and I'm very highly tired of a lot of anime tropes, but the first Mobile Suit Gundam was one of the shows that made me think that I still had gas in the tank to watch more a few years ago. It has a lot of the teenage protagonist schtick you're probably used to but it's also one of the series if not the absolute core series that popularized that schtick, but because of this it's also not beholden to the rules. It's not a shonen anime genre show, it's a trend setter and there's a very good reason why it set trends. Because the teen warrior fighting a war was engaging and original enough to wow people into ruining the idea.