Dynasty Warriors 4: Xtreme Legends

Dynasty Warriors 4 Xtreme Legends (真・三國無双3 猛将伝, Shin Sangoku Musou 3: Moushouden; lit. "True Three Kingdoms Unmatched 3: Fierce General Legends") is a spin-off of Dynasty Warriors 4. Players can import previous versions of their characters in this game if they have an original Dynasty Warriors 4 disc.

Changes

 * The game introduces a new feature called Legend Mode. This trend continues with alterations in the following Xtreme Legends expansion.
 * Two new difficulty settings (Novice and Expert) are included in this game. Expert setting causes all playable CPU officers to use their Level 10 weapons in battle by default, akin to the prior Xtreme Legends installment making all CPU officers wield 4th weapons by default in the same way.
 * Characters can now acquire Level 11 weapons by perfecting their own legend stage under the said Expert difficulty setting with specific requirements. Each one offers the maximum base power of 60 while having 4 items already attached to them, acting as the prior bonus attributes from the previous installment's weapon system.
 * Both Level 10 and Level 11 weapons can now be carried over into challenge mode as well as natural stat boosts from battlefield pickups, and can now activate elements without a full Musou bar for any non-physical attacks such as energy blasts, quakes and shockwaves.
 * Elemental activation can also apply to True Musou attacks, but only for any non-physical portions such as quake stomps, beams and various other shockwaves.
 * Total weapon experience earned in a stage now appears in the results screen.
 * Nine new rare items are introduced. Previous rare items can also be obtained by playing through specific Legend Modes. Sometimes, these are easier to achieve than the original requirements. The same also applies to Level 10 weapons being obtainable in the same fashion.
 * Xtreme Mode, a mercenary-like adventure where anything goes, is introduced. The main goal in this mode is to survive as long as possible and conquer the other provinces.
 * One new challenge mode stage is added; Arena Mode, where it takes place on a special sealed-off plateau built within Ru Nan Castle's central section. Duels will occur continuously while the AI becomes more adaptive and difficult each time.
 * Ability reset is added back in, along with weapon reset being available, allowing the player to reset weapon levels and obtain unique ones all over again.
 * Improved and tweaked enemy AI for higher difficulties, mainly for playable officers as opposed to generics on both the allied and enemy side:
 * CPU playable officers can now occasionally use taunts to guard break.
 * CPU officers will now actively guard against a larger majority of attacks, as well as against incoming arrows launched by the player while in bow mode or any other projectile attacks if they have their aggro attracted (as opposed to strafing diagonally towards their target like in the original Dynasty Warriors 4). However, if an arrow is fired at a target aside from them, then the AI will likely not block it if they are in the projectile's path.
 * On higher difficulties, the CPU playable officers will also act more aggressive than usual, even when the player/their target is knocked down (where they will occasionally move forward a bit then shift-move backward in small nudges as they rinse and repeat to be on the ready when their target will stand up). They will actively juggle their opposition whenever, and will attack whenever, all without performing the concentration movement as often.
 * CPU officers will now use their Musou Attack quite often, via a debug showing that a majority if specific hit states inflicted upon them will raise up their invisible Musou Gauge (outside of duels) to a certain degree (allowing them to often use Musou Attacks back-to-back in very specific scenarios unlike the player).
 * CPU officers will often jump attack to intercept actions and start juggles.
 * Dueling mode now reveals the CPU officer's Musou Gauge in the same scheme as the player's, thus, they will use their Musou Attack in line with the player's Musou Attack, parry, normal attacks, and jump attacks (the very latter via jump charge attacks can also be used to bait a CPU officer's Musou Attack if done early enough in front of them to block on time).
 * CPU playable officers will also react differently depending on whether the player's Musou bar is filled up to max or not.

Bugs and Glitches

 * AI Glitch - Start a stage on Expert difficulty, perform an intermission save and quit to the title screen. From there, change the difficulty to Novice and start a new stage without reloading the current intermission save file. One the stage is started, perform a soft reset (Select + Start), then reload the aforementioned intermission save file. This will result in the game accepting the stage on Expert, even though the enemies will act the same as Novice (playable enemy CPU officers will have their Level 10 weapons by default as usual if you've done it right).


 * Walking on Mountains - While this is a common glitch in all versions of Dynasty Warriors 4, Zhang Jiao's Legend Mode in particular can make this notably easy to perform compared to on other stages. Get on a horse and stand next to the northwestern entry point. Make sure the mountain side is to the horse's right and dismount. There is chance that the player will end up on the northern mountain side, thus they are able to skip a large portion of the map.