Developer: Omega Force, Koei Tecmo Games
Publisher: Koei Tecmo Games
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Review
The Dynasty Warriors series has been going strong ever since 1997 and is actually part of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games franchise that hails from 1985. The Dynasty Warriors games and the Empires spin-off titles put the Musou or 1 vs. 1000 genre on the map, and we have seen quite a few releases over the years. Sadly, the quality of the last few installments went down quite a bit, and we haven’t seen a new main series release in some time. That changes now, however, with the release of Dynasty Warriors: Origins. This new installment promises to be bigger and better than ever, and for the most part, this statement proves to be true.
Story
As is the case with other Dynasty Warriors titles, Origins also revolves around the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story. The story starts with the Yellow Turban Rebellion and then makes its way through all the key points of the aforementioned narrative. While previous entries in the series often stuck more to the traditional format, Origins does add a few new elements to the mix. This installment introduces an unnamed and amnesiac protagonist who will play the key figure in many of the battles the game throws you in, for example. While the story is a mix of superficial conversations and information dumps due to the sheer number of different important characters, the plot proves to be enjoyable and fairly accessible in this new format. We also see a bit more fantasy thrown in the mix to spice things up, creating a believable premise as to why your character is such an amazing warrior.
Graphics
This is by far the prettiest and most impressive Dynasty Warriors game out there. Compared to Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, Origins truly brings the franchise to the ‘next generation’. The environments are more varied, more backgrounds are used, assets are less repetitive, everything looks extremely polished, a pretty overworld is introduced, and above all, the attack animations are fluid and look so impressive. Of course, we did see a few repeat environments during the smaller optional missions, but this didn’t detract from the otherwise good-looking experience. The different characters also never looked better than they do in Origins, but we noticed that some of them have somewhat ‘porcelain’ faces with stiff facial animations.
As you’ll be fighting battles against hordes of AI opponents, things get a bit cluttered on the screen. In previous releases, this often resulted in frame drops, slowing down the overall excitement. Dynasty Warriors: Origins is clearly very optimized, as we didn’t encounter any frame drops, even when disposing of hundreds of enemy soldiers at once.
Sound
Origins’ sound design is very good. The supporting soundtrack feels very cinematic, which is appropriate for a single-player-focused game such as this. The game also boasts quite a bit of voice acting in English and Japanese. We do have to say that we find it a shame that this title doesn’t come with Chinese voice acting as well, especially given the setting. Nonetheless, voice acting in both available languages is great and adds to the cinematic nature of Origins. The sound effects include a lot of familiar SFX from earlier entries in the series, which truly makes it feel like the next installment in the long-running series.
Gameplay
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is the latest entry in the popular 1 vs. 1000 Dynasty Warriors franchise. This so-called Musou title revolves around grand-scale battles in which you, as a single warrior, combat thousands of enemy soldiers. The game offers extremely small battles for you to fight through but also large-scale battlefields in which you’ll have to conquer bases, combat enemy officers, prevent your own officers from falling in battle, and even go through boss battles. All in all, like other entries in the franchise, the offset is straightforward and Origins also offers different difficulty options.
As the game is all about combat, we were expecting the same tried-and-true formula of the Dynasty Warriors games. For the most part, this is the case, but everything just has a bit more polish and combat feels better than ever as a result. The developers spent a lot of care and attention to ensure combat is fluid and responsive. Blocking and parrying have a more prominent role in Origins, especially when dealing with enemy officers. As you progress, you’ll (very) slowly unlock new weapons, which need to be leveled up individually. Going up a weapon rank will level up your character as well, slowly unlocking more skill trees as you go. This weapon and skill progression system was rather enjoyable and created an incentive to keep pressing forward, even though it also brought a few problems with it, which we’ll delve into below.
Even though the general gameplay loop from the overall progression to the actual combat is extremely satisfying, Dynasty Warriors: Origins does have a few issues that dull down the overall excitement over time. For starters, this title is extremely repetitive due to the fact that you don’t really have different characters to actively choose from. You do unlock battle companions, which you can take control of for very short periods of time during battles. Sadly, you can only do so when filling a gauge. On top of that, the weapon unlock system also prevents you from trying out different weapons early on, making things feel even more repetitive. We also don’t understand that the weapon upgrade system is actually locked until you have beaten the game once, as it would have been nice to work on your weapons during your first playthrough as well. There are luckily some incentives to keep grinding small battles, as these grant you rewards when the peace in certain regions becomes more stable. That being said, we would have loved a proper character selection or at least some more customization options. We sadly missed being able to play this title in co-op as well, as for us this is a key selling point of pretty much all the games in the series.
Conclusion
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is probably one of the best titles the franchise has to offer, as it offers an engaging storyline, extremely satisfying combat, an enjoyable progress system, and a near-perfect audiovisual presentation. It sadly fumbles when it comes to character diversity, weapon unlock pacing, and the repetitiveness of its side missions. Even so, if you’re a longtime fan and truly want to see what a next-gen installment of the franchise has to offer, then picking up Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a no-brainer.
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