After seven years, the Dynasty Warriors series has returned, with Koei Tecmo developing and producing its latest title, Dynasty Warriors: Origins. This hack-and-slash game throws you up against thousands upon thousands of enemies during China’s Three Kingdoms period.
This game was actually my first look at the Dynasty Warriors series, which has existed for over 25 years (technically 28 because the first game in 1997 was a fighting game and isn’t recognized as part of the series—it’s a whole thing).
Story
To truly understand the premise of this game, we need to talk about the series itself. The Dynasty Warriors series is based off of a 14th century Chinese novel called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The novel is a romanticized and semi-fictional retelling of 2nd and 3rd century Chinese history during the—you guessed it—Three Kingdoms period. Each entry focuses on the story of this novel, but Dynasty Warriors: Origins is different amongst its predecessors in that it primarily focuses on the front half of the novel, allowing for more fleshed out storytelling.
Origins starts with the beginning of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, a real-life peasant revolt. Our nameless, amnesiac protagonist joins up with the local insurgents to defeat the government tyrants. After a time skip, the Yellow Turbans slowly become thugs, eventually becoming oppressors themselves. From this premise, the entire game unfolds, dealing with the power struggles that follow in China. A recurring theme throughout Dynasty Warriors: Origins is oppression and governance.
Political turmoil and war provide an excellent theater for this type of story. Each major battle has some sort of significance—there aren’t too many large battles thrown in as filler—ultimately pushing the plot forward. There’s also a subplot regarding the main character’s amnesia and unexplained forces at work. However, character development is lacking and leaves the story feeling one dimensional.
There are a lot of characters in this game, many of them being either infallible or entirely corrupt. Dynasty Warriors: Origins unfortunately presents a very black and white depiction of right and wrong without much nuance. Heroic characters in the game have very few flaws in this game, which ends up hurting their depth. With such a large roster of NPCs lacking depth, it becomes hard to keep track of all the characters. We also just don’t get a good look into the motivations of these side characters other than doing the right thing. Backstory is sprinkled in here and there, but not enough to truly bring the characters to life.
As for the player character itself, you play as a quiet dark haired guy with a big sword and amnesia. He does things simply because it’s morally right. This sort of edgy, stoic protagonist has been done to death. The player character suffers from almost no character flaws, making for a relatively weak storytelling vessel.
So many of the interactions just felt over-done, whether it’s heroes making speeches every five seconds, or the villain literally saying “I will prove that I’m right by killing you.” I understand that this genre doesn’t need to have masterful storytelling when its primary focus is action, but it would’ve been nice to see more dramatic intrigue about a historical period of turmoil.
Gameplay
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is certainly one of the hackiest and slashiest hack-and-slash games out there. The amount of combatants you’re thrown up against is ridiculous. Thousands of enemies can be on the battlefield at one time. While you’re usually aided by friendly armies, it’s not uncommon for your character to defeat hundreds or over a thousand enemies per mission. Dynasty Warriors: Origins isn’t an overly violent game—there’s no blood or gore, so it uses knock-outs instead of kills. So while it won’t deliver Doom-esque blood baths, it’s still incredibly satisfying to cut through hordes of enemies like butter. I mean, how cool is it to send dozens of people flying with one swing of a sword?
Other than typical low-level troops, you will find yourself fighting officers, who are more or less bosses leading an army. It is essential to defeat these officers in order to advance through a mission as defeating them can lead to troops running away. This can have the unfortunate side effect of going against the grain of what Dynasty Warriors: Origins seeks to achieve with its combat. Giving these officers such significance means that combat might be spent focusing on one single enemy, rather than many.
Large battlefields with scattered objectives are nothing new to video games. Most story missions in Dynasty Warriors: Origins will take place on a large map with several key points. However, the goal is not always to capture and hold each objective. In many of the missions, the win condition may be to defeat an enemy NPC. This on its own is fine—but Dynasty Warriors: Origins also includes defeat conditions. For example, if an allied NPC is defeated, you lose the battle. This means that you could be tearing up the battlefield and destroying enemies left and right, but if the AI gets friendlies stuck in a bad position, the battle is over. These defeat conditions force the player to constantly monitor their NPC allies because the AI loves to charge into battle with no self-regard. With battlefields as large as they are, it’s easy to get separated, especially in the middle of combat, making it even harder to prevent NPCs from getting into danger. I’ve lost many battles because some NPC on the opposite side of the map rushed in recklessly. These types of defeats are incredibly frustrating as they almost never feel deserved.
Outside of combat, there are plenty of ways to improve and change up your character. Experience can be gained through main missions and side missions and can be put towards unlocking parts of your skill tree. Additionally, you can buy, sell, or find a plethora of different weapons. Each weapon type has its own set of moves and your skill with the weapon improves the more you use it. There are also plenty of character upgrades that can be unlocked with resources found across the world map, but these are relatively limited to how they change your character. Dynasty Warriors: Origins’ progression is a bit linear, but the availability of weapons allows you to experiment with slightly different play styles.
The combat feature I found the most enjoyment in was the cavalry. After a short while playing through the game, you unlock the ability to call in a horse. Charging through enemies and cutting them down is such a thrilling feeling. There are even special events in certain battles that allow you to charge an enemy’s line with allies. I loved this aspect of gameplay because my ideal death would be going out in a blaze of glory in a cavalry charge like I’m King Théoden at Minas Tirith.
The only problem with this ability was that the horse is called with a press down on the left stick: a button typically reserved for sprinting in many other games. I played Dynasty Warriors: Origins using a controller—which I highly recommend over a mouse and keyboard—and I would subconsciously press on the left stick and accidentally dismount. Not a huge issue, but one to be aware of if you’re more used to playing first person shooters.
Visuals
Initially, I was a bit worried about the performance of Dynasty Warriors: Origins. After all, one of the major selling points was ‘1 vs. 1000’ combat. Rendering that many troops in one instance can be a heavy load on your processor. However, I ran the game with high graphics settings on a Ryzen 5 1600 and didn’t run into any significant frame rate issues—for the most part. Some battles did slow my computer down, but not enough to make the game unplayable. I don’t know what technical magic they have going on behind the scenes, but to make good on the promise of thousands of soldiers on screen without completely melting my computer was an accomplishment.
Graphically, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is solid, but not overly advanced. Set pieces and the environment are designed nicely, making everything fit together well visually. Looking at past games like Dynasty Warriors 9, the character models haven’t changed very much. Stylistically, the character models go for more attractive and sharp-featured faces, rather than hyper-realism, which makes sense for a game where you have to render thousands of people at once. Visual improvements in Origins are primarily due to improved lighting and particle effects. Overall, Origins is a pleasant looking game, but not one that will require an RTX 4090 to render.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins does an excellent job with combatant visual design. On a battlefield, it’s easy to confuse who’s who if there aren’t any visual queues. This game eliminates that problem by giving its armies their own distinct, vibrant colors. Allegiances are easily determined by the color of garments alone. While I’m sure the uniformity of these clothes is not entirely historically accurate, it is a sound concept. Before the advent of highly accurate firearms, it was advantageous to have your army in one color to avoid confusion between combatants. While there’s no friendly fire (friendly stabbing, rather?) in Dynasty Warriors: Origins, color-coding makes it much easier to tell where you’re supposed to be going.
Audio
Let me tell you, the combat music of this game is absolutely incredible. As you cut through waves of enemies, you’re accompanied by a high-energy rock soundtrack. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the time period, but it really ties well into the action of the game. It’s just an absolute gem of a soundtrack, with overdriven guitars playing treble-heavy riffs, and the bassist giving it their all with the backing.
Outside of combat, the soundtrack gets a bit more traditional, opting for fewer modern instruments and more of a calming tune. The menu and world map music fits well with the time period, but is definitely a shade different from the high intensity of combat.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins’ sound effects are solid as well, from the UI to combat sounds. Hitting and slicing enemies feels impactful, especially on stronger attacks. The UI sounds are your typical action game interface noises. Navigating menus won’t give you the same exhilaration as combat, but it certainly won’t distract or annoy you.
Localization and Voice Acting
Dynasty Warriors: Origins was developed in Japan and as such, had to be localized for other markets. I spent time playing the English audio version and the Japanese audio version. Cutscenes with English audio are dubbed over, rather than reanimated, so the mouths of the characters often don’t match what they’re saying. The debate between dub and sub is as old as time, and both sides have their merits. However, the original Japanese audio fits better in with the tone and animation than the English. This isn’t a dig at the English dub, but rather an observation of how translation can impact delivery and feeling in media. The English voice acting itself is not bad, but the dissonance between the animation and audio is enough to be disorienting.
Oddly enough, though I enjoyed the Japanese audio better in dialogue, I preferred English in combat. This mainly has to do with how information is delivered on the battlefield. Each time an enemy or ally says an important piece (whether they’re losing, winning, etc.), a side box pops up on the screen with the text. With the English dub, I can easily hear and process the information without distracting from combat. However, because I played with the Japanese audio, I would have to look off to the side to get a full idea of what was being said. When you’ve got a billion and one other things to pay attention to, it can be a bit hard to keep up on all the battlefield information.
Conclusions
For all its flaws, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is still an enjoyable game. At its core, it does what it needs to do. Koei Tecmo delivered on their promise of 1 vs. 1000 combat, though not without neglecting other aspects of gameplay. Combat was enjoyable, though suffered at the hands of poor game design. There’s a strong premise here, but a lack of character development hampers the storytelling. Overall, if you’re the type of person who’s looking for some straight forward, high-intensity action, Dynasty Warriors: Origins might be for you—as long as you don’t mind some of its rough edges.
