Review - Dynasty Warriors: Origins - XSX

The storied franchise returns to it’s roots but will they take hold well enough to re-establish Omega Force as the true Masters of Musou?

If unfamiliar with the term Musou, just think giant battles, hundreds of enemies on screen and hacking and slashing. You’ve no doubt played a Musou game even without realising, and for a great many people, myself included a Dynasty Warriors game was probably the first.

Given that the series was the origin of my Musou experience it’s only fitting that Dynasty Warriors: Origins returns to it’s beginning. It’s important to point out that this game isn’t a remake or a remaster. Dynasty Warriors: Origins is an entirely new experience. The narrative of Dynasty Warriors: Origins is inspired by and follows the 14th century novel by Lou Guanzhong “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Essentially a quasi historical exceptionally dramatic telling of the struggles and conquest of the Han Dynasty.

If you’ve no interest in such things, thats fine and you can still defeat hordes of enemies on screen but Dynasty Warriors: Origins takes a more focused look at the events of the Three Kingdoms, thus far the franchise as very much painted with broad strokes when it comes to delivering the narrative. Dynasty Warriors: Origins adds a lot more depth, flushes out events and gives a much greater senes of how the events impacted the general populace though the lens of the series familiar characters by examining their motives and the interpersonal relationships between them.

You take on the role of a mysterious amnesiac warrior who’s moral code ends up getting him involved in the yellow turban rebellion, as the game unfolds you’ll discover your past and how crucial you are in outcome of the Han Dynasty and the fate of all China.

Story aside the gameplay and huge epic battles tend to be the main appeal of the Dynasty Warriors franchise and the Musou genre in general and to put it bluntly DW:Origins excels here with multiple thousands of enemies on screen at once, but I think the most impressive aspect is’t just the visual feat, all theses enemies are screen behave how you’d expect units in a battle to do so. They aren’t merely a nicely disguised backdrop, every single model on the battle field is there and can be engaged in battle. There’s something wonderful about galloping towards to next objective only to see a battalion of hundreds foes running to reinforce the area you’ve just taken.

Unfortunately for your foes, Dynasty Warriors 1 vs 1000 theme means that the rank and file are nowhere near your equal. Over the course of the game you’ll have access to 8 different weapons types, each with their own benefits, weakness, and combos. My favourite was hands or more accurately fists were the gauntlets. I love classic Chinese kung fu cinema, in fact the majority of my lockdown was spent watching Golden Harvest or Shaw Brothers movies. Throwing a punch and watching dozens of men spiral though the air was a delight every single time…occasionally I’d switch to a sword just to pierrot though the air a la Cheng Pei-pei in “Come drink we me”.

The rank and file aren’t alone, they are lead into the glorious ballet of battle by brave and fearsome officers, not to mention legends of the three kingdoms. The Combat takes on a nice change of pace when an officer is engaged, Dynasty Warriors: Origins implements a parry and counter system as well as unique techniques that cant be be blocked, only interrupted by a specific type of attack called battle arts. Officers and generals also have a Fortitude stat, if you dealing enough damage to the will eventually deplete their fortitude, but the best way of doing so is through successful parries and counters combined with battle arts. Once their fortitude has been depleted they become staggered and are open to an assault attack. Depending on their overall strength or remaining health this will either cause a great amount of damage or finish them off in a dazzling display of martial prowess, the shockwave from which will send enemies around you flying through the air. Each assault attack differers depending on the weapon equipped and frankly they never get old, they are as awesome the first time you see them as they are the thousandth.

Everything about the combat and gameplay loop of Dynasty Warriors: Origins is engaging and fantastic and it never gets old for me. While working your way through the story side missions will pop up. Some are there to develop the player characters relationship with the legendary characters of the romance, some are training missions to earn more skill points. The most common are small battles that can take as little as 4 minutes to complete and take place on small battle fields and they range from capturing the enemy base or stop the bandits who are using the war as an excuse for personal gain. Now, you will see these a lot and they do lack variety but as I’ve said the core battle mechanic of 1 vs 1000 is so enjoyable that I found myself doing so many of these that I was maxing out skill tress so quickly that when I get to they big battle events, I may have even slightly too powerful.

The world of Dynasty Warriors: Origins is traversed via a gorgeous world map, you’ll find towns and villages, war camps and of course the aforementioned skirmishes. Each province you wage war though has a peace rating and completing missions and story beats in a province will raise its peace level, until eventually peace is restore to that region. However, this is no easy feat as it takes a lot go work to do so, it can feel like a grind doing so at times but to me it serves to emphasise the scope of the discord caused by the rollercoaster rule of the Han Dynasty.