Dynasty Warriors Origins – A Change in Regime

Dynasty Warriors Origins - A Change in Regime

Back in 2013, I sat down with Atsushi Miyauchi, the director of Dynasty Warriors, after an interview with him, and he earnestly asked for my feedback on the franchise. Over thirty minutes, I gave all the feedback I could give as a massive musou-head. I loved the series, but I could tell a seven-year itch was happening, even then. Ironically, Dynasty Warriors 8 (and its spin-offs) would be the best the series would be for a good while. That brings us to this title, Dynasty Warriors: Origins. I’m not sure what it’s the origin of, maybe a new direction. But here we are.

There are changes a-plenty in this title, but I’m not here to make a shopping list. The first thing you’ll notice is a tighter cast of characters and the lack of choice for who you’ll play as. Oddly, you play as an amnesiac who does not appear in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I have pretty strong feelings about this because the player (Ziluan) is maybe the most boring person I’ve ever seen. Even though his compatriots will fawn over him as if he’s the only one who can solve their issues, I could not feel more indifferent to his plight. They have nothing to say, and their story kinda sucks.

Because of the tighter cast, you also don’t get to play as anyone else for any meaningful amount of time. You can swap to a small selection of larger cast members short term, but you’re stuck with Ziluan. It’s not all bad though. You’ll unlock a total of ten weapons over the course of the game. Your proficiency with these levels up with use too, so there’s some variety there.

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More important than anything else though is the missions. Large-scale conflicts are present, albeit in less quantity. This isn’t awful though, because they’re all unique. A lot of them have cool little objectives to handle, whether that be stopping enemy tactics from going off, destroying certain strategic points, or perhaps supporting allied commanders in an attack. Your role is to flex support, and it gives you a lot of options.

Compared to previous titles (outside of the Empires titles, you can’t do everything alone. Burning those strategic points, and bashing down doors; all require a team to support you. You’re a one-person army in everything else though. No problem destroying 1000 soldiers on your lonesome, but doors are a bridge too far.

These large battles are awesome though. The tighter scope allows a few things to happen: the graphics have been increased and a lot more soldiers fit on screen; those bigger armies can organise into one much larger cohesive group that needs to be dispersed. Chapter-end battles are also incredibly tense and dramatic. They’re a spectacle to behold where you’re fighting one-on-one with the enemy until the dam bursts and both your own and the enemy’s army burst forth into the arena.

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The world map is also something you can traverse manually. There’s not a terrible lot to do on the world map; complete small skirmishes to raise the ‘peace’ of a region, collect pyroxene which can be exchanged for gems that grant buffs, find old coins that can be traded for various items, chat to random people, or visit the inn to read letters and gear up for battle. I don’t mind the look of it, but it’s not that fun to run around and be an icon janitor.

The skirmishes are smaller, single-objective missions that take a few minutes to complete. They’re ok, but raising your peace rating in a region wasn’t all that fun for me. I preferred the old style of battles where it reuses maps but you could slaughter armies. I totally understand why they changed it though. Even small groups of enemies can be something you need to pay attention to, as they can perform manoeuvres that will hurt or halt your progress. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you’re not taking down those archers then you’re running the risk of death.

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As a Dynasty Warriors purist, I have extremely mixed feelings about Origins. This feels like the final nail in the coffin against the weird, mystical yesteryear of the series after Dynasty Warriors 9 removed all the strange weapons and the ability to play as any hero. When Origins is good though, it’s really good. There’s still the core essence of the series in the game, it’s just moving in a different direction. The change of direction will appeal to a lot of people who might’ve fallen off the wagon previously for how ‘samey’ the last few titles were. Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad, and that’s something to remember for all game series.

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Dynasty Warriors Origins was reviewed on the PS5 with code kindly supplied by the publisher. 

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