Dynasty Warriors Origins is the latest entry in the long running musou series and is based on the Chinese novel the Three Kingdoms. This time around, the story is experienced from the perspective of a new protagonist to the series simply named “nameless hero” (players can name him whatever they want). Unlike other Dynasty Warriors titles, Origins only recounts the first half of the book and fleshes out the story and characters.
Dynasty Warriors Origins is a hack n’ slash musou game; where players are pitted against endless waves of large army of enemies. You are thrown in these battle tasked to kill every crony barring down on you along with their leader. While it does sound simple, there’s some depth to unearth here. While you begin with a simple sword, as you progress through battles, you’ll unlock new weapons such as a spear, gauntlet or the good old tradition sword for example.
Sure you can button mash X on your way to victory, but it won’t be that easy. You’ll need to make good use of the block button, parry feature and dodging mechanic. Thankfully, the parry is set along with the block button. Hitting it at the proper time will parry your enemy’s attack, temporarily stunning them and allowing you to slice and dice.
While we’ve covered defense, here’s more about offence. You have two attack, a normal and strong attack. Combining both allows you to create devastating combos. As you progress, level up and uncover new skills, your repertoire because so much more deeper. And each weapon has its unique set of attacks. Along with basic attacks, you’ll unlock special moves that can be enabled by holding down RB and pressing one of the face buttons.
Thankfully, you can pick up health items throughout the battlefields in order to give you a fair chance at survival; with over 100 enemies aiming for your head, your health meter can decrease pretty quickly. Especially if one or two generals decide to jump on you at the same time. To help alleviate devastating blind attack, there’s a nifty targeting feature that allows you to target the general. And it works extremely well, even when surrounded by a 100+ enemy soldiers.
While you can follow the battles as per the first half of the the Three Kingdoms novel, you’ll also have some side activities to indulge in. Overworld navigation is reminiscent of Gulliver; you’re a giant walking around the map. You’ll come across buddies that will challenge you to certain things such as killing X amount of enemies with a specific weapons or successfully parry a set amount of times; for example.
You’ll also be able to jump in shorter, smaller scale battles for some extra experience point to earn skill points. Skill points can be used to upgrade your character’s attack, defense, health, carry more items; you know the usual. As you progress, you’ll unlock additional skill trees and mold the perfect killing machine.
The game looks great, however in terms of visual quality, the game could’ve released on last generation consoles as well. The main stepping stone that pushed this game for current gen only is to allow a huge amount of enemies on-screen; which can go up to 100+ enemies. It is an impressive visual and also quite chaotic. Cutscenes look great.
Voiceover is a bit odd. While there’s nothing majorly wrong, if you play the game with English voices, often times, the interpretation is quite over the top compared to the character’s facial expression; which can be a jarring at times. Hearing the character talking loud/borderline yelling, which looking calm and relaxed. The soundtrack is surprisingly generic. I didn’t expect stock, generic music to fill up the battles.
Alas nothing is perfect. The game does have a few quirks. The first being is the repetitive nature of it. Sure, there’s deep combat and weapon variety, but it’s still mindless button mashing. Go here, kill everyone. Go there take over the area. Rinse. Repeat. Additionally, on those larger scales battles, where you’d accompanied by other armies and their generals, you’ll often have to babysit and save them. When they are across the map, chances are you won’t reach them in time and it’s game over.
Dynasty Warriors Origins is one of the best gaming experiences of this very young year. The combat is surprisingly deep, there’s an enjoyable variety of weapon where you’re sure to find a favorite, yet the game still encourages you to mix and match a bit. The special attacks are fun to use and the amount of enemies on screen is very impressive; despite some generic features. While it can get repetitve during long play sessions, it remains one of the more enjoyable games to play after a long day of work or school. If you’ve been hesitant to jump into the series, unironically, Dynasty Warriors Origins is great entry point. Highly recommended.
Overall
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90%
Summary
Pros
- Extremely deep and addictive combat
- Great weapon variety
- So many enemies on screen
- Intuitive parry mechanic
Cons
- It gets repetitive after a while
- Having to babysit other generals
- Not every game needs a “relationship” gameplay mechanic