Dynasty Warriors: Origins bjuder på hisnande strider, ett brett utbud av vapen och en fängslande återberättelse av serien.

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One of the longest-running franchises and the grandfather of an entire genre returns once more for an epic retelling of the Three Kingdoms series. Does Dynasty Warriors: Origins hold up when compared to the frankly historic length of this series?

Dynasty Warriors: A Brief History

Before discussing Origins’ place in the series, let’s quickly recap what Dynasty Warriors is about. Created by Omega Force and Koei Tecmo (originally Koei), Dynasty Warriors is a series of hack-and-slash action RPG’s based on Koei’s originally turnbased series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This, in turn, is based on the Chinese novel of the same name.

Dynasty Warriors was originally released in 1997 as a plain fighting game but quickly expanded into the now mainstay of tactical large-scale hack-and-slash action RPGs. With a series that is nearly 30 years old and boasts over 56 games across multiple different series from Fire Emblem to Attack on Titan in this style alone you would think they’ve done it all. However, Omega and Koei always seem to raise the bar, and Origins is no different, taking a completely different direction than its predecessors.

Origins: The Wanderer

Having covered the lengthy history of this franchise, let’s talk about how Origins take the formula in new directions. In previous titles in the series, most of your time was spent playing the titular main cast of characters during different missions and faction-related content. While Dynasty Warriors has historically allowed you to utilize a create-a-character feature, Origins decides to take a half-measure approach and presents us with the character of The Wanderer.

Origins serve as a reboot to the franchise, playing with the notion that the new Wanderer character is the central reason and influence behind the entire events of the ”War of Three Kingdoms.” This is quite an interesting premise and genuinely helps condense the frankly massive series of games into one longer title with a coherent story that spans years, where some of the previous games only had the chance to touch on these events.

The Wanderer themselves follows the classic self-insert OC feature of suffering from amnesia and being unable to recall their true calling. While this fits the narrative of the story quite well, I found it incredibly cliché. The Wanderer’s story can easily be ignored or even missed if you choose not to follow certain missions or do not pick up on context clues. The lack of customization compared to previous games in the series also makes me wish that an individualized character system could have been implemented once more.

Throughout Origins, you’ll be able to interact with and be part of the most historic moments in the Three Kingdoms series. Will you side with the naïve yet hero to all Liu Bei, the well-meaning but ruthless Cao Cao, or the proud noble tigers of the Sun Clan? The choice is yours: defy fate and recreate classic encounters in new ways. With a wide variety of maps and weapons to choose from, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

Weapon Types: While a bit clichéd, much like the presentation of the Wanderer himself, you have access to all weapon types featured in the game. Ranging from the classic sword to the humble crescent halberd, there is a weapon suitable for any player, whether new or returning to the series.

Although it can take quite a while to unlock all the weapons, they all play extremely well with their unique features. The wheel weapon, for instance, is less a button-masher and more rhythm-based, as timing the return of the wheels correctly would cause follow-up hits to deal additional damage and cover more range. Each weapon’s unique skills make combat in Origins one of the best in the series to date.

Returning skills are sure to please fans of the series, and new additions bring a fresh spin to the formula. Using your chosen weapon throughout encounters will increase your proficiency, allowing you to unlock further combos, unique features for the weapon, as well as gain points toward leveling up your abilities.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the vast array of weapons presented, I do feel ”Origins” missed out on using some of the more unique weapons, i.e.,fans for instance. These are present in the game as enemy generals and officers use them as a staple. I would have much preferred fewer ”spear/lance” type weapons, as after the fourth instance it became a little tedious and boring. Given that you need to keep swapping weapons to increase your proficiency and rank, I was left in the later portion of the game playing with under-leveled weapons that just didn’t feel fun to use.

Conclusion

While I enjoyed my time with ”Origins,” I did come to the realization that although the story is well-paced and very well crafted, after the first 30 hours of content, I was just not interested anymore. There are so many instances within ”Origins” where fight encounters could take between 3-8 minutes, only to be followed by 10 minutes or more of cutscenes with just people talking to each other. While you are able to increase your bond with every officer in the game, your responses in these cutscenes mean absolutely nothing. Whether you respond positively or negatively, nothing changes, which I feel just paints the Wanderer as someone who, while powerful in his own right, has no free will of his own, despite the story being about recovering lost memories and using your power to place ”The Hero” on the correct path.

Outside of the main choice, as well as some post-game features, you really don’t have much say or influence on the story, and you could have easily replaced the Wanderer with any of the cast members fulfilling the same role. The lack, once more, of customization-the fact that this is a pure single-player title with one full-time player character (yes, you can play as officers too, but that is a feature that comes later and only for a limited time during encounters) really put me off the character of the Wanderer himself.

That being said, while I may not have cared for the Wanderer, I can’t deny that Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a beautiful game. Graphically speaking, the facial work and texture work are top-notch, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the character models move and interact with each other during cutscenes. I would urge people to take notice of how precise these models are during cutscenes, as this is truly some great work to which I can only tip my hat.

While the interactions with officers were incredibly similar (come on, guys, how many times are you going to reuse the whole ”I’ll buy you something to eat” line?), they really come alive during combat with their own unique dialogue options upon completing milestones or saving them from bad situations. Every officer feels alive with their own motivations and goals throughout the story, so while I did become disinterested after a while due to the massive amount of grinding and how similar each encounter eventually became, I was always pleasantly surprised to see the responses and actions of these officers during combat. As good as the story is, the main appeal of a Dynasty Warriors game has always been the combat, and this is the best the series has presented so far.

I would recommend this to any player looking to get into the series as a starting point. I would also recommend this to any veteran player returning to the series. If you can look past the rather bland main character, you’ll find hours upon hours of gameplay as well as plenty of content to work toward even after finishing your first playthrough. With the Ultimate Warrior challenges and the ability to replay the story from any point, Origins give you everything you could ask for and more.

AI-genererad sammanfattning på svenska

”Dynasty Warriors: Origins” erbjuder en imponerande mängd vapen med unika funktioner, vilket gör striderna dynamiska och engagerande. Nya färdigheter och tillägg ger spelet en fräsch känsla, men vissa vapen saknas trots att de finns hos fienden. Spelet blir repetitivt med överdriven användning av spjut och lansar, vilket leder till tråkiga och låglevlade vapen i spelets senare del.

Berättelsen är välgjord men jag tappade intresset efter cirka 30 timmar på grund av långa filmsekvenser och dialoger utan verkligt inflytande på handlingen. Huvudkaraktären, Wanderer, saknar djup och fri vilja, vilket minskar engagemanget. Trots detta är spelet visuellt fantastiskt med detaljerade karaktärsmodeller och smidiga animationer.

Officerarnas interaktioner är upprepande men livliga under striderna, vilket bidrar till spelets charm. För nya och återkommande spelare erbjuder ”Origins” mängder av innehåll och utmaningar, trots den tråkiga huvudkaraktären och tunga grinden.

 
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Written by: Steve Gilman