Lets Look: Dynasty Warriors

Dynasty Warriors. Just saying those two words can spark a variety of reactions from people. Some wont know what the fuck you are talking about. Some will laugh at you. Some will want to hug you tight and fangirl with you. Im in the last of those categories; I absolutely love it, its a series that I have followed since Dynasty Warriors 3 - I recall my first real encounter was on a PS2 Demo disk that let you play as Huang Gai, Guan Yu and Xiahou Dun on a Yellow Turban stage, many hours were spent trying to get as many kills as humanly possible :') Anywho, seeing as I promised stuff that WASNT just tanks, I decided to give you all an insight on this markedly niche game in the hopes some of you might be interested enough to pick it up and share in my appreciation :3

Lets start with a brief history, shall we? Dynasty Warriors first launched as a PS1 2D fighting game in the style of Soul Edge/Soul Calibur. It featured 14 characters that would go on to become mainstay characters for the rest of the series, along with two that would end up starring in a spin off series - Samurai Warriors (more on this, and other spin off titles, later!) - and was, all things considered, incredibly technical and required a lot of skill to be good at.

Humble Beginings for the mighty Warriors.

The sequel (used in the loosest possible way, all things considered) made the game into what it is today - a 3D hack-and-slash fun fest. The player assumes the role of one of 28 characters - each with their own weapons and fighting style - and fights battles. These would be selected from either Musou Mode or Free Mode, with the former being the characters story mode and the latter being a way to play any previously unlocked stage as any character. The main bulk of the game is in its Musou Mode however, as this is where you unlocked characters and stages. I think now would be a good time to point out that each of the games follows the same storyline; now hold on a second, I know what you are thinking - is this Call of Duty?! The simple answer is no. While they are all based on the same events as the 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' novel, which is in turn based on real life historical events, Tecmo-Koei do a pretty good job of making it feel fresh each time around, with different stage layouts, small changes in order of events, and the inclusion of more characters as the games go on.

Dynasty Warriors 2 - Even nostalgia cant make that UI look nice

Ok, so Dynasty Warriors 2 laid the foundation for the Warriors games as a whole, but aside from the hack-and-slash gameplay is there to keep me occupied? Well, for one the soundtracks are LITERALLY AMAZING. As in, probably some of the best in all of gaming. From the iconic 'Theme of Lu Bu' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcYaZLsjQwI to the simple but catchy 'King of Sadness' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AskzCj5brpg and even to the upbeat 'A Great Giant' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWVlWCVQnt4 - No matter the track, they all bring back so many memories of hours wasted away mashing my square button...

From 14, to a whopping 82, the Dynasty Warriors Roster is full of personality

For a little more background on the story, each game typically begins with the Yellow Turban Rebellion; the event that marked the end of the Han Dynasty and plunged China into what was known as the Three Kingdoms period. The rebellion introduces you to the leaders of the Three Kingdoms - Liu Bei of Shu, Sun Jian of Wu, and Cao Cao of Wei - along with the leader of the Coalition, Yuan Shao. After the battle is done, the leaders of the Kingdoms (at this point they dont actually *have* kingdoms, but its easier to refer to them as such) all return to their homeland and ponder of what is to become of China now the Han has crumbled away. This leads Cao Cao to devise a plot to unify the land under his rule - however many others thought the same. And so, the three kingdoms clashed, forged alliances, broke alliances, and just generally fought amongst themselves for decades. The older games gave you the gist of the story, but only since the 6th installment have they really tried to give any meaning to it. Dynasty Warriors 7 also introduced the Jin 'Kingdom' which isnt really a kingdom at all, but the Wei faction under Sima Yi's guidance after the death of Cao Cao and Cao Pi - the Jin kingdom also marked the franchises first venture into the latter half of the fighting, and of course the end of the war. Phew, so much fighting!

Zhao Yun, from Dynasty Warriors 1 on the left, and Dynasty Warriors 8 on the right

Character Development is one of the main draws to buying new Dynasty Warriors games - seeing the transformation of Zhao Yun is one thing, and the rest of the characters follow too. Now, this didnt really kick in until Dynasty Warriors 6 - before then each character was unique, yet still lacked their own... originality? For the most part it was hard to tell an officer apart from the regular footmen. 6 brought that originality to the forefront, giving each character bright and vibrant outfits, and gave us the characters we see today (the roster shot will show you what I mean) - every character is distinguishable by their face, their build and their outfit now, which is nice. Each factions characters sports a different colour; Green for Shu, Red for Wu, Dark Blue for Wei and Light Blue for Jin, with characters falling into the 'Other' category having no set colour scheme. Every character has a signature weapon too - there have been some switches here and there (again, mainly with 6 - I will talk about this next) but on the whole each character has kept the weapon that makes them... them. Zhao Yun with his dragon Spear, Cao Cao with his long sword, Zhang Liao with twin axes and Lu Bu with a Halberd. There is a weapon and move set for every kind of player.

Dynasty Warriors 6 time! They cleaned up the UI and focused on making the game flashy, woo!

Mentioning Dynasty Warriors 6 to any Dynasty Warriors fan will likely score you a scolding about how it was the series darkest hour - however I think it was probably the turning point at which the game went from merely *good* to *absolutely fantastic* - as I said before it gave each of the characters so much more personality with their new costumes and looks, and graphically it was stunning (although that was probably due to it being the first of the *then* next-gen consoles) compared to those that came before. It drew together a lot of good things in the series, but also threw in some bad. The combo system that we were used to from the old games was gone in favour of the 'Renbu' system - effectively a momentum gage that built as you attack that let you string together longer combos. This is probably why a lot of people hated it - it felt awful and made a lot of characters feel kinda bad to play. It also switched out some of the more iconic weapons - Lu Bu was given a wheeled pike in place of his usual Halberd, which left many fans sour in the mouth, but others were changed too; some for better, some for worse. However, if you can look past these two glaring faults, the direction this version took the series was exciting - maps were bigger and more varied, the story was a lot more woven in to the game and allowed players to empathise with some characters better than before (I used to think Cao Cao was a massive dick before this game, but afterwards I kinda saw his point and applauded him for it). The music also kicked up a notch, featuring a wider variety of styles and instruments, Dynasty Warriors 6 was a very rich, albeit different, approach to the series.

Dynasty Warriors 8 - wow, such graphics, many enemy, much musou, very kawaii

That leaves us with the series current release - Dynasty Warriors 8. It followed in the previous installments footsteps of allowing characters to bring two weapons to battle, with move sets being tied to weapons now and not character - so you can see Liu Bei running around with Throwing Knives and using Wang Yuanji's fighting style. It also improved this by adding a Rock, Paper, Scissors element to weapons in the form of Heaven, Earth and Man, with each being respectively effective against, or weak against the others. Costumes were more defined, more characters were added to the rosters, and stages are as good as they have ever been, although this versions Hu Lao Gate battle isnt as climactic as previous versions. Story mode offers the player a choice of several characters per stage, instead of the previous games set character, or even further back giving each character their own set of stages - this way the story is very cohesive and easy to follow for the player, while also not forcing them to play a character they may not like (although this is a non issue due to the weapons being universal now). Out for PS3, Xbox 360, PS4 and PSVita, and coming soon for PC, this is the perfect time for anyone to jump into Dynasty Warriors!

Remember kids! Do NOT pursue Lu Bu!

On a final note, I want to expand a bit on the spin-off games. The first and most notable would be Samurai Warriors - unlike Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors was set in feudal japan and featured, obviously, samurai. The likes of Tadakatsu Honda, Nobunaga Oda and Shingen Takeda all battled for control of Japan. This leads on to Warriors Orochi - this game saw characters from both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors come together to battle a new and mysterious faction led by Orochi, an evil Demon God. Other than these, Bladestorm focused on the 100 Years War between England and France during the 14th and 15th centuries, and Warriors: Legends of Troy showcased the Greeks versus the Trojans. For anime fans, both Gundam and One Piece have their own Warriors games, featuring characters from their respective universes tied together with the Warriors gameplay I have come to love. Also announced recently was 'Hyrule Warriors' - a Warriors game set in the Legend of Zelda universe. Look forward to that!