GamerEscape

I’ve always considered myself a fan of Warriors games. One of my earliest reviews for this site was actually Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada back in 2017 and I’ve poured hundreds of hours into the various Warriors spin-off games… and yet somehow I’ve never played an actual full fledged Dynasty Warriors before. So of course when the opportunity came up to review Dynasty Warriors: Origins, I leapt at the chance, eager to see how it differed from what I knew both as a Dynasty Warriors title and as the latest in the franchise.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins was developed and published by Koei Tecmo for Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, releasing on January 16th, 2025. The Steam version was played for this review.

A Historic Drama

Dynasty Warriors as a series takes place during the Three Kingdoms period of China, ranging from the fall of the Han dynasty to its reunification under the Jin. Though, it’s perhaps more apt to call it an adaptation of “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” itself a dramatized version of the historical events. So, take things with a grain of salt. Fittingly, Dynasty Warriors: Origins stretches from the Yellow Turban Revolt that kicked things off, to the formation of the three kingdoms of Shu, Wei, and Wu. 

You play as an amnesiac Guardian of Peace, a member of a secretive tribe of highly skilled warriors who use their talents to ensure a peaceful and united future, even if the path to that peaceful future involves single handedly taking out a thousand soldiers in a single battle. Uncovering who you were, the promises you made, and how it all relates to the ongoing struggles forms the core of Dynasty Warriors: Origin’s addition to the plot, though this usually takes a back seat compared to the greater war going on and leaves your personal quest feeling more like a sidequest for a majority of the game.

Not tied to any singular lord, you help out across China meeting all the major players of the era and uncovering more about your past. Eventually, as the heroes go from working together to splitting up into the eponymous three kingdoms, you will be forced to pick a side. But by then you’ll have a good understanding of the characters at play.

Speaking of the cast of characters, most of them can be a bit flanderized having one or two main attributes they bring up all the time, but this is arguably for the best. There are a LOT of characters to get to know in short order, and it’s not helped by many of them being from the same family and having similar names as a result, like Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu. In this regard, having a striking personality difference helps set them apart from one another, making it fairly easy for someone to keep up with everything that’s going on. On a side note, during missions you can actually look up info on any named characters, even one-off characters with little significance, and learn about who they were in the source material.

Unfortunately I have some issues with the balance of attention to the three sides. They’re all options to pick so you’d think they’d get equal attention, but while Liu Bei is not only the first group you meet, they also seem to be propped up as the “correct” choice, being the most moral of the bunch. Cao Cao gets nearly the same amount of attention and might appeal to those who value reason and unity over being egalitarian… And then there’s the Sun clan who are one of the three kingdoms but then get barely any attention. On my playthrough I wound up siding with Liu Bei, and even after then the focus was primarily on his rivalry with Cao Cao, and the Suns were relegated to the occasional “And I was here too!” moments.

The pacing is also all over the place. There’s plenty of scenes that are there obviously as a nod to the source material, but lacking in details or supporting context to make them stand on their own so they feel kind of random. At the same time there are moments where it sounds like the plot is building up to some important battle or diplomatic encounter, only to gloss over it in a time skip with white text on a black background. There are moments that drag on longer than they should, and moments that needed more time to land.

That all said, the story IS compelling. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a classic for a reason, full of tense moments and shifting allegiances. The characterization of all the players is also top notch; I loved everyone I came across, even if some are smug snakes that I love to hate. Despite my issues with the pacing, I had an easy time keeping up with everything that was going on, and I look forward to checking out the paths I hadn’t taken in my own time.

Speaking of which, there are more decisions to make other than what side to pick. There are plenty of missions you can complete in an optional way, usually by taking a much harder route (so this is largely unfeasible until new game+ when chapter select is unlocked), and this will cause the timeline to branch, for a little time at least. Little narrative touches to reward players for taking a path less taken are always something I love.

Let’s Get Down to Business

Dynasty Warriors: Origins follows the tried and true Warriors formula for the most part, playing a skilled warrior who dashes across the battlefield taking out scores of minions, other officers and generals, and taking bases to help your army complete their objective. A formula I love, it’s one that indulges in the power fantasy of being immensely powerful while also requiring tactical skill as you can only be in one place at one time, so you must choose where to direct your attention to keep your army from being wiped out.

One particular difference from other Warriors titles is the controls. For most Warriors games I’ve played they’ve stuck to a particular control style. You have a weak attack string and interrupting this with a heavy attack brings out a different attack depending on where in the string you interrupt it. Dynasty Warriors Origins does have this… for the first weapon. Every weapon unlocked after that point departs from this to focus more on aspects like charged attacks, properly timed followups, heavy attack strings, and other such ways to shake things up.

Fighting enemy officers also requires a lot more focus than previous titles, with attacks that you can either parry or interrupt, and you’re punished pretty hard if they can land an attack. There’s a lot more player agency this go around, plenty of ways you can make things go faster… but this does not mean this is an easier title. Far from it. Especially on the rare boss encounter, you will be expected to master all these techniques or die trying. One particular encounter took me well over an hour, and admittedly was against someone who VERY much deserved to be difficult, but this was still a level of challenge I had not seen in any Warriors game prior.

Between the counters, interrupts, certain attack strings like using heavy attacks out of a block, and of course the difficulty, I felt more like I was playing another of Koei’s titles: Nioh 2. Time will tell how diehard fans of the series will feel about these changes, but I’m a fan. Usually Warriors games are a very “shut your brain off and fight” kind of challenge for me, this one really forced me to pay attention like no other.

If I had one complaint, it would be on the character and weapon variety. First off, you’re stuck as the protagonist for the entire game. Many of the story missions do allow you to have a partner who stays close to you and who you can swap to… but that requires having a gauge fill and then you can only swap to them temporarily. There are also only ten weapon types, all of which the player can swap between and your temporary characters will use one of these ten weapons. This is in contrast to every other Warriors game I’ve played which have a large cast of characters you regularly swap between, all with their own unique weapons or at least unique movesets. 

Stylish as the Rest

First things first, the characters and environments look gorgeous, but that’s no surprise for a Warriors title. Neither is the absolutely rocking soundtrack; it’s honestly one of the best things from the series. The developers know how to get you absolutely pumped to carry an army on your back.

I do wish the voice acting was better however. While it’s passable for the most part, there are a LOT of awkward pauses, likely due to trying to make a short line match a longer span of time. It may just be an intended character quirk since some characters are more prone to it than others, especially Liu Bei, but it just drew to mind 90s anime dubs more than feeling like a natural way people talk.

A Change of Pace

I admit I’m a little torn on how to score this. Usually a lower score means newcomers may bounce off but fans of the series or genre may still appreciate it… but here I feel the opposite is true. The gameplay is the most polished I’ve seen in a Warriors title and I can’t deny that the moment to moment combat was more fun than ever. The difficulty felt just right, somehow managing to naturally transition between moments of feeling absolute power and moments where your victory is a hard won prize. Yet it is the little things that give me pause, and I see the lack of playable characters in particular driving plenty of fans away since that’s always been a hallmark of the series.

At the end of the day, I have to follow my heart. I absolutely had a blast, even as a fan of the genre who wishes that things had been done differently in a number of areas. Whether you’re a long time fan or new to the series, I have to recommend checking this out.

~ Final Score: 9/10 ~

Review copy provided by Koei Tecmo for PC. Screenshots taken by reviewer.