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Dynasty Warriors: Origins Is a Fun Action Game That Lacks That Musou Charm [Review]
Dynasty Warriors: Origins, the first new Dynasty Warriors game in seven years, introduces the franchise to a new generation, but is it good?
Dynasty Warriors: Origins presents itself as a jumping-on point for newcomers. While every game in the series effectively tells the same story inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, this entry was meant to appeal to players who had never picked up a game in the series.
When I was approached to write a review about Dynasty Warriors: Origins, I was hesitant, mostly due to my unfamiliarity with the series. Sure, I was aware of the franchise since the PS2 era and knew it inspired games like Hyrule Warriors and Persona 5 Strikers, but Dynasty Warriors always came across as a bit too overwhelming for me. Not so much the fact that each game has you killing thousands of enemies each mission, but because of the dozens upon dozens of playable characters and how complex understanding the story seemed to be. Nevertheless, I delved into Dynasty Warriors: Origins and while I found myself enjoying the gameplay, the story left much to be desired.
Something that differentiates Origins from other entries in the series is that you play as a completely original character for the entire game. You are the Wanderer, a mute amnesiac who wanders China and interacts with several powerful factions, led by historical figures like Cao Cao, Sun Jian, and Liu Bei, each of whom will eventually become powerful warlords and wage countless battles against each other. But Origins doesn’t start with everyone at each other’s throats. It spends plenty of time establishing the world and threats that should be familiar to longtime fans of the series, like Zhang Jiao, Dong Zhuo, and the unpursuable Lu Bu.
It’s all what you would expect from a Dynasty Warriors game, but it all comes across as soulless. For a game boasting “1 vs. 1,000” action, it rarely revels in its inherent ludicrousness. The story plays itself too seriously like it’s trying to be a legitimate adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. While that may be fine in another medium, in the realm of video games, there’s a certain disconnect when I’m experiencing numerous protracted cutscenes going over allegiances and battle planning when I just want to summon a tornado to kill a hundred goons at once.
There are countless cutscenes where you interact with characters that fans of the earlier entries will surely recognize, but they hardly have any personality. Some have more unique characteristics, but for the most part, they barely have anything that makes them stand out from one another. They just feel workmanlike, serving a role within each faction, but nothing more. Even for a newcomer, I found myself hardly invested in the game’s story simply because its cast failed to impress me in any meaningful way. Some did – gotta love my boy Guan Yu – but most didn’t.
That interchangeable nature does extend to the gameplay, but funnily enough, I didn’t mind that all that much. While you only control the Wanderer, you’re able to customize their weapons and abilities a pretty decent amount. As you progress through the campaign, you’ll unlock nine weapons, each with their own unique properties, and can assign up to four Battle Arts that can be triggered to deal widespread damage and break enemy combos. The flashier moves require more energy, known as Bravery, but swapping between weapons based on the situation was fun. I do wish there was a faster way to swap between weapons besides going into the menu, but that’s a minor gripe.
Like most Musou games, Dynasty Warriors: Origins sees you hop onto a battlefield and try to earn victory for your faction. While this will mostly involve defeating hordes of enemies, the goals for each battle are varied enough where I never always knew what the game would throw at me. Sometimes I would have to kill the enemy commander. Other times I had to escort my commander to a certain point. Sometimes it was taking control of bases. One time it was escaping an area before I was slaughtered. Plus, given how quickly events on the battlefield may change, it was cool prioritizing what needed my attention the most to ensure victory.
One of the things I paid attention to the most was morale, which can be raised or lowered based on both you and your opponent’s actions. The higher the morale of your troops, the stronger and more efficient they were without you. The lower the morale, the more likely they would be routed by enemies. It kept me constantly engaged and figuring out which was the quickest way to raise my troops’ morale to ensure victory. Of course, doing what the game told me usually did the trick, but I often found myself strategizing about other more efficient methods.
As for the moment-to-moment combat, it’s satisfying in a way that only a hack-and-slash can provide. While common soldiers are tossed around like rag dolls and barely pose a threat, fighting enemy officers can pose a challenge. Unlike the popular reading of the Dynasty Warriors series, it’s not just a mindless button-masher. Sure, mashing the square button can defeat basic goons, but doing so will prevent you from earning more experience points for your weapons or completing the various challenges NPCs give you to earn skill points. As for enemy commanders, you’ll need to know how to block, parry, and evade their attacks if you want to have any hope of defeating them either on the battlefield or in one-on-one duels, which returns from Dynasty Warriors 4.
In combat, Dynasty Warriors: Origins becomes an almost zen-like experience. You’ll zone out as you defeat thousands of enemies, call in support characters to deal additional damage, command your own squadron to attack enemy battalions, and thwart massive moves by enemies, known as Grand Tactics, that could devastate you if they pull them off. The game is never too complex where you’re struggling to figure out what you should do next. Just grab a weapon that feels fun and go to town on an enemy army.
But while I enjoyed my time with the game’s combat, I couldn’t help but find myself becoming more bored as the game progressed. The combat was still fun, don’t get me wrong, but the story’s presentation was dry in a way that felt like you were watching a movie your old history teacher put on in high school. There’s nothing technically wrong with it, but for a series that is meant to be a bit silly and melodramatic, the more grounded presentation puts a damper on Dynasty Warriors: Origins. Purely a game, it’s a good time. As a Dynasty Warriors entry, I can’t help but feel that earlier games were better.
Verdict: Recommended
Dynasty Warriors: Originsreleases for PS5, Xbox, PC on January 17, 2025. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS5.
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