Dynasty Warriors Origins (PC)

Dynasty Warriors Origins seems to have spent plenty of time in the oven, the previous release in the series – Dynasty Warriors 9, released all the way back in 2018, so musou fans have had to make do with plenty of spin-offs in the meantime. While the plethora of spin-offs have been good, the hiatus of Dynasty Warriors hasn’t gone unnoticed, and finally, it has arrived. Worth returning to Hu Lao Gate for yet another tactical withdraw from Lu Bu’s chase? Lets find out.

As always with the Dynasty Warriors series, the narrative follows the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story, starting out at the Yellow Turban Rebellion and ending as the three kingdoms begin to wane. To mix things up, Origins weaves in its own unique tale onto this epic backdrop, as you play a wondering swordsmen looking to bring peace to the land, which is all he remembers of his village. As you fight across the land, more of this past is revealed and the mysterious arts employed by your village will help on the battlefield.

To be fair this isn’t the first time something like this has been tried, sure there was a Dynasty Warriors on Vita & 3DS that did something similar not long ago, but here it’s vastly improved and more fleshed out. Take the Yellow Turban Rebellion for example, instead of being one or two stages as previous games, is now several small skirmishes and a few big battles to make it a campaign. This allows for way more story, helped by the improved officer rendering & facial animations during in-game cutscenes, that fleshes out more of the world that before – it almost feels like an RPG at times. You’ll definitely be getting your monies worth exploring the land on this one.

Graphics aren’t usually a high point of the series, but Origins does finally bring Dynasty Warriors to current gen with surprisingly nice visuals and epic scale. The officers always get a nice bump, but its clear this time the environments were also brought up to par. There’s so much more detail to the stages now, from the rolling fog to the swaying grass, and the material work ties it all together for a cohesive presentation. I haven’t even mentioned the unit count yet. Man, this is probably what the developers envisioned all the way back for Dynasty Warriors 2, as hundreds of people clash on screen in some of the most epic battles you’ll see. The game doesn’t really let up on the special effects either during these moments. Sure the rank & file troops ain’t as highly detailed as the officers, tho they’re improved over previous games, but that’ll be the last thing on your mind when squaring up to a few hundred at once.

It just wouldn’t be Dynasty Warriors without the music, which has been updated accordingly for this new game, yet still has that air of familiarity. Minor quibble, depending on the dub you choose the lip syncing may be a bit off. Performance is decent, good even, considering the carnage. Aiming for 4K/120 on my system (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) was tough, but there’s several ways to get 60+ easy even with maximum settings. Dynamic res scaling is the easy choice, it would noticeably soften in big battles (no doubt dropping to 1080p?) but would net around 100 fps almost all the time. There are also upscaling and frame gen (both DLSS & FSR) options so you can dial in performance even more with those, the games fast paced nature probably masking some of the downsides too.

That extra time since the previous release has also led to some noticeable improvements to gameplay. The flashy fast paced nature of the combat that’s been in place since DW7 is further refined here, but the additions to the formulae really bring in some depth. You get a few special abilities to get out of tight spots, recharged by fighting or perfect evades, yes evading is possible, but its really the block/counter that shapes the new system. As officers generally have morale/armour to break, countering becomes key for survival, especially when its a duel and it becomes death by a million cuts. Battles themselves are now a little more than just ‘go here and capture this’. Sure that still happens, but with enemy officers also able to make use of tactics & formations, battles can ebb & flow like it hasn’t before. Large scale tactics can also have multiple objectives to thwart, and lower officers can have squads performing tactics, which can leave the main battles feeling frantic.

When not out fighting you’ll be exploring China on this huge map system, as you progress more of the land is unlocked which opens more opportunities. Dotted around the map are towns an encampments, with a store to buy gear and inns to rest or craft, with officers to befriend scattered around that you can do tasks for to get more of those skill points. I find it to be a great system for between battles, allowing you to just take it easy in between the large scale encounters to just explore or do a few skirmishes. Luckily you can use your horse here, or the fast travel points, as the map is pretty big so you’ll never get bored.

It’s been several years since the series stumbled with Dynasty Warriors 9, but if the series was to fall before rising again in the way it has with Origins, then it seems we should be somewhat thankful for 9. Graphics here are noticeably improved, with battles taking on a much larger scale than previous games, but its really the improvements to the storytelling and a couple of additions to the formulae that really elevates it. As a long time fan of the series this has been one of the bigger jumps for several iterations, with it almost feeling like an action RPG at times, which should also help bring some newcomers to the fold.

4

Summary

Dynasty Warriors Origins puts the series back where it belongs as the daddy of the musou sub-genre.

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Geoffrey Wright

Rocking the world of gaming since the Atari 2600, has now settled down to bask in the warmth of moe. Moe is life for a moe connoisseur.

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