The original Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel has inspired countless adaptations, to the point where it can be hard to make these now familiar characters and stories fresh again. But after spending 60 hours with Dynasty Warriors: Origins, its rebooted tale of politics, war, and diplomacy felt almost as new as the first time I discovered it. It ups the scale of its battles beyond what even this series has been known for, with more enemies on screen than ever before to truly create that “1 vs. 1000” fantasy. Pair that with improved visuals, a much deeper and more refined focus on its combat, impressive storytelling, and a wealth of postgame content and Origins has easily become my favorite Dynasty Warriors yet.
While Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ broader storylines are often the driving force behind some of Dynasty Warriors’ biggest battles, the real focus and draw of this series has always been the action itself. The moments that have stuck with me most involve taking down hundreds of opponents at once, with fights against legendary warriors like Lu Bu usually just adding a bit of flavor to that carnage. However, with Origins, Koei Tecmo and Omega Force have balanced the scales between story and combat.
Unlike previous games, which had you pick a storyline and then swap between legendary lords like Liu Bei, Sun Ce, or Cao Cao, here you take on the singular role of a brand new character created specifically for Origins. The trope of your hero being yet another wandering warrior suffering from amnesia is a bit cliche, but it works surprisingly well. This more focused storyline takes you through the earlier years of prominent Three Kingdoms characters before their rise to glory, letting you travel across multiple provinces and lend your talents to whichever army needs you. And although I did miss the ability to play as those well known officers like Guan Yu for entire missions, Origins at least gives you the option to take control of them temporarily in some specific levels, which is a nice compromise.
There isn’t much choice in the early chapters as you join iconic events like the quelling of the Yellow Turban army and the rise and fall of Dong Zhuo. But that all changes when you reach the midpoint of the roughly 45-hour (if you take the time to do all the side activities) campaign, as you must choose an alliance and lord to join permanently, which shapes your perspective throughout the rest of the story. I first chose the small but competent Shu clan, following Liu Bei’s optimism and selflessness through the highs and lows of his rise to power. Thankfully, after seeing the end of one storyline, Origins makes it very easy to either jump back in and replay any battle you want or restart from specific points in each chapter, letting you see how the story unfolds when you choose one of the other alliances. Meeting certain conditions in each of those branching stories will even unlock the “true endings” of the saga, which I am still happily working towards.
Throughout the five chapters, there is also a secondary storyline that involves the recovery of your lost memories, slowly explaining the wanderer’s role in the grander tale that unfolds. It’s filled with engaging conversations and cutscenes across a large cast of interesting characters, which adds levity and intrigue to help balance out the more exposition-heavy dialogue that focuses on the events of each battle or the various betrayals and alliances happening around them. The only real downside and oddity of your main character is that he is often emotionless – and when he does emote, it is extremely subtle, which sometimes hurts the emotional depth of certain story moments; he also doesn’t speak except for generic shouts during battle when you dodge, parry, or take down an officer.
As you encounter other prominent warriors in battle, you will occasionally find them afterward on the world map, allowing you to deepen your bond with them. Each bond has five levels, and progressing through them provides bonuses like collectible coins that offer regular rewards as you grow your collection. The final bond level even unlocks a more intimate cutscene between you and that character, and these conversations ended up being some of my favorites. For example, avoiding spoilers, it was surprisingly touching when one famous general asked me to join them for a drink so they could etch the features of my face and the sound of my voice into their memory. The characters speak so eloquently and with such reverence that it can often read as romantic interest, although none of the dozens of bonds I completed ever explicitly led to that. Still, Koei Tecmo certainly put a little bit more romance into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it.
Art of War
They say war never changes, but the weapons of war sure do. You may just begin with a sword and some very simple special attacks (known as Battle Arts), but you’ll not only unlock more options as you go, you’ll also gain proficiency with each one in order to unlock new combos and stronger abilities. That system encouraged me to keep using weapons I otherwise might not, even if my initial experience with them wasn’t great. For example, The wheels weapon, which is one I’ve enjoyed in the past, just didn’t seem to have the wave clear or damage potential of weapons like the crescent blade or gauntlets when I first unlocked it – but after increasing its proficiency a bit, I eventually discovered its potential in staggering enemy officers and its ability to shred through their defenses.
There are eight additional weapon types to unlock either by defeating specific generals or purchasing them in shops, and I generally found myself with a new one by the time I had gained three or four levels of proficiency with my current one, preventing combat from ever getting stale. Each weapon has a distinct identity that fills in nicely for Origins’ lack of switching characters, especially when you can swap between them in the middle of a mission to gain proficiency with multiple weapons per stage and adapt to the evolving situation of a battle. It quickly became apparent which weapons were ideal for me to take down as many enemies as fast as possible, especially in the latter chapters, where taking too long in one fight could mean not reaching allies in time to save them. While every weapon is designed to work in all situations, there are inherent benefits to using something like the wide-hitting lance against crowds, which also has an Endure mechanic that stores damage taken and turns it back on your enemies with improved power while restoring your health over time. Meanwhile, whenever I found myself locked in a duel with a powerful foe, it was time to bring out my gauntlets thanks to their ability to easily knock up and juggle my opponents until it was done.
Every weapon has its own set of Battle Arts, which consume a resource called Bravery and range from wide sweeping attacks to powerful repeated thrusts to various counterattacks. The more powerful and exciting ones even give you the ability to summon small tornadoes that sweep up enemies, make spires of earth that deal constant damage to anyone touching them, or (one of my personal favorites) create a laser of light fired from your fingertips that can pierce and knock up groups for as long as you hold the button down or until you run out Bravery.
Bravery is accumulated by landing hits on enemies, parrying strikes, or perfectly evading attacks after unlocking a specific skill on the skill tree. Parries and perfect evasions look better than ever and come with large benefits in combat; parrying attacks immediately opens up enemies to counterattacks, ending their combos and making them susceptible to knock-ups. Meanwhile, perfect evasions generate Bravery more quickly as you can chain dodges to restore more with each combo. These mechanics add depth to the combat and help keep fights interesting beyond just seeing how many KO’s I could get while slaughtering armies. In addition to your Battle Arts, you also have access to the all-powerful Musou Attacks that the series is known for, as well as a rage mode that refills your Bravery instantly, restores health on hits, and enables an even stronger Ultimate Musou Attack. The spectacle of these moves match their power, and it was always a rush to see 1000 KO’s pop up simultaneously when I timed one right.
While on the battlefield, you also gain access to numerous Tactics that can help turn the tide of battle when deployed properly. For instance, using your squad to rain down fire arrows in the heat of battle can deal some good damage and weaken the opposing troop’s numbers – however, moving to higher ground before unleashing them will result in a much more dramatic success, increasing the damage to their health and morale, which gives you some welcome strategic choices to make beyond simply using these moves whenever they come off cooldown. Those cooldowns can be quite lengthy, too, so these Tactics became extremely valuable for assisting officers in danger or softening up enemies to strike them down quicker.
The power fantasy of quickly devastating huge hordes of foes with ease is one of the things I love about Dynasty Warriors, and I’m happy to report that feeling is still alive and well here. However, as you turn up the difficulty, it also becomes increasingly important to utilize the defensive options at your disposal, which adds satisfying wrinkles for those who want to face them. Mastering these techniques is important on the higher Hero difficulty and essential on the Ultimate difficulty that unlocks after completing the main story – there, enemy combos will quickly deplete your health, and the more aggressive AI isn’t afraid to attack you from multiple angles at the same time, meaning one wrong move can easily lead to mission failure. I had a blast taking on this added challenge as I replayed previous missions, making enemy officers stronger and healthier but also dropping higher tiers of rewards. Some missions also carry special challenges, such as completing them within a shorter time limit, defeating specific officers, and capturing certain bases to unlock new rewards, making it even more worth my time to revisit them.
Outside of combat, Origins puts you on a gorgeous map filled with mountains, rivers, and forests, giving it the appearance of a living diorama built for strategic planning. That map is filled with numerous markers for missions to complete, skirmishes to take on, resources to collect, officers to talk to, and towns to shop in. Its 10 provinces are large enough to warrant a fast travel system of its own, but still small enough to conveniently get anywhere you need to in just a minute or two. In addition to the main story missions, side missions offer rewards like new accessories to boost your stats or more guards to improve your Tactics, while skirmishes are bite-sized, two-to-three-minute encounters that are great for earning extra money or completing the various challenges given to you by other officers.
Most of these challenges are easy tasks like killing 100 enemies with strong attacks from a spear, but I enjoyed using skirmishes as a way to handle them so that I could tackle the main missions without having to do something like limit myself to a specific weapon. The trickiest of these challenges (which I wish there were more of) required me to win five duels without taking damage – that was genuinely tough and required quite a few restarts to finish quickly, but it helped hone my skill in duels. They were also always worthwhile to complete as they rewarded me humorous or deeper conversations with some of my favorite characters, and provided bonus skill points to unlock the next thing on my skill trees. Both skirmishes and challenges became a great way to try out new builds, too, as well as a nice way to sprinkle in some action when the story reached moments of multiple back-to-back cutscenes.
