REVIEW – The tenth mainline episode of the Warriors franchise doesn’t really experiment much, doesn’t really deviate from what it has to offer, but it does go back to basics, it was mostly well executed, and for that very reason it deserves a solid rating. You don’t have to expect an open world RPG (Dynasty Warriors 9 was a huge flop partially because of that, even though it attempted to be an open-world RPG), and this time less really is more…

Dynasty Warriors 9 could be seen as the low point of the franchise, but Omega Force went back to basics after that… and it worked out well for them.

It’s no coincidence that the title of the game includes the word Origins

There are still some elements of the action-RPG style sequences, but DWO has been simplified. This may divide the audience, but they should reflect on the fact that maybe it’s not a coincidence that DW9 was criticized quite a lot. Okay, there’s no multiplayer here and you can’t really count on other game modes, but that’s why it brings the classic experience we’ve come to expect. It’s not complex in its gameplay, but it doesn’t quite bring the classic Dynasty Warriors style, as it seems to have taken some elements from the Empires sub-franchise. When you play on harder difficulty levels, you can’t just mindlessly grind, you have to think and play with some strategy. You have to cut teams off from each other, you have to capture bases, and they can turn the tide of a battle in your favor very quickly. When that happens, it really lifts the mood. DWO’s morale system should be mentioned here. When we capture bases, defeat enemy commanders, and execute tactics brilliantly, the morale of our allies increases and their effectiveness improves in return, but when our opponent does the same to us, their performance deteriorates.

Therefore, sometimes we have to think about whether it is a good idea to complete the main mission with low morale, risking the life of one of our commanders, or whether we should raise morale by performing side missions to make the tasks ahead less dangerous. So the dynamics of DWO literally depend on how well we keep each other’s morale up. Sometimes it’s just not worth taking too many risks by choosing a higher difficulty than Hero (which is recommended as a first step if you’re new to the musou genre). Strong attacks, perfect timing of dodging and parrying attacks will increase our bravery, which can be used to deploy stronger moves (Battle Arts). These reduce your opponent’s Fortitude, so you can give them a good kick in the pants. Parry in a Musou game? Yes, as strange as it may seem. You can get very good results if you can learn everything properly, but it’s not really necessary to master everything at a professional level. (Unless you turn up the difficulty, but then DWO will really penalize you for a small mistake.)

1 against 1000, but with slaughter instead of a quiz

DWO can take advantage of modern hardware to the point where the 1 vs. 1000 promised earlier by Omega Force and Koei Tecmo can be achieved. Don’t be surprised if you have to take out a lot of soldiers per mission, even on horseback. There’s a vibe to it, and it’s hard to define in descriptive terms, but it simply gives you a kind of elemental instinct of joy as you take them down en masse with essentially a single character (there are more, but you can only control them temporarily – like Guan Yu). He levels up by increasing the ranks of the weapons he collects (there are ten weapons in total), and you need to earn more points per rank, so he encourages you to take out the less/unused weapons as they are easier to rank up, and therefore the gameplay, while not experimental, rewards you for doing so.

As you level up weapons, new abilities, fighting skills and combos are unlocked, so none of them will be very easy (but the fact that the temporary characters will be at the same level as our protagonist will be). The problem is that the story and its presentation is average at best. There will be decisions to be made, but the scenes are still a bit subpar (but better than DW9). The dialog and voice acting are good… but let’s not exaggerate, as you can also talk to a lot of NPCs (most of the time it’s useless and you don’t really develop an emotional connection with them). But if you want to see everything 100%, there will be a lot of communication, and it’s only recommended for those who are interested in early Chinese history. If not, it won’t tell you anything in the larger context of history. Oh, and the biggest stupidity: our clichéd, amnesiac, mute protagonist…

-V-

Publisher: Koei Tecmo
Developer: Omega Force
Style: musou
Release: Date: January 17, 2025