Dynasty Warriors Origins [DEMO] [HANDS-ON] STEAM

I didn’t promise a hands-on first impressions on the demo of the newest Dynasty Warriors game, Dynasty Warriors Origins, because i don’t have a next gen console, and usually i play my musou games like that, but i figured out, there’s a Steam demo as well, maybe my relatively ancient rig can run it fine… and it did, actually surprised me that it’s good enough to run it decently.

So here it my opinions on the demo of Dynasty Warriors Origins, which lets you play one of the classic bouts of the series, The Battle Of Sishui Gate, where the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalitation attacks united and you also get to meet the demon in red, the mightiest among men, the one you do not pursue: Lu Bu.

So, in case you didn’t follow or knew of this new Dynasty Warriors game, the gist is that you play as a lone Wanderer, a skilled yet aimless martial artist that gets involved into the turbolent battles and political machinations of the characters from Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, so you can basically decide around a bit, and interact and fight alongside the many characters fans of the novel and Koei series have learned to know, love and hate.

It’s not quite an OC or a CAW character similar to how you had a self-insert protagonist in the Samurai Warriors Chronicles games, as the Wanderer is a precisely designed character and so you can’t change much about his looks (nor you can choose for a female option, as far as i remember), not that it matters for the portion of game given by the demo.

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Musou May and the State Of Musou as of May 2023?

As per what is now tradition, this year too we’ll have Musoy May, with a picked review of a musou/Warriors game every sunday of May.

Here’s where i usually make a general ramble about the state of the genre as of late, but…. there isn’t really much to say or even get unreasonably hyped about, as we neither got any new contender/challenger from some small or medium sized developer & publisher nor does TK really revealed, teased or announced anything.

Samurai Warriors 5 came out in 2021, but aside from a Season Pass TK didn’t either put out a XL or Empires version, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires needed a lot of shit to be added or patched in, but again, aside a tepid Season Pass that wasn’t really worth paying (for the most part), there was no post-launch support, and since how barebones the modes on offering were… it would have needed.

Touken Ranbu Warriors was also released, but for whatever reason TK decided to launch it digital only on both Switch and PC (via Steam), and i’m gonna save the lamentations about that for its review.

Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes was almost perfect but was curiously devoid of expansion content (which is fine since it’s an already massive offering to begin with), so that’s odd.

All we got since June 2022 was simply a teaser trailer for Fate Samurai/Remnant that should release sometime this year, no actual gameplay footage or any real info aside from what could be seen in that short teaser trailer. Surprised it took them this long and actually Marvelous already did developed 2 Fate musou games, but still, it has been months devoid of any news about it or anything else Warriors or Warriors related.

Maybe TK is holding out for what was “E3 time” or for the TGS to drop the existence of Dynasty Warriors 10 (which they teased in interviews before), but at this point there’s just nothing to talk about of substance, and this behaviour kinda speaks volume for how Koei considers his musou output.

I mean, when the best news is them re-releasing WO3 Ultimate in a definitive edition package…. you can tell there’s a drought and no signs of the main gardener being interested in watering the cacti.

I mean, unless they do a 180 ° with Dynasty Warriors 10, Koei shouldn’t complain of losing even more customers, after DW 9 they deserve every critique and negativity coming their way.

Touken Ranbu Warriors NSWITCH [DEMO] [HANDS-ON] | Bishounen Sword Boys VS History Revisionists

Well, that was kinda unexpected, i genuinely though that editorial-ramble earlier this month would be the last time i talk about Touken Ranbu Warriors, but a week before release they also put out a demo on the European (and i guess other territories) eShop, so let’s give it a try.

And say some words. I do mean “some”; because there’s actually very little to say, and actually the bigger news is that the game is also coming to PC in the west, as a Steam release (since the DMM platform isn’t available outside of Japan), with a demo also available for that version. And that version will run in 60 fps, unlike the 30 fps locked Switch release.

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Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires PS4 [DEMO] [HANDS-ON]

With the game officially launching in the west in less than a month, Koei finally released the demo for Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires…. properly, i saw plenty of people that managed to get it via the Microsoft Store by fenagling with the regional accounts, but even those versions made available for non-english speaking territories had english in it.

Whatever, the demo is out now pretty much everywhere on consoles, and it includes the tutorial for the basic combat and the battle of Changsha, but NOT the Diplomacy phases and political managerie.

Make sense since they want to showcase the revamped Castle Sieges, by letting you play the battle of Changsha on the invading or defensive’s side, and also the revised Edit Mode, it’s an Empires game after, and you will be able to carry over the created officers’ data to the full game.

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Musing on Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires after the TGS 2021 Tecmo Koei presentation

First of all, let me just say i’m happy Koei is continuining their historical strategy series in time, so i’m glad we’re getting another Nogunaga’s Ambition, but my taste lies more in their hack n slash musou titles based on the same historical periods of China and Japan, so i’m gonna unleash some thoughts on Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires i had for some weeks, after the first gameplay video shown at the China Joy event.

Preface: i often find the Empires spin-offs often quite hit or miss, great in theory but not always in execution, as it’s by design a compromise, it’s never gonna be proper deep strategy management like the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms series, otherwise there would be no point to that or them even being named after Dynasty Warriors.

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Samurai Warriors 5 PS4 DEMO [HANDS-ON]

So, Samurai Warriors 5 it’s gonna be out in a week, and Koei Tecmo decided to release a demo for it, so might as well give it a hands-on, since i won’t be reviewing it at launch.

I did eventually pre-order the Treasure Edition for it (not the collector’s one since Koei basically wanted 70 more bucks just for 5 tiny acrylic stands, fuck off), so i will be playing it, but i won’t have a review out, as i would like to do a retrospective of the Dynasty Warriors series, and maybe the same for the sister series Samurai Warriors, and “do” the games in order.

MAYBE i will just do a quick EXPRESSO review, but for sure not an extensive one.

The demo offers two maps/scenarios from the first chapter of the game, and four playable characters to pick a team of 2 from Hideyoshi Hashiba, No, Eiyasu Tokugawa and Toshiee Maeda (with Nobunaga Oda playable in the story mode but not in Free Mode, at least in this demo offering), with the ability to carry over the save data to the full game when it releases.

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Samurai Warriors 5 [ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER RAMBLE]

After being presented in the last Nintendo Direct (which i saw but didn’t write a post about because i couldn’t be arsed), yesterday we got a slightly longer announcement trailer from Tecmo Koei, some more info and footage, alongside pre-order bonuses, a confirmation on what platforms it would launch and a more precise release date.

Speaking of which, i’m kinda surprised the game (at the moment) doesn’t have a planned PS5 version, odd considering they announced Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires (which is a month away, more or less) would have a PS5 and Switch release back in 2020. Considering how they just releases in the west Persona 5 Strikers on PS4 with no plans of next-gen version, maybe it’s because they are waiting for when more people have made the “gen jump”, i mean, it’s gonna be slower than usual anyway given the circumstances. Hardly even feels like we just entered a new console gen.

The game itself.. looks good, at least i can say that for the art direction (the after-musou attack sumi-e screen are gorgeous), more otome-like, why not, and i’m liking the new designs, the decision to focus on the Nobunaga-Akechi relantionship is fine as well. One could say they are attempting a “soft reboot” with this one, but still, this is not an excuse to say that the game will have just 27 playable characters (most returning and someone new, of course), HALF of what Samurai Warriors 4 had.

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True State Of Musou (As of 2020)

I teased this with my comment on the Dynasty Warriors 20th Anniversary celebration video, and – as i said in the article – that was just the tipping point, the final push to make me write down an editorial on the musou genre/subgenre, one i had been ruminating about for a couple of years.

And to do that, i will have to start not from the beginning (i will eventually do a full retrospective, in time), but from the last numbered title in the main Warriors series, Dynasty Warriors, yes, Dynasty Warriors 9.

This is a long article, ready your beverage of choice. Continua a leggere “True State Of Musou (As of 2020)”

Dynasty Warriors 20th Anniversary video and the state of musou

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Today Koei released a compilation video to commemorate the series’ 20th anniversary, and while kinda nice, it’s also unadvertly very Koei, as they managed to cut content and recycle too much even in this occasion. XD

The trailer gives a brief compilation of cinematics and gameplay videos from all mainline Dynasty Warriors titles (and some brief logos appearances from the many spin-offs), and even the Empires and Xtreme Legends spin-off/expansions attached to those. All.. except the very first title in the series.

The real reason is because the first Dynasty Warriors wasn’t a musou, but a 1 on 1 fighter, and they clearly don’t consider it because Dynasty Warriors properly started in 2000 with what has been localized as “Dynasty Warriors 2”, but in Japan the first one was called simply “Sangoku Musou”, and to make more clear the change in direction, they called the second one “Shin Sangoku Musou”, so Dynasty Warriors 3 is “Shin Sangoku Musou 2” and so on.

Which highlight how they didn’t even bother to make another version of the video, sure, it would have been a bit odd to show a game that really doesn’t play like all the others in the series, but they also show Dynasty Warriors 9/Shin Sangoku Musou 8 (without apologizing), and it would have been correct. It also would have required more work, so of course Koei didn’t bother and uploaded it as is even on their official european Youtube channel.

Dynasty Warriors 20th Anniversary everyone is here

It may sound petty to make such a big deal out of this, but it’s so typical of Koei’s treatment of the series that they somehow managed to make some of it’s flaws and rightfully critiqued trends (like cutting corners by not dubbing the western releases of most musou titles in english) bleed into the celebratory 20th anniversary trip down memory lane. It’s so typical it’s downright depressing and make the otherwise well meaning “thank you” message at end feel completely hollow.

And i worry, because this is indicative of the state of the series as a whole… but i’m gonna dedicate an entire editorial to that later, there’s way too much to say, and i was planning to anyway, but this video gave me the final push.

Sorry for the teasing in the title, but don’t worry, that editorial won’t be locked behind a DLC or Season Pass paywall, or squirrelled away into an Xtreme Legends expansion at full retail price.

Dynasty Warriors 20th Anniversary thank you card.png