Opinions on Koei Warriors games (Dynasty/Samurai/Gundam/Orochi etc?) tend to vary wildly. Fan's seem to love the games and salivate at the thought of new ones, though they pick and choose their favorites. People who aren't fans...well, loathe them.
IT'S JUST THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER! EVERY GAME! IT'S NOT EVEN INTERESTING! WHY DO YOU KEEP BUYING THIS GARBAGE BALRHGFKJDSFKJA- they say shortly before foaming at the mouth and clawing out their own eyes. Alright, maybe this is hyperbole, but this isn't very far off from the things I have and i'm sure you have heard. So does this mean detractors of the games are wrong?
Well, no, not exactly.
To be fair, the Koei Warriors games have evolved at the same glacial pace you might expect congress to resolve a key issue, IE just a shy quicker then never. These days each game has a seemingly minor tweak, but overall the formula has remained the same (as has the AI, seemingly) since Dynasty Warriors 3 on the PS1. Your a dude, a badass dude (possibly dudette), and you run around a drab battlefield slaughtering powerless mooks with almost no ability to stop you, occasionally face a challenge in an opposing general, and just generally chopsocky your way through historical/ficticious japan/china/universal century. Combo's may or may not be involved. Sometimes, you get really mad and go totally apeshit on everything around you with a Musou supermove. Sometimes you grab Sake off the battlefield and do this too. Because booze gives you magical powers, I guess.
So why, why do we love these games?
Well it's hard to explain to outsiders. My first experiance with Dynasty Warriors was DW3 on the PS1. The Graphics were atrocious, the story was almost nonexistant. I barely had any idea what was going on. But I got the general gist that I was a warrior in fuedal china, fighting to gain absolute control of the land for my lord. As the game progressed, battles got more and more challenging. It became less about slaughtering dudes and more about completing objectives, completly, rushing from point a to point b.
At their best, Koei Warrior games make you feel like your the badass hero, but your side is totally fucked if you don't get on your horse and get OVER THERE RIGHT NOW TO PUT OUT THAT FIRE. Oh shit, NOW YOU GOTTA GET OVER THERE GO GO GO OH NO SOMEONE DIED AND WE LOST A POSISTION ENEMY REINFORCEMENTS BLARHGL
I got totally into it. I was standing on the balls of my feet at tension, somehow caught in the moment despite the utter lack of any coherent presentation. What I did know was that Lu Bu was fucking badass, and he had come to destroy us all. But no problem, i'll just pwn hi- HOLY SHIT I'M DYING RUN RUN RUN AHH
Fuck you Lu Bu. Seriously.
At their best, the games convey an overwhelming sense of tension. When a battle starts out really well, you just know something is going to go apeshit wrong and everything is going to come down to you pulling off a double hat trick blindfolded to save the day. Or if you come into a battle getting raped, if you can just rush all ovetr the battlefield killing enemy generals fast enough, maybe your lord will LIVE.
Perhaps the game that best exemplified this for me was Samurai Warriors, which had some truly epic set peices (Yukimura Sanda's last mission, for example) that involve you rushing all over to achieve, ultimatly phyrric victories. Yukimura repels the enemy, saves the left flank, rescues the lord from assasination, races to secure the castle walls, only for his allies to ***** out and retreat, leaving him alone on the battlefield. The game then gives you one final mission.
Kill Ieyasu Tokugawa, and destroy anyone that gets in your way. Que roaring rampage acrossed the map, final showdown to Ieyasu, and a closing cutscene that shows Yukimura dying in a hail of spears and bullets, even his great foe Ieyasu declaring him to be a living legend as he dies.
End of game.
And then a second story path opens up on an earlyer mission that allows you to go back and save your lord from assasination, completly changing history, and letting you replay the series of losing battles you had just struggled through into a sequence of ass kickings, because Shingen is just that awesome of a general.
Seriously, fuck you Hanzo.
If you don't like the games, thats fine. I'll be the first to tell you they peaked with Samurai Warriors, and the more recent ones havn't been very good at all. Samurai Warriors just encapsulated the drama and the urgency and the crazy kung fu action that a Koei Warriors game can deliver, replete with hundreds of slaughtered footmen, the best. The newest games have perhaps been a bit easy, though blissfully less guide dangit then earlyer titles like Samurai Warriors.
I just picked up Samurai Warriors 3, and I hope it's as immersive as the original. The sequel was a tad dissapointing, glossing over many of the tragic ends these legendary warriors came too (seriously, like every ending in Samurai Warriors was sad, unless you replayed and got the happy Gaiden endings). Even if it isn't, I look forward to putting out fires.
And by fires, I mean planting a spear in some crazy japanese dudes ass.
IT'S JUST THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER! EVERY GAME! IT'S NOT EVEN INTERESTING! WHY DO YOU KEEP BUYING THIS GARBAGE BALRHGFKJDSFKJA- they say shortly before foaming at the mouth and clawing out their own eyes. Alright, maybe this is hyperbole, but this isn't very far off from the things I have and i'm sure you have heard. So does this mean detractors of the games are wrong?
Well, no, not exactly.
To be fair, the Koei Warriors games have evolved at the same glacial pace you might expect congress to resolve a key issue, IE just a shy quicker then never. These days each game has a seemingly minor tweak, but overall the formula has remained the same (as has the AI, seemingly) since Dynasty Warriors 3 on the PS1. Your a dude, a badass dude (possibly dudette), and you run around a drab battlefield slaughtering powerless mooks with almost no ability to stop you, occasionally face a challenge in an opposing general, and just generally chopsocky your way through historical/ficticious japan/china/universal century. Combo's may or may not be involved. Sometimes, you get really mad and go totally apeshit on everything around you with a Musou supermove. Sometimes you grab Sake off the battlefield and do this too. Because booze gives you magical powers, I guess.
So why, why do we love these games?
Well it's hard to explain to outsiders. My first experiance with Dynasty Warriors was DW3 on the PS1. The Graphics were atrocious, the story was almost nonexistant. I barely had any idea what was going on. But I got the general gist that I was a warrior in fuedal china, fighting to gain absolute control of the land for my lord. As the game progressed, battles got more and more challenging. It became less about slaughtering dudes and more about completing objectives, completly, rushing from point a to point b.
At their best, Koei Warrior games make you feel like your the badass hero, but your side is totally fucked if you don't get on your horse and get OVER THERE RIGHT NOW TO PUT OUT THAT FIRE. Oh shit, NOW YOU GOTTA GET OVER THERE GO GO GO OH NO SOMEONE DIED AND WE LOST A POSISTION ENEMY REINFORCEMENTS BLARHGL
I got totally into it. I was standing on the balls of my feet at tension, somehow caught in the moment despite the utter lack of any coherent presentation. What I did know was that Lu Bu was fucking badass, and he had come to destroy us all. But no problem, i'll just pwn hi- HOLY SHIT I'M DYING RUN RUN RUN AHH
Fuck you Lu Bu. Seriously.
At their best, the games convey an overwhelming sense of tension. When a battle starts out really well, you just know something is going to go apeshit wrong and everything is going to come down to you pulling off a double hat trick blindfolded to save the day. Or if you come into a battle getting raped, if you can just rush all ovetr the battlefield killing enemy generals fast enough, maybe your lord will LIVE.
Perhaps the game that best exemplified this for me was Samurai Warriors, which had some truly epic set peices (Yukimura Sanda's last mission, for example) that involve you rushing all over to achieve, ultimatly phyrric victories. Yukimura repels the enemy, saves the left flank, rescues the lord from assasination, races to secure the castle walls, only for his allies to ***** out and retreat, leaving him alone on the battlefield. The game then gives you one final mission.
Kill Ieyasu Tokugawa, and destroy anyone that gets in your way. Que roaring rampage acrossed the map, final showdown to Ieyasu, and a closing cutscene that shows Yukimura dying in a hail of spears and bullets, even his great foe Ieyasu declaring him to be a living legend as he dies.
End of game.
And then a second story path opens up on an earlyer mission that allows you to go back and save your lord from assasination, completly changing history, and letting you replay the series of losing battles you had just struggled through into a sequence of ass kickings, because Shingen is just that awesome of a general.
Seriously, fuck you Hanzo.
If you don't like the games, thats fine. I'll be the first to tell you they peaked with Samurai Warriors, and the more recent ones havn't been very good at all. Samurai Warriors just encapsulated the drama and the urgency and the crazy kung fu action that a Koei Warriors game can deliver, replete with hundreds of slaughtered footmen, the best. The newest games have perhaps been a bit easy, though blissfully less guide dangit then earlyer titles like Samurai Warriors.
I just picked up Samurai Warriors 3, and I hope it's as immersive as the original. The sequel was a tad dissapointing, glossing over many of the tragic ends these legendary warriors came too (seriously, like every ending in Samurai Warriors was sad, unless you replayed and got the happy Gaiden endings). Even if it isn't, I look forward to putting out fires.
And by fires, I mean planting a spear in some crazy japanese dudes ass.
