Dynasty Warriors: Origins by developer Omega Force and publisher Koei Tecmo America—Nintendo Switch 2 review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes.
Released last year for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, Omega Force and Koei Tecmo’s latest Dynasty Warriors entry was met with high marks from Nick. Having now released for the more recent Nintendo Switch 2, it's my turn to give this adventure high marks both while settled in and on the go.
Check out Nick's Xbox review of Dynasty Warriors: Origins.
For those that may have missed this originally, Dynasty Warriors: Origins took a new approach to the series. This statement alone says a lot as Omega Force have done quite a lot over the years. From the mainline Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors to spinoff titles and series like Warriors Orochi, Dynasty Warriors Gundam, Dragon Quest Heroes, Hyrule Warriors (Legend of Zelda), Fire Emblem Warriors, Berserk, Arsland, One Piece, etc., they've experimented quite a bit.
What makes this one special is that instead of following along a group of people through historically inspired events, you follow along a single protagonist who acts as an extension of you. After giving them a name, you'll shape their personality a bit as they interact with others in the world. Are you serious? Cheeky? Up to you depending on the dialog options, but again, up to you. This character is a blank slate in the era of the Three Kingdoms.
While some may say that following a single character is nothing new in a musou, as it has been done here and there, the way Origins goes about it feels new. The blank slate that was mentioned goes for more than just the character. Our protagonist’s move sets change depending on the weapons equipped and these are alongside other abilities such as combat arts that can be mixed and matched to truly dominate the field.
One thing that felt weird at first, to me anyways, is that your character doesn't level up in the traditional sense. They have a rank, and this rank is increased as you use the various weapons available and level up your familiarity with them. The higher the familiarity, the more points you can put towards your rank, which in turn give you more ability nodes in a skill tree to unlock.
It's an interesting system that I find keeps the overall gameplay balanced as it's hard to “over level” in this fashion. You can be slightly stronger, but never so much that it's no longer fun or challenging. That word, challenging, is really where Origins truly shows that the muzo style can be taken in a different direction.
Combat in Origins is no longer a case of square, square, triangle or square, square, square, triangle. By all means, you can still go about combat in this fashion as you face the hordes in this 1v1000 format. But when it comes to enemy officers? This is a whole new ballgame as you'll need to learn how to parry and dodge if you want to win these skirmishes easily.
For the record? Me and parrying do not go well together. I can never get the timing right. But, every now and then I could land a few parries and it’s satisfying. “Time” stops for a few seconds as your character performs a non-stoppable attack animation. For the rest of the time, I leaned on being able to dodge attacks that would otherwise really hurt. Combat takes a bit longer, but I know that I’m a bit safer.
What I also appreciated with Origins was the return to grand scale battles that were not over in two minutes. There are a lot of areas, enemy bases and moving parts. This really helps sell the scale of the battles that you are participating in. To give you a bit of a break from these, there are smaller battles that can be found in-between to give you a chance to complete character requests or challenges which give you skill points or new combat arts.
Finally, I also found myself enjoying the world map that was created. While certainly not to scale, exploring the map is what allows you to partake in small skirmishes or visiting various towns and cities to buy or sell available weapons. Making things even easier, there’s a built in fast travel system from the start so if you need to go back to a specific location for something? It’s not an issue.
One worry that I had about Origins was how well it would run on the Switch 2. While the system has much more power under the hood compared to its predecessor, I worried that the scale being presented here would be too much as I’ve played Origins on the PS5 and knew what to expect from a performance level.
There was nothing to worry about. Unless we are talking about Lu Bu. He’s just as deadly as ever… so if you’re instructed to run? RUN!
The Switch 2 handles Origins very well. Whether settled comfortably in the dock or playing on the go, or simply while laying in bed, the gameplay and the visuals remain smooth. The only issue that I had was less about the performance and simply the size of text. While it wasn’t so bad on my 65” TV, when plugged into the 40” or simply taking the Switch 2 with me, it felt small and I had to squint. Maybe that’s just my age showing, but I needed bigger text than the options that were available to me.
Because otherwise? That’s my only complaint with Origins. The font size. Even the fear of being defeated is alleviated by having a checkpoint system to rewind the combat to a previous major checkpoint. This was great as you’ll no longer lose five, ten, or fifteen minutes of gameplay for one or more bad decisions, or lengthy battles against several officers.
Combining everything: the combat, the storytelling, the pacing, even exploring around the world map by foot or by horse. It works and it feels right. So if you’re a fan of the series and you haven’t yet had a chance to pick up Dynasty Warriors: Origins, you really should.
Score: 8.5 / 10
0 comments:
Post a Comment