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Dynasty Warriors

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The Logo of Shin Sangoku Musou 4 (Dynasty Warriors 5)
The Logo of Shin Sangoku Musou 4 (Dynasty Warriors 5)

Dynasty Warriors ( 真・三國無双:Shin Sangokumusou in Japan and 真•三国无双: Zhen Sanguo Wushuang in China; literally meaning "True Three Kingdoms Unrivaled") is a series of video games created by Koei based loosely around the Romance of the Three Kingdoms epic, and is a spinoff series of another Koei game Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sangokushi in Japan). A spin-off of Dynasty Warriors is Dynasty Tactics.

Contents

Games in the series

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The games in this series (in chronological release order) are as follows:

Game characteristics

Cao Pi uses his Musou attack in Dynasty Warriors 5

The first game was a fighting game that was released in 1997 on the PlayStation. This game was not released under the 'Shin Sangokumusou' title in Japan which is why there is a discrepancy in title numbers. From Dynasty Warriors 2 onward, a general is chosen as a playable character and they play through a number of levels representing certain conflicts in the time of the three kingdoms eventually defeating both of the other kingdoms and becoming the ruler of China. In Musou Mode (a gameplay mode in which the Three Kingdoms story is played out from one kingdom's perspective), the generals are usually chosen from one of the three kingdoms (Wu, Shu or Wei; however, from Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends onwards, independent generals can be selected as well). Dynasty Warriors 3 had two secret characters, Nu Wa and Fu Xi, that are not playable in Musou Mode.

Both Dynasty Warriors 3 and Dynasty Warriors 5 have individual Musou Modes for each character. Dynasty Warriors 4 has a single Musou Mode for an entire Kingdom. For example, all characters aligned with Wu play through Wu's Musou Mode. This allows for characters to be interchangeable during level breaks.

The stages themselves follow a third-person beat-em-up format, where the camera is behind the player as they engage the enemy forces, while avoiding both the player's own death and one or more other loss scenarios (usually involving the death of the player's own superior, the loss of a critical ally or fortification, or the escape of an enemy leader). Unlike the more realistic Sangokushi series, the playable characters in Dynasty Warriors have superhuman abilities and can send enemy soldiers flying through the air with a single swipe from his or her weapon, if not killing them instantly. Certain generals can fire magical projectiles from their hands or pound the ground to create massive shockwaves. Thus, it is possible for one general to kill hundreds of enemy soldiers and defeat their commander without the aid of any AI controlled allies.

The order of events in a full (Musou) game for Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4 is as follows, with possible variations in order:

  1. Put down the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
  2. End the Dong Zhuo insurrection.
  3. Defeat various 'other' warlords of the time period (i.e. not Wu, Shu or Wei, however, this varies depending on the Kingdom - may include Liu Zhang, Liu Biao, Zhang Xiu or others).
  4. Defeat one of the other two kingdoms.
  5. Defeat the last remaining other kingdom.
Missions on smaller maps are intertwined between the levels, most often between the defeat of the second kingdom and the defeat of the third kingdom. Each of the main three kingdoms has additional levels that deal mainly with internal problems, or with small skirmish-like battles between kingdoms. Since Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shao, Lü Bu, Zhu Rong, Zhang Jiao and Meng Huo are all defeated in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Diao Chan leaves the arena of war and politics shortly after Dong Zhuo's downfall, their Musou Modes do not follow the book nor history and are pure fiction.

Dynasty Warriors 5 introduced a relatively more realistic Musou mode. Instead of fighting in the above set of events, most of the generals will only participate in battles they would have been alive for. Because of this, generals start off at different points in time and some generals will never encounter one another. In between stages are drama scenes in which the general will discuss the battles and their feelings on what is happening. This has given the game more of a personal view as well as kept the player up to date with what has happened in the story. Dynasty Warriors 5 also deviates from the goal of taking over China. Not all characters are interested in the conquest and a general's Musou mode may end just after their kingdom is established instead of after the last kingdom is defeated. However, Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Jian's Musou modes still vary from history. Although the characters die in other generals' Musou modes, if you choose them as the playable character, the gameplay would deviate from the original story and they would continue to participate in events taking place after their deaths.

Due to the space restraints of the Game Boy Advance cartridge, Dynasty Warriors Advance only has 13 playable characters. The battle system has been reduced to basic moves and a power-up system added. The weapon system has also been overhauled with over 200 weapons. Each character can equip three different kinds of weapons adding for a unique experience. For instance, Zhen Ji can equip flutes, fans and swords while Sun Shang Xiang can equip a chakram, claws and maces. The maps are a tactical type system with characters moving between spots on the map in a turn-based manner while fighting real time battles on a small battle field. The plot is essentially the same however due to the limited number of maps and characters, several events have changed. For example, Sun Ce can show up at the battle of Yi Ling despite the fact he was dead before the battle was fought. Cao Cao is also present at the battle of Wu Zhang plains when again, he was long dead. Those characters who are not playable in Dynasty Warriors Advance but are in other Dynasty Warriors games are present as generic generals with their respective profile image. However, there are some generals such as Sun Quan, Yuan Shao and Dong Zhuo who have unique sprites leading some fans to believe that there are more than 13 playable characters. Koei has not confirmed this.

Dynasty Warriors DS will use the same battle system and sprites from Dynasty Warriors Advance however it will have 3D backgrounds and 100 sprites will be visible at once.

The Dynasty Warriors series is known for both portraying some of the characters with personalities that are far-fetched and eccentric, such as Zhang He and Wei Yan, and for portraying others with characteristics that are quite consistent with the novel, such as Cao Cao and Dong Zhuo. Also, some generals wield weapons that are rather anachronistic, such as Ling Tong's nunchaku, Zhou Tai's katana, and Sun Ce's tonfas, or speak in an anachronistic manner. Additionally, characters that were non-combatants in the stories or in history are included in the battles, as demonstrated by the inclusion of all the female characters (except Zhu Rong, who fought in the novel with throwing knives). Finally, the issue of mysticism is touched upon with laser beam-like powers possessed by Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, the tornados unleashed by Pang Tong, and the mystical powers of the recently added wizard Zuo Ci.

Characters

There are, as of Dynasty Warriors 5, a total of 51 characters playable in the Dynasty Warriors series, 3 of whom are no longer featured in the newest games. Each character is armed with a weapon, which may be a conventional historical weapon, an exotic martial weapon, or a magical weapon enhancing their mystical powers.

Wei (魏)

Cao Cao, father of Cao Pi, who became the strongest warlord after defeating Yuan Shao and established the basis for the Kingdom of Wei. Died of a neurological disease.
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Cao Cao, father of Cao Pi, who became the strongest warlord after defeating Yuan Shao and established the basis for the Kingdom of Wei. Died of a neurological disease.

Shu (蜀)

Liu Bei, first ruler of the Kingdom of Shu, and the eldest sworn brother of Guan Yu (right) and Zhang Fei (left). Died of illness shortly after the defeat in Yi Ling.
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Liu Bei, first ruler of the Kingdom of Shu, and the eldest sworn brother of Guan Yu (right) and Zhang Fei (left). Died of illness shortly after the defeat in Yi Ling.

Wu (吳)

Sun Jian, father of Sun Ce, Sun Quan and Sun Shang Xiang, who established the basis for the Kingdom of Wu. Filled with arrows by enemy forces of Liu Biao during the Assault of Jing.
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Sun Jian, father of Sun Ce, Sun Quan and Sun Shang Xiang, who established the basis for the Kingdom of Wu. Filled with arrows by enemy forces of Liu Biao during the Assault of Jing.

Others (他)

Lu Bu, renowned as the mightiest warrior during the era of the Three Kingdoms. Defeated and executed by Cao Cao at Xia Pi.
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Lu Bu, renowned as the mightiest warrior during the era of the Three Kingdoms. Defeated and executed by Cao Cao at Xia Pi.

Notes

Due to the enormous popularity of Dynasty Warriors, Koei released numerous additional games to the series as well as spin-off games.

In 2002, the Xtreme Legends series was introduced as a kind of supplement to the original game with new modes and features. Starting from Dynasty Warriors 3, every new version number of the game was followed by an Xtreme Legends. The same applied to the Empires series starting from Dynasty Warriors 4. Introduced in 2004, Empires was a mix of the pure action of Dynasty Warriors series and the tactical and strategic gameplay of Koei's also popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. In 2006, Koei introduced a surprising new game to the series – Dynasty Warriors Mahjong, a mahjong game with the characters of Dynasty Warriors.

To gain the market of other game consoles, Koei released Xbox and PC versions of the games, as well as the specially designed Dynasty Warriors Advanced for Game Boy Advance, Dynasty Warriors for PlayStation Portable and Dynasty Warriors DS for Nintendo DS. An online PC version of the game, entitled Dynasty Warriors BB (BB for broadband) will also be released later in 2006.

The only spin-off series was Dynasty Tactics, first released in 2002 and followed by a sequel in 2003.

Criticism of English voice-work

The English voice-overs of Dynasty Warriors series wrongfully uses straightforward English pronunciations for the romanized pinyin names of characters and locations. The results are rather humorous to Chinese speakers, sometimes insulting, and misleading to its Western audience. Some unfortunate examples are the pronunciations of Cao Cao (pronounced cow cow instead of tsao tsao) and Cao Pi (pronounced cow pee instead of tsao pei). Critical opinion of the English voiceovers on the whole tends to be that they are incredibly exaggerated, to the point of ridiculousness.

See also

External links

 

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