Dynasty Warriors (1997) Review - Does it still hold up? 

**Hey everyone! I just wanted to correct an error I made in the video** I mentioned that Koei released Dead or Alive one year before DW1. This is incorrect. Tecmo had in fact released DOA, not Koei, and at this point both companies hadn’t merged yet. While researching this video and Koei’s publishing history, I sourced this info from a list that appears to have combined both Koei and Tecmo’s publishing history. Sorry everyone!

The secret characters off the screen was definitely intended, and was the style at the time as usually hidden boss characters tended to be there within other fighting games. Part of the issue is those character screens are premade so they either have to make new screens for every character unlocked, or show that there are characters that can be unlocked. Not to mention back in the day, these screens usually are prerendered and static to save on space. So, to add to the notion of it being a 'secret' and not an 'unlockable', often games of the era would have you move the cursor offscreen to select those characters.

4:49 Actually Xuchang. Shangyong is an incorrect translation. 4:52 Red Wall is the literal translation of Chibi, other than Red Cliffs (not to be confused with the Chiya Red Cliff within the Qinling Mountains within Hanzhong Commandery). 4:57 The Phoenix Palace, or literally the Feng (Fuh-ng) Rites Arbor (Fengyiting/Hougitei) is actually the place where Lü Bu secretly met with Diaochan in the OG ROTK novel and was then spotted by Dong Zhuo, who tried to grab Lü Bu's own halberd and chase him down with it (that went well). That incident as intended by Diaochan was to further drive the wedge between both those 2 and Lü Bu eventually decided to work with Wang Yun to kill Dong Zhuo. 6:02 Tohkichi is actually the title character of Lori's Taikou Risshiden series, being a nickname based on Tou'ichirou Kinoshita (Hideyoshi Toyotomi's earliest peasant name; yes, Tohkichi is Hideyoshi for those who don't know). Tohkichi isn't the only clone moveset character. Shangxiang actually also shares Zhou Yu's moveset while Nobunaga shares Lü Bu's.

Glad it wasn’t just me thinking that the CGI was terrifying and uncanny at times

Even though I’m no longer the musou fan I was, I gotta say, blasting my way through the yellow turbans in DW 2 with newfound glory blasting through my speakers and a full 15 years on this earth, it was a great time, and so were the at least hundred hours I spent with it and DW 3 over the next half a dozen years, and I appreciate the series for giving me those memories.

I remember my brother wanted to rent Mk4 from blockbuster, but my mother said it was too violent, so he had to rent this instead. Started our love for the series.

maaaaan this just reminds me of the amazing vs mode in Orochi 2~ that shit SLAPPED even if some characters were broken (lookin at Kojiro with a damn infinite) but man man man was it fun as hell. and the song was a complete banger

I was NOT prepared to see Lü Bü’s vinegar strokes face at 17:33. Holy shit that was funny.

The eyeball scene was disturbing to me when I was 13. I wasn’t expecting to see anything like that playing this game

I remember this. This is another one of those weird little games that I walked past a million times in the 90s and never bothered to play, but knew the cover like the back of my hand. Kinda like Quest 64, or Hexen.

I actually had fun with this game. It's charming. Only thing i don't like is the characters taking forever to get up from a fall. But that was most 3d fighting games at the time too, they were still figuring out some things. I can replay this today no problem. It has a Tekken 2 kind of charm. Cool review man.

Its funny how little some of these mechanics were in DW2 but FUNNILY plenty were in DW3. Hell DW3 even has the duel mode to omage this first entry. But yeah the parry or parry push back was in DW3 and superbly useful (aside against Lu Bu whos reach is accross the moon so you screwing yourself) Plus even the winning poses were similar. I do say this game is really a product of its time since fighting games were all the rage until Koei got their own groove with Hack and Slash 1 man army. I do agree this one is more for the fans mostly due to how obscure this game is or hard to find/buy. Yet i cannot stop but smile at the game especially that opening theme. It is worth for nostalgia/filling up the collection. Also i see our army is growing! So glad to see the members popping in more and more dude as well as on discord

Dude well done with the DW vid! This had a lot of information that I wasn’t aware of.

Now this is a weird one, and that honestly makes me want to play it even more. Just the fact that the series started with something so different, and nobody brings it up is interesting to me, kinda like the very first Street Fighter in a way, where it's not really something to go back to unless you want to see where the whole thing started. Plus I really like fighting games anyway. (And it has my boy Taichi Ci) Shame we've never gotten another DW fighting game besides a mobile title, I could easily see it playing something like Marvel Vs Capcom with how wild the series has gotten since then. At least we have vs modes in games like DW3 and 4, or Orochi 2 and 3.

I think the character selection screen was so inspired by Soul Edge and more in Tekken. It looks very very similar and it also shares the feature that unlocked characters will not display IMO BTW Great video and I might be the only Mexican Warriors series fan lol so in love with it

Dang I used to play this all the time as a kid and have NEVER seen Nobunaga and Toukichi 😭

Mane I remember when Sony use to mail me those PlayStation Underground CDs; And while I was excited to play that first Tomb Raider demo, the extra boost of excitement came from the Dynasty Warriors demo which had that extra element of mysterious excitement because no one knew what Dynasty Warriors was as everyone was familiar with Tekken, Battle Arena Toshinden, Virtua Fighter, and if my memory is correct, I believe Tobal No. 1 was released before Dynasty Warriors and Tobal was fairly popular

Curious about seeing a video point out the final bosses in Dynasty warriors games (4 in particular) and just which characters get placed in that spot the most

Diaochan dual maces were perfect. I miss the original Dw team.

Seeing Lu Bu without the crown feathers is…weird But thats because of DW2 which was my first DW game, played it at the friend’s house back then.

Why does the gaming magazine at the start of the video refer to DW1 as a beat 'em up? A beat 'em up is like Streets of Rage, Double Dragon or DW2 and onward. DW1 was a 1on1 fighting game

It would be funny and cool if DW Origins makes any callback to DW1. Maybe classic skins like DLC of DW7 and DW8. Better yet, a mini game feature that makes you play fighting game and basically remake DW1.

I lovvvvvvveeeed this game. It sucks they haven’t done another fighter since.

oh boy those cutscenes

To be fair, it didn’t hold up when it released

Im glad im not the only one who remember this game. Me an my homies played the shat outta this. Good game.

A sequel thats smother and more charas in order? Perhaps include samurai warriors in sequal for a fighter?

3:54 they were ultimately mentioned in the manual, because, well... *They are rulers of 2 of the Three Kingdoms, they need to be mentioned for proper context.* 14:20 this is a fighting game, not a musou... The Musou Attack here serves a different purpose here. It's just a super attack. 14:45 with great pain I now say: skill issue, not game's fault... Except the game is quite sluggish alright.

*pushes glasses up* ERM technically this isn't a warriors game because it's not called Warriors Musuo in Japan.

Such an underrated classic. I love DW1.

It's WILD to see Zhou Yu's DW3XL Costume is based off his DW1 outfit. Wonder how some of the others were inspired... Have you done a video on Dynasty Tactics?

Well it's no Soul Blade

It's a bit of a pro/con thing. These old games pale in comparison to newer iterations, particularly where gameplay and grpahics are concerned but it's because of the success of those old games is the reason why we have the great games we have tod- *Looks at Ubisoft games* ummm.... huh...

2:21 hell yeah this game still holds up 🍑

The real question is..... how hard is Lu Bu?

noice