'I miss the old Dynasty Warriors' 

Gimme ur Warriors related questions or hot takes, and I’ll include as many as I can in the next discussion vid 🔥

Something I loved about the older games that's also coincides with the difficulty discussion is the "flow of battle" actually having that tug of war with the two armies. Peons and officers actually being a threat not to you but off screen as well to others. Having to think ahead and where the pieces may lay in ten minutes. "Do I have time to Go through enemy lines to take out a gate captain and this officer before my own forces get pushed back" not that it was truly ever that complicated but the feeling of the flow of battle is lost now. I can run anywhere and do anything and no one can stop me. And I don't like that, I don't need peons to wreak me but I want to at least feel like they are actually a present threat to some degree.

I miss the old shapes that represented the officers on the pause map, I have no idea why it's so important to me.

One thing I liked in dynasty warriors 6 was how they handled siege battles, having peons build siege weapons to break open the gate or setup ladders on the walls, plus enemy garrisons actually closing their gates forcing you to break them open.

I miss the micromanaging of a battlefield, focusing on specific objectives, officers, and triggering events. They need to bring that back with the addition of a morale system that actual works instead of railroading every single battlefield.

Another hot take for DW6 as this is my first Warrior game: 1. I absolutely adore the siege battle. Destroying ballistae, guarding the ram, and watching as your entire army pour onto the enemies base is something i live for in thst game. Also I like the base system, as taking over it means that place will be colored blue so you can see on the map how much progress you have made, making the battle feel more engaging. 2. I want the R1 + attack grab to be back. If you want the enemy officef to be blocking constantly, at least give us the means to break it.

Dynasty warriors 2 will always have a special place in my heart

what I hate the most on modern warriors game that you won't have any moral, troops or bodyguards anymore and that all officers go straight at you and they not act like war anymore. I mean that they fight all over the battlefield like a real war and now a bunch of enemies just go straight at u and ignore u allies and not to mention that peons are only decoration

Dynasty Tactics needs some recognition. Especially 2 since that was the first game to introduce Lu Bu's daughter.

Open world would have been a great concept if they simply connected the old-style stages together at the "Gates". Defeating Gate Captains would open up your path into another area, such as the Northern gates at Chi Bi allowing you to walk straight into the map for Cao Cao's Escape. Combine this with the old style item/weapon drops in crates, and you could find yourself trying to push hard into enemy territory you're not ready for yet to snag a great item and making it back to your army before getting killed by high level troops. And while most people do not like the open world style of 9, I can't stand the opposite approach that 7/8 (and the whole SW series) took where the maps are just corridor mazes that funneled you into the same linear path every single time you played. This is also because objectives became mandatory to progress rather than an optional way to modify the stage's difficulty on your own (failing an objective makes the rest of the stage harder). I would say 6 had the BEST approach to stage design by adding climbing, swimming, and removing most barriers and invisible walls. Freedom in traversal was a great feeling and led to some creative paths to hit stage objectives. I personally think they should combine the DW and Kessen series and add troop commands and formations and make the battlefield and soldiers be as important as your superhero general. (Arslan Musou had this idea right, unfortunately the rest of the game was lackluster and nobody cared about the license so it got overlooked.) The key to this would be SLOWING DOWN the pace of the stages and making killing peons or keeping them alive a key part of controlling morale. The modern flow of "Kill officer in three hits > Jump on 200mph horse > Zip to the next officer and repeat" is boring even though it's fast paced. In the old games you couldn't be everywhere at once, even with Red Hare, and had to plan your route with regard to order of importance and had to commit to it because it would take too long to go back. All the modern games suffer from this. tl;dr, the Musou games no longer feel like battlefield simulators, which was the appeal for me in the beginning.

DW 3 was my first game and ever since I was hooked. They have to bring back the difficulty especially with the regular soldiers.

Thank you for the shout-out KK. I do want to give my thoughts about HD remasters of Dynasty Warriors 3, 4, 5. Much like yourself, I am not too crazy with having an HD Collection of the PS2 Dynasty Warriors games. It's mainly because I still play Dynasty Warriors 5 on an emulator like crazy, and having the same experience in HD, doesn't really excite me. That ship has sailed long ago. I am actually more excited for the possibility of a new Dynasty Warriors game, then revisiting the old.

I played Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires recently, and the mechanics was much simpler but it's much harder. I even lost the whole country because Cao Cao being Cao Cao and he captured more than half of the whole map in just around 1 1/2 years

Admittedly i was in the "lets remake DW3, 4, 5 boat" but after hearing what you said, I really agree. I dont think Koei in their current state could deliver a product that could satisfy the fans with what theyve been delivering lately.

Samurai Warriors 2 XL is probably the most fluid and comfortable of the old school formula since it has the inklings of the modern hyper speed combat of current Musou games but still has that rough edge to it. Ironically some of the crossover Musou games, like Hyrule Warriors or Gundam Musou, are more difficult compared to a lot of the modern standard Musou games as well. As you said they need to make things a bit more grounded and allow for a lot more control of your allied forces to make a proper fusion between RTS and spectacle fighter.

I think they need to find a middle ground: easier than the most difficult old games, but harder than the newer ones.

I'm having flashbacks of Lu Bu mopping the floor with my face every time I tried to cross Hu Lao gate.

If they straight up remade the old games, they would not only add a ton of DLC but probably carry over the modern gameplay instead of trying to replicate the original one

we don't talk about DW9. it never existed, just like season 8 of game of thrones.

I grew up with DW2, and played almost all of the DW games up to 9, but only recently got into playing the Xtreme Legends portions of the games as Empires caught more my attention than Xtreme Legends. Despite the fact that I too also miss the older DW games. . . I miss Dynasty Warriors Online the most because of the fact that you have your own residence to relax in after the fight or war, the bodyguards being either humans or your animals to create a strong bond with them, expanding on your garden to make it look so peaceful and alive, and to hang around with your friends to either help them obtain items, or to have a relaxing good time of peace. . . Aside from the ways we have to get the best of the best in the game with the practice they tried, DWOnline was still fun for me with the rest of the older series in the game, each time I play 5 or 5 Empires, I have the urge to want to go back into my garden, or my friend's gardens, to relax with my bodyguard animal to enjoy the beauty of life that grew within their garden to appreciate the hard work they placed in the plant to grow and have life a part with us. . . 9 just doesn't cut it for me from how much they hear our voice for another DWOnline to be, they just slap our faces and placed some ideas from Online into 9, and also of Guan Yinping's special? musou in Warriors Orochi 4, her animation is from start to finish the SAME as the "dance" that the ladies in DWOnline do when you give the command for it. . . ` ; - ; '

Older games had a clear dynamic difficulty with morale system which played part in your allies and enemies performamce obviously facing an enemy with an all time high morale (stars) would easily be more aggressive than if they were panicked and had low incenstive to push foward, you weren't the only deciding factor but your army also played part and it's easy to lose early on if an commander is defeated or received sigmificant lose, it's been always fun to strategize and make use of your surroundings for your benefits, One of my favorite aspects about the early games is trying to push the entire army towards other side of the map and keep everyone alive which isn't possible in newer entries considering they like now to script their events to maintain the flow of the "narrative". besides that another thing I would like to see talked aboit in terms of takes is that *the early games were also quite loose with the source material* like having many characters outliving their novel counterparts which opens more a what if scenerios, it kinda sucks for me now that many cool characters and fan favorites like Sun jian, Sun ce, Pang tong and Guan ping never last long and you don't have say if they live or not in mewer games, they end up having very small screentime compared to before, It's why I enjoyed DW4 and consider it a peak, you have so much flexibility on what happens on your playthrough and every time you replay it, it won't be exactly the same, I don't want to advocate for campaign/musou mode that's 1/1 with DW4, and I'm not sure if a modern Character per story progression that was present in DW3, 5 and 6 would be feasible for a large roster now, but would prefer a balance where characters have bit more screentime than before, maybe something like DW7 conquest mode with proper cutscene and extra battles would help side characters, I admitably don't have perfect solution for this one, so I'm open for other ideas This part of many magic that was lost after DW5 and even arguably 6 when the series started to be more strict on the narrative and the gameplay has to also follow along which removes part of the apeal of playing those games, for all the gameplay problems, I still consider DW7 to be a fun experience and it has the best narrative and characterization in the series, it's just that the gameplay imo doesn't hold candle to what came before it, it even devolved the evolution that was taken in DW6 with the siege mechanics and one and one duels I don't think difficulty was the issue in modern games, but more so the sense of dilema early games presented on what choices to take for the best outcome for you and your allies, that isn't really present since modern games walk you through to achieve the best outcome than have you figure out yourself the pieces. long comment, but hope I saod something interesting

We need a dw5 gameplay and game modes, dw6 scores, with dw7 story telling game

As it is, DW5 will remain a stand-out favorite to me, because whenever there's a large roster of characters, I like when the game reinforces my desire to play as all of them. I didn't love the balancing from the oldest entries, remembering how dense and powerful the lead commander's bodyguards could be in DW4. If they kept everything the same about the older entries, and just gave them a paint job, the only one I'd want on Steam would be the 5th game.

I honestly don't mind 6 or 9, in fact 6's battlefields are some of my favourites in the series, and I wish they brought those expansive maps forward into 7 and 8. Some of those maps didn't feel as open and they seemed very objective-heavy to progress. 6 still kind of retains the 2-5 feel of a fluid battlefield, and I don't remember 6 being that easy either, especially on harder difficulties. With weapons, I think it depends. Some fantasy weapons are now iconic (Zhenji's flute, Zhang He's claws) and removing them always seems difficult to justify. Although like you said it's probably a balance. I probably wouldn't push it too far though, seeing something like Xiahou Ba's spear in DW8 is definitely a bigger stretch for believability than Zhenji's flute. There are a lot of historical weapons in ancient China and beyond that I'd like to see but aren't represented in DW yet. Seeing Zhang Fei with his old serpent spear kinda does give me hope they'd try to give Zhou Yu and Gan Ning their swords back though.

I replayed DW3 a few months ago because I remember it being one of the best in the series, but also incredibly hard. The archers could kill you in two stray arrows from outside of the field of vision, and it's one of the very few games where they gave musou attacks to some soldiers. (Hell, in I think the Xu Chang stage of DW4, Cao Cao's guards are rallied.) I gave myself a personal challenge to beat a good number of the stages on Hard just to see if I could. He Fei Castle on Hard is what divides boys from men. I tried it on both sides, and because there's no checkpoint system, I lost entire hours worth of my life because of the sniper ambush in the middle until I eventually just never walked over there to spawn it. One of the only ways I completed that stage without my commander dying was to hit 1k and max morale across the board so they could survive off screen. Morale being a concept forgotten by the newer titles, and it's one that provided a good amount of the difficulty I believe. I don't know the specifics on what morale actually does to units in these early ones, but it will make your dudes die in seconds on Hard because the enemy is set 2-3 stars higher than your whole army by default. Meanwhile, cut to DW8 footage where you could take anybody with a spear, get on a horse and never lose because it has whirlwind and the ai doesn't know what to do when you smack them from behind until they're dead. Simply pathetic. I say with over 100 hours in 8 because I have musou brain.

My biggest issue with the newer games is that they made the allied units completely useless, I remember that while playing Dynasty warriors 2/3 that they could reach Dong Zhuo's castle by themselves but now in the later games, it feels that every single allied unit is not only completely useless, they are an outright threat to my fun since almost whenever an allied officer (especially an important one) gets into a fight, even with just regular units, I'm bombarded by messages that the officer is being threat of routed and If I don't rush over to save them, they often die, so the levels are often just me rushing back and forth to keep my entire army alive by itself. Also in my opinion, I think that there were many good gameplay ideas in DW6, the siege system, how soldiers acted, archers and their towers along with other mechanics, And I wish that they hadn't given up on those ideas so quickly and instead have developed them more instead of literally tossing them into the trash.

i miss that you could get swarmed by foot soldiers like in DW2, hwere everything felt a bit more strategic then it does now

In my opinion what makes old series better than newer one is because in newer one all characters can essentially one man army everything in its path while older game it's only for a very few character like Lu Bu, Ma Chao, Tadakatsu or Keiji.

I'm part of the subsection that only plays Empires games but the one in the main series that I liked the most was actually Dynasty Warriors 2. It was the difficulty of fighting just a normal dude. I feel like I'm swiping the air now and it's rewarding me for it - it makes me feel nothing getting a kill. Back then getting 1000 kills was a legitimate achievement while now I do that by accident. Dynasty Warriors was never really about killing millions - as much as we joke about it.

The Dynasty Warriors gameplay loop that I loved and that is basically gone now was this: Survey the battlefield map, determine which fronts are vital and which can wait, head to the most vital front and fight through peons to push the entire army close enough to the commander that I'll have my side's peons supporting me against the enemy peons plus commander, then defeat that commander. From there, loop; survey the map as it now is, find another vital front, etc. This style of play had its last gasps in DW4. What the game is as of the most recent entries I've played is: Game gives you an explicit mission, usually involving killing a specific commander. Ride past all peons to that commander and kill them while ignoring the situation on the rest of the battlefield. Then loop, game gives you another explicit mission, and so on. This started in DW4 and continues until now.

DW3: best AI opponent difficulty and weapon elements (Strongest Lu bu) DW4: best graphics and orbs and items (Hardest Lu Bu to beat) DW5: best costumes and maps (Scariest Lu Bu Moveset) They all are great and some tie with qualities it was hard to distinguish.

The renbu system in DW6 threw me off a bit, but the dodge roll and grab feature was more then enough addition for me to still enjoy the gameplay from time to time

4 is where I started, and never knew it's the most difficult.

The open world Warriors Orochi Empires game is such a fantastic idea and I really hope it comes one day

Numbers of enemies on screen isn't the crux of the issue with difficulty, it's how every charge attack of modern games has massive aoe. I'm on a bit of a warriors games tour and the shock when switching from 3 to 8 was unreal. Even the first charge attack, which was normally an uppercut for a single enemy or a few at most, in 8/9 sends an entire group of enemies flying. It cheapens the musou attack and loses any nuance of movesets when every attack clears out the entire screen of enemies. So even if peons were more aggressive it wouldn't matter cause they could never touch you. How I would personally fix it: I've always wished they skewed a little more towards the strategy side, I enjoy the aspect of the games where you have to keep up with map special events, and capture bases and help officers out to win and wish they leaned more into all that. I've also been playing Bladestorm recently which has a lot of cool ideas in it and I think having that expanded control over a group of soldiers is the key to having a bunch of enemies on screen while also keeping difficulty intact. They could make the peons just as threatening as old games but you could counter that by having your own large group of competent peons following you around, and this could be worked into capturing bases and morale system. Letting you restock your group of commanded soldiers from a nearby captured base. Bladestorm is really cool I recommend checking it out. Its funny it sort of became a self fulfilled prophecy or whatever, where a common complaint about warriors games was " hurr durr its just a dumb repetitive button masher" which really wasn't true for the older games but it is what the series has become now. For the people that want power fantasy and to just steamroll stuff there has always been easy difficulty mode for that, I don't know why they had to make the games so easy on all difficulties.

for me I personally miss the creative endings of the empire games. so many different endings and things to do always had me had fun picking which generals id take in, or if i stayed a sell sword. I think it could’ve still been done in the new games, just having the ending be whatever you were during the conquest was kinda meh for me.

Dynasty Warriors 5 XL will always be peak for me, something about Destiny Mode seemed like such huge potential and it's such a shame they never expanded on it. And no idea why, but DW5XL Xtreme mode was so difficult to me .

DW5 Empires is one of my favorite games of all time.

I really liked DW8 but at the same time I missed having unique weapons per character, it lead me to enjoy certain characters better because only they had that weapon and moveset. Zhou Tai's Katana, Pang Tong and Zhang Jiao's staffs, Zhang He's Claws, and Sima Yi's crazy Old moveset. It gave so much personality to the character and made me like them so much more. Now it's just a weapon type for any grunts.

"I think Sun Jian and Dong Zhuo shared a combo." *flashes back to the C4 that was almost impossible to land because of the slow wind-up and clunky hitbox

Small detail I guess but I like how the map was displayed in DW5 when paused. You could see much more details on the map like the mountains and pathways quite defined rather than a flat picture

Ahhh… back when 1,000 KO’s was an actual achievement in the Warriors games. I miss those days, man.

Makes sense why I preferred the Empires subseries. There was focus on bases and troop count which dictated how you should attack and defend.

DW3- DW6 had actual Strategy where morale, missions, bosses and peons matter the most and change the tides of war. Its a smart combination of Tactical Action Beat em Up. 7-9 is more of Beat em Up Rushdown Games with no depths, the only diffference was the Historical and Hypothethical routes which...is just some choices of who you want to speak to. Failing or success on missions feels more like a requirements rather than something that organicly change the tides of battle, its way to damn scripted.

As much as I want to see a remake of the old DW games on the PS2, I agree that Koei has to deliver a hit with DW 10 that is more of a return to form in terms of storytelling along with a back to basics approach to combat game play of fighting realistic battles and less of a power fantasy.

Im a fan of big scale games where, while my actions help, my army still puts in work on their own. In hyrule warriors, you were responsible for absolutely everything, especially any giant bossess that showed up. and your allies were basically objective markers for enemies to get stronger then for them to help in battles. but then in Fire emblem warriors, I was able to send my team and allies to specific points on the map and they would actually be able to clear it. it actually made me feel like im a tactiction on the battle instead of only a warrior. It would be nice if dynasty warrior or samurai warrior games remembered the importance of your army on the battle and allow them to help you big time in fights, instead of you being able to basically solo the entire field.

Excellent point on the difficulty. That was a big part of why I fell in love with both Dynasty and Samurai Warrior series. Even with the ultimate weapons, enemy officers would just eat every hit and molly-wop you.

For as much hate as DW6 gets, it seemed to do 1v1000 better than any of the games since, it also did duels, bases, and sieges significantly better than any of the other games. Bummer that they made so many questionable choices like renbu, weapon & horses rework, removing half of the roster, duplicate movesets etc.

My favorite classic DW was DW5 since it has the best control. DW2-4 got the cardinal sin of either officers gets stronger or recover when knocked down (DW2) or you can't change direction and moveset sucks (DW3-4) that resort to a tier list playstyle (Optimal one or 2 charge moves). Don't get me wrong, DW5 as well but you are less committal to through out attacks since you can change direction. That didn't make DW5 Vanilla Chaos any easier since the flinch time of DW5 was actually reduced compare to older title in order to accommodate the more comfortable moveset (Evolution and the new C5 helps with crowd clearing A LOT). DW5 Chaos will make sure that you understand the importance of Supply Base. My God, not only it provide you recoverable items since Chaos gives you only single meatbun drops (No chicken or ointment...AT ALL) but also buff you and auto-recover you when you are fighting enemies inside the supply base every 10-15 seconds. This is also a BITCH to go on the offensive when they constantly recover and buff. This makes Bodyguards or even your fellow officers play a more important role when they distract the enemies officers for you to kill the supply captain. Fan Bodyguard is your best friend since they will recover your HP from time to time. They are the lifesaver for Chaos difficulty. I also loves the morale system that kept your forces alive if they are 6-8 stars no matter how much HP they had left off-screen. I had a situation in Battle of Hefei when Zhang Liao first encounter left Ling Tong with like 2-3 hits left to die. I did my jobs that boost my entire force to 8 stars Morale and Ling Tong single-handedly clear the entire left wing by himself and even kill the 3rd Zhang Liao when Zhang Liao's Morale went from 8 to 7 stars. For DW10, I want them to build upon DW8XL foundation (Some weapon change in DW8E that irks me. Some are good (Xiao Qiao and Sun Quan) but Yue Ying and Deng Ai are just.....ASS!!! Give the Story Narrative of DW7 since it is the best. Remove the Rock-paper-scissor weapon system. It is more annoying than it appeared. Also, have the level design and mobs+AI of DW6, they are awesome and you can't just bulldoze these guys easily. What I like was that they achieved the perfect modern mob aggressiveness in DW7XL with Nightmare. The problem was that Speed Weapon Life Leech and Combat Resistance Seal literally invalidate the challenge.

As for the too easy part, the gameplay you were showing in DW8 as Lu Lingqi perfectly sums it up. You did not fight next to one of your allies ONCE. But you also didn't take ANY damage. The older games had you relying on your allies to survive, and so keeping them alive and their morale high was important for your own survival. In the newer games, its more efficient to just run ahead and take out all the officers on your own before your allies even have a chance to fight them. It's especially bad in Samurai Warriors 4/5 where you have hyper attacks that let you just wipe all enemies just by spamming the Y button. I miss when the games actually challenged me. I needed to form actual strategy in the old games to be able to survive while also making sure my allies survive all while pushing the enemy. Now its just all about using wild Anime attacks to wipe out hundreds of near braindead peons like its NOTHING. The only times I need to care about keeping my allies alive is when the game tells me I will lose if this ally dies. And even then, it is still better to just single handily obliterate the enemy army before they have a chance to clash with yours. This is why the new games are not as good.

In regards to too many characters, I can understand the over-saturation being a problem since eventually every character starts to feel very "samey" which is also why I thought Samurai Warriors did a really good thing with having unique character models, but not making them playable. Main example being Shibata Katsuie, he was not playable in the early games, but he had a unique model that made him stand out from the generic general/officer figures. Youtake figures like Yuan Shu, Gongsun Zan, or Ma Teng, who play significant roles in the early events of the story of ROTK, but don't make them playable, just give them a unique model so they stand out from the generic officers.

I miss the kind of games where each warriors story was individualised and it made you want to finish the game with all characters. While empires is my preferred DW and SW game mode, I still would love a return to the days of DW 3-5 and SW2. Also while we’re at it I’d love to see a new entry in the DW Gundam franchise but at this point that dream is getting less and less likely of being realised.

I started with 3 and play 9 now, its night and day. I definitely feel way more powerful but I also feel like less of a character. Everything seems so interchangable that you lose what makes each character special.

I always felt DW3 and DW4 were the best in my opinion.

I completely agree with all of this and I'm glad my opinion isn't an unpopular one. Hitboxes are now massive, peons are just there to fill your Musou, characters used to have their own unique look, weapon swapping makes having favourite characters relatively pointless and this whole weapon triangle is silly. It was horrible coming back to this series after so long only to see how far it fell The series needs a proper online Empires style entry. I sank more hours into DW5 Empires and SW2 Empires (the best one) than I did the actual story versions so to play it online as a MOBA would be fun!

I believe when they try to make the gameplay between characters more diverse, they end up running out of time, and making most of them copy cats. I guess what I would like would be a few options: -They could try to make an Empires/Orochi title with a mode that allows you to greatly customize the parameters, making anywhere from a game with less enemies on screen, but with deadly attacks and aggressive/intelligent A.I.; to a game where you are slicing through seas of enemies. (That one may be too difficult, I only suggest it because we finally have hardware that could pull it off without slowing to a crawl) -They could make a "DW: Legacy" type game that puts together the best aspects of 3, 4, and 5, (maybe the map sizes from 2, but its been YEARS since I've played that one) to see how the fans respond. -They could make a Souls-like that maybe uses camps as bonfires, and the death of you and your squadmates weaken the camp they spawned from. This could even be an open world game, but they would have to be careful to find the balance. If it was Soulsish, I wouldn't want an Empire type game. I'd say they would need to differenciate it from "Wo Long," but that game felt terrible to me. Maybe Koei could make the first good Berserk game (you know... besides Dark Souls and Dragons Dogma), but that would need epic boss fights, so it may or may not fit into this format. No easy answer. I always thought they should take lessons from Kingdom Under Fire, which I thought "Bladestorm: The Hundred Year War" was gonna be that- but not so much.

This video was recommended to me by an old friend, who would often indulge me on my Warriors takes. It's been awhile, but I definitely feel the passion for them still haha. Glad I found ya! DW3 and DW5 will always go down as my top two favorites. I feel they kept a lot of the formulas that worked, while still trying something new in 5, scrapping what may not have been successful in 4. DW6....I respect how they really wanted to try a new direction and I think a lot of things certainly hit well, graphics, camera (hell yeah) new weapons, etc. The renbu system made game play feel stale, especially as you would lose your unlocked combos because you had to leave combat and run across the battlefield to an ally that needed help. The weapon and moveset cloning, while removing characters from the roster was a poor decision. And I dont know how strongly some players feel about this, but the recharacterization and changing of personalities of characters was brutal. Admittedly some characters benefited from this (Sima Yi) but then others were severely crippled (SSX, Ill never forgive that one especially.) Overall, for me, the cons outweighed the pros with DW6. 7 was a step in the right direction, and to a degree 8. With the roster getting bigger and bigger, characters were basically given one personality trait and THAT was their personality. Majority of the women being an extension of their man, Ma Chao screaming justice all over the battlefield, the strategists yelling about strategy. It turned lifeless. I hope we get a 10. I did not play 9 due to the reception, but I am always looking forward for more. Anyway, woof! Haha Can't wait to see more from you!

Since DW2 ive played/loved musou games, DW5 was my fav overall, one of best parts was the fact that the battle flow can change if grand tactics fail or officers fail. Pleasingly found out when i tried saving pang tong from an ambush. DW8E was fun with the creation selection. i remember this one being too easy but creative, weird stuff kept me entertained. Dw6 i only remember enjoying the siege elements like climbing ladders & protecting the siege weapons etc. SW3E the one on ps3, the best ive played thus far or at least enjoyed. The samurai games are usually more flexible control wise with blocks & dodge mechanics, the switching characters gimmick grew on me partly due to having to be strategic just to avoid being flanked or overwhelmed by the enemy. Plus any musou game that has reasonably effective A.I Allies gets a 👍from me, knowing i can send two officers to a base & they can capture it or when big name officers are on the map i know who to send to stall them before i jump in to deal with it. I like the strategy elements and tactical choices you decide on the fly or pre-prepared that actually actually make a difference. Any map that allows different experiences based on actions. Unique maps & integral bases. Duels are awesome especially when armies create a circle. I like individual efforts of big name officers that can change the tide. I love the battlefield feeling of changing flow & troops being somewhat efficient, 1 vs 100 is great but at least make it feel earnt from skill & experience. Do not pursue lu bu

Warriors Orochi Empire really amazing idea. I like to imagine Warrior Orochi Empire takes scenarios Before WO3. (Since 3 is too much characters and too using time travel as concept.) And I like Empire element RNG makes the games interesting. Game starts like WO1 starts Shu and Samurai scenario (Zhao Yun or Nobunaga) they start the game as their own troops, So when successful recruiting free officer will join your army directly. But if you play as Wei or Wu (Cao Pi or Sun Ce) you fight with opposites army to save them and makes them assist you in some battles, and when they're declare independence they're joinning you. Or maybe twisting the start : You play as Shu who on Orochi Sides or Free Officers from Wu or Wei Kingdom. Or maybe plays as the only Plot Mystic in the Game Zuo Ci, to choose who you'll assist in the game as temporary guest. Makes Every Officer have their Officer's skills in the battle, I take examples from the game. For example Da Ji can trigger Phantom soldier's and abuse her infamous dialogue : "Take one more step and I'll hit you so hard? You'll forget who you're." Also Zhang Jiao can using Phantom Soldiers (WO2 Orochi scenario 8) Or Doppelgangers skills like Zuo Ci (WO2 Orochi scenario 8) and Wukong. Or magicless officers like Xiaohu Yuan, Sun Ce, Cao Cao,etc can trigger Fire attacks. Those who have Cannons skills like have their garrison equipped with cannons. And when enemy forces have cannon equipped, fire attacks skill's effectively reduce opposing peons to low health. Every Strategist-like (have every skill and thwarted plan.) Every Courageous Warriors like Dian Wei, Zhao Yun, Zhou Tai,etc have buffs or maybe using musou more ofter when their health below 50% when you enter their territory (Face off strats from WO2). Makes Lu Bu and Tadakatsu more tough to battle. Dancers skills like WO2 restores units health, so this can be bullshit when players fail to slay the Officer with Dance Skill. After Orochi falls, the remenant of Orochi troops roaming in the lands, will disturbing your land. You have number of turns to raise your troops, fixing the damage, or recruit Officers. WO2 scenario starts. During the numbered turn, one of your officer will said there's a sightings of unusual Warriors battling each others. It's the introduction Human to Mystics and Yoshitsune depending on Mystic you'll recruit their goal will be, - Capture Da Ji, but Himiko Escaped this results to OrochiX troops less or almost never thwarting you plans. - Face Kiyomori, but Da Ji and Himiko plotting from behind the scene. This results to OrochiX troops and himselft have less attack damage. Or have Wukong force to Join you if you choose San Zhang. So Kiyomori can't use Wukong to create mischief in your land. ....Or something like that So the after numbered turn, you face Orochi X army full with notable Officers or who still 'Loyal to Him' And you choose the Officers you choose to head to showdown. I have the problem with final chapter of WO1 and WO2. It's always unsatisfying to see your recruited officers not present when you face Orochi. So basically the game have more tactics to it. You know makes the game 'Empire' like? Controlling the battlefield? Sorry for absurdly long comment, and typos. I just very fond with classic era of Koei. So naturally WOZ is very special to me.

DW4 Lubu 1v1 still haunts me to this day. Lmao my uncle introduced my brother and I to DW2 and bought us DW3 and he was joking about how my brother and I used to scream “oh no it’s lubu!!!” Lmao big part of my childhood and finding your channel unlocked a memory

The ending song and dance at the end of Dynasty Warriors 2. And the pics of your character in the sky in the moonlight is absolutely scrumtrulessent

I've been a fan of the Musou titles since 2009. I started off playing as Nobunaga Oda in SW2 and have been doing so throughout the series and WO. Eventually I got to play DW Vol. 2 (the PSP turn-based/hack-and-slash version) and was invested in playing the full titles using Cao Cao, Diaochan, and Zuo Ci. I agree with the drop in difficulty over the years, and I kinda like how DW6 works (I also played the Empires and Strikeforce versions a lot). I was also thinking about an Empires-style WO since its release. Imagine the flexibility they'll have due to the merged realities. Sadly for this series, WO4 personally kinda fell out of favor. For the SW series, SW5 iteration of Nobunaga is fun and all but his previous iterations are far more appealing (even that weird time when Cao Cao's English VA also gave the voice for Nobu's SW1 version). Imagine if they make a SW or DW series that feels like a Platinum game (Nier Automata or Bayonetta). I'd really dig that if they execute it well. For the hack-and-slash itch I've been having recently, Fate/Extella Link and Fate/Samurai Remnant is kinda good at filling in that need.

I'm playing through 3 xl again I'm committed to 100%ing this time around and honestly besides the draw distance being kinda butt especially when split screening having peons and officers fading in and out of existence just to full combo you then disappear again, it's a complete game and we really need the next dynasty warriors game to be a complete game from the get go

Please do, I'd really love a dive into the evolution of Samurai Warriors over the years as I feel like they changed and evolved in a more drastic way compared to DW's slow....decline.

I miss 3, 4 and 5😢

6 is actually my personal favorite because it's my second dw ever played. Dynasty Warriors 3 is my first game of the series, it was the XL version to be exact then I played the original after.

We miss "pursuing LuBu".

I miss a lot of things about the earlier games. Two that come to mind are Lu Bu being such a bad ass his knock back combo sent you flying all the way across the screen and, I forget which one had it, but you could have like 4 or so bodyguards that you could level up and make stronger. I don't know, just felt more like a general having them. Oh, I miss the old Nanman stuff too. Edit: Oh yeah, I really miss the English dubs. I know they were cheesy but that's what made them fun.

I think what DW needs is a split difficulty adjustment option. Rather than just having the standard difficulty option they should split it into two options, one for difficulty of the generals and one for the soldiers. This way you can face strong peons and then have an easier fight against the general or keep the peons weak and have the generals as a real threat like they are now if you chose a high difficulty level. you could min both for a story experience or max both for the feel of a life and death struggle. I feel this would work well as if players wanted the superhuman feel with fighting other superhuman generals they wouldn't need to just play on the hardest difficulty and get knocked around by the peons which would make you feel less superhuman. This would give the player the challenge where and how they want it.

All I want from a Warriors game in the future is 1) Custom character creation and possibly custom "What if" campaing like the older ones had. 2) Unique weapons / fighting styles for all (or most) characters, no more mirrors. 3) Lose the multiple weapons per character and just give other "Styles", I know having multiple weapons on a single character is cool but I'd rather have the characters have their unique weapons with just different fighting stances. 4) Duel mode. It was broken AF but it was fun.

I always miss how Dynasty Warriors 3-5 sort of showed you the brutal nature of combat and the difficulty behind it all. You could see a bunch of peons fighting constantly fighting against each other and going all out and on harder difficulties, it was almost unwise to charge into a horde of enemies unless you knew you could take them.

Agreed! I’m playing DW5 XL and it’s definitely more enjoyable than other games in the series. Difficulty, gameplay, all the different modes, it all feels just right.

I think a great route Dynasty Warriors 10 can go is to follow in the footsteps on Samurai Warriors 5 in regards to focusing on a portion of the time period and fleshing it out and only having the characters from that period be there. But here's the catch. Don't stop. As far as we know, there wouldn't be a Sw game that'll focus on the Hideyoshi period, it was assumed but never confirmed or promise. Dynasty Warriors 10 could focus on the Yellow Turbans to the end of Yuan Shao's legacy. Which if you've read the Robert Moss paperback translations of Romance of the Three Kingdoms covers way more than you'd assume that Omega Force (for most entries) skip over, it's Volume 1 of 4. And then from there, you can release Dynasty Warriors 10-2, a year and a half or so later. Covering everything in Volume 2 and so on. Each Dynasty Warriors entry has been trying to one up the next by adding more content, and the quality (and challenge) suffered. By focusing heavily on only a portion at a time this should give them the ability to really make the best iterations of all of the well known battles, scenes and characters. Basically what FF7 Remake and Rebirth is doing (minus the fluff in those games) you should understand what i mean since like i said once again if you've read the novels you'd be aware by how much it's actually cut from a main line Dynasty Warriors game and how much potential for fleshing all that out could bring without the need to fluff anything. Also get Team Ninja inside there to help with the combat since they are owned by them instead of getting them to make these Nioh-likes like Wo Long and Rise of Ronin which people aren't receiving as positively as Nioh. Put them on your flagship title and work together to make something truly special.

I didn't know that people hate DW6, that's like my most played DW after 5 & 8.

Koei should really take a break and drop another Dynasty Tactics game been 20 years now 😂

There's something I noticed about these games as they went on. I played the crap out of the original Samurai Warriors on PS2 and loved it, it was definitely way harder. BUT that being said, when you got your character leveled up to max with the best items then the game suddenly plays a lot more like modern titles do because you're one-shotting a lot of enemies and if your speed stat is maxed then your foot speed is faster than a horse (maxed out Hanzo he was so fucking fast maxed out holy shit lol). Playing through levels with a maxed out character feels like playing a newer title when you just start out. Except you EARNED that power by playing the game so when you're blazing through the last levels with a powerhouse it's just a blast. They essentially cut out the feeling of progression so you're more immediately entertained which makes sense of paper but when you play the modern titles you get bored waaaaay faster. Yes there's progression in the new titles but it's just too much too fast. How are you supposed to feel a sense of growth when all the enemies aren't even a threat to begin with? I think you might be able to have the best of both worlds if you start the game at the level of difficulty in the old ones and then scale it with the right power increase beats so that by the end your character is godlike and while the difficulty would be higher generally you could mow a lot of enemies down and it would really feel earned.

The problem with removing characters is the problem that Koei will remove a character that actually did something in the three kingdoms romance in favor of someone who didn't, also the weapons thing is a problem because Koei now seems to favor locking stuff behind dlc when it used to be just cosmetic. For movestyle some characters have Iconics that they should keep, Zhang He with his claws, Sun Ce with his Tonfa etc but there are other characters that have been so sporadic with their weapons Gan Ning has had a scimitar, dual knives, a flail and a scickle and chain you don't know where to pin them. I do like the variety and uniqueness in weapons even the boat and i think they should keep that with characters because it reflected China's uniqueness in developing weaponry there were so many weapons of different shapes and sizes because of things like utility where many weapons doubled as tools, or reflected ones status and personality that they expressed during their fighting style.

i wish one day sm just make a hd ver. of dynasty warriors 5 and think "oh my god, if we get this game and make another one using the same old moveset and new graphics? would be a bop" and them, game ofg the year. dynasty warriors lost their mean when they change the move set in my opinion

If koei would make a MOBA knowing the potential with the cast they gave mages brawlers rangers even support characters it will be a crazy concept been asking for this for years!!!

I feel like Strikeforce was a good change up from the usual DW formula to a more RPG-like fantasy take (every character could wield any weapon and go super saiyan on everyone). BUT if we are talking about absolutely different directions or new IP, I would like them to take on the stories of "Invesiture of the Gods" and "Water Margin".

The more realistic style of DW3 is what got me into the game. I loved how Sun Jian looked very realistic and just had a sword. DW and SW doesn’t have to be over the top, that’s not what sold me on it. It’s actually what’s putting me off it now. I want samurai with samurai weapons, looking like samurai, and not using toys for weapons. Same for DW.

2:38 honestly DW 6 was a pretty good starting point with the never ending attack strings. Not quite cutting through enemies like butter at level 1 though, that started around DW 7

Hopefully DW: Origins brings back some of the things that made the older DW games great

Not really Dynasty Warriors, I like the Bladestorm gameplay loop, which is kind of neglected as well. Combining both, so you can lead troops, try to fight field battle with formation, As well as your own fighting prowess. I remember DW3, there's not too much "all your friend all over the map got ambushed", so you go run around the whole map and save them all. See that place where nothing is going on over there? I bet there will be ambush there soon too. Although there weren't much "ambush" but if you don't go around the frontline and tilt the deadlock in your favor, you will have a hard time pushing towards the enemy camp. And if you go alone, archers in enemy's camp can kill you. I remember using Tai Shi Ji, didn't run around much, but keep fighting in one location trying to survive while reducing enemy numbers. Then after a while the rest of my army start swarming enemy's main camp.

6 has one of the best upgrade systems. The tree was really cool.

I think balance was achieved in DW5 an SW2, if the combat becomes to tatics the Warrios will become Kessen

So I basically checked out a lot of videos on how the old games played since my introduction was Dw7 Empires and definitely noticed how much 8 went away from the actual strategy elements of the games. In older titles there were a lot of things you could do to influence morale and in turn enemy strength, and battles weren't so scripted that failing to complete objectives timely wasn't an immediate game over, versus overwhelming the enemy immensely that you get in 8. 7E was effectively to me how the morale system should work in conjunction with gameplay as battles were pretty rough depending on how well you do and how developed your territories are compared to your enemies.

I just came across this video. I guess I'm a bit of an old-hat now, my first was DW2 when I got to try it on a PS2 demo disc lol. At one point I owned every DW title released up til the first Orochi game. A lot of what you said about the newer games is why I stopped playing them, I missed the feeling of being a part of a battle rather than being *the* deciding factor of a battle. Getting to try different starting areas felt fun and unique since you got to see different parts of the map at the start rather than roaming around on your horse and killing every officer in sight. I especially loved the challenge of obtaining the best weapons on games like DW3 where hard mode would kick your ass if you didn't respect the fodder, but at the same time you had to rush rush rush. Thanks for the nostalgia trip!

I remember the last hardest warriors type game had to have been the DW4XL/DW4 and SW2/SW2XL on the ps2, the difficulty on those games are literal 1-2 hit death touches if you got hit by literally any enemy, you really had to play strategic or buff up your character with the best items/orbs- playing warriors orochi and SW4 it’s a literal cake walk on expert- maybe it’s the added mechanics that make everything too easy for escape options but there’s something about the ps2 versions that were super difficult. I remember every enemy being as strong as a boss if you didn’t have any good set up

I definitely miss the grit and "realism" from the old games. You felt like your were in a legitimate battle fighting your way out of the gutter. You couldnt just DBZ your way through a crowd of a thousand soldiers like its nothing in the newer games. I also miss the bodyguards from DW2 when they were maxed out; they were brutal, relentless, and totally badass!

There is a clear line where Musou became more "anime" than "grounded" and it was absolutely Warriors Orochi. And for the record I love it for that

Me too I’ve been revisiting the Warriors series on the PS2, mainly Dynasty Warriors 3 for the most part, I grew up with that game, I played it hardcore as a young kid unlocking all 4th weapons, secret items and maxing out all characters to 99999 stats without the help of any guide, still my favourite game in the series to this day. I feel the PS2 era of games DW2-5 SW1-2 And WO 1-2 Are the best because it gave you a solid challenge and gave you that edge of the seat heart racing feeling, you had to earn that 1000 ko’s The latest games I feel are way too easy, all your characters are highly overpowered and you can achieve over 3000 ko’s in under 10 mins and your combo count is also easy to achieve in the thousands without breaking a sweat. Koei has made the games too flamboyant and flashy without any challenge.

One of the reasons the older games are more difficult is because of the forced lock on. The older games lock you into a direction after one or two hits. This can lead cheaply hits because you can’t change direction. The newer ones give you full movement and allows you to react to threats from all directions.

Sorry for leaving a 2nd comment but this is a weird hunch I have regarding SW5 and if they ever did an SW6 continuing into Hideyoshi’s Era. I think the shared movesets was made to cut down on development time. They maybe would have carried that over so that they could add a whole new roster of characters to replace those that died for musou mode (having them accessible via free mode). This way, they wouldn’t need to make a whole unique moveset even for new characters, unlike with the SW4 quadrilogy. though, I really did enjoy the effort they put into making wholly unique movesets for each new character added.

Dynasty warriors 4 and 5 along with samurai warriors 2 were the best of the series. Warriors orochi is a blast as well but 4 and 5 were so difficult but good

Gan Ning used to be my type of thing. 😢

I too have been yearning for a more difficult dynasty warriors game that matches the old ones (which were the ones I played the most). Currently I recently picked up DW8 XL and am trying to get some enjoyment out of it until origins. A take id like you to explore at some point is do you have any suggestions as to how to make DW8 harder yet still playable? I dove right into hard mode and I felt like the damage from lower stats were just gating my ability to rev up the difficulty like I wanted to. Is there a trick to doing this better? Thanks 🙏

The other thing to mention in musou industry nowadays is the lacking enemy variety. I remember encountering grenadiers in DW4 and they are like absolute pain if not eliminated quickly... but the enemy variety in DW6 however... I don't see any other dangerous units apart from the juggernauts in the battle at Wu Zhang and the flame traps in the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which are considered hazards rather than mortal crooks. You could argue there are unique enemies in WO or Warriors Allstars for that matter, but I figured more than half of the "unique" enemies in modern entries are reskins of peons rather than uniquely threatening pests to eat up your army in a few minutes. I wish I can tag along for DW10 but uhh... whatever... I'm unable to afford latest consoles at the moment. but get ready for other people making a musou game out of passion and care for the genre community... as all indie devs should...

My first Dynasty Warriors game was DW3, it was quite a challenging game especially dealing with those crossbows archers in hard difficulty. I recently revisited DW5 Extreme Legend and SW2 Empires as those 2 are my favourites series of all time. But to compare these 2, i think SW2 Empires are the harder game in terms of AI activeness, the normal troops are more active and they really whack hard when surrounded by them. This really brought some nostalgia feeling back when I first played DW3 where I got killed by archers lol

A high res remake of warriors orochi 2 would be insane, I do think sw5 is fun but I agree it could have been better