"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Dynasty Warriors."

Like any red-blooded American, when I first heard that there was going to be an entry in the Zelda series that was heavily based off of the Dynasty Warriors games, I was beyond skeptical. Having adored Zelda for most of my life, the last thing I wanted was something that seemed like a cash-grab for markets that would buy any DW title. I recall watching videos and Quick Looks of the past Dynasty Warriors games and getting frustrated at how popular that series was: it appeared to me to be the same story iteration upon iteration with mechanics that never seemed to change.

I'm still not 100% sold on the franchise as a whole, nor am I convinced that this still isn't the case with the main Yellow-Turban-Rebellion games, but something happened when I decided to throw caution to the wind and purchase Hyrule Warriors yesterday.

I had joked with a friend for a while when the game first was announced, mocking all the people that would be tricked into playing the mindless combat of the DW games just to play a new 3D Zelda game. I didn't really follow the news or information leading up to its release, but the little tidbits that fell into my gaze did not go unnoticed. The amount of playable Zelda characters, the locations, the ability to drown your enemies in a torrent of bombs, it all started to chip away at my skepticism. Even the DLC that was announced (which I initially saw as a greedy move to milk even more money out of people, having seen the massive amounts of DLC Dynasty Warriors 8 has on steam) eventually seemed to be a decent offering to those who hold nostalgia to the Zelda series.

My defenses weakened, and coming off a pretty blah work week, I just decided to give in and buy the game to try it out. Worst case scenario, I've given Dynasty Warriors a shot and I can laugh about it with my friend. I could not have been more mistaken.

My normal Friday after-work ritual of playing a game while Unprofessional Fridays played was somewhat hampered because I found myself focusing too much on Hyrule Warriors. I have become incredibly adept at turning most games into "Podcast Games," where I can listen to something else while playing a mindless game (Destiny has been the recent champion of this system.) And though the story in HW is not terribly complex, it was engaging in that I enjoyed seeing the Zelda characters on screen. I was actively interested in what the setup for the next battle was going to be, how they would mess with the timeline to bring in such-and-such storyline or characters into the mix. All the fan service pulls that they pepper throughout the game (they namedrop the mother-fucking Groosenator at some point) were just.. fun.

All this leads back to what I thought would be the true cost of enjoying these setpieces: dealing with Dynasty Warriors gameplay. Having never played one of these games before, I expected the most dumbed-down action power fantasy, mowing down hordes of one-hit-KO enemies for the "score" and then going to beat up some boss in the exact same way. This was where I was blindsided to strongest. Watching videos of the gameplay, it is easy to miss just how much of this game is about the tide of the battle. What I originally saw as a cluttered information dump of a map was revealed to be an apt representation of how the fight was going for each side. When the focus of the game goes from "kill-kill-kill x-x-x-y" to "Where is it that I need to be next? Is it more important to take these outposts or should I attack the commander?" it requires me to actually pay attention to the game, and I feel rewarded when a battle goes exceptionally well. And the boss fights that pop up are both enjoyable and about as tactics-heavy as I would expect from Zelda (monitor the enemy, look for weakness, use an item, whack-whack-whack.) The Gohma battle in particular was challenging to me, and I found myself having to reload from the checkpoint to figure out how to keep her from destroying my base so quickly. In many ways, it feels like you're playing as a super-powered unit in an RTS and it's up to you to get your troops on the field by capturing resources and holding onto them while you complete the mission. I will say, I did bump it up to Hard after the first mission because it did seem like it would be a bit tedious, and the computer a bit less tactful, otherwise.

Seven hours later, and I was still going strong on this game. There was a grab here that I hadn't experienced in quite some time and I thank the developers for making a game that made me feel like I was in middle school again, dumping away a weekend night on a Zelda game. And while the nostalgia factor was at full tilt throughout, that alone would not have been enough to keep me going so long in one sitting. The gameplay is simple enough that I didn't get exhausted from playing it for extended periods, but engaging in the scope that you're applying your skill and the number of factors you have to monitor throughout.

With all this in mind, I think the review on this site is fine. I would have given it a higher score myself, but this is very much the case of "if you don't like Dynasty Warriors, this is not for you." The problem I had, personally, was that I had never played a Dynasty Warriors game before. I was making basic assumptions about how this would all play out without any experience with the core franchise the gameplay draws from. If you are a Zelda fan and you are on the fence about this game because you don't know what to expect from playing a Dynasty Warriors game, I would say this is definitely worth the rent (or even a purchase if you're a risky individual.) It's entirely possible you'll surprise yourself and enjoy it as much as I did. And while I'm probably not going to go out and buy every Dynasty Warriors game and learn everything about the series, it's always a good lesson to know you can still be pleasantly surprised by some games.

Dynasty Warriors?

...DO IT TO JULIA!

Very well thought out post. I'm also not a fan of DW but the few times I've picked it up in the past made me at least not hate them. Kudos for at least giving HW a shot =).

Expaaaaannnd your horiiiiiizooooonnnns!

I've always disliked how the Giant Bomb guys treat games that are very niche and just aren't for them. When they played DW2 on Demo Derby today they kept saying how "it's the exact same as it is now" but I could clearly tell that they had made major improvements throughout the years to the combo system, the mission design and the character selection. I will agree that recent DW games have been kinda lazily made but they aren't nearly as bad as the guys make them out to be.

Not every game should appeal to everybody and calling games that don't appeal to you worthless or objectively bad isn't useful. It just angers the people who like those games and misinforms those who haven't played them.

That's the most baffling thing; that anyone really, whether they be GB staff or anyone else, could play Dynasty Warriors 2 and Dynasty Warriors 8 and claim that both are the exact same, when the series has evolved so much in its gameplay flow, narrative presentation, combat mechanics, and every other part of the games. It smacks of base, unthinking ignorance. I can respect it if you've played the game and come to the conclusion that it isn't for you, but at least give the game an actual chance and don't presume that nothing about these games have changed in any significant manner in the roughly fourteen years since DW2 was released.

I tend to liken Dynasty Warriors games to games like Puzzle Quest or Diablo 3. Sure, they might seem complete opposites in terms of gameplay at first glance, but the core appeal is the same-- doing something relatively simple and enjoying levelling up, unlocking new weapons, bosses, locations, spells/elemental orbs, and so on. There's a story, but you're mainly playing for the objectives that each stage gives you.

It's definitely repetitive, but it's also definitely fun for me to play when I just want to kick back and enjoy some video games. It's far more enjoyable for me to play a Dynasty Warriors stage for half an hour while listening to TV/podcasts/etc than most other games genres.