Game Design 2 Journal #5: Dynasty Warriors

I love Dynasty Warriors. I love Samurai Warriors.

These games are repetetive, slow, button mashy, sometimes very shallow, poorly designed or otherwise confusing as hell. They change minor details from game to game, rearrange the process for skill acquisition, add in features that seem major ("Climbing a ladder", and "Swimming") only after four iterations of the game. Poor voice acting that you can't turn off or turn down, dumb as bricks enemy AI and tricky timing add up to sour its taste in the mouths of most.

However

It's a classic story, told using modern means. After a little work, your characters leap off the screen like the actual heroes of old, cutting swaths through enemy troops to find their leaders, sweeping across the battlefield. You can customise your build down to the tiniest degree, and spread the love across dozens of characters you can tailor into a mad fighting force. Coop play lets a friend join in, and in Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce, up to 4 can play in coop matches online as near gods, battling gigantic enemies and footsoldiers alike. And if that wasn't cool enough, there's a Gundam and Fist of the North Star version too.

I started playing Dynasty Warriors off and on with my PS2. I played 3, and a little 4. 4 was the first one I owned, at least. After that I didn't touch the series for a long time. But then about a year ago I bought Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires on a whim. I gave it a spin, and fell in love. For some reason it was then it clicked. The Empires sub-series offers a deeper level of strategy game play than its other versions (Dynasty warriors has Strikeforce, Extreme Legends, Samurai Warriors, Gundam, Fist of the North Star, Empires and the Numbered games, all as sub-series under the Dynasty Warriors model.)

The graphics were sharp looking, and the create a character mode sold me. I made a badass chick with a huge ass sword, and got to work. My roommate Ross and I played Coop quite a good deal, and we got very good at the game. By the time we were steamrolling most of China on Normal difficulty, our characters were unto deities. I beat the game one night, and it played a badass cutscene, using my custom character, showing how I unified China. It was awesome. Downloadable Content for the game was all free, including packs of music and create-a-character parts. I was amazed, and I became a die-hard fan.

Since then I've played some stinky Dynasty Warriors games: Warriors Orochi and Orochi 2 I didn't like. Samurai Warriors 2 I didn't like. Dynasty Warriors Gundam 1 I didn't like either, but I loved 2. They're still largely a hit and miss series, but it feels like with every iteration I see they're getting closer to the point: the players want to feel awesome. I feel like I can see the direction they need to go to satisfy more American fans, too. More action, more control, more challenging (in the right ways) AI, persistent character creation. But the fan base for Dynasty Warriors keeps'em coming. Keeps churning out the dollars for the games. And Koei/W-Force keeps releasing free DLC too? Impressive, to say the least. They see a model that works and they're rolling with it. The prolific pariah of action games.

One of the things I personally strive for is engaging game play. I really like the game play of Dynasty Warriors. That's right. I like the game play of Dynasty Warriors. It's not so bad once you get used to what it's implying. I want to see someone create the ultimate "cut swaths through enemies" game, no, fuck that, I want to be the person creating that game.

I'm on it.