Lost Classics: Dynasty Warriors (PS1)

You’ve got to hand it to Koei. What Capcom does with fighting and beat-em-ups, Rockstar does with crime and controversy, and what Blizzard does with strategy, they do with education, particularly China’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Japan’s Age of Warring States eras. Weather you’re hammering out the fine points of diplomacy and foreign policy in Romance of the Three Kingdoms or simply chopping up thousands of enemy soldiers in Samurai Warriors and Bladestorm, Koei makes educational games that are so fun that you forget that you are supposed to be learning something. The original Dynasty Warriors was especially unique. It was like any other weapon’s based fighting game, except that it’s based on an actual historical event, China’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms. After a rebellion brings about the end of China’s Han dynasty, China splits off into three kingdoms: Shu, Wu, and Wei. Each kingdom has its own selection of generals, and all three are vying for complete control of China.

Dynasty Warriors contains 17 characters, each with their own weapon and fighting style. Many familiar faces from the era are present, such as Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, Cao Cao, and Lu Bu. The combat system is fairly deep, with strikes, parries, and counters. The graphics are on par with Tekken 2, and the endings include nice CG cinematics. However, it was doomed to get lost in the shuffle amongst other 3d fighters of the period. Perhaps it was because of this reason that Koei decided to switch the game to the semi-strategic hack-n-slash fest that we know today. Still, it would be nice to see another historical one-on-one fighter from the company. At the very least we can count on the fact that one day this will show up at the Playstation Network store.