This is incredible, I’ve always known about the three kingdoms inspired games but I’ve never really seen any TH-cam coverage so for one of my favorite creators to cover it, I know I’m in for a treat.
Liao Hua was apparently godlike (age wise). He was a Yellow Turban when the ROTK games had Yellow Turbans. He was still alive in the final scenarios. That would make him over 100 years old. Lol A 100 year old man still fighting and swinging a sword.
Oh wow, this series really had an impact on your life. Just hearing that intro had me super hyped to watch and become and engrossed in this series as you are!
I grew up on DW3 and the menu music still slaps. Just loaded it the other week when my old PC died and was waiting on a replacement. DW2 looks solid and a huge improvement on the earlier street-fighter-meets-China debut, but 3 I think took it a big step forward while keeping all of the same energy and epic music. I mean, WAY more maps and characters in 3, many more moves and combos, ect. It also looked pretty good for the day. And YES...it is much harder than I remember lol. I forgot that back then you really had to be skilled to walk into a large group of basic troops - they really gang up on you. No wonder you were allowed to have up for 8 elite bodyguards for a whole squad
when I was 13 my best friends family rented a condo on a beautiful little island. Right on the beach. He brought me and I brought my PS2. We spent the whole vacation in the room grinding away at Dynasty Warriors 3. Best vacation ever.
Never knew there was so many 3 Kingdoms release in the West. But man this doesn't scratches the massive rabbit hole that is the 3 Kingdoms games in the East, from multiple tactics games, to Isekai RPG base of manga, to Diablo esque dungeon crawler, and a silly dodgeball game with the Wu Kong mythology characters. I am so happy that Heroes of the Three Kingdoms series/ 三国群英传 got ported to Steam (though sadly no English translation), so I can relive my childhood of playing a total war esque rpg, despite not being able to read.
A good overview of the games that have been launched from the Three Kingdoms itself. Lots of variety out there with their own tweaks and shows what some studios can do with such a concept.
So to add to some opinions and facts DW3 sadly, is a bit held back by its infamous P1 stats scaling. The AI basically scales their stats on higher star stages and/or higher difficulties in accordance to the current total stats of the character being played in Player 1's slot (solo or co-op). Higher P1 attack = increased enemy defense, higher P1 defense = increased forms of damage to the player from all sources. This is why archers in DW3 are so particularly deadly (especially IF you have no extra bow defense to compensate for that increase in enemy damage), and why your allies struggle more than usual on Very Hard difficulty (allied AI units don't have their stats increased in tandem to compensate). BUT, with this infamous feature, you can slot in a weak undeveloped character in P1 and slap in a fully-developed character in P2, and basically have P2 go to town on everyone (you can even unlock certain infamous rare weapons this way). They HEAVILY NERFED this stat scaling bs in DW4, and personally the 3 and 4 Xtreme Legends expansions are great in my book for one thing; the actual attempt to make the AI be challenging AND intelligent. Expert Mode in DW4XL has massively improved enemy general AI (ESPECIALLY playable generals both allied and enemy) which isn't perfect, but still something to recognize Koei and Omega Force for attempting to make challenging engagments. Hell, 3XL Very Hard and 4XL Expert made the AI playable generals wield their 4th/Lv 10 weapons to really show they mean business (same exact attributes + Lv 10 weapons also have free elemental attack activation without need for full Musou Gauge). But with DW5, alongside Warriors Orochi 1, it set an unfortunate precedent. The new Chaos Difficulty is now merely just Hard Mode AI that ignores your current defense stats for damage done to you, the player (aside from a few story and aesthetic changes brought about from DW5 that I didn't enjoy). Chaos Difficulty even in DW5XL iirc doesn't even make AI playable generals wield their rare weapons (when did they ever do that again) nor does it re-include 5th weapons until WO3 Ultimate/DW8. While the later WO and DW games are fun in their own way, it ultimately also got downgraded into "if your character can abuse the best combination of broken attributes to safely one-shot dumb AI death sticks who just one-shot you, or just die cause your character's kit or amount of activation attacks is badly designed via oversight" (WO1 made it clear this way when Diaochan and Guan Ping are top tier in solo Chaos maximization runs while Lü Bu, YES LÜ BU, sucks cause he has attacks that can't abuse those optimal setups). Also, the Musou Warriors series' main composer, MASA/Masayoshi Sasaki, didn't exactly pull off the Chinese-styled aesthetic for the series' music until DW3XL for its opening, and then especially in DW4-onwards. He sadly already left the company like around 2020. Also, Koei Tecmo is just cheap AF enough to hire Hollywood VA's for DW9's dub (NOTHING to do with the VA Strike) ...AND all their increased DLCs ever since the Tecmo merge. In regards to DW6 being such an infamous black sheep in the series, it's safe to say tho most of the time, the mechanics were fine ideas which were sadly, not implemented property. Multi-Raid/Strikeforce at least dabbled in one thing DW never did again until DW9....aerial combat. SF basically did it in a DBZ/Dissidia dash-flight-based fashion.
Hey just wanted to say that this was a fantastic video. I have been a fan of the three kingdoms since I found DW3 myself. I believe we're right about the same age, only I'm a yankee. I bonded very closely with the series and even when my friends had moved on from the franchise, I remember pre ordering DW5 and being blown away by the character campaigns. This was also where I first realized the encyclopedia, and I hilariously did a whole final project in high school based mostly off of the great write ups in the encyclopedia. I wasn't the best student... Your story with rot3k is fascinating and the fact it led you to live in China is remarkable. It's made me feel less of an outsider to see some real life genuine enthusiasm for this tale. I always feel like a bit of a doofus trying to explain to people why I love this particular story, but at its core its because KOEI gave me the privilege of several digestible versions of it.
The part about liu bei's son got kidnapped was in the novel and it was sun shang xiang who did it. She was unable to defy her mother so she went back to wu along with child liu shan but he was resqued by... Zhao yun again.
Personally I first got into the three kingdoms series when I was a young teenager, and Romance of the three Kingdoms 3 was out for the SNES. It scratched my itch for "conquest" games. My parents wouldn't ever buy me games because I was too addicted to them. But I ended up buying RTK3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11 on console and 13 and 14 on steam, though 14 is laggy for me for my current PC. 13 is similar to 8 where you can play as a single general and rise up the ranks/get rapport with others/start your own kingdom. I really enjoyed that aspect. Infact the only time I ever conquered all china as a historical ruler was back in RTK3 as Han Fu. (side note, they made Han Fu progressively worse in each following series) I really liked Dynasty warriors, but something I enjoyed more which was omitted from this list was the hybrid version of DW, which was DW: Empires. It was the hack n slash but also conquest game. As for the total war games, while aesthetically appealing, the long drawn out battles/manipulating troop movements never appealed to me.
The most popular TK game used to be in China is 三国志II 覇王の大陸（Sangokushi 2 - Haou no Tairiku）in FC. There are still many hack versions under developing today.
I love your enthusiasm for Dynasty Tactics. I never played the first game, but I would play the second so much as a kid. I had multiple nights where I would be up playing it until the sun came up in the morning. I'll probably try and emulate it again on my steam deck.
I had "Dynasty Warriors" 1 for PS1 as a kid. It was a bargain bin game. You know it's actually really good. I had a lot of good time playing that. Compared to contemporary bargain bin games I had such as Evil Zone and Total Eclipse Turbo it was much, much better. Not as good as Strider 2 but I got a lot of play time out of Dynasty Warriors and thought it was weird they made the sequel as an open map thing.
Once my friend and I played DW3 together, I was hooked. I collected each one and the expansions when they would come out. I waited until I really wanted a few games before getting my PS4 and one of those games was DW8:XL Complete. I was hyped about DW9 until I saw reviews and just stayed away from it all together. Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII is one of my favorite PS2 games and I had a great time with Dynasty Tactics 1 and 2 as well. I do think they should go back to making everyone smarter on both sides. Let me choose my difficulty so I can be the unstoppable force or the lowly foot soldier when I want.
I was just looking into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, which led me here. Like you, I didn't realise all of this stuff was an adaptation, and from real history. I'm considering starting with RTK IV which is still available on PS3 US PSN, then probably the remake of VIII when it comes out. I've also got the Dynasty Wars games which are an incredibly nostalgic memory from the arcades! Cute hearing about your own life path, and well done on the video 👍
For DW, I believe Koei simply lowered the bar of entry (ie the standard difficulty) because playing even the more recent ones in harder settings (Chaos mode in Empires games is a good example since you always start at level 1), the challenge is pretty much similar to older games, the main difference being that from 6 onwards, mooks are their own character types (they played similarly to officers before) and individually weaker, but they are subdivided into multiple types (spears/swords, banners, shields, bowmen) and they mostly attack in formation or buff/protect each other (I'm pretty sure they can also debuff the player in 7). A lot of these subtleties are not obvious in the normal difficulties of later games but you start to see it once you go further.
Dynasty warriors was my childhood. Dunstable warriors 4 was the first. Then I went to 2, then 3 and so on. Dunstable warriors 5 is my all time favorite. Empires my all all time favorite. I got introduced to ROTK about 15 years later actually. And ROTK 11 is my favorite. I play it none stop. I also want to go to China. I'm 29 years old and has always wanted to see the locations of Dynasty warriors. See the statue of Guan Yu. All the stuff! I just don't have the money yet..😊
I got hooked the same way, but it was on RotTK 2 on SNES Probably hundreds of not thousands of hours in that game. Right up there with FF3(6) and Uncharted Waters 2 New Horizons.
Loved the video, man. Especially the Dynasty Tactics sections. The XBox game you were asking about in the Kessen 2 section, any chance it was Kingdom Under Fire? I think the subtitle was Crusaders?
I miss Kessen 2. It was the improvement Kessen 1 needed. Kessen 3 went on its own direction, K2 Story and characters are weird as heck, but man was it engaging and fun.
@@ABitMoreJordan Yes same. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't Kessen. it was much smaller and faster felt more arcadey, I actually enjoyed the slower paced action and scale. I even ended up missing the campiness of Kessen 2.
Dynasty Warriors kind of died for me after 5. I think 7 did the best with the story, but I hate how 7 and 8 had the whole rock, paper, scissors system with the weapon change. I also hate the whole, "go here and kill this general so the red zone can disappear." I miss running behind enemy lines in DW5 and working for that 1,000 count. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI was a huge part of my PS2's life. Yeah it was turn-based, but I liked how the battles took place on the entire actual map and did not go into another screen like Total War and Nobunaga's Ambition. Building forts to conserve food and arrows next to rivers felt impactful. All these new ROTK games fail trying to be real-time while having the whole map as the battle screen. I felt like Zhuge Liang when I repel 100,000 enemies with just 20,000 troops due to defenses.
Great video and glad you've been living in my country ❤ And it is always weird to say that my favorite dw game is dw6, which is considered the worst one alongside dw9. When I got ps2 as a child, my uncle randomly bought me dw3 and dw6 cds, and I played the latter first. So instead of a typical action game, my first impression of the series was being a hero, running here and there, saving allies and taking strongholds within limited time (assassination was also an option). In other entries, things tended to be more scripted and linear, even while other aspects were designed way better and more complete. Later I realized that this particular gameplay kinda shared something similar with openworld games. So it is interesting that players of different genres could collide at the same series, when a wrong decision and betrayal to its fanbase ironically attracted someone else. Storytellingwise I think dw7 was the best, since it was loyal to the history (or fiction) and the cutscenes portrayed Cao Cao and Liu Bei pretty well.
Bro I really appreciate the correct Chinese pronunciation. I mean, I'm not Chinese, but 'cow cow' hurts my ears. And I have to just say that I'm crazy about the character design of the dw series until 5. These games were responsible for me being interested in the language and the country's history as a whole.
I just started the video but I'm curious if you used to hang on Scholars of Shen Zhou or Three Kingdoms Frontier? They were my life back when I was growing up.
2:21:52 at age o 16 Alexander the Great end education and go straigh to command regiment under his father in war against Thracians. And in age 18 winning battles solo command :D
1:52:14 - Yes. OH YES! TENCHU!!!! The PS2 Tenchu, Wrath of Heaven, is so beloved to me as Dynasty Warriors seems to be for you! I would pay full Street Fighter 6 price on a Tenchu for PC on Steam!
You should play total war 3 kingdoms. Fantastic game and not as tedious as romance of the 3 kingdoms. Pick up where you left off when you have the time.
I love Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4 too! Haven't tried the newest ones yet. Curiosity question : Have you ever played Samurai Warriors or Warriors Orochi? Samurai Warriors is basically the same gameplay as Dynasty Warriors but set in Japanese history. Orochi is a crossover of both Dynasty and Samurai Warriors, in an alternative dimension I think
I played the OG Samurai Warriors and enjoyed it, even if the story is far more confusing. I'm not a huge fan of Orochi. The gameplay is fine, but the stories have zero interest for me.
Heh, imagine being me where your first Three Kingdoms introduction was DW6, at the start I loved it and then I played DW8XL and thought oh my god what have I been doing with my life... My only critique of 8XL was the whole game revolved around you carrying every mission. That being said DW9 was a massive downgrade and I am looking at getting into Romance Of The 3K 8 remake on Steam in a couple months! What are your opinions on DW: Origins?
What's interesting is that the producer of the DW games has said that he wants to do two dream games before he retires. Those are Dynasty Warriors Mario and Warriors Star Wars. Either one would fit in the Warriors mold and frankly it's the only way I would ever play a Star Wars game ever again after Disney has squandered it. Having played Almost all the DW games I understand your love for 3 but frankly I would say that the best games are 7 and 8. 7s story is great. Very emotional at points like when Lui Bei passed away. It makes a great companion piece with the John Woo movie,Red Cliff. 8s gameplay is so good and there's so much to do I didn't mind being overpowered at first. And don't be fooled. The game will still hand you your head on the hardest settings. 9 was a huge disappointment sadly and I got rid of the game the same day I got it. In fact it's the last game I have ever pre-ordered. I really felt burned by it. The new game is coming out next year called DW Origins. What that means for the series we'll see. It's a shame since now all the best DW games aren't even DW games. Games like Gundam Warriors,Fire Emblem Warriors, Hyrule Warriors,One Piece Warriors or even Sword of the Berserk are better and feel more fresh. Omega Force really needs to think carefully about how to treat DW. Tactics is great as are the Kessen games with the DW characters. I've always liked the Empires games and Strike Force was a very interesting MMO style game that kind of reminded me of Phantasy Star Online. Pity they never improved on the idea.
You should check out BaseSon's Koihime Musou game series hehehe it's three kingdoms but all historical figures are hot anime girls and you build the biggest most asanine harem of all time
I'm only 6mins at this point but had to stop to comment at your marriage story. Mine very nearly went the same way for the same reason. I was planning on going to China for a year too, but some friends of mine heard about it and said they were doing a year in Vietnam and asked if I wanted to go along. 7 years later, I'm still here and married even though they've long gone home 6 years ago. So even though I didn't end up in China, I'm also where I am today because of Dynasty Warriors 3 looking badass in an Asda game section.
Many thousands of hours playing RTK. It all started in '89, I was 9yrs old and my dad rented Genghis Khan, and we all loved it. Then my dad bought RTK1, and we would watch him play every night. I remember him having a province with a single general Xu Zhu with 100 troops. He would get attacked over and over again by 300-500 troops and just barely win every time. Eventually, we all played together. My dad would always be Cao Cao, my brother Sun Quan, and me Liu Bei. Spent countless hours among friends playing ROTK 2&3. Played 4 a long time when I was 16yrs old, and after that I just lost interest, life changes etc. Played 8 or 9 for a while on PS2 when I was about 26yrs old, then played DW 4&5. Havent played RTK in a very long time, but I have an emulator console otw and will be playing again. Would like to play all the other Koei games as well, like Genghis Khan, Nobunagas Ambition etc. I always felt a personal link to Liu Bei, maybe I am descended from his line somehow...
11 was my favorite ROTK game. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were godly with God's Command and Devine Right respectfully. Both had a 80+% chance to confuse anyone as long as they are using spears. Also towers were incredibly overpowered.
Man I love this story and I feel like most westerners it's thanks to koei. But let's be honest if it wasn't for rotk or dynasty warrior games koei wouldn't have become ad big as they have been. Funny both rotk and dw8 are technically the best in the series. It's hard to not have a essay sized comment besides I still love the games and koei on general. Thinking about it both rotk 4 and dw4 were the first ones of each one thst I played.
Thank you for this retrospective! Awesome to see someone impacted by the Dynasty warriors as well and it was awesome to see how it set you off on your path. I don't usually comment on videos but this video deserves to reach more people. Keep up the good work man!
I loved this one! Watched it all whilst playing Samurai Warriors 2. The ps2 era of Warriors games was insane, i'm on a mission to max all the ps2 Warriors games out. Thanks for this gem of a video!
I think in the last five years, if there was anybody who has been so influential on my gaming tastes its been you. First with Switch imports, than with Visual Novels and finally with Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Without wading in to modern politics, I've really grown to love Chinese history and culture. Playing games, listening to podcasts and very briefly diving in to Romance of the Three Kingdoms in book form (though I was thoroughly confused and had to put it down. It feel like was reading a poor abridged version. SO if you can recommend me to version would be best to read do let me know!), I'm become incredibly interested in that time period. I'm super hyped for Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 remake, as I remember you saying it's one of the best. I can only hope it gets that sweet sweet Asian English physical! Fantastic video Bossman. One of your best to date!
Thanks a lot matey! I’m not sure on which version I would recommend. Even the one I read as a kid wasn’t great due to the differently translated names. Was confusing as hell 😅
I spent thousands of hours playing RTK3 as a kid. Read the books too. It took forever because they are hard to read. The games have so much replay value. I wish they would release them on steam or something.
This is an great video. I love Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Growing up in Taiwan, my dad bought me a kid's version of the story and I fell in love with it. Like you, I also loved the video games. My first ROTK was ROTK 2 on the Super NES and I put so many hours into that. I read ROTK in its entirety 5 times. I even collect 1/6 figures of the ROTK characters. I can honestly say the book shaped my life and made me the person I am today with its theme of loyalty, honor, righteousness, and bravery. This is to me, the greatest book ever written and I, like my dad, bought my kids he kiddie version of ROTK and hopefully they will learn to love the book as much as me.
I remember seeing that and it was either released just before I put this video together or just after, either way as you said not my cup of tea. Would have probably brought the video down with my moaning 😂
Wow that intro meant alot to me . Because i had a very similar story without going to china. My first dw was dw2 and i loved it. My best friend introduced it to me. And the names in the game always seemed so familiar to me until i found out that they are the same names as in my game rotk 4 . When i found out it was actual events i downloaded the book and printed almost 30 or 40 pages of the book and started to read it. It was actually my first book ever. But it was very hard for me to understand as a teenager and my main language was german and back then there was no translation. With 15 i traveled to washington for summer vacation and a good school friend of mine invited me to new york where i actually bought a physical copy of this book. At the same time rotk8 came out and i bought it for my 16 th birthday and i absolutely fell in love with this game. Rotk has a very special place in my life and i have to thank koei for introducing me in this fantastic story. My favourite character was when i was young zhang liao but as i grew older it changed to xiahou dun. I also love xu zhu in the book. This was an amazing video it was very interesting especially the intro. Thank you.
Not having the PUKs for the games released for us in the West, is the most irresponsible thing from a company to do. It was so sad that they not only did not give us the upper versions of their ROTK and Nobunaga games, but also we missed many games that left only on the Japanese market, and of course are untranslated right now.... It's so sad to see them neglecting a part of the world. So glad that we proved them wrong on their decision
@@ABitMoreJordan I can't wait for the remake!!!! It just takes too long :( Great video btw!!! I think you are the only one that got into the games retrospectively regarding the entire series!!! WOuld be amazijng if you could do specific videos reviewing each one of them, especially the ps2 era ones!!! I know it takes a lot of time and dedication, just saying!!! You have earned a subscribe either way : )
I’m venturing into this crazy world of the Three Kingdom and I promise you that I will create one playthrough and make sure YUAN BIGDICK becomes the greatest general under the heavens. I appreciate you for all the hard work that went into this. It was highly enjoyable all the way through. Thank you.
I was more of a Japan/Sengoku Jidai person myself. So I prefered Kessen 1 and 3. But kessen 2 is also great and I still own all of them for PS2. And the game for Xbox you are thinking of is Kingdom under fire. It shares similarities with the Kessen games, escpecially Kessen 2. I like ancient China too and played some of Koei's ROTK games, and Three Kingdoms Total War. But the Dynasty Warriors games never clicked with me. The same goes for Samurai Warriors despite me loving eveyrthing about that period in every game from Nobunagas Ambition and Shogun Total War to Sekiro and the more over the top games like Onimusha. ...Three Kingdoms TW does indeed have a little confusing UI for sure. I like the game, but the UI is a bit of a mess even after getting used to compared to other TW titles. But if you find TK TW's UI unwelcoming you should try any of Paradox Interactive's games😂.
#2:14:30 I think that was referring to the story of Lady Sun (sometimes referred as Sun Shang Xiang) attempt to kidnap Liu Shan when she was returning back to Wu in 212. Depending on the characterization it was framed either as an intentional act, or a last request from her sick mother (Lady Wu) to meet her "grandson" (a ploy from Sun Quan). Zhuge Liang purportedly ordered Zhao Yun to intercept her at the river and while Zhao Yun failed to convince her to stay, he managed to convince her to not bring Liu Shan along.
Based Dynasty Tactics fan. DT2 owns a large portion of young years. I hate how Koei's games are always so childish and clean, I wish there were a series of games where the characters act more realistically and everything is more serious. I know Liu Bei is romanticized to hell and back in Romance of the Three Kingdoms but I just can't take how far they take his lionization sometimes. I've grown to actively hate Shu in all the years since Dynasty Warriors 2 because of their ridiculous portrayal. Samurai Warriors is the same way, all the characters reach cringe anime tier morality lessons for no reason. These were brutal civil wars and the games revolve around killing thousands of people, the cotton candy tone is just imbecilic and infantilizing.
This is a great video I started way back in the NES/Famicom era with Destiny of an Emperor probably still my favorite game to this day it was so deep for a 8bit rpg. Fast forward to when I first played Dynasty Warriors 3 on PS2 at my friends house he was shocked I knew the story and the characters already and like you was addicted after that.
1:17:47 - This is essentially how I feel about Elden Ring vs the Souls series. Technically speaking, Elden Ring is superior and more polished than Souls, but I still prefer the latter because ER went overboard with how it wants you to play the game. Enemies are way to overturned and the window you're supposed to punish them is overly specific, and too many bosses have variable combo branching & seemingly infinitely stamina. It's a good thing, even DS did it, but DS only did it with some bosses, whereas ER does it with every single boss. It gets monotonous and tedious really quickly. I know ER is not a sequel to Souls, more of a spiritual successor, but I think my point still stands as a comparison between different games of the same subgenre.
I think that’s my biggest frustration with Dynasty Warriors. You’re a one man army whose one swing kills a dozen men and they just stand around and do nothing. Seems like the earlier games made the effort to make it feel like a battle. My dream game ever since I was a kid was a game where I felt like I was in the middle of a big battle like in Lord of the Rings and other epics. But Dynasty Warriors ain’t it. At least not for me.
Early Dynasty Warriors is kinda difficult game, if you challenge normal and hard difficulty right at the start, the game plays like souls game, but leveling and weapon farming system will even the odds when you play longer and longer this game. But recent dynasty warrior games lost this touch. Bro! Romans of Three Kingdoms 8 will have remake this year ! Can't wait to get hands on the new game KOEI is produced.
I definitely agree with you I don't like the modern ones Dynasty Warriors 7 and 8 a star system and you have to do certain things to get the other one unlocked no thank you Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires I can play that all day but Dynasty Warriors 3 4 and 5 are definitely the ones are the best ones Samurai Warriors series the first one and the second one of the best
For more batshit crazyness (Like Kessen 2), you should check out BLADESTORM - KOEI's fantastically barking take on the 100 Year War between England & France. Its brilliant in all of its over the top animeness. 😂 EDIT: Bladestorm may actually be the Xbox game you're trying to remember!
This is incredible, I’ve always known about the three kingdoms inspired games but I’ve never really seen any TH-cam coverage so for one of my favorite creators to cover it, I know I’m in for a treat.
Wow thank you so much!! I’m glad I could make content about this, shame not many people talk about this wonderful part of Chinese history/culture
Liao Hua was apparently godlike (age wise). He was a Yellow Turban when the ROTK games had Yellow Turbans. He was still alive in the final scenarios. That would make him over 100 years old. Lol A 100 year old man still fighting and swinging a sword.
Oh wow, this series really had an impact on your life. Just hearing that intro had me super hyped to watch and become and engrossed in this series as you are!
The best part of Dynasty Warriors 3 is really its voice acting.
“You flaming idiots! Feel the power of my MAAAGIC!!!!”
What a beautiful tribute, Jordan. Cheers
Thank you kindly!
I grew up on DW3 and the menu music still slaps. Just loaded it the other week when my old PC died and was waiting on a replacement. DW2 looks solid and a huge improvement on the earlier street-fighter-meets-China debut, but 3 I think took it a big step forward while keeping all of the same energy and epic music. I mean, WAY more maps and characters in 3, many more moves and combos, ect. It also looked pretty good for the day.
And YES...it is much harder than I remember lol. I forgot that back then you really had to be skilled to walk into a large group of basic troops - they really gang up on you. No wonder you were allowed to have up for 8 elite bodyguards for a whole squad
🀄 I think this is your best video so far Jordan. The lore runs deep, and your personal connection to it really comes through!
Wow, thank you!
The game you’re thinking of is Kingdom Under fire
I was thinking he meant Bladestorm but that was on Xbox360
Thissss!!! Love that game.
when I was 13 my best friends family rented a condo on a beautiful little island. Right on the beach. He brought me and I brought my PS2. We spent the whole vacation in the room grinding away at Dynasty Warriors 3. Best vacation ever.
Sounds epic!
Nice! I was waiting for a long review!
I can't watch now but I want watch this later. A lot more Jordan.
Never knew there was so many 3 Kingdoms release in the West. But man this doesn't scratches the massive rabbit hole that is the 3 Kingdoms games in the East, from multiple tactics games, to Isekai RPG base of manga, to Diablo esque dungeon crawler, and a silly dodgeball game with the Wu Kong mythology characters. I am so happy that Heroes of the Three Kingdoms series/ 三国群英传 got ported to Steam (though sadly no English translation), so I can relive my childhood of playing a total war esque rpg, despite not being able to read.
I finally got around to watching this and Jordan you managed to make me emotional in less time than the movie Up.
Wasn’t my intention but happy I hit the feels! 🙏
A good overview of the games that have been launched from the Three Kingdoms itself. Lots of variety out there with their own tweaks and shows what some studios can do with such a concept.
So to add to some opinions and facts
DW3 sadly, is a bit held back by its infamous P1 stats scaling.
The AI basically scales their stats on higher star stages and/or higher difficulties in accordance to the current total stats of the character being played in Player 1's slot (solo or co-op).
Higher P1 attack = increased enemy defense, higher P1 defense = increased forms of damage to the player from all sources.
This is why archers in DW3 are so particularly deadly (especially IF you have no extra bow defense to compensate for that increase in enemy damage), and why your allies struggle more than usual on Very Hard difficulty (allied AI units don't have their stats increased in tandem to compensate).
BUT, with this infamous feature, you can slot in a weak undeveloped character in P1 and slap in a fully-developed character in P2, and basically have P2 go to town on everyone (you can even unlock certain infamous rare weapons this way).
They HEAVILY NERFED this stat scaling bs in DW4, and personally the 3 and 4 Xtreme Legends expansions are great in my book for one thing; the actual attempt to make the AI be challenging AND intelligent.
Expert Mode in DW4XL has massively improved enemy general AI (ESPECIALLY playable generals both allied and enemy) which isn't perfect, but still something to recognize Koei and Omega Force for attempting to make challenging engagments.
Hell, 3XL Very Hard and 4XL Expert made the AI playable generals wield their 4th/Lv 10 weapons to really show they mean business (same exact attributes + Lv 10 weapons also have free elemental attack activation without need for full Musou Gauge).
But with DW5, alongside Warriors Orochi 1, it set an unfortunate precedent. The new Chaos Difficulty is now merely just Hard Mode AI that ignores your current defense stats for damage done to you, the player (aside from a few story and aesthetic changes brought about from DW5 that I didn't enjoy). Chaos Difficulty even in DW5XL iirc doesn't even make AI playable generals wield their rare weapons (when did they ever do that again) nor does it re-include 5th weapons until WO3 Ultimate/DW8.
While the later WO and DW games are fun in their own way, it ultimately also got downgraded into "if your character can abuse the best combination of broken attributes to safely one-shot dumb AI death sticks who just one-shot you, or just die cause your character's kit or amount of activation attacks is badly designed via oversight" (WO1 made it clear this way when Diaochan and Guan Ping are top tier in solo Chaos maximization runs while Lü Bu, YES LÜ BU, sucks cause he has attacks that can't abuse those optimal setups).
Also, the Musou Warriors series' main composer, MASA/Masayoshi Sasaki, didn't exactly pull off the Chinese-styled aesthetic for the series' music until DW3XL for its opening, and then especially in DW4-onwards. He sadly already left the company like around 2020.
Also, Koei Tecmo is just cheap AF enough to hire Hollywood VA's for DW9's dub (NOTHING to do with the VA Strike) ...AND all their increased DLCs ever since the Tecmo merge.
In regards to DW6 being such an infamous black sheep in the series, it's safe to say tho most of the time, the mechanics were fine ideas which were sadly, not implemented property.
Multi-Raid/Strikeforce at least dabbled in one thing DW never did again until DW9....aerial combat. SF basically did it in a DBZ/Dissidia dash-flight-based fashion.
Much love to you and your family Jordan and much respect for following your dreams and passions keep on shining you champion
I appreciate that!
@@ABitMoreJordan your welcome my man
Hey just wanted to say that this was a fantastic video. I have been a fan of the three kingdoms since I found DW3 myself. I believe we're right about the same age, only I'm a yankee. I bonded very closely with the series and even when my friends had moved on from the franchise, I remember pre ordering DW5 and being blown away by the character campaigns. This was also where I first realized the encyclopedia, and I hilariously did a whole final project in high school based mostly off of the great write ups in the encyclopedia. I wasn't the best student...
Your story with rot3k is fascinating and the fact it led you to live in China is remarkable. It's made me feel less of an outsider to see some real life genuine enthusiasm for this tale. I always feel like a bit of a doofus trying to explain to people why I love this particular story, but at its core its because KOEI gave me the privilege of several digestible versions of it.
This was wonderful Jordan! I've always been aware of the lore, but never dove in. Now I'm hungry for some three kingdoms!
The part about liu bei's son got kidnapped was in the novel and it was sun shang xiang who did it. She was unable to defy her mother so she went back to wu along with child liu shan but he was resqued by... Zhao yun again.
Just found this on TH-cam and didn't expect to hear meadowhall mentioned!
Personally I first got into the three kingdoms series when I was a young teenager, and Romance of the three Kingdoms 3 was out for the SNES. It scratched my itch for "conquest" games. My parents wouldn't ever buy me games because I was too addicted to them. But I ended up buying RTK3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11 on console and 13 and 14 on steam, though 14 is laggy for me for my current PC. 13 is similar to 8 where you can play as a single general and rise up the ranks/get rapport with others/start your own kingdom. I really enjoyed that aspect. Infact the only time I ever conquered all china as a historical ruler was back in RTK3 as Han Fu. (side note, they made Han Fu progressively worse in each following series)
I really liked Dynasty warriors, but something I enjoyed more which was omitted from this list was the hybrid version of DW, which was DW: Empires. It was the hack n slash but also conquest game.
As for the total war games, while aesthetically appealing, the long drawn out battles/manipulating troop movements never appealed to me.
The most popular TK game used to be in China is 三国志II 覇王の大陸（Sangokushi 2 - Haou no Tairiku）in FC. There are still many hack versions under developing today.
I love your enthusiasm for Dynasty Tactics. I never played the first game, but I would play the second so much as a kid. I had multiple nights where I would be up playing it until the sun came up in the morning. I'll probably try and emulate it again on my steam deck.
@@tylerhanson5791 try the first game!
I'm surprised you didn't have anything to say about Empires when you were such a fan of Tactics and Kessen.
Expected ROT3K Retrospective, got a wholesome family story
I had "Dynasty Warriors" 1 for PS1 as a kid. It was a bargain bin game.
You know it's actually really good. I had a lot of good time playing that. Compared to contemporary bargain bin games I had such as Evil Zone and Total Eclipse Turbo it was much, much better. Not as good as Strider 2 but I got a lot of play time out of Dynasty Warriors and thought it was weird they made the sequel as an open map thing.
Romance was my first grand strategy game I played without knowing what that even was.
I think the xbox game you were thinking of during the Kessen II portion is Kingdom Under Fire :)
Once my friend and I played DW3 together, I was hooked. I collected each one and the expansions when they would come out. I waited until I really wanted a few games before getting my PS4 and one of those games was DW8:XL Complete.
I was hyped about DW9 until I saw reviews and just stayed away from it all together.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII is one of my favorite PS2 games and I had a great time with Dynasty Tactics 1 and 2 as well.
I do think they should go back to making everyone smarter on both sides. Let me choose my difficulty so I can be the unstoppable force or the lowly foot soldier when I want.
I was just looking into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, which led me here. Like you, I didn't realise all of this stuff was an adaptation, and from real history. I'm considering starting with RTK IV which is still available on PS3 US PSN, then probably the remake of VIII when it comes out. I've also got the Dynasty Wars games which are an incredibly nostalgic memory from the arcades!
Cute hearing about your own life path, and well done on the video 👍
Thanks a lot!
For DW, I believe Koei simply lowered the bar of entry (ie the standard difficulty) because playing even the more recent ones in harder settings (Chaos mode in Empires games is a good example since you always start at level 1), the challenge is pretty much similar to older games, the main difference being that from 6 onwards, mooks are their own character types (they played similarly to officers before) and individually weaker, but they are subdivided into multiple types (spears/swords, banners, shields, bowmen) and they mostly attack in formation or buff/protect each other (I'm pretty sure they can also debuff the player in 7). A lot of these subtleties are not obvious in the normal difficulties of later games but you start to see it once you go further.
Dynasty warriors was my childhood. Dunstable warriors 4 was the first. Then I went to 2, then 3 and so on. Dunstable warriors 5 is my all time favorite. Empires my all all time favorite. I got introduced to ROTK about 15 years later actually. And ROTK 11 is my favorite. I play it none stop. I also want to go to China. I'm 29 years old and has always wanted to see the locations of Dynasty warriors. See the statue of Guan Yu. All the stuff! I just don't have the money yet..😊
Dynasty Wars looks pretty cool. I'm not that into strategy so I hope they make more games in other genres.
Kingdom Under Fire was a similar game on Xbox ;)
In depth video. Love it! For now I only have Dynasty Warriors for PS1...
What a lovely family you've built, Jordan! Your kid is very cute. Much respect, and please come to Brazil.
Thanks you 😊
I got hooked the same way, but it was on RotTK 2 on SNES
Probably hundreds of not thousands of hours in that game. Right up there with FF3(6) and Uncharted Waters 2 New Horizons.
Bring back dynasty tactic. Damn i really love that game.
Everyday I think to myself... Man, I just wanna play Dynasty Tactics all day long.
Loved the video, man. Especially the Dynasty Tactics sections.
The XBox game you were asking about in the Kessen 2 section, any chance it was Kingdom Under Fire? I think the subtitle was Crusaders?
You missed the RTS game called Dragon Throne: Battle of Red Cliffs.
I miss Kessen 2. It was the improvement Kessen 1 needed. Kessen 3 went on its own direction,
K2 Story and characters are weird as heck, but man was it engaging and fun.
I remember being very excited by Kessen 3, but actually being disappointed
@@ABitMoreJordan Yes same. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't Kessen. it was much smaller and faster felt more arcadey, I actually enjoyed the slower paced action and scale. I even ended up missing the campiness of Kessen 2.
I played Xtreme Mode in 4XL so much I had every character's stats maxed out.
Kessen II was what introduced me to the Three Kingdoms period XD
What a way to start
Damm bro. I wonder if i am the only person to actually LOVE DW 6. Was it REALLY that bad?
Dynasty Warriors kind of died for me after 5. I think 7 did the best with the story, but I hate how 7 and 8 had the whole rock, paper, scissors system with the weapon change. I also hate the whole, "go here and kill this general so the red zone can disappear." I miss running behind enemy lines in DW5 and working for that 1,000 count.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI was a huge part of my PS2's life. Yeah it was turn-based, but I liked how the battles took place on the entire actual map and did not go into another screen like Total War and Nobunaga's Ambition. Building forts to conserve food and arrows next to rivers felt impactful. All these new ROTK games fail trying to be real-time while having the whole map as the battle screen. I felt like Zhuge Liang when I repel 100,000 enemies with just 20,000 troops due to defenses.
They taught me how to run an airline twenty years at a time.
Better than how to invade a neighboring country haha
Great video and glad you've been living in my country ❤ And it is always weird to say that my favorite dw game is dw6, which is considered the worst one alongside dw9. When I got ps2 as a child, my uncle randomly bought me dw3 and dw6 cds, and I played the latter first. So instead of a typical action game, my first impression of the series was being a hero, running here and there, saving allies and taking strongholds within limited time (assassination was also an option). In other entries, things tended to be more scripted and linear, even while other aspects were designed way better and more complete. Later I realized that this particular gameplay kinda shared something similar with openworld games. So it is interesting that players of different genres could collide at the same series, when a wrong decision and betrayal to its fanbase ironically attracted someone else. Storytellingwise I think dw7 was the best, since it was loyal to the history (or fiction) and the cutscenes portrayed Cao Cao and Liu Bei pretty well.
Bro I really appreciate the correct Chinese pronunciation. I mean, I'm not Chinese, but 'cow cow' hurts my ears.
And I have to just say that I'm crazy about the character design of the dw series until 5. These games were responsible for me being interested in the language and the country's history as a whole.
The character designs really fell off a cliff. I think they’ve brought it back though in recent entries
I just started the video but I'm curious if you used to hang on Scholars of Shen Zhou or Three Kingdoms Frontier? They were my life back when I was growing up.
I used to be on Scholars of Shen Zhou 👍
Kingdoms underfire is what you were thinking of
@@jrlair 👍
2:21:52 at age o 16 Alexander the Great end education and go straigh to command regiment under his father in war against Thracians. And in age 18 winning battles solo command :D
1:52:14 - Yes. OH YES! TENCHU!!!! The PS2 Tenchu, Wrath of Heaven, is so beloved to me as Dynasty Warriors seems to be for you! I would pay full Street Fighter 6 price on a Tenchu for PC on Steam!
Based take on Liao Hua, WHY ISN'T HE PLAYABLE OR UNIQUE? BRO HAS DONE SO MUCH IN 3K
You should play total war 3 kingdoms. Fantastic game and not as tedious as romance of the 3 kingdoms. Pick up where you left off when you have the time.
I love Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4 too! Haven't tried the newest ones yet. Curiosity question : Have you ever played Samurai Warriors or Warriors Orochi? Samurai Warriors is basically the same gameplay as Dynasty Warriors but set in Japanese history. Orochi is a crossover of both Dynasty and Samurai Warriors, in an alternative dimension I think
I played the OG Samurai Warriors and enjoyed it, even if the story is far more confusing. I'm not a huge fan of Orochi. The gameplay is fine, but the stories have zero interest for me.
The xbox game you're thinking of is Kingdom Under Fire.
Sure is!
Uh wo long voice acting is in English maybe yours is in Chinese because you set it for Chinese or you bought the Chinese version
Ain't gonna lie I'm sick of the Dw6 slander, favorite game crew over here
Heh, imagine being me where your first Three Kingdoms introduction was DW6, at the start I loved it and then I played DW8XL and thought oh my god what have I been doing with my life... My only critique of 8XL was the whole game revolved around you carrying every mission. That being said DW9 was a massive downgrade and I am looking at getting into Romance Of The 3K 8 remake on Steam in a couple months! What are your opinions on DW: Origins?
That xbox game you're looking for is Kingdom Under Fire
👍
Different dynasty tactic 1 and 2 what ?
@@maingamesmulki-kungameplay9088 I don’t understand the question
4:32 game name?
One of the Knights of Valor games. see 02:12:24
What's interesting is that the producer of the DW games has said that he wants to do two dream games before he retires. Those are Dynasty Warriors Mario and Warriors Star Wars. Either one would fit in the Warriors mold and frankly it's the only way I would ever play a Star Wars game ever again after Disney has squandered it.
Having played Almost all the DW games I understand your love for 3 but frankly I would say that the best games are 7 and 8. 7s story is great. Very emotional at points like when Lui Bei passed away. It makes a great companion piece with the John Woo movie,Red Cliff. 8s gameplay is so good and there's so much to do I didn't mind being overpowered at first. And don't be fooled. The game will still hand you your head on the hardest settings. 9 was a huge disappointment sadly and I got rid of the game the same day I got it. In fact it's the last game I have ever pre-ordered. I really felt burned by it. The new game is coming out next year called DW Origins. What that means for the series we'll see. It's a shame since now all the best DW games aren't even DW games. Games like Gundam Warriors,Fire Emblem Warriors, Hyrule Warriors,One Piece Warriors or even Sword of the Berserk are better and feel more fresh. Omega Force really needs to think carefully about how to treat DW.
Tactics is great as are the Kessen games with the DW characters. I've always liked the Empires games and Strike Force was a very interesting MMO style game that kind of reminded me of Phantasy Star Online. Pity they never improved on the idea.
Comment for the comment gods.
You should check out BaseSon's Koihime Musou game series hehehe it's three kingdoms but all historical figures are hot anime girls and you build the biggest most asanine harem of all time
naaaahhhhh DW4 is still the GOAT for me
So...uh...China numba wan?
Number one in historical video game badassery
@@ABitMoreJordan as long as the CCP didn't pay for the creation of this video, I'm cool with it. 🐲
Tactics 2 is goat
I’ve been playing 2 more recently but I still think I prefer the chaos of 1
her super mario bros sure a likely story lol.😂
I'm only 6mins at this point but had to stop to comment at your marriage story. Mine very nearly went the same way for the same reason. I was planning on going to China for a year too, but some friends of mine heard about it and said they were doing a year in Vietnam and asked if I wanted to go along. 7 years later, I'm still here and married even though they've long gone home 6 years ago. So even though I didn't end up in China, I'm also where I am today because of Dynasty Warriors 3 looking badass in an Asda game section.
Many thousands of hours playing RTK. It all started in '89, I was 9yrs old and my dad rented Genghis Khan, and we all loved it. Then my dad bought RTK1, and we would watch him play every night. I remember him having a province with a single general Xu Zhu with 100 troops. He would get attacked over and over again by 300-500 troops and just barely win every time. Eventually, we all played together. My dad would always be Cao Cao, my brother Sun Quan, and me Liu Bei. Spent countless hours among friends playing ROTK 2&3. Played 4 a long time when I was 16yrs old, and after that I just lost interest, life changes etc. Played 8 or 9 for a while on PS2 when I was about 26yrs old, then played DW 4&5. Havent played RTK in a very long time, but I have an emulator console otw and will be playing again. Would like to play all the other Koei games as well, like Genghis Khan, Nobunagas Ambition etc. I always felt a personal link to Liu Bei, maybe I am descended from his line somehow...
11 was my favorite ROTK game. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei were godly with God's Command and Devine Right respectfully. Both had a 80+% chance to confuse anyone as long as they are using spears. Also towers were incredibly overpowered.
Same here, started playing ROTK in '88, Nobunaga's Ambition the same year,Ghengis Khan in '89.
Great video! It was thoroughly enjoyable and educational. I have some fond memories with koei.
Glad you enjoyed it!
My friend the game you were talking about on Xbox that you are looking for. Is it called Bladestorm?
I think it was Kingdom Under Fire
Man I love this story and I feel like most westerners it's thanks to koei. But let's be honest if it wasn't for rotk or dynasty warrior games koei wouldn't have become ad big as they have been. Funny both rotk and dw8 are technically the best in the series. It's hard to not have a essay sized comment besides I still love the games and koei on general. Thinking about it both rotk 4 and dw4 were the first ones of each one thst I played.
Thank you for this retrospective! Awesome to see someone impacted by the Dynasty warriors as well and it was awesome to see how it set you off on your path. I don't usually comment on videos but this video deserves to reach more people. Keep up the good work man!
I too love 3 Kingdoms stuff. I bought the amazing english editions of the novel and its wonderful. Thanks for the video
I loved this one! Watched it all whilst playing Samurai Warriors 2. The ps2 era of Warriors games was insane, i'm on a mission to max all the ps2 Warriors games out. Thanks for this gem of a video!
Wow, Meadowhall in Sheffield? Means you are a South Yorkshire lad like me. After uni i moved to Japan and been here ever since, over 15 years ago.
you missed a game "fate of the dragon three kingdoms" its a cossacks clone with some interesting mechanics like food supply for soldiers.
An cool detail about Dynasty Warriors 1 is that the characters' attack patterns were kept through most of the following games.
I think in the last five years, if there was anybody who has been so influential on my gaming tastes its been you. First with Switch imports, than with Visual Novels and finally with Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Without wading in to modern politics, I've really grown to love Chinese history and culture. Playing games, listening to podcasts and very briefly diving in to Romance of the Three Kingdoms in book form (though I was thoroughly confused and had to put it down. It feel like was reading a poor abridged version. SO if you can recommend me to version would be best to read do let me know!), I'm become incredibly interested in that time period. I'm super hyped for Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 remake, as I remember you saying it's one of the best. I can only hope it gets that sweet sweet Asian English physical!
Fantastic video Bossman. One of your best to date!
Thanks a lot matey! I’m not sure on which version I would recommend. Even the one I read as a kid wasn’t great due to the differently translated names. Was confusing as hell 😅
Spends 43 minutes talking about the Warriors games, but only 12 minutes on the Romance games. :/
Sorry!
I spent thousands of hours playing RTK3 as a kid. Read the books too. It took forever because they are hard to read. The games have so much replay value. I wish they would release them on steam or something.
This is an great video. I love Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Growing up in Taiwan, my dad bought me a kid's version of the story and I fell in love with it. Like you, I also loved the video games. My first ROTK was ROTK 2 on the Super NES and I put so many hours into that. I read ROTK in its entirety 5 times. I even collect 1/6 figures of the ROTK characters. I can honestly say the book shaped my life and made me the person I am today with its theme of loyalty, honor, righteousness, and bravery. This is to me, the greatest book ever written and I, like my dad, bought my kids he kiddie version of ROTK and hopefully they will learn to love the book as much as me.
🀄 I noticed Devolver published one called Reigns: Three Kingdoms, but it's card-based, so not your 一杯茶
I remember seeing that and it was either released just before I put this video together or just after, either way as you said not my cup of tea. Would have probably brought the video down with my moaning 😂
Wow that intro meant alot to me . Because i had a very similar story without going to china. My first dw was dw2 and i loved it. My best friend introduced it to me. And the names in the game always seemed so familiar to me until i found out that they are the same names as in my game rotk 4 . When i found out it was actual events i downloaded the book and printed almost 30 or 40 pages of the book and started to read it. It was actually my first book ever. But it was very hard for me to understand as a teenager and my main language was german and back then there was no translation.
With 15 i traveled to washington for summer vacation and a good school friend of mine invited me to new york where i actually bought a physical copy of this book. At the same time rotk8 came out and i bought it for my 16 th birthday and i absolutely fell in love with this game. Rotk has a very special place in my life and i have to thank koei for introducing me in this fantastic story. My favourite character was when i was young zhang liao but as i grew older it changed to xiahou dun. I also love xu zhu in the book. This was an amazing video it was very interesting especially the intro. Thank you.
Not having the PUKs for the games released for us in the West, is the most irresponsible thing from a company to do. It was so sad that they not only did not give us the upper versions of their ROTK and Nobunaga games, but also we missed many games that left only on the Japanese market, and of course are untranslated right now.... It's so sad to see them neglecting a part of the world. So glad that we proved them wrong on their decision
Yeah the lack of PUK always disappointed me. But I should be grateful Europe got VIII at all. It shaped my life.
@@ABitMoreJordan I can't wait for the remake!!!! It just takes too long :( Great video btw!!! I think you are the only one that got into the games retrospectively regarding the entire series!!! WOuld be amazijng if you could do specific videos reviewing each one of them, especially the ps2 era ones!!! I know it takes a lot of time and dedication, just saying!!! You have earned a subscribe either way : )
I’m venturing into this crazy world of the Three Kingdom and I promise you that I will create one playthrough and make sure YUAN BIGDICK becomes the greatest general under the heavens. I appreciate you for all the hard work that went into this. It was highly enjoyable all the way through. Thank you.
🫡
I was more of a Japan/Sengoku Jidai person myself. So I prefered Kessen 1 and 3. But kessen 2 is also great and I still own all of them for PS2. And the game for Xbox you are thinking of is Kingdom under fire. It shares similarities with the Kessen games, escpecially Kessen 2.
I like ancient China too and played some of Koei's ROTK games, and Three Kingdoms Total War. But the Dynasty Warriors games never clicked with me. The same goes for Samurai Warriors despite me loving eveyrthing about that period in every game from Nobunagas Ambition and Shogun Total War to Sekiro and the more over the top games like Onimusha.
...Three Kingdoms TW does indeed have a little confusing UI for sure. I like the game, but the UI is a bit of a mess even after getting used to compared to other TW titles. But if you find TK TW's UI unwelcoming you should try any of Paradox Interactive's games😂.
#2:14:30 I think that was referring to the story of Lady Sun (sometimes referred as Sun Shang Xiang) attempt to kidnap Liu Shan when she was returning back to Wu in 212. Depending on the characterization it was framed either as an intentional act, or a last request from her sick mother (Lady Wu) to meet her "grandson" (a ploy from Sun Quan). Zhuge Liang purportedly ordered Zhao Yun to intercept her at the river and while Zhao Yun failed to convince her to stay, he managed to convince her to not bring Liu Shan along.
The Last One I Played Was Romance Of The Three Kingdoms IV: Wall Of Fire. I Was Thinking About Picking The Series Back Up.
So when's the "Completing Every Musou Game" series starting?
I'm not that insane!
Is the XBOX game kingdom under fire? they have been re-released on steam XD
Based Dynasty Tactics fan. DT2 owns a large portion of young years.
I hate how Koei's games are always so childish and clean, I wish there were a series of games where the characters act more realistically and everything is more serious. I know Liu Bei is romanticized to hell and back in Romance of the Three Kingdoms but I just can't take how far they take his lionization sometimes. I've grown to actively hate Shu in all the years since Dynasty Warriors 2 because of their ridiculous portrayal. Samurai Warriors is the same way, all the characters reach cringe anime tier morality lessons for no reason. These were brutal civil wars and the games revolve around killing thousands of people, the cotton candy tone is just imbecilic and infantilizing.
This is a great video I started way back in the NES/Famicom era with Destiny of an Emperor probably still my favorite game to this day it was so deep for a 8bit rpg. Fast forward to when I first played Dynasty Warriors 3 on PS2 at my friends house he was shocked I knew the story and the characters already and like you was addicted after that.
1:17:47 - This is essentially how I feel about Elden Ring vs the Souls series. Technically speaking, Elden Ring is superior and more polished than Souls, but I still prefer the latter because ER went overboard with how it wants you to play the game. Enemies are way to overturned and the window you're supposed to punish them is overly specific, and too many bosses have variable combo branching & seemingly infinitely stamina. It's a good thing, even DS did it, but DS only did it with some bosses, whereas ER does it with every single boss. It gets monotonous and tedious really quickly. I know ER is not a sequel to Souls, more of a spiritual successor, but I think my point still stands as a comparison between different games of the same subgenre.
I think that’s my biggest frustration with Dynasty Warriors. You’re a one man army whose one swing kills a dozen men and they just stand around and do nothing. Seems like the earlier games made the effort to make it feel like a battle.
My dream game ever since I was a kid was a game where I felt like I was in the middle of a big battle like in Lord of the Rings and other epics. But Dynasty Warriors ain’t it. At least not for me.
Early Dynasty Warriors is kinda difficult game, if you challenge normal and hard difficulty right at the start, the game plays like souls game, but leveling and weapon farming system will even the odds when you play longer and longer this game. But recent dynasty warrior games lost this touch. Bro! Romans of Three Kingdoms 8 will have remake this year ! Can't wait to get hands on the new game KOEI is produced.
I definitely agree with you I don't like the modern ones Dynasty Warriors 7 and 8 a star system and you have to do certain things to get the other one unlocked no thank you Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires I can play that all day but Dynasty Warriors 3 4 and 5 are definitely the ones are the best ones Samurai Warriors series the first one and the second one of the best
For more batshit crazyness (Like Kessen 2), you should check out BLADESTORM - KOEI's fantastically barking take on the 100 Year War between England & France. Its brilliant in all of its over the top animeness. 😂
EDIT:
Bladestorm may actually be the Xbox game you're trying to remember!