Which Dynasty Warriors installment post-6 should I purchase and play?

[Quinton]

Ahoy, fam.

Recently, I've been having a fun go at Hyrule Warriors. It's super fun! It probably helps that I haven't touched a Musou game since like 2012 but I do think this is a well-crafted Zelda love letter regardless. I'm going to continue chipping away at Hyrule Warriors in the weeks to come... there's a medal for reaching 255 with a character which is bonkers and I don't know if I'll bother going that far but damn. Who knows, maybe I will. (My highest is 45 right now.)

Anyway! I haven't played a Dynasty Warriors title since DW6 and I'm curious which entry from 7 through 9 is considered the best. Do any of them have a particularly strong campaign with a good number of maps? Is the writing passable for a change? Which game has the greatest roster? I could do the homework for this on my own but you're all splendid people and I bet at least a couple of you have opinions in dire need of expression.

Conversely, which is savvier — Samurai Warriors 4 or Samurai Warriors 4-II? And what the heck is even going on here? Also, how is Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn?

Please forgive my scatterbrained question spree. I have had coffee recently.

 

[Etrian Darkness]

Depends what you have to play them on.

Dynasty Warriors 8 XL Complete (I think it's complete on everything current) is the one I'd suggest.

 

[Dreamboum]

If you play it for the story. Play 7.

If you are solely focussed on content. Get 8. But 7 is already hundreds of hours of content. 7 is all-around the best choice

 

[StayMe7o]

I had a lot of fun with 8 XL as a fan of DW3-5

 

[Richter1887]

7 has a really cool story mode. 8 has the most content and no one uses a cloned moveset. Can't go wrong with either of them.


9 brings back the cloned moveset. It is open world and the combat was really fun. It has the sense of scale. A lot of peoplr hate it for various reasons like the cloned moveset or the open world. It was also really buggy at launch and had no split screen co op/online (they patched it and now you have co op). I personally like it lot as it was a fresh experience after all the samey Musou sequels.

Samurai Warriors 4 and II are the same thing. II has different story focused on some unknown characters along with a new character. OG SW4 is more about factions. Both of them have a side mode each. SW4 has a mode where you create a character then go aroud meeting characters and learning about them while traveling around japan fighting battles. II replaces that with a challenge mode where you climb a tower with a series of objectives. I prefer SW4 OG cause of the side mode.

DW Gundam is a fun game but the maps feel small. If you like gundam then it is worth playing because it adapts a lot of different Gunam series.

 

[Nakadai]

7 tells the story in the best manner yet in a Warriors title, hands down. It's awesome.
But 8 has more movesets and feels more complete. The story isn't bad... but it's no 7 in the story department.
9 is almost unplayable, a total mess. Lovely looking and I love the art style, but just awful.

EDIT:
Don't by Samurai Warriors 4-II. Just buy the original Samurai Warriors 4. 4-II Is a bizarre expansion.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

9 is there only place you can get amazing voice acting like this


FWIW I liked 9 because it's such a weird departure, but 8 is probably the most complete for gameplay.

 

[CommandThrower]

As others have said, DW7 has the best story/musou mode, while DW8 has the best roster.


I personally found DW9 to be fun, but it's extremely divisive. If you're not enjoying yourself after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, then you probably won't like what the rest of the game has to offer. It was too ambitious.

 

[ZangBa]

Dynasty Warriors 8XL Complete or whatever it's called, it's the go to DW game right now for sure. 7 is a good game, but 8 is basically just a better version of it. 9 has so many problems. It's not a complete travesty but I would never recommend it to anyone.

As for SW4, I was kind of disappointed in that game and the endgame was not a fun grind. Never played 4-II.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Go for 8XL. It's great and the most complete package.

If you want to check out other franchises made into Musou go for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3. It's outstanding. Best musou game yet.

 

[mogster7777]

I've never understood what the hell is going on in the story in any of these games tbh I dunno why I just have no clue who is bad or good and change sides and characters change but never sure why they are bad against each other. I think it just presents it very badly. It's really confusing

 

[Charred Knight]

I've never understood what the hell is going on in the story in any of these games tbh I dunno why I just have no clue who is bad or good and change sides and characters change but never sure why they are bad against each other. I think it just presents it very badly. It's really confusing

Click to shrink...

Its based on a extremely chaotic era of China where the Han dynasty collapsed leaving China in the hands of a a crap ton of Warlords who fought each other until the three Kingdoms remained.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms

People told stories of the various generals legendary exploits and eventually those stories where all written down as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

There's an encyclopedia that does a pretty good job explaining all the characters and the changing alliances.

Also I would choose 8

Its gives you more freedom, every character is unique in some form, and the hypothetical route is awesome.

 

[Evilisk]

EDIT: I'm gonna spoiler box my wall of text

Spoiler

Dynasty Warriors 7 has the best written campaign. Even though I've been a fan since the PS2 titles, it wasn't actually until Dynasty Warriors 7 came out that I actually understood the plot. This game also introduced a fourth Kingdom, Jin, and since DW8 kinda does a piss poor job in the story department, you might want to play this just to know what their deal is.


Dynasty Warriors 8 is considered the best for pure gameplay variety. There aren't anymore clones; everybody has a unique moveset now. The stages are also more varied than in DW7. Personally, I find the game to be way too safe (I'm pretty fucking bored with the classical Musou formula), but if you haven't played in a while, it's probably the ideal experience.


Dynasty Warriors 9 is hard to really recommend. It does a lot differently, and it does little of it particularly well, but there's one question I can ask to see if you'll like the game: does a Warriors game *need* to have timed, arcade-y battles? If your answer is yes then avoid this game, because there are *no arcade-y battles* whatsoever. If your answer is no, enjoying the game is still an uphill battle. The open world isn't all that great, there is a lot of reused content (everyone's a clone again and most "character stories" are clearly copied from one another), the game doesn't run particularly well, most of the cutscenes are really cheap looking and, if it bothers you, the English voice acting is bad (reaching almost DW3 levels of legendarily bad).

The stuff that's actually good about the new game is basically limited to the new combat system and the story (sort of). The new combat system is pretty great (don't let anybody tell you the old one is better), though you need to buy everything first, like weapons, items, and gems, before it really opens up. The story is also easily second best after DW7, but again it has a problem with lots of reused content and 90% of the cutscenes also look horribly cheap (though in DW9's defense, it has 90% more cutscenes than any other game too. Sections of the story that would have been relegated to "floating portraits with narrated voice over" are actually animated here).

Basically, unless you really, really like action games, or you really, really like Romance of the Three Kingdoms (and want to see the novelty of an open world ancient China), I think there's a good chance you won't enjoy the game

If you want the short of it:

DW7 for the story
DW8 for peak classic Musou-style gameplay
DW9 as a wild card pick (for if you really like ROTK, or if you want to try something else entirely)

I've never understood what the hell is going on in the story in any of these games tbh I dunno why I just have no clue who is bad or good and change sides and characters change but never sure why they are bad against each other. I think it just presents it very badly. It's really confusing

Click to shrink...

If you're ever interested, I'd recommend playing DW7 and it's campaign / story mode.

Bc yeah, the older games DO present the story really badly. But DW7 actually does it really, really well

 

[Deleted member 34873]

7 has the best retelling of the Three Kingdoms story. And it's legitimately a good story. 8XL has the better gameplay.

 

[ghostcrew]

Thanks for starting this thread Quinton because I've been thinking of asking the community the same question for a while! I've always wanted to get into the series and wondered where to start with the recent entries. All I know is that people seem to really hate 9.

What about Warriors Orochi? Good/bad?

 

[Evilisk]

Thanks for starting this thread Quinton because I've been thinking of asking the community the same question for a while! I've always wanted to get into the series and wondered where to start with the recent entries. All I know is that people seem to really hate 9.

What about Warriors Orochi? Good/bad?

Click to shrink...

I don't know if WO would be appropriate for a newcomer (due to the huge, huge cast), but Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate is one of the best Musou games ever (spinoff or not). There's just so much content and gameplay variety between all the different modes and characters.

 

[Hailinel]

I stand by the idea that DW7 has the best story that the series has ever told. The introduction of the Jin faction was incredibly impactful to me after playing through the Wei, Wu, and Shu campaigns. It flips the traditional roles of the factions in these games on their heads.

DW8XL is incredibly content-rich and worth playing with its new characters and the gameplay improvements over 7.

DW9 gets a lot of shit, but I really enjoyed it. It was a lot rougher at launch, but the devs did a lot to improve the experience. The gameplay flow is not the same, given that you're traversing an open world map of China, but the way that battles flow, traveling from base to base and objective to objective, feels really nice. It's an experimental Musou that you're not going to find too many positive opinions of online, but I'd recommend you not skip it.

 

[False Witness]

I quit after being incredibly disappointed in 6. Does the story mode work like it did in the old games in 7 where you had to play with a lot of characters to get the full picture or is it like a legit story mode that changes things up for you when needed?

Is it possible to do a quick run through of 7 for the story and then jump to 8 for the better content?

 

[Poppy]

8 xl is a fun game

Go for 8XL. It's great and the most complete package.

If you want to check out other franchises made into Musou go for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3. It's outstanding. Best musou game yet.

Click to shrink...

i think for me hyrule warriors definitive has it beat but pirate warriors 3 is very good

 

[Deleted member 34873]

I quit after being incredibly disappointed in 6. Does the story mode work like it did in the old games in 7 where you had to play with a lot of characters to get the full picture or is it like a legit story mode that changes things up for you when needed?

Is it possible to do a quick run through of 7 for the story and then jump to 8 for the better content?

Click to shrink...

7 is a legit story mode for each faction. I would advise running through the story mode (and the XL story content) and then spending most of your time with DW8XL as it has better gameplay and more characters

 

[Evilisk]

I quit after being incredibly disappointed in 6. Does the story mode work like it did in the old games in 7 where you had to play with a lot of characters to get the full picture or is it like a legit story mode that changes things up for you when needed?

Is it possible to do a quick run through of 7 for the story and then jump to 8 for the better content?

Click to shrink...

The story isn't character-based. Each Kingdom has a story, and you skip from relevant character to character. Some characters have more battles than others (like the leaders). Certain characters actually don't get a story battle in base DW7, though DW7XL gives those missing characters their own scenario. It should be totally possible to jump over to DW8 after that.

I think that the PC release of DW7 should have everything packed in (base DW7 + DW7XL + the DLC)

 

[Quinton]

Thank you for the informative replies, everyone! <3

Thanks for starting this thread Quinton because I've been thinking of asking the community the same question for a while! I've always wanted to get into the series and wondered where to start with the recent entries. All I know is that people seem to really hate 9.

What about Warriors Orochi? Good/bad?

Click to shrink...

Oh, spot on! I'm glad the topic is beneficial to more than just me!

 

[Exile In Mudville]

I enjoy my time with most Dynasty Warriors games, even the more recent ones. I wish they would bring back or remaster the Strikeforce spinoffs since the combat mechanics seemed to be more fun than your average Musou game. Then again they've gotten way better at combat in the overall series.

I have/had a weird affinity for Dynasty Warriors Online, the MMO game on PC but that's been dead (outside of Japan at least) for 6 years now.

 

[Minlow]

I haven't played one in a long time, but playing Total War: Three Kingdoms definitely makes me nostalgic about the series

 

[Deleted member 62561]

Is it possible to do a quick run through of 7 for the story and then jump to 8 for the better content?

Click to shrink...

story mode isn't short on either game. the book it's based on is very long.

 

[oni-link]

Bit of a bump but is there a Warriors/Musou community thread?

 

[Issen]

DW8XL on PC at a locked 60 is amazing.

 

[Ryuhza]

8XL is one of the most polished entries in the series. The refinement of what they started in 7.

9 is like the studio dislodged their jaw and tried to bite off as much as they could. Some things work. Characters and designs look top notch. The open world can be really pretty in areas (especially the lighting/weather). But it's rough, and one of the most unrefined games in the series. I actually kinda hope they keep trying, though. Start from the base created and overhaul what isn't working.

 

[Cow Mengde]

I forgot which one it was, but you should buy the one where they gave Dian Wei his real weapon, the twin halberds instead of an axe.

 

[Ryuhza]

I forgot which one it was, but you should buy the one where they gave Dian Wei his real weapon, the twin halberds instead of an axe.

Click to shrink...

That's none of them. You can swap weapons freely in 7 and beyond though. The only time Dian Wei swapped his official weapon was in 6, to wield an oversized flail and chain.

 

[squall23]

Conversely, which is savvier — Samurai Warriors 4 or Samurai Warriors 4-II? And what the heck is even going on here? Also, how is Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn?

Click to shrink...

Samurai Warriors 4 has a MUCH better story mode than 4-2. If you want to play 4-2, you can't not play 4.

 

[Cow Mengde]

That's none of them.

Click to shrink...

Exactly.

 

[Quinton]

Thank you, everybody! I think a couple of you are on my Switch friends list so you may have already seen but I chose DW8 in the end. 7's superior storytelling definitely intrigues me, however, and at some point I will look into that as well. I'm not sure about 9, though I applaud Koei for trying something new.

Samurai Warriors 4 has a MUCH better story mode than 4-2. If you want to play 4-2, you can't not play 4.

Click to shrink...

Duuuuuly noted!

 

[AzureFlame]

7>>>8>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>9

7 had the best story, not the best combat system (it was best in DW3-5).

The story in 7 was truly something great.

 

[Sky]

For the best story, go for 7. It was amazing! The story was told in a way where events are in chronological order. There was a scene that had me in tears. 8 is also a solid game.

 

[CommandThrower]

I did want to give DW8's story one particular commendation. One thing it adds, are branching paths with "What if?" scenarios. One such scenario being "What if Wu and Shu's fire attack at Chi Bi didn't work?".


While DW7's story is much superior, DW8's story does have more...replay value, you could say.

 

[DrScissorsMD]

If you're looking for Dynasty specifically, I'd say 8XL was pretty great. But if you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out Warriors Orochi 4. In fact Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate is coming out on all platforms (including Switch) in Feb! Ludicrous amounts of content.

 

[TropicalFish]

DW7's narrative may be presented better than anything that's come before or after but the maps are lowkey awful (they recycled DW6's beautiful maps into something ugly) and the gameplay in general is inferior to DW8 in every way.

I'd watch youtube clips of DW7's story and then go straight to DW8.

 

[TheZynster]

If you have a PC

DW7 complete edition

If you don't have a PC DW8 definitive edition