Dynasty Warriors: Origins – The First Preview

ign.com:

Few games let you smite hundreds of enemies with grandiose attacks as well as the long-running Dynasty Warriors series does, and so in a sense the latest one, Dynasty Warriors Origins, is competing with its past self. But with an enhanced combat system that rewards and incentivizes parrying and perfectly dodging enemy attacks and a more significant focus on telling the story of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms novels from a new perspective, it made a great first impression. These elements were all up my alley for a new Dynasty Warriors game, and playing it left me feeling a sense of wonder, intrigue, and a hunger for more.

Playing Origins was one of those odd phenomena where the images on the screen finally matched what my younger brain had seen when playing earlier games in the series. Bases were bigger, forests were lusher, and the screen was filled with more enemies for me to slash and punch on my way to victory than ever before. The spectacle and visuals of Origins are the best they've ever been, and sure, a lot of that is thanks to the power of modern hardware, but it's also the quality of everything on display. Long gone are the barren lands and mostly identical trees of Dynasty Warriors 9's open world, the repetitive textures on buildings, or the rockfaces surrounding most levels in games before that. Origins' world and characters are full of life, and each one is detailed more than ever, from their armor to their weapons.

Furthermore, Dynasty Warriors Origins introduces a new overworld map mechanic to traverse between battles. This diorama-like map can be explored to find various towns or cities to purchase items, NPCs to converse with, and missions to undertake. I only got to view a small portion of the map, but I did catch a glimpse of a fast-travel button, meaning there are most likely at least enough of these areas to explore to warrant the need for such a system.

Origins' story is told from the perspective of a new original protagonist who will be