Last year I took a look at DYNASTY WARRIORS ORIGINS and this year, a rather substantial DLC pack including 4 new campaigns was released. Titled DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS Visions of Four Heroes, players will return to the Dynasty Warriors world and do glorious battle once more!
However, do the 4 new campaigns do enough to keep you hooked or should you rather wait for a sale for this expansion ?
Overview of Visions of Four Heroes
In DYNASTY WARRIORS ORIGINS Visions of Four Heroes, players will have access to 4 separate story campaigns. These being Zhang Jiao, Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shao and Lu Bu respectively. You’ll have to play through Zhang Jiao’s first before unlocking the others and this campaign comes in at around 5 hours long.
Gameplay & New Features
Gameplay has largely remained unchanged from the base game with the exception of a new mode called “Strategic battle”. This is very similar to how battles play out in the Total War series of games. You’ll have your forces placed on a map and you’ll run into enemy forces and do battle. Defeat enough of the enemy forces to weaken them and you’ll unlock bonuses which augment your damage capabilities to the enemy on the battlefield.
New Weapons & Combat Additions
Another new feature is the addition of a ranged weapon. The bow gets unlocked and this is honestly extremely fun to use in combat. Later on you’ll unlock another weapon, the rope dart which is also very fun to use. In addition to these, you’ll also gain access to new Battle Arts and companions but these aren’t exactly completely game changing.
Story Campaign Breakdown
From the 4 story campaigns, Zhang Jiao’s seemed to be the most fleshed out and most enjoyable. Without spoiling too much, Dong Zhuo’s story felt extremely repetitive, Yuan Shao’s focused more on his quest to restore his family to their former glory with an extremely enjoyable concluding battle and Lu Bu’s tale was over in no time flat. These “What if” story scenarios are exactly that. “What if” stories that bring more Dynasty Warriors Origins gameplay to you in bite sized chunks.
Graphics & Visuals
Graphically, the DLC looks every bit as great as the base game but unfortunately, there aren’t any real new maps on offer here. Most are reused and changed up a bit but nothing completely new except for the “Training Ground” where you can train with Zhuhe and face off against multiple enemy officers. The new skill tree relies on “Visionary Skill Points” but ultimately all this skill tree does is just enhance your stats and is limited to the DLC levels only.
Sound & Voice Acting
The soundtrack of DLC is excellent with some really great music tracks that play out during battles. Characters are also voiced acted which is always a great plus point.
Content Value & Replayability
The major downfall of DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS Visions of Four Heroes lies with the fact that each of the stories on offer here consists of 3 major battles and 2 smaller ones and the quality is inconsistent between these stories. Zhang Jiao’s is great throughout but this alone isn’t enough to carry the whole DLC package.
Final Verdict
Overall DYNASTY WARRIORS ORIGINS Visions of Four Heroes’s is a DLC that you should only pick up when it’s on sale or if you’re desperate for more musou hack and slashing after finishing the base game. The repetitive gameplay does wear thin eventually even for someone like me that’s a fan of the genre but nevertheless, the DLC is still enjoyable. I just wish that more was done here given the steep asking price.
While I still recommend playing this DLC, I do suggest waiting for a sale since it’s not exactly groundbreaking new stuff. It’s effectively a collection of “What if” scenarios and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, these scenarios could have been developed a lot more and featured more content to truly excel.
Dynasty Warriors Origins: Visions of Four Heroes – Official DLC Launch Trailer
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
