Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers Review

Dynasty Warriors has never been a game that could be described as “deep”, after all, it is a game that focuses mostly on hack and slash gameplay, killing hundreds and thousand of troops throughout individual levels. You have limited effect on the game outside of a generic moral meter that is there more to show how many troops you have killed, there is a severe lack of depth of strategy in most of these titles. Godseeker seems to want to try and change this about the series, advertising the game as a strategic Dynasty Warriors game, with troop based combat.

I was excited, I thought finally we are getting a new game in the Kensen series, something I have hoped for, for a long long time. Now this game is not a new version of those Kensen games, which is a disappointment, I was surprised at the game instead.

Graphically this game is not going to top any lists coming out for the best looking game, after all, this is another title that will be both released on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, there will be some better-looking effects on the PS4 version, but do not expect amazing graphics. With this said the game does look good, it is not a bad looking game by any stretch of the imagination. Now to be fair one of my biggest complaints about Koei Tecmo games has always been the awful muddy textures used on the ground of their games. This game has an advantage in the sense that this is a game that constantly used in a bird’s eye view, ever being brought close enough to the ground to notice how low resolution the textures are. In fact, this bird’s eye view does a lot for the overall graphics of the game, hiding a lot of the flaws from view.

Story wise the game is pretty simple, we follow Zhou Yun and Lei Bin, who are friends assaulting the Yellow Turbans, a scenario we have become used to from so many iterations of the game. During the level, they find themselves in front of a giant crystal, giving them access to a mysterious character LiXia, showing us a story that is intertwined throughout the Dynasty Warriors universe. Throughout the game you are introduced to many familiar faces throughout the previous series, coming up as friends and foes throughout a story that whilst is pretty cliché at this point but gets you through the game in an enjoyable enough manner.

This game is not like any other previous Dynasty Warriors title released before this point, this game is closer to a Fire Emblem or X-COM game than Dynasty Warriors, this is a genre that this game has not been shown in before. The game is based around grid-based combat, each of your characters has a limited amount of spaces they can move to, and perform attacks to destroy troops and other main characters during a battle.

When moving near enemies you get the ability to perform special abilities and moves against them, characters all have their own special moves, allowing them to take down singular enemies faster or multiple enemies at once depending on their strength. You can also augment your moves depending on what you use, using a multi-hit move and combining it with a singular hit move will increase its damage focused against a single target. You also get access to mouse moves as you would in the standard games, dealing lots of damage against a target gives you must build up. Once fully charged you can unleash your special move against targets, selecting different abilities changing it from multi hit to a single hit if more damage is required. Choosing the right attack to use at the right time will completely change if you will succeed or fail at a particular level.

Have to give a shout out to the amazing music of the Dynasty Warriors games, this game included, I never thought I would jam out to Classical Chinese styled rock music, but Dynasty warriors is a series that manages such a strange mix of genres together, and I love it.

After my initial disappointment that I actually wasn’t getting a re-imagined Kessen game. At the moment the height of strategy is Nobunaga’s Ambition, with the lowest is Dynasty Warriors. Dynasty Warriors: Godseeker sits in a happy medium, not too difficult as to push newcomers to strategy games, and not too easy to bore experts of the genre. This is a hard balance to pull off, but this game manages to make a game in the middle of that sweet spot. It is disappointing to see a game rely more on Vita style graphics, but as a game, it was a fun experience. At times the game is a little boring, the majority is a fun tactical game, with some tricky AI to battle with, as with most strategy games, it is not for everyone, but this is a good place to start if you are interested in the genre, 7/10.

Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers was review on PlayStation 4, the game is also available on PSVITA