🀄 I think this is your best video so far Jordan. The lore runs deep, and your personal connection to it really comes through!

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...

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.

This is incredible, I’ve always known about the three kingdoms inspired games but I’ve never really seen any KZfaq coverage so for one of my favorite creators to cover it, I know I’m in for a treat.

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!

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!

Nice! I was waiting for a long review!

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

What a beautiful tribute, Jordan. Cheers

Great video! It was thoroughly enjoyable and educational. I have some fond memories with koei.

The game you’re thinking of is Kingdom Under fire

The best part of Dynasty Warriors 3 is really its voice acting.

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.

This was wonderful Jordan! I've always been aware of the lore, but never dove in. Now I'm hungry for some three kingdoms!

An cool detail about Dynasty Warriors 1 is that the characters' attack patterns were kept through most of the following games.

Wonderful video! I’m motivated to go out and check to see what I need for my collection! 🀄️

For me my first ones were Romance of The Three kingdoms 8 on PS2 and DW4 Empires on PS2. Fell in love with them instantly. And now RTK 8 is getting a remaster.

🀄 This has been a highly awesome video. You sir, are a legend.

I can't watch now but I want watch this later. A lot more Jordan.

Amazing Video, especially with the personal touch regarding the Book. And even though I have no clue why YT decided to recommend me this Video, my only interaction with Romance of the Three Kingdoms so far was casually playing a few of the Dynasty Warriors games, and even then I didn´t even know what they where based on until I watched this Video. You managed to convince me to grab a copy of Dynasty Tactics, the way you described it made it sound like a lot of fun even to me who doesn´t even like Strategy games for the most part. And I promise to read the book this year.

Much love to you and your family Jordan and much respect for following your dreams and passions keep on shining you champion

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!

I am amazed by how good this video is. It definitely helps that you have a very visible passion for the Three Kingdoms. I would not worry about Total War fans coming at you. They are too busy ripping into Creative Assembly's latest releases and business practices to rip into your first impression of the game.

I finally got around to watching this and Jordan you managed to make me emotional in less time than the movie Up.

Just found this on KZfaq and didn't expect to hear meadowhall mentioned!

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.

In depth video. Love it! For now I only have Dynasty Warriors for PS1...

First off, amazing video, and I have now subscribed. I agree with you on the course the Warriors series took. The Xbox game you were thinking of was probably Kingdom Under Fire, which leans a little more on action but also lets you take direct control.

I was first introduced to the concept of Ro3K from DW5: Empires, it became the only thing I played for a good year. The best thing about it is you could make custom characters, based on a preexisting character's moveset. Yes it's basically a custom skin for that basic character, but it hits differently when I could make my whole group of friends in the game and run the custom campaign fighting side by side with my buds.

Zhao Yun 10,000 men battle was not exaggerated and that's what made me fall in love with the warriors series, Samurai included. Although Zhao Yun didn't slay anywhere near the thousands in the Novel he leaves with out a scratch on him and slays about a little over 100 soldiers. The Liu Bei throwing his baby away was real too 💀

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.

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..😊

🀄lovely family and great retro! thank you for sharing with us!

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 👍

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.

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?

My favorite Dynasty Warriors was actually 6, even over 4. With the Renbu system it had a nice emphasis on building and maintaining momentum, which I felt was a layer to the combat system that went beyond the traditional samey combos that you could pull out at any time. Block attacks were also quite fun to use. As for battlefield mechanics, while it's probably true that the emphasis shifted towards the player's impact, it was also the last in the series that had allies have any real agency at all. There was some nuance in understanding which and when allies could handle themselves, and building deathballs via pathing (manipulating the battlefield so 4-5 allied generals stick together and carve their own way to the enemy camp unless they meet a powerful enemy general). The game will very clearly tell you when an ally general in actually in need of your intervention, especially when they're being ambushed, making general positioning pretty important. You can see this especially in the yellow turban mission. I think it's technically possible to basically stand still the entire battle and the allied officers will win the level on their own. The Hu Lao Gate battle with Lu Bu's musou mode in DW6 is my favorite in the series, as all of your allied generals follow you around for the entire mission (or you could free play it with another general and follow him around instead!) Personally, the music in DW6 is my absolute favorite. Not a single bad track in that game. Roster/story was whatever personally. I appreciated the heightened emotional emphasis on the narrative, which I think DW6 and DW7 did better than the others. My biggest gripe with the series is actually when they removed damage inflicted by allied regular soldiers, which completely neutered numbers advantages. In DW7 onward you would see allied and enemy grunts just slap their weapons at each other with unique animations but not do actual damage unless it was against the player. In previous games, having more allies mattered as they could eventually gang up on an officer and knock them around, adding up some hefty damage in the process. It was also a really fun spectacle to see in battles. ROTK 14 is fun, but my opinion is that it has major issues with replayability. Unless you do a lot of work in roleplaying and building a particular narrative for yourself, the overall gameplay loop can get tiring pretty fast once you get can manage to get past a difficult early start. This can be somewhat dealt with by playing on the highest difficulty, but there isn't a great deal of depth in the combat, at least compared to ROTK 11. In particular, activated army abilities used to be much more varied and widely accessible, oftentimes the full range of which were available to an army unit depending on who you brought as general/adjutant. Now it's just one active ability carried by the leading general, which usually can't be activated at will, alongside a range of passive traits held by that general and his adjutants that will usually modify some stats. I'm also not a huge fan of the new supply system: In ROTK 14, an army will continuously deduct food reserves from its origin city, which in turn forces that particular army to be entirely dependent on a contiguous and consistent path of your controlled territory from that army to its city. This means that if at any point that path is cut off, even for a second, your army will be immediately stunned and completely helpless for an extended period of time. It can't even receive supplies from another city of yours whose supply line isn't cut off. It can be fun to be sneaky and send a fast unit to disrupt an enemy supply line to win desperate battles, but it feels a little too gimmicky for me. In ROTK 11 you could assign a general to be a dedicated transport unit who brings a stockpile of extra troops, weapons, and supplies with him, who needs to be protected as the transport unit can't attack, but can in turn replenish food and troops for your other combat units for long campaigns. ROTK 14 transport units can't interact with combat units at all, even if they're carrying a huge load of supplies. Music from both games are very good, although I'm a bigger fan of ROTK 11's OST. ROTK 14 lacks a bit of nuance in its tracks. Long post, I know, but I also have a lot of passion for Romance of the Three Kingdoms media in my own way. I'm also very excited for the new ROTK 8 remake and I'll buy it pretty much no matter what. I strongly, strongly recommend Total War Three Kingdoms if it's ever convenient for you. The [TROM+TUP] Campaign Overhaul mod on steam workshop is almost essential IMO for patching up what it lacks in narrative aspects, and it's probably the best game we'll see out of the period for quite a while. Thanks for the overviews!

Kessen II definitely reminds me of one of my favorite old Xbox games, Kingdom Under Fire. That game had some GOOD metal in it, hooboy... Ps. KUF The Crusaders is available for PC, works fine with a controller but I haven't finished it yet after... some years lol! Ps 2. The commanders in Total War tends to want better offices as they level up, be it becoming governors, councilor or just a fancy title like Lion of the North or something. Some are more ambitious than others, but in general keeping them happy isn't too hard or a big deal. Ps 3. Great vid btw! Haha 🀄

I haven't watched the full video yet but have you watched the Three Kingdoms tv series from 2010?

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.

wow.... just WOW. this game literally changed your life. awesome

My journey into ROTK universe started with DW4. Thank you Jordan, for reminding me of my good memories. 🙏🏻

4:40 Parents: "Why modern children spend all time in watching TV and playing videogames? Why they don't read books?" Also parents when their child bought book that cost more that 0,01 cent: "Are you crazy?"

What a lovely family you've built, Jordan! Your kid is very cute. Much respect, and please come to Brazil.

Okay Jordan, this is my first video ever seeing you. I'm 15:27 in and I like you a lot. Big fan of The whole Three Kingdoms period of China myself, got into it the same way you did, except DW4 was my first buy. Will I finish this video? I assure you thats between me and my attention span, and has nothing to do with you lmao. Definitely subscribing and taking a look at what you've got!

Expected ROT3K Retrospective, got a wholesome family story

DW9 has characters stories and you don’t feel like a “God” until you level up. DW9 does seem to bring back a lot of mechanics from the previous entries.

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 (no 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 removed 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. 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. 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.

at long last someone else knows about and enjoy e dynasty tactics ! ❤

#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.

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.

1:30:48 Game you're recalling is Kingdom Under Fire Crusaders

My friend the game you were talking about on Xbox that you are looking for. Is it called Bladestorm?

I have played every one of them. In 87 at 9 years old I rented Rotk 1 from a local video stop. My favored ones are 2, 4, 8, and 10. I've read the book many times and watched all media related to the story.

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.

Thanks!

The Last One I Played Was Romance Of The Three Kingdoms IV: Wall Of Fire. I Was Thinking About Picking The Series Back Up.

Plus I personally find the scale and overall political and military impact of the three kingdoms just so fascinating truly a unique era of history

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.

Kessen II was what introduced me to the Three Kingdoms period XD

47:30 - Yeah, I feel the same. Having useless allies who are there just as part of the stage or to be rescued. I really liked how the first Call of Duty did the first stages of the campaign. They ran in front of me, not picking enemies' weapons for ammo or looking for med kits. They shot, they got shot, I don't know if they really did a difference, but it sure felt so.

I did not expect to watch a 3kingdoms retrospective starting the year, more so considering I never played any games. Wo Long I might check out someday though... 🀄

i think the game on the xbox you're referring too if it's the 360 is Bladestorm, another game by the same publisher. You took control of units set within the 100 years war.

I think the xbox game you were thinking of during the Kessen II portion is Kingdom Under Fire :)

Is the xbox game your thinking of kingdom under fire: crusaders by any chance?

Kingdom Under Fire was a similar game on Xbox ;)

I started on dw3 as well, so great

Dynasty Wars looks pretty cool. I'm not that into strategy so I hope they make more games in other genres.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (like Nobunaga's Ambition) are the BEST

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

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.

You missed the RTS game called Dragon Throne: Battle of Red Cliffs.

So when's the "Completing Every Musou Game" series starting?

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.

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.

My cousin loaned DW4 from Blockbuster.... I was amazed. When I found DW 3 in morrisons I begged for it. I loved how if you bought DW 3 Extreme Legends and removed the disc and inserted DW 3 you could play as all the character on one disc.

They taught me how to run an airline twenty years at a time.

Wo Long was developed by Team Ninja Dynasty Warriors was developed by Omega Force Team Ninja is good for the souls game that relies on Swiftness the Dynasty Warriors series (at least the older games) is focused both on action and strategic planning like the gate captains defeating them will make it easier for your army to push forward helping them in need and in some games you can call them to help you and focusing on the story Omega force fumbled the bag with the latest entries and i still have hope for the series to return to it's roots

Bring back dynasty tactic. Damn i really love that game.

Damm bro. I wonder if i am the only person to actually LOVE DW 6. Was it REALLY that bad?

thx

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.

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.

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.

you are missing fate of the dragon(rts game with unique perspective) retelling of three kingdom

I played Xtreme Mode in 4XL so much I had every character's stats maxed out.

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

Really enjoyed Kessen 2, very underrated Koei game. all the different routes/ploys in Kessen 2 which allowed you to recruit different characters, getting unique troops for certain characters(Pang De and Mei sanniang have my favorite unique troops), and the over the top mid 2000s koei comedy with Yu Jin, Sun Li and others made it very enjoyable. Really wished Kessen 3 played into the strengths that 2 had more, especially the big battles. Edit: Koei's decision to remove morale and their concept of moving through the battles with your troops I think hurts the mainline musou games the most. Pushing the frontlines back and gaining ground with the grunts felt pretty darn good. It was a different kind of grind as opposed mowing down thousands. Troop diversity is about the same, or more in samurai warriors, but they do NOT hit as hard and your allied grunts are actually useless. Elite Guard squads in DW3 could 1v3 normal squads no problem, even with average/lower morale.

my favorite in the series is 5 empires. also 5 xtreme legends.

1:44:55 - Eyelids are getting heavier, but I'll see this through to the end! I am deeply inspired by general Yuan Bigdick! For Harambe!!!

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

1:41:19 - "Yuan Bigdick". I would follow this man to battle until victory or death (Lok'tar ogar!).

🀄 I noticed Devolver published one called Reigns: Three Kingdoms, but it's card-based, so not your 一杯茶

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!

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.

8:15 about the eunuchs... in case of those court attendants, it was considered a requirement to access the palace - the reasoning was to ensure no one would try anything funny with emperor's concubines - and, so, it was voluntary (well, at least from court's point of view; there were numerous cases of families castrating own sons in hopes of them becoming attendants) ...One would instead think about what sort of person would castrate themselves to get to a position of power (although this line of thought would still be modern civilised western projection) 1:30:40 Kingdom Under Fire? 1:37:50 ROTK1 was... rough. Especially when you consider that the Nintendo port has cut out several strategic and tactical options. ROTK2 had all ports intact. There were three ports of ROTK1 available in English: the MS-DOS port, Amiga port, and NES port. MS-DOS and Amiga ports had all features, but MS-DOS had no music, while the Amiga port... had awful music. NES version could be considered a bit more audiovisually appealing, but it had interface problems and removed features. One thing I do not like in VIII is that, basically, the autoresolution of battles seem to favour the defender a bit too much, and doesn't seem to put much weight on various things you can do in the strategic layer to make winning the battle easier. If you want to win an invasion, but you don't have an overwhelming numerical advantage (and sometimes even if you have), you have to actually play the battle in order to make use of all the moles you've sneaked in, all defections you've plotted, all the damage to the wall you've sabotaged. What I hope the 8 Remake will add: - a duelling system closer to 10's - battle system and battle auto-resolution that will be less likely to form years-long stalemates - if the Tactics system from VIII stays the same, or similar, officers would actually level those Tactics to the usable level if left with no tasks to do. It's fun when your friends come to you to ask you to teach them how to set fire to half of the world... it's less fun when you do, and then they waste time trying to do it in battle without practicing before. - a bit less randomness for learning new skills and tactics from facilities and friends.

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!

Now you gotta added dynasty warriors origin that just dropped it’s trailer today lol

The xbox game you're thinking of is Kingdom Under Fire.