It’s kinda funny that in 2017, we’ll see Omega Force produce a Warriors spinoff for Fire Emblem as well as their own take on the revitalized genre of strategy RPGs. Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers takes a basic SRPG formula and adds in much of what would you expect to see in a typical Warriors game in a way that feels surprisingly natural and well implemented.
As you enter your first few battles you’ll notice the first sign you’re playing a Warriors game – the sheer amount of enemies onscreen. The average side mission will put you up against 20 or so enemies whilst story missions can have considerable more. Most of those units will be regular infantry mixed in with a handful of powerful officers which are usually your targets for completing the mission. Just like a mainline Warriors games, you’ll breeze through the infantry units with minimal effort and your strategies will be targeted at taking out the enemy officers. Your party changes often with the only two constants being Zhao Yun and Lei Bin.
Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is an easy SPRG to get to grips with and is ideal for any Warriors fans who might feel intimidated by the depths some games in the genre can get into. Each mission allows you to choose between three difficulty levels and the Warriors elements make it very action oriented. Each character can be equipped with different weapons that you’ll earn from battles as well as skills earned from progressing through a character’s skill tree that’ll also improve various stats. Be sure to check out the skill tree early on as many characters are quickly able to learn a skill that increases their earned EXP by 30%. Every character has their own set of attacks varying in range and strength as well as their own powerful musou attack.
There are two areas in which Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers begins to annoy. Early on you’ll likely need to grind your way through some side quests to get yourself to an appropriate level as the amount of experience points you’ll earn from story scenarios won’t get you to the recommended level for the upcoming missions. Luckily this does seem to be less of a problem the further into the game you go but when starting off in a game, I’d rather continue on with story missions than feel forced to go through some generic side missions. Another annoyance is that dealing with the ally AI in Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers can be a frustrating experience. Your party is in a constant state of flux, generally following the pattern of starting a new chapter, meeting some new allies who you’ll join your party properly after you’ve fought some battles with them and then leave once their cause is sorted. The problem lies with these in between section where their treated as allies and can’t be directly controlled. During these missions, having an ally character die will lead to a defeat causing you to start the whole mission all over again and the Ally AI only seems to be capable of two actions: Charging straight at an powerful officer or taking out some weakened enemies and robbing you of that previous experience points for their defeat. Not only will you have to complete your mission objective but also get ahead of your ally’s actions to keep them from harm.
Dynasty Warriors: Godseekers is a surprisingly good SRPG experience and a solid start and will satisfy those looking for an strategy game at moment, but ultimately it doesn’t have the depth that some of it’s longer running competitors have.
