Dynasty Warriors series

Release: 1997

Dynasty Warriors is a fighting game developed and published by KOEI. Unlike the later games in the series, Dynasty Warriors was a fighting game. The graphics were similar to Tekken.

The fighting system in Dynasty Warriors was fairly complex. All combat was weapon-based, and controlling one of several famous characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the player's aim was to parry the enemy's strikes with considerable timing and recognition, leaving the enemy vulnerable to attack.

Release: 2000

Dynasty Warriors 2 is a crowd-combat fighting spin-off of the versus fighting game Dynasty Warriors.

From this game onward in the series, the player chooses a playable character general, and plays through a number of levels representing particular conflicts in the time of the three kingdoms, eventually defeating both of the other kingdoms and becoming the ruler of a unified China. However this game is not a one-on-one fighting game like the original Dynasty Warriors, but a beat 'em up hack and slash fighting game in full 3D, similar in genre to Fighting Force.

Release: 2001

Dynasty Warriors 3 is a Hack and slash video game developed by Omega Force and published by Koei. It is third in the Dynasty Warriors series. It is a spin-off from the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms and based around a series of books by the same name, written by Luo Guanzhong.

Dynasty Warriors 3 was the first in the series to introduce a two player mode and numerous other improvements. New stages, characters, weapons, attacks and music are introduced, and the gameplay engine and the graphics engine have also been updated, providing higher quality environments, textures and general overall graphics.

Release: 2002

The Xbox version came out a year after the PlayStation 2 version. It is an improvement as it corrected the foggy graphics and multi-player slowdown issues that plagued the PS2 title.

Release: 2003

Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends is an expansion to Dynasty Warriors 3 and is the first in the 'Xtreme Legends' series.

Xtreme Legends added several new features, including new items and the ability to fully customize bodyguards. Xtreme Legends also included a Musou Mode for the playable characters who did not belong to either Wu, Wei, or Shu. Xtreme Legends also allowed players to obtain a fifth-level weapon for each character and added two new difficulty levels: Beginner and Expert.