I often think of myself as a discerning man, while not overly gifted in the creation of anything really, I harbor a keen appreciation for works well and faithfully done. As of late, however, the works of a company, one Koei, has ceased to be faithful. It disturbs my being to the point where I must now spew copious amounts of liquid bile disguised as criticism.

It was my most stoic of friends who introduced me Dynasty Warriors, already in its third installment. I fell into its sway quite quickly. But I never purchased it for my own until its next incarnation, which I proceeded to devote large quantities of my time to. The overwhelming amount of characters, the compelling histories, the simple design, all these drew me in and later prompted me to purchase, read, and enjoy the novel and Koei's other flagship, the first game based on the novel and longer standing series of 'ROTK'.

But it wasn't long before I noticed some disconcerting patterns about my beloved, not long at all. It first hit me when I saw DW3XL, the first of the 'Xtreme Legends'. I thought to myself, "Well that may seem like a simple attempt to milk the franchise, perhaps it contains enough to warrant such a game. Surely next time it will all be included in one game." But imagine my suprise when instead of producing one all-encompassing game in their fourth edition, they instead produced three games. DW4, DW4XL, and now DW4E, all competent, though stagnant. And yet I submit to Koei, I owned two of the three, and played them quite fully. They then produced Samurai Warriors, same formula, different piece of history and I appreciated that to some extent even if I saw what it meant.

When a fifth installment was apparent, I braced myself for another system of three, shamelessly taking my money to no end. A second SW brought with it an 'XL' and it seemed there was no hope of breaking this cycle. But enough of this literary drivel, for god's sake they made a gundam game with a DW title, have they no shame? Then they cross-promoted themselves with Warriors Orochi, twice, what sacrilege is this? To throw out the idea of historical basis completely? Was this even the same company?

And then they made DW6...dear lord, I played it for a day and put it back down. I heard they were going for a more realistic look, which I welcomed, and then I saw that Lu Bu, the baddest motherfucker in all of China was wielding a fucking pinwheel. No Koei, just no. And then there were the character cuts and choices. If you need to cut people, don't cut the heir to the greatest strategist of all time, cut the 14-year-old girl using a fan. I appreciated that they removed characters like Xing Cai and Zuo Ci, who weren't even in the books, but I can think of at least 3 more who don't deserve space who were given it. Guan Ping, didn't do anything interesting except get adopted and then die, why not Guan Xing, Guan Yu's real son who swore an oath of brotherhood with Zhang Bao, Zhang Fei's son, and tore up the field in later shu? Pang Tong, I loved Pang Tong in game and novel, he represented something unique, but lets face it, he's in the novel for maybe 3 chapters and all he really does is come up with two great ideas and then die. Xu Chu shows up for a little bit as a great warrior, and then you never read about him again.

It turns out that they aren't just exploiting the novel, they are raping it with salt and sulfur, burning pitch and broken glass. The people at Koei who actually liked and read the novel are probably working on the last ROTK game, the others are probably gone. Goodnight sweet prince, I shall toast to your honor.