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yeonchi · 2 months ago

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Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 25: Warriors All-Stars

Warriors All-Stars (無双☆スターズ) Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, PC Release dates: Japan: 30 March 2017 (PS4/Vita, originally 2 March)/29 August 2017 (PC) USA: 29 August 2017 (PS4/PC) Europe: 29 August 2017 (PC)/1 September 2017 (PS4)

2017 was the year when #NoDubNoBuy was tested in a trial by fire. Around that time, I was dealing with two groups of hypocrites on the #NoDubNoBuy page and Dub Logistics; one group who only supported dual audio when the Japanese voices weren't included in games, and another group who called out the greedy business practices of Western gaming companies, like buggy games needing patches and content being cut from games and resold as DLC, but parroted the same excuses and arguments when it came to English dubbing in localised Japanese games.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Japan, Omega Force was celebrating their 20th anniversary and in turn, the 20th anniversary of their first game, the original Dynasty Warriors for the PlayStation 1. Dynasty Warriors 9 and Warriors Orochi 4 were in planning or development in 2016, then for some reason, Omega Force thought it would be a good idea to develop a Koei Tecmo All-Stars game featuring characters from a selection of their IPs. How did that go? Let's dive in.

Warriors All-Stars

Initially, Koei Tecmo had planned for this game to be a new Warriors Orochi game, but they decided to create something different so as to evolve the Warriors series (before later going on to make WO4 anyway). Instead of having masses of characters (mainly from two flagship franchises), there are 2-3 representatives from 13 (mostly recent) games across Koei Tecmo's IPs, developed by Omega Force, Team NINJA, Gust and Ruby Party among others. This reduced lineup allows each game to be fairly represented and the characters to be portrayed in depth with cross-franchise interactions that had never been seen before. Surveys were conducted in Famitsu to ask fans what characters people wanted to see in the games.

The games featured in this game and the characters representing them include:

Dynasty Warriors

Zhao Yun

Lu Bu

Wang Yuanji

Zhou Cang

Zhou Cang is one of the new characters that would debut in Dynasty Warriors 9, so the developers of both games worked together to make him fit into this game.

Samurai Warriors

Yukimura Sanada

Mitsunari Ishida

Naotora Ii

In non-Japanese versions, the logo for this game in the encyclopedia is the Japanese logo with the translated title underneath. You have the localised logos for Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Atelier Sophie and Nights of Azure. How do you not have the localised logos for Samurai Warriors?

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de (Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time)

Hajime Arima

Darius

This game is one of the represented games that have not seen a Western release. Hajime and Darius are characters from the game's sixth instalment, released for the 15th anniversary of the series in 2015.

The only English releases for this franchise, both related to the game's first instalment, involve a manga series licensed by Viz Media and an anime series subbed and licensed by Bandai Visual.

Toukiden

Ōka

Horō

Tokitsugu

Dead or Alive

Kasumi

Marie Rose

Honoka

Deception

Millennia

Laegrinna

Ninja Gaiden

Ryu Hayabusa

Ayane

Both characters have featured in Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games. In WO3, Ayane was the representative for Dead or Alive, but since Koei Tecmo wanted another representative for Ninja Gaiden in this game (alongside Ryu), she ended up being considered as such, with producer Masaki Furusawa citing that Ayane "didn't use weapons in Dead or Alive".

Atelier

Sophie

Plachta

Both characters come from Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book, released in 2015. Like the characters from Haruka, they were chosen because their game was the most recent one to have been released.

Nights of Azure

Arnice

Christophorus

Other games

Nobunyaga Oda (Samurai Cats)

William (Nioh)

Rio (Rio)

Opoona (Opoona)

Because Nobunyaga is already represented here, there was no need for SW Nobunaga to make an appearance in this game. Also, despite Samurai Cats being the localised name for the game, the game's title in the encyclopedia was directly translated to Nobunyaga's Ambition. Good job, Koei Tecmo.

Nioh had just been released nearly two months before this game and yet, the decision was made to include William in this game during development. Furusawa joked with one of the directors of Nioh that if Warriors All-Stars had come out first, then William's inclusion in the game would have been as DLC.

Rio is the mascot character in a series of Tecmo pachislot games starting with Super Blackjack in 2003. They were compiled into the Rakushou! Pachi-Slot Sengen series for the PS2 between 2003 and 2009. She appeared in the 2010 PSP spinoff game Dead or Alive Paradise and had her own anime series in 2011 (dubbed and licenced by Media Blasters).

Opoona is the titular protagonist of his game, developed by ArtePiazza and published by Koei in 2007. He was supposed to be a mascot character, but the unexpected fan reaction led him to be included as a playable character, albeit with no Hero Scenario or involvement in the story. He is unlockable with the pre-order bonus DLC or after obtaining the 10 character endings (that don't involve Yomi or the coronation ceremony).

The cast of the game is split up into three teams and they are as follows:

Tamaki: Dynasty Warriors, Toukiden, Opoona, Atelier

Shiki: Samurai Warriors, Haruka, Nioh, Ninja Gaiden

Setsuna: Dead or Alive, Samurai Cats, Deception, Rio, Nights of Azure

The game's story begins on a world sustained by a sacred spring; with the last king suddenly dying, the spring lost its power and the world was headed for destruction. With the help of her mother, the priestess Sayo, the heiress Tamaki uses the last of the spring's power to summon heroes from other worlds to help restore the shrines that give power to the spring, thus saving the world. For some reason, the summoning goes wrong and the heroes are scattered across the world.

While Tamaki tries to gather the heroes, her brother Shiki and cousin Setsuna are doing the same for their own motives, and thus, the three siblings find themselves fighting each other for the throne with their armies. Tamaki is said to be the only one of the three who has enough power to control the spring and take the throne. Setsuna's father was the king before last, but because he was too young when he died ten years prior, his uncle ended up taking the throne with the apparent intention of it being passed to him after. Shiki (and Setsuna as well) recognised that because of the spring's vast power, each ruler would only live short lives after their coronations, hence he sought the throne in order to protect Tamaki, for each coronation is in reality a sacrifice. And to think that all this could be prevented if they just SAT DOWN AND TALKED- Gawd, you people suck.

There are a total of 15 endings to this game and the true ending goes as follows - Yomi is an ancient evil that was sealed deep in the spring by the first king. Her seal weakened over the years and eventually, she became capable of stealing power from the Spring, taking the life force from the rulers in an effort to eventually break the seal completely. On top of that, Yomi appears to have possessed someone and is using them to watch the three siblings and their armies. Shiki was told this by his father, the previous king, just before he died, but given the circumstances, he decided not to reveal his reasons or motivations to anyone.

Yomi is able to control the natives of this world and hordes of monsters as well. It's also suspected that Yomi is the cause of the previous king's death and the accident that occurred during Tamaki's summoning at the start of the game. There exists a Monument of the Dawn which states the method to seal Yomi away. Shiki hopes to find it, while Tamaki and Setsuna end up chancing upon it during their stories. By achieving certain requirements in each story, the three siblings will each find a fragment of the Monument.

When the siblings come together to discuss the fragments they found, Sayo reveals her true self to them; absorbing the power within Tamaki, Yomi is completely unsealed, having been revealed to have possessed Sayo and fed the siblings different information that led them to fight each other. This leads into the Yomi story; after playing the first battle, you'll choose to follow either Tamaki and Shiki or Setsuna and pick 13 heroes to play in this story. The stages are the same regardless of who you choose.

The heroes try to catch up with Sayo/Yomi, but after defeating the first Yomi, there are two more Yomis and they're invincible along with Sayo, so the only thing they can do is retreat. At the same time, the heroes you didn't select are revealed to be under Yomi's control, so you have to fight through them as well.

The siblings' next step is to continue gathering the Monument fragments while also using the Sacred Weapons (or rather, Sacred Treasures, based on the Three Sacred Treasures that are the imperial regalia of Japan) to free the other heroes from Yomi's control. Upon gathering three of the fragments detailing how to use the Sacred Weapons to seal Yomi, you could go into the final battle and seal her at the cost of Sayo, but remember, we're talking about the true ending here, so of course we have to continue.

The remaining three fragments reveal some shocking revelations about Yomi - Yomi was shown in a photo together with the first king, who left a note to his descendants pleading them to save her. She was a goddess who helped create this world and also the wife of the first king, who sealed her on her bequest after she became corrupted by the darkness she was trying to fight off.

Subsequently, the first king created the Monument of the Dawn, but it was split up and hidden, either by the first king's advisors or the kings that came after. Yomi was seen as a monstrosity and it would have undermined the kings' authority if the truth about her being a goddess or the ancestor of the royal bloodline came out. But with knowledge of this, along with the Sacred Weapons' powers growing stronger thanks to the heroes, they could purify Yomi and return her to normal.

Three more battles are unlocked here which see the siblings heading to different forbidden ruins. When they head there, a mysterious figure resembling Sayo will give them challenges to complete. Upon completing the challenges, the mysterious figure reveals herself to be a fragment of Yomi's soul from before she became corrupted. She reveals to them the origins of the world as a place filled with creatures of darkness and how she fought to make this world habitable for her people. These three battles don't affect the final battle, but the ending dialogues do allude to the true ending or reflect decisions you're planning on taking anyway. I mean, imagine learning all that and then going onto the other ending - just go against your ancestor's wishes and keep the cycle going, amirite?

The heroes stop Sayo and use the Sacred Weapons to free her from Yomi's control. At this point, Yomi has regained her full power and has an army of phantoms and demons on her side. Together with the heroes, the siblings cut their way through the army and make their way to Yomi. After defeating her, the siblings, with the help of Sayo, use the Sacred Weapons to return Yomi to normal. Yomi remembers how her actions created the world her descendants could live in peacefully and gives her final blessing to the world as she disappears, the curse of the spring gone for good and the rulers able to live long lives. The siblings pledge to work together to rule this world and protect it, before sending the heroes back to their own worlds, thus ending the story of Warriors All-Stars.

Battles in Story Mode are all over the place on the world map. There are three types of story battles; Key Battles are battles that advance the story (ending battles are marked in red), Hero Battles are where characters can be unlocked (some Hero Battles are available across all three stories, which I'm not a fan of because it muddies the waters), and Dramatic Battles involve contests between specific heroes when they are unlocked.

Aside from these, there are a bunch of generic battles, like battlegrounds where you fight at ally or enemy garrisons/strongholds. There are specific types of battles where you can obtain specific rewards; merchant caravans for gold, thieves' lairs for Hero Cards, production bases for materials, monster nests for EXP, or treasuries for all of the above.

There are four types of challenge battles available as well; Guardian Battles require you to prevent enemies from infiltrating your main camp, Death Match Battles where everyone dies in one hit (more like realism battles because it's all fun and games until you get hit by an arrow out of nowhere), Team Battles where you defeat waves of enemies as fast as you can, and Rush Battles where you defeat as many enemies as you can.

While you can view Battle Rumours in the Pause menu to determine what battles you should or should not play to get certain battles or endings, there is no way to replay story battles akin to Free Mode. Yeah, it's going to get boring playing generic battles just to grind your characters, let me tell you. I thought the story battles had no structure or order given how they're just scattered on the world map until I learned that Battle Rumours existed. That's one thing, but not being able to replay story battles is an entirely different thing altogether.

The Sanctuary, where the sacred spring is located, is your home base in this game. Here, you can interact with all the other characters you've unlocked. There's also a hot spring in the inn where you can also see special hot spring events as well.

Characters can be levelled up at the training grounds (practice arena), but keep in mind that you can only level them up to the same level as your character with the highest level; if you want to go any further, you'll have to level up that character in battle first. A characters' full moveset will be unlocked at level 20.

All things to do with cards can be done at the Refinery; you can use materials to enhance your cards with effects, use another card to add or enhance the elemental attributes of a card, destroy (or rather, disassemble) your cards to gain materials, or take three cards and use them to create one. Of course, you can also sell cards and materials as well. Each character can equip a hero card in battle, which improves their stats or adds special abilities.

At the Headquarters, you can take on request missions from other characters. A maximum of 5 requests can be taken at one time. KO requirements on the Vita are 40% that of the PS4/PC. Most of the requests you can complete passively, but there are some types of requests that I've found ridiculous, such as achieving KOs without your health falling under 100% or defeating 10 hero characters in battle when generic battles give you 5 at most.

Every character has their own friendship bond levels (known in this game as "Regard", fuck you Rubicon Solutions), of which there are five, namely Associate, Acquaintance, Companion, Friend and Confidant. Unlike WO3, bonds do not reflect between characters, for example, Zhao Yun could be at Companion level with Wang Yuanji but Wang Yuanji might only be an Associate with Zhao Yun. Each character's bonds with all characters are added up into a total score, and as that score goes up to 55, you will unlock "blessings" of voice lines during teammate selection (5), voice lines on the title screen (10), their character model in the Gallery (20), their wallpaper (35) and their voice lines in the Gallery (55). In addition, when you reach a certain bond level with certain characters, you can unlock friendship gifts which are skills that enhance your stats and abilities in battle. Unfortunately, there is nothing like the Teahouse from WO3 where you can artificially raise your bonds with gold, so increasing bonds requires grinding.

Moving onto the battle mechanics now. Each character has a C6 moveset and a Musou/Special Attack regardless of what they had in their original games. Dynasty Warriors characters (except Zhou Cang) have their two EX attacks from DW8XL, but Lu Bu and Wang Yuanji's Musou Attacks are their R1 Musous instead of their normal Musous as used in WO3 and 4. Samurai Warriors characters have their double-tiered Charge Attacks (triple-tiered for Yukimura) and a single-tiered C6, along with Hyper Attacks up to S4 (S6 for Naotora) with no Hyper Charge Attacks. I don't like how Yukimura and Mitsunari's Musous are their Frenzy Finishers but Naotora's is her normal Musou. Darius and Ōka have double-tiered C1s, Kasumi has quadtruple-tiered Charge Attacks and Marie Rose has something akin to EX Attacks on her C3 and C6.

All characters have Jump Attacks, Jump Charges and Dash Attacks. Dash Attacks can be triggered with Square or Triangle while running; pressing Square will led into your Normal Attack string, but pressing Triangle allows you to continue performing Dash Attacks while running.

You will have a Rush/Fever Star at the start of each battle and obtain another one every 1000 KOs. With a Rush/Fever Star, you can press R3 to activate Musou Rush/Fever, which acts more like the True Triple Attack of WO3 mixed with SW4's Rage Mode but without the Frenzy Finisher or DW8's Rage Musou. During a Musou Rush/Fever, you become invincible and can perform all your Charge Attacks as you begin fighting enemies that come out of nowhere with glowing weapons. Your companions will cheer you on, sometimes helping you as well. At the end, your party comes together to finish it off with a flash. The duration of a Musou Rush/Fever can be extended by defeating 500 enemies, but the KO counts you get defeating the enemies coming out of nowhere don't count towards your total KO count for the battle. It's a nice feature for racking up KOs or defeating particularly difficult enemies. Personally, I think it's kind of lazy without a Rage Musou or a Frenzy Finisher, but maybe having you defeat the enemies yourself is the point of it.

In each battle, you have a Bravery level that starts from 1 and goes up to 10, akin to the DW PSP games. Enemy officers have their own Bravery levels as well, so be wary when you fight officers with higher Bravery than you.

Up to 4 companion characters can be in your party. Each character has a Hero Skill that is upgraded to an Awakening Skill when your Bravery reaches the stated level. Hero/Awakening Skills can contribute to defeating enemies, boosting your stats or healing yourself. In addition, characters have two Combo Skills which are available when they and their respective partner are in your party (they must be your companions, playing as one of them won't work). Combo Skills combine the Hero Skills of two characters and performs them at the same time, sometimes adding an extra effect to them.

An alternative to using Hero Skills is the Hero Chain/Alliance Strike (it's not a single strike, Koei Tecmo, goddamn it). You can switch between your party members and control them for a limited time, extending it by switching to another character until all four of them have been used. As you perform attacks with that character, the other party members in that chain will attack with you as well.

Hero Skills and Hero Chains with the same character cannot be activated simultaneously. There is a cooldown time once either of them is used, which can be charged by picking up an Orb.

Interim saves are not used in this game, but instead, battles run on a checkpoint system. At certain points in a battle, a checkpoint will be recorded so if you die in battle, you can restart from the last checkpoint or from the beginning. There is indeed an advantage to this as you don't have to remember to save the game, but it is a bit of an annoyance when the checkpoint is way before the thing you worked so hard to get to only to die. I like the checkpoint system, but I prefer interim saves better.

Onto the localisation situation for this game. When Koei Tecmo announced a Western release for this game in April 2017, I gave them a challenge to see if they would release it with an English dub, despite my initial prediction that it would only be subbed based on the franchises featured in this game that have been dubbed or subbed. Needless to say, they failed, as Warriors All-Stars only received English subtitles upon its localisation. Since this retrospective series is a spiritual successor to the Koei Warriors Rant Series, I'd like to share with you the predictions I made for the dubbing of this game in January 2017:

Original characters: Tamaki, Shiki, Setsuna (with NPCs Sayo and Yomi) The dubbing of these characters will depend on whether the game will be dubbed or not, so we won’t worry about them. Dynasty Warriors: Zhao Yun, Wang Yuanji, Zhou Cang, Lu Bu Zhou Cang is expected to debut in this game before his actual debut in Dynasty Warriors 9. As for Zhao Yun, Wang Yuanji and Lu Bu, their characters have been dubbed. Samurai Warriors: Yukimura Sanada, Mitsunari Ishida, Naotora Ii While the Samurai Warriors series has been dubbed, the English voice cast has changed with each game. Naotora was not dubbed in Samurai Warriors 4, however she received a dub for her DLC appearance in Dead or Alive 5 Last Round. Therefore, the dubbing status of Samurai Warriors can be considered to be in dispute. Toukiden: Ōka, Horō, Tokitsugu The Toukiden series only received subtitled releases. Ninja Gaiden: Ryu Hayabusa, Ayane The game has been dubbed, however both Ryu and Ayane’s English voice actors have changed with each game, so the dubbing status of this game is in dispute. Dead or Alive: Kasumi, Marie Rose, Honoka Kasumi’s English voice actor has changed with each instalment, otherwise Marie Rose and Honoka have been dubbed. Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: Hajime Arima, Darius Both characters are from the sixth instalment of the series, which has never been localised to the West. Atelier: Sophie Neuenmuller, Plachta Both characters have been dubbed in Atelier Sophie. Deception: Millennia, Laegrinna The Deception series only received subtitled releases. Opoona: Opoona While this game has been localised to the West, none of the characters have been seen talking out loud, so we can safely assume that it has been subtitled. Super Blackjack: Rio Tachibana Her only dubbed appearances are in Dead or Alive Paradise, voiced by Ali Hillis and the 2011 anime Rio: Rainbow Gate!, voiced by Amber Lee Connors. Samurai Cats: Nobunyaga Oda Apart from a brief beta test in North America, Nobunyaga no Yabou has never been localised to the West, apart from some character designs. Nights of Azure: Arnice, Christophorus This game has only received subtitled releases. Nioh: William Adams Were it not for the unique nature of this game, I would have mistaken it for being in dispute. This game contains both characters from Japan and Europe and they speak either Japanese or English depending on the plot. Taking this fact into consideration, this game receives a dubbed verdict from me.

So now, with the information that we have, let’s predict if the game will receive a dub or not! Dubbed: 5 (Dynasty Warriors, Dead or Alive, Atelier, Super Blackjack, Nioh) In dispute: 2 (Samurai Warriors, Ninja Gaiden) Subbed: 4 (Toukiden, Deception, Opoona, Nights of Azure) No localisation: 2 (Harukanaru Toki no Naka de, Samurai Cats)

Here's a breakdown of my predictions:

The dubbed and subbed games alone make the score 5-4 dubbed.

I assumed the disputed games would be subbed and put the non-localised games in that category as well, making my first prediction 5-8 subbed.

Assuming the disputed games are dubbed, the score would be 7-6 dubbed. I didn't think one game would make much of a difference since Koei Tecmo would sub the game anyway based on their track record, so my prediction remained subbed.

But what if we break down the franchises by their dubbed characters? Zhou Cang hasn't received an English dub since DW9 wasn't announced yet, so for the purposes of this he is a subbed character. Naotora almost wasn't dubbed until she received one for the DoA5LR DLC, so she is a dubbed character. Based on that, the new score was 15-12 dubbed based on absolute majority.

People can say I pulled these scores out of my ass, but my justification is that this is just speculation. I mean, this game ended up being subbed after all, so clearly, this didn't matter.

Not all lines are voiced though; the only full voices you hear outside of in-battle dialogue and movies are the friendship and hot spring interaction events. Even the pre and post-battle dialogue is just grunts or names.

I want to clear up something regarding the William/Nioh situation. In Nioh, a story following an Irishman who comes to Japan and becomes a samurai to pursue an enemy, the protagonist William Adams/Anjin Miura is voiced by Northern Irish actor Ben Peel and he speaks English throughout the whole game. All the characters speak their respective languages based on origin, so Japanese characters speak Japanese and English characters speak English, but Hanzō Hattori is shown speaking to William in English when he meets him at the start of the game. Soon after, William gets possessed by a nekomata and he gains the ability to understand Japanese. It's kind of implied that everyone around William can understand him as well, but I haven't played the game and I can't be bothered to find out. Yasuke's in that game as well and he's another character who can speak English. Nioh 2 would be released in 2020 with dual audio; William and Yasuke would continue to speak in English regardless of voice option.

When William was featured in this game, he, of course, spoke English, however one character speaking English does not a dubbed game make. Now, in addition to Japanese and English text options, this game also has Traditional Chinese and Korean text options (just so you know, I had to download the Chinese launch files for this game separately and it miraculously worked with the game files I had). In non-English versions you can choose whether William's dialogue is subtitled in English or the localised language. It was through this that I noticed an egregious error regarding William's interactions with Lu Bu:

Lu Bu is referred to as "Ryo Fu" in non-English versions of the game.

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Oh, and get this, Koei Tecmo actually made Ben Peel say "Ryo Fu":

Not even that, they couldn't even be consistent with how they transcribed Lu Bu's name:

You've been making Dynasty Warriors games for 20 years. Lu Bu has been in every game since the first one. You know how his name is pronounced in Chinese. You know how the pinyin is spelt.

You have no excuse for this, Koei Tecmo.

Fuck you and fuck your lazily-localised bullshit.

Yeah, for once, this is something I don't blame Rubicon Solutions for because one, they're not credited in non-English versions of the games they localised, and two, they actually managed to get Lu Bu's name right in the English version, which is saying something given my criticisms of them. This issue is entirely on Koei Tecmo alone for not proofreading William's scripts.

Speaking of that, the English translation in this game continues to be sub-par, as is any subbed game that Rubicon Solutions has translated. I noticed that with the exception of Zhao Yun's officer defeated line, none of the DW (or SW) characters have their localised lines from their original games in the text of the dialogue (protip: Lu Bu doesn't say "Can anybody provide me with a decent challenge?" upon defeating an officer). Also, when DW characters (and William, for some reason) achieve 1000 KOs, the text that comes up is something on the lines of "I am a Dynasty Warrior" when it should be "I am a True Warrior of the Three Kingdoms!" or whatever their localised line is in DW8. Ever since DW3, the latter line (admittedly, it was actually "true hero of the Three Kingdoms" at first, but still) was used as an homage to the original name of the games (Shin Sangoku Musou 真・三國無双), which is homaged in the Japanese 1000 KO lines.

Aside from Rubicon Solutions, I also noticed another company in the credits; entalize co. ltd and Side UK Ltd. entalize was a company specialising in localisation and QA that was acquired by Pole To Win (PTW) in 2016 and merged in 2022. PTW acquired Side UK, who provides voice, motion capture and script writing for games, in 2015, then in March 2025, PTW and its subsidiaries rebranded into Side. I don't believe they were involved in the localisation because Rubicon was still only credited in the English version, but I also saw PTW/Side being credited in WO4U and DWOrigins so I thought I'd also make you aware of them.

Warriors All-Stars is a game I never thought I'd actually like, despite my initial disdain or its apparent flaws. Halfway through playing it, I decided to start over to play everything on one save file, but I haven't even seen one ending on my second playthrough because this game felt bland to me and I had better things to do and better games to play. As I was playing this game and watching gameplay videos when it came time to work on this retrospective (which I was going to do in April after coming back from my holiday, but no, I had to squeeze in a week at the start of March to write this instalment before I left), I started to appreciate the game's story and the diversity in the featured franchises, even if I thought that Koei Tecmo's efforts would be better served concentrating on DW9 or even WO4. Like I said in the last instalment, this isn't a game I'm going to focus on fully completing. I got the gist of the game and that's it.

Is Warriors All-Stars a mainline game or a spinoff game? It's a crossover game featuring a number of Koei Tecmo IPs set in an alternate world, so it's a spinoff game. If I called it a mainline game I'd have to do a rant and I don't know how to do a topic on "East and West", which I think was something to do with the differences between the Koei Tecmo's Japanese and Western fanbases, or the incorporation of Western elements into Eastern-centric games, the latter of which would be more relevant for WO4. Besides, I've ranted enough as it is already with my usual rant about the localisation of this game.

2017 was a hard year for Koei Tecmo, #NoDubNoBuy and myself. In the midst of my conflicts with the two groups of hypocrites, I was cancelling dub haters and opinion-neutrals left and right before cancel culture became mainstream, then it came back to bite me thanks to the second group deciding to become petty and I almost ended up being deplatformed had I not realised what they were doing and called them out for it. Part of that was related to a hoax regarding the discontinuation of DLC for Mass Effect Andromeda that ended up being confirmed by BioWare but didn't change the facts of the matter regarding the conflict.

In the end, both those groups and I made peace with each other as I rebranded the #NoDubNoBuy page to English Dubbed Game News (EDGN). The guy who originally created the #NoDubNoBuy page was actually inspired by the first group, who had a Facebook page - the Undub page as I like to call it - informing sub fans of what games were localised with Japanese voices. They decided to stop posting in 2021 after their wish of Kingdom Hearts games getting Japanese voice options was realised with the release of the PC ports, which I thought was a silly reason, but then again, Koei Warriors games were the whole reason why I started ranting about English dubs in Japanese games, so I'm one to talk here.

As I decided to start a new chapter for English dub advocacy, what would 2018 bring for Dub Logistics and EDGN? Next time, the postmodern evolution of the Koei Warriors games begins with Dynasty Warriors 9. It's what this entire series has been leading up to. I am so looking forward to it.

#musou stars #warriors all-stars #koei tecmo #koei warriors #koei warriors retrospective

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