Every since the Dynasty Warriors franchise first debuted, it has become very common for Koei to offer their services to other companies and produce spinoff titles which combine Dynasty Warriors with other franchises. These spinoff titles have widely varying gameplay and aesthetics as a result of combining franchises that one would think would mix like water and oil.
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With decades of spinoffs where Koei has combined the Dynasty Warriors formula with nearly every franchise under the sun, this raises an obvious question: which Musou spinoffs are actually worth playing? Despite seeming like a difficult question to answer, if one examines these games based on the gameplay loops, character movesets, and their various modes, then it becomes possible to form the following list of the best Dynasty Warriors spinoff games.
For the purposes of this list, only Musou titles developed and published byKoei Tecmowill be included. Great non-Koei Musou titles like Gintama Rumble and Utawarerumono Zan will not be considered.
10Pokémon Conquest
More Strategy Than Musou
Rounding off this list is one of the few non–Musou Dynasty Warriors spinoffs: Pokemon Conquest. While Pokémon Conquest is commonly referred to as a crossover betweenPokémonand Nobunaga’s Ambition, it would be more accurate to call this title a crossover between Pokémon and Samurai Warriors, as the title uses the character designs from that Musou franchise.
This unique combination of franchises leads to some incredibly unique takes on Samurai Warriors’ characters. Seeing younger more child-like versions of this cast and how creative the developers got when deciding what Pokémon they should have is a joy. The only strange part of the game is the gameplay itself, as it is an SRPG that doesn’t take influence from Warriors, Pokémon, or Nobunaga’s Ambition. While the gameplay of this title is fun in its own right, it would have placed higher on this list if it took more influence from any of its parent franchises.
9Arslan and the Warriors of Legend
Next up on the list is a Musoubased on an animethat most Western audiences are unaware of: Arslan and the Warriors of Legend. This game is very deceptive in many ways, as while half of its cast has new original movesets, the other half had their weapons ripped directly from Dynasty Warriors 8. Thankfully, all the movesets they chose to use are great fun, and the game’s stages have some really clever design too!
The main gimmick of Arslan and the Warriors of Legend is that during each stage there will be sections where the player will take control of hundreds of troops, once to charge through enemies, destroy obstacles, or fire a hail of arrows! These sections truly help the gameplay of this title stand out from its Musou brothers and sisters
Arslan and the Warriors of Legend may have a huge roster with plenty of great movesets and a unique gimmick, but it is held back by one major flaw: a complete lack of content to use these characters in. This is one of very few Musou games to not include any sort of extra mode to play the characters in.
Once you are done with the story mode, you have essentially seen everything Arslan and the Warriors of Legend has to offer. While occasionally running through older stages with characters you’ve unlocked can be fun, it doesn’t save this game’s missed potential from ranking low on this list.
8Fire Emblem Warriors
An Expected Crossover
After the success of Pokémon Conquest and Hyrule Warriors, it was only natural that Nintendo and Koei would once again collaborate and give another Nintendo franchise the Warriors coat of paint. This time the chosen franchise wasFire Emblem, which in many ways was the most natural Nintendo franchise to turn into a Musou, as it is already about wars and commanding armies.
When it comes to combining the two series’ gameplay, taking Dynasty Warriors 8’s elemental weapon system and giving it a new coat of paint to look like Fire Emblem’s weapon triangle is an idea so simple and ingenious that it makes the very idea of this crossover worth it.
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Despite being such a natural fit for the Musou formula, Fire Emblem Warriors has some major flaws in terms of its roster. The decision to make this title a crossover between various Fire Emblem games inherently limits the roster to having several similar characters, as each represented game’s lord must be included. If this title dropped the crossover aspects and instead adapted a single Fire Emblem game or had an entirely original cast for the roster (merely taking inspiration from past FEs), then it would have turned out better and placed higher on this list.
7Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3
Change the Future
Back in the PlayStation 3 era,Gundamgames had the opportunity to explore genres other than PvP shooters or 3D arena fighters. There was even a whole subseries of crossover Musou titles which gave the player the ability to play as dozens of different mobile suits and pilots from across the franchise and wipe out hundreds of enemies as if they were always in the final battle of a war.
The gameplay in these titles has become a bit dated as the Musou formula has changed and evolved over the past decade, but they’re still a blast to play through if you’re even a casual fan of these anime.
Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 features several story modes that take the casts of various Gundam anime and see them either work together or fight to the death in a merged world reminiscent of the earlier Warriors Orochi games. Seeing characters like the various Char-clones interact with each other and scheme evil plots is a sight to behold and makes this story mode more than worth it.
When not playing through the story, the player will also be able to play through extra modes which allow lesser characters like Puru Two to actually shine. It’s a shame that Bandai stopped making these titles as a modern Musou game with these characters and movesets could have topped this list.
6Hyrule Warriors
Introduced Newcomers to Musou
The relationship between Nintendo and Koei is a lot stronger than most gamers realize, as Warriors titles have been released on Nintendo consoles close to launch ever since the Nintendo Wii and Samurai Warriors: Katana. The two companies have even had crossover costumes with each other, such as when a Link outfit, sword, and wig were usable in Dynasty Warriors VS. In many ways,Hyrule Warriors, a crossover between the Legend of Zelda and Dynasty Warriors, was an inevitability.
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Hyrule Warriors’ gameplay combines the 1vs1000 gameplay of the Dynasty Warriors franchise with various Zelda mechanics, such as selecting items and searching for Gold Skulltulas. The game features an incredibly large roster of fan-favorite Zelda characters as well as an incredible number of stages to use them in via Adventure Mode, this game’s version of Dynasty Warriors’ Conquest Mode, where the player must slowly fill out a map by completing stages.
While personal opinions on how fun the gameplay of Hyrule Warriors is may differ, it cannot be denied that it is one of the most loyal to its source material crossover games in existence.
5Berserk and the Band of the Hawk
Slow Yet Steady
Next up on the list is the newest video game adaptation of Kentaro Miura’sBerserkmanga: Berserk and the Band of the Hawk. This game adapts several arcs of the manga into the Musou gameplay formula while using the Berserk Golden Age film trilogy as its cutscenes. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is unique among Musou games, which are usually defined by defeating crowds of enemies as quickly as possible, by having gameplay that is much slower than the usual fair.
Attacks in this game are very slow, precise, and brutal. This change may seem a bit strange, but it perfectly fits the dark atmosphere of Berserk and also helps the great gameplay of this game stand out from all other Musou games.
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Aside from the game’s lengthy story mode, players will be able to flex their thumbs in the incredible gauntlet mode, which the game refers to as the Endless Eclipse: 100 floors of action for the player to fight through! Unfortunately, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk has one major flaw that keeps it from topping this list: the small roster size. There are only a total of eight characters playable in this game, far less than one would expect of a licensed Musou title. If it had just a few more characters to play, this title would surely have placed first in this list.
4Fire Emblem: Three Hopes
Learned from its Predecessor
Fire Emblem: Three Hopes is a title that feels like the developers listened to all the criticism of the previous game and learned from it. This title takes the gameplay formula of the first Fire Emblem Warriors and applies it to a single Fire Emblem cast, that of the incredibly popular Three Houses. This allows the game to have an extremely varied roster, as each and every character from the original game is playable.
The plot of Three Hopes is also unique as far as Musou spinoffs go, with the premise being about the plot of Three Houses being derailed before it even begins and Byleth never becoming a teacher at the game’s school. This allows the game to skip the most contested parts of the original Three Houses’ plot and go directly to the parts which best fit the Musou gameplay formula.
The only major flaw of Three Hopes is that, similar to Arslan Musou, there isn’t much content for the player to experience beyond the story mode. Although that is slightly remedied by Three Hopes having a much longer story mode than other Musou spinoffs, it does prevent it from ranking higher on this list.
3Persona 5 Strikers
A Perfect Combination
In 2020, Koei Tecmo and Atlus worked together to cross over thePersonaand Dynasty Warriors franchises with the Persona spinoff title Persona 5 Strikers. This title billed itself as a full sequel to Persona 5, taking place in the summer after the original game. Not only do the Phantom Thieves get to go on a whole new adventure, but two new characters join the team! It’s very rare for aPersona spinoffto feel like it actually progresses the world of the franchise, so Strikers doing so feels incredible.
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Persona 5 Strikers expertly combines the gameplay loops of the Dynasty Warriors and Persona franchises, as instead of being a stage-based game, the player must travel through Palaces similar to Persona 5’s as they sneak up on enemies and get into short encounters with them.
Getting into encounters with small, strong groups of enemies not only brings to mind the early PlayStation 2 days of Dynasty Warriors, but also invokes the gameplay of Persona, as the players must learn to conserve their SP as they work their way through the dungeon. It’s very rare for a Musou spinoff to perfectly combine the gameplay of its parent franchises and for that reason, Persona 5 Strikers ranks high on this list.
2Pirate Warriors 3
A Pirate’s Life for Musou
In many ways, theOne Piecefranchise was the perfect fit for the Musou formula, as Dynasty Warriors games are often defined by having a huge roster of unique characters, One Piece has more characters than one can feasibly count! The One Piece: Pirate Warriors franchise has been going on since the PlayStation 2 era with several titles that keep growing its roster of characters.
The series’ third title, Pirate Warriors 3, is commonly agreed to be the best as it features fun gameplay adaptations of most One Piece arcs, a huge roster of characters (several of which got cut in 4 sadly), and hundreds of hours of content to play as these characters.
Because One Piece and its power system is one of the most unique in Shonen manga history, the movesets of Pirate Warriors 3 all had to be extremely creative to translate these powers into gameplay. Seeing characters like Perona and Robin fight off hordes of enemies with their Devil Fruits just feels right. The game also features its own Conquest Mode in the form of the Dream Log, giving the player more than enough stages to try out each and every character on the roster. If you are a fan of One Piece or Musou games, consider picking up Pirate Warriors 3!
1Fate/Samurai Remnant
Koei’s Best Crossover
2023’s Fate/Samurai Remnant feels like an anomaly among Musou spinoff titles as the game isn’t an adaptation or crossover, but an actual original story. Samurai Remnant’s gameplay is structured like anAction-Adventure game, where the player must explore a small world and stages as they progress the plot and get into many smaller combat encounters, with the twist, of course, being that the combat is that of a Musou game.
The game features one playable character by default with small sequences where the player briefly switches to another character, a gameplay mechanic that would later make its way over to Dynasty Warriors: Origins.
Fate/Samurai Remnant does a great job at including both fan-favorite characters fromType-Moon’s other gameslike Lancer from Stay Night and Circe from Fate/Grand Order, while also not feeling like it over-relies on fanservice as all the major plot-important Servants are original characters created for Samurai Remnant.
Combine that with a gameplay system of small Musou encounters that feels like a direct improvement of the gameplay seen in Persona 5 Strikers and you have a game that Fate fans and Dynasty Warriors fans can both love, one of the best games of 2023, and the top title of this list!
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