Dynasty Warriors — The… Spaces… Are… Too… Long

It sounds better in Mandarin

I want to start by saying that Dynasty Warriors is a franchise that has been around for quite some time. Some of you might know it; some of you might not. And although the series does have its intrigues, it’s also notorious for all of the games being decent at best, mainly because the developers always recycle animations from previous games to shove more content into it, but that doesn’t make the game any better. And that’s the thing about the franchise: it doesn’t stand out as something that’s “great” when it can. But I can’t tell the developers what to do with their intellectual property because then they would have to do the same with everyone, so it’s probably a good thing that it stays that way. In any case, one feature that does stand out, albeit in a not-so-impressive way, is that you’re always playing as a one-man-army; every time you kick and punch, soldiers fly in different directions, and it is so much fun just watching them fly off the screen all the time.

However, there’s one thing that Dynasty Warriors is really notorious for, and that’s the terrible, abysmal English dub, with the most noticeable one being the most recent title as of this writing, Dynasty Warriors 9. Since the game had just changed dub groups, the result was that the characters spoke in a deadpan manner with awfully long spaces. Listening to the dialogue was either hilarious or unnerving, depending on what kind of person you are.

Regardless, I continued playing the game, in English, until like 40 hours in and then I stopped. Because if I were to forgive the lousy dub and the recycled animations and dry gameplay, there’s no excuse for the poor optimisation issues since the game had terrible framerate when it shouldn’t have… for me, anyway.

So… what’s the problem if it’s not the lousy dub?

The game’s story is a retelling of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is among the most influential novels in Chinese history if I understand correctly. Naturally, the characters shouldn’t speak English because the wrong dub group won’t allow it. So, what do you do in such a situation? Change the language to Mandarin, of course! And it was really cool and felt more authentic the first hour or two I played the game in the language they should be speaking (I have no idea what kind of Mandarin there was in the 3rd century). But in the end, I chose to go with English only because it was more comical for the remainder of what I played before stopping.

But it was during those two hours of listening to Mandarin, I realised: the game’s default language shouldn’t be English at all (especially when you consider how bad the dub was); it should be Mandarin! The other, more popular half of Cantonese should be the default language of the game. Bullocks, even avoid completely getting an English dub in the first place. I mean, they already did that with the spinoff, Samurai Warriors, and that game is already better than the franchise from which it stems.

Of course, there’s also the problem of translating all that Mandarin. I heard it’s among the most challenging languages to learn (yet somehow, it’s the most spoken language in the world). I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find an English-to-Mandarin translator, but it’s probably going to be tough regardless.

Just do what the samurai do!

The solution is pretty simple. In fact, it is so simple that I inadvertently talked about it already without realising it, but it goes like this: don’t get an English dub. It worked for Samurai Warriors, and it can also work for Dynasty Warriors.

The problem is that Dynasty Warriors is considered a high-profile franchise despite the not-so-impressive quality. It’s identified as its developer’s most notable franchise, even though it gets overshadowed by franchises with even higher profiles. But it’s because of this “high-profile” status that the game needs to have an English dub since it is meant to appeal to a larger audience. In contrast, Samurai Warriors appeals to a niche audience (so it doesn’t require the necessity of an English dub). Although how I think it, this is a mistake. But once again, it’s not my place to decide the quality of things that do not belong to me.

On the condition that the developer insists on getting an English dub, at least make it good and not have them talk like every word needs to end in a period. This way, people would criticise the game less… relatively, but still.

If it’s not my place to say, then whose?

First of all, I think there should be a consideration to talk with Mandarin voice actors to understand how they convey their feelings into the microphone and deliver an immersive audio experience when one plays trivial video games.

The real people to ask are the producers themselves since they’re responsible for the whole English dub thing in the first place. Other video game producers ask them how to conduct such a practice if placed in such a scenario.

And then there’s the other group of people to ask, which are English-speaking voice actors. What needs to be asked of them is how they would conduct the recording sessions. Even if they weren’t given a big budget, what can they do to make the game better? Of course, it’s not always up to them, but there can always be a case where the voice acting team will surprise.

In Conclusion…

Dynasty Warriors has a lot of games to it. In all honesty, not even one feels like a fantastic experience, but if I had to say one of them, then it would be the 8th game in the series. If I had to insist, I’d recommend you play Samurai Warriors 4 instead since it is so much better.

Regarding the various dubs, I believe that sticking to just Mandarin is a great idea. Leave out the English and not only save money but avoid all the nonsense and good/bad voice acting arguments. But if English is necessary, then at least get good voice actors. But again, not my place to say.

Honestly, you should avoid the series in its entirety; it’s a complete waste of time.