How Dynasty Warriors helped me amaze people

Dynasty Warriors is a decade old video game franchise from the good people at now Tecmo-Koei, which loosely follows the plot of the historical Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The game is a fairly simple one and it is generally a crowd-pleaser for multi-play, with much button mashing and very little in the way of cerebral notions. It is a hack and slash game in the truest sense: that is literally what you do. I'm a fan of the game that is no secret and the game got me interested in 'Three Kingdoms' stuff.

A good friend of mine bought me the 2 volume set when I moved to Asia and I ingested that tome. For those of you unfamiliar (with the book not the game) Three Kingdoms is in many ways a political book and a mythological book than an action packed page turner; it has epic battles, intrigue, and larger than life characters. When reading about the exploits of Lu Bu, or Guan Yu thoughts spring to mind of the Illiad and its set of epic heroes. Dynasty Warriors takes the hyperboles of the book and makes them beyond action movies to the point of ridiculousness. Lu Bu stands 1.5 times the height of an average soldier and can fling them away with ease. Great strategists like Zhunge Liang don't just plan and think, this is Dynasty Warriors, they whip out batons and fans and slap soldiers with the rest of the warriors. This might seem kind of stupid but just try it... it is great fun.

So back to my title. I have baffled so many people by asking questions about the many dramas, movies, and other paraphernalia that you can find about this classic story. They are surprised I am so knowledgeable about the characters, the battles, the strategies... and it is all thanks to one stupid game: Dynasty Warriors!

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