Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered is a firm reminder of how far Musou has come

Going back to classic battles like Hu Lao Gate with updated graphics has some novelty, but it comes without many of the comforts of later Musou.

I played the original Dynasty Warriors 3 when it came out. One year deep on the PlayStation 2 and with the Xbox coming in the following year, I remember DW3 being kind of a showpiece among my friends when they were showing off their new consoles for the first time. It’s probably also the one many fans remember most for its iconic battles such as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Battle of Hu Lao Gate, and the Battle at He Fei. However, time hasn’t been entirely kind to Dynasty Warriors 3, and though the Complete Edition Remastered spruces up the looks and feels with the help of Unreal Engine 5, it’s some clean drapery and a few fresh tricks on a crotchety old game.

The third clash of the Three Kingdoms

So, again, this is a strong example of the early side of the Musou series, the 1-vs-1000 battles featuring Koei Tecmo and Omega Force’s over-the-top stylings of numerous Chinese historical figures from the Three Kingdoms era. All content from the base game and its Xtreme Legends expansion have come to play, including over 40 characters and each of the stages throughout the collective stories told by each character in Musou Mode. They’ve been spruced up visually, looking and playing clean in the remaster, with action just about always running as smooth as silk.

The stylization of characters and stages seems about as sharp as it can be without a full remake in DW3: Complete Edition Remastered. The characters look good in their updated designs and iconic levels like Hu Lao Gate and He Fei look really good with the fresh designs on familiar settings. Another note, for better or worse: they didn’t update the voice work. The audio sounds clean, but the laughably bad English voices are back. Some people will find it funny as they are still some of the most cringe and strained-sounding line reads ever, but if that’s not your cup of tea, the Japanese and Chinese voices are there.

As for gameplay, Dynasty Warriors did get a few quality-of-life updates. Evade and Perfect Guard were added to combat. You can dodge in any direction with Evade, and they even added the Perfect Evade (which Hyrule Warriors fans will likely be familiar with), allowing you to dodge just before an attack would hit and counter with a free combo. Meanwhile, Perfect Guard allows you to parry a foe while guarding by hitting attack at the right moment, setting up for a combo like Perfect Evade does. Both are very useful in breaking through any opponent in the game, but you still have steady Musou gauge fill if you have low health and can use it to play keep away and then belt sand opponents with Musou Moves - one of my favorite plays in this series.

Outside of that, they also added difficult bonus objectives (like defeating Lu Bu at Hu Lao Gate and then quickly intercepting a new unit) and new scenarios to the playable options, the weapon fusion system for powering up your armaments, and the option to pause, leave, and later resume a scenario. You still have to unlock a lot of the characters by playing through one officer or another’s Musou Mode, but then you get them across pretty much any mode in the game like always.

I will say, as much as the Remaster can spruce up, it can’t cover up all of the passage of time on Dynasty Warriors 3.  This is a stiff game with stiff rules, restricted by the early limitations of technology within the series. Missions are mostly straightforward, “go-to-place, kill-guy” affairs with just a little bit of deviation, the maps are very linear and without much roughage, there’s no ordering or character switching systems, and the animations, even on better looking characters, are still and subdued compared to the bombastic spectacles that came in later games. Also, there’s no knockdown recovery, so if you get rocked, enemies can easily juggle you to death. Some fans will likely appreciate the stiff challenge, and it’s not entirely a knock on Dynasty Warriors 3 so much as a reflection of how much Koei Tecmo has improved on this franchise since then.

A spear-forward cavalry charge down memory lane

Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered is an interesting nostalgia-packed collection of battles, some of which hits if you were there at the beginning, and more of which hits if you’ve been playing Musou games since. I found myself marveling at how much had changed since then. In that way, I think it’s worth it for fans to look back and get some insight into where the series came from. However, as a new Musou release, I’d be hard pressed to take this over the dev’s improved and evolved recent efforts. Have a look if you want some neatly packed (and still considerably updated) historical perspective dating back to 2001.

These impressions are based on a PlayStation 5 code provided by the publisher. Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered comes out on October 1, 2026 on PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

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