Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: original physical release, box set (disc 24), iTunes/Apple Music (disc 4), Amazon (disc 4)
Info
We’ve reached the final Dynasty Warriors soundtrack in the Takashi Yoshida list, though not the final Warriors soundtrack overall. This was the final major name update of the Dynasty Warriors MMORPG, lasting from 2013 until the servers shut down in 2022. In a stunning reversal, they actually put the non-battle music first on the soundtrack this time for some reason, with the battle music following afterward.
I wasn’t too much of a fan of the non-battle block this time. Masaka Otsuka is gone, being replaced by Yosuke Kinoshita and Yugen Umemura, who delivered some okay calm acoustic tracks. Shin-ichiro Nakamura and Takashi Yoshida both returned and their contributions were as solid as they usually are, getting a bit more harmonically interesting than the other two guys did. Nakamura seems like he’s a pretty decent composer himself, I’ve found myself enjoying his contributions to these soundtracks.
None of the battle themes for this game are original compositions; in fact, they’re all remixes of music tracks from Dynasty Warriors 7. So I get to listen to those songs again, twice, oh boy! There are six of these with day/night variations. The day variations are in a similar electronic rock style to Ryuujin Ranbu though maybe slightly less synthier, which I generally feel is a bit of a lateral move for the more normal rock tracks I didn’t like that much and a bit of a downgrade for the tracks I did like because they got a little different.
The night versions though, they got a bit wacky with these this time. It is true that, like Ryuujin Ranbu, they’re generally a bit calmer and synthier versions of the daytime mixes, but they actually radically transformed the pieces in an electronic jazz direction with chill chords, EP and piano licks, jamming drums, and all that. It’s funny hearing this kind of music in Dynasty Warriors! Half of these were done by Nakamura, who also did a couple of similar lobby pieces, so it seems like he likes the jazz music. I still wouldn’t say these arrangements were super interesting for the most part, but it’s a refreshing change of pace for sure and as a baseline I definitely like this kind of music more than the usual Dynasty Warriors hard rock.
Recommended tracks:
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“ZEAL OF EACH [Startup Screen]” (Umemura) has a funny-sounding bit at 1:12 when the erhu shreds a single note for a bit
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“SIGN OF SNOW [Lobby – Winter]” (Yoshida) builds up into doing that lots-of-rhythmic-layers-stacked-up thing I like at 1:32
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“THE FEVER [Lobby – Special Event]” (Nakamura) is the least chill lobby theme and also the jammingest
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“SECRET STRATEGY -DW Z NIGHTER MIX- [Clash 1 – Night]” (Nakamura, orig. Haruki Yamada) was already a bit of a low-key bass jam, so this jazzy remix in particular makes perfect sense
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“ISOLATION -DW Z MIX- [Clash 5 – Daytime]” (Yoshida, orig. MASA) is the daytime remix that sounds most like a nighttime remix, at least until 0:50 when the symphonic rock starts
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“FLYING CLOUD -DW Z NIGHTER MIX- [Clash 6 – Night]” (Yoshida, orig. Haruki Yamada) has a lot of fun piano lines in it
(track titles have unofficially-translated subtitles from VGMdb)
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