Koei Tecmo wants a Musou (Dynasty Warriors, or Koei Warriors) Mario game.

Nintendo Life

Ever since Koei Tecmo teamed up with Nintendo to release Hyrule Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, fans have been wondering what other IPs from the Nintendo library could be adapted into a Musou game.

In a recent interview with JP Games, Koei Tecmo president (and the producer of Samurai Warriors 5, we might add), Hisashi Koinuma, was asked what video game series he would most like to see get a Musou crossover. Interestingly it's Nintendo's mascot, Mario:

Q. It’s completely hypothetical, but since we’re on the subject of crossovers: personally, which Musou crossover would you like to see? For me, it would be Yakuza. Rampaging through the hordes with Kazuma Kiryu or Goro Majima would be awesome.

Hisashi Koinuma: If the series would work as an action game then it’s definitely possible. While I don’t have any ideas on how to make this a reality, I think Mario would be my pick.

This follows on from some comments made by Koei Tecmo producer and head of Team Ninja, Yosuke Hayashi, last October - when he said he hoped the Japanese developer and publisher could make "more interesting games", like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity:

"We started development on Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity after Eiji Aonuma of Nintendo approached us. We thought we were done with Hyrule Warriors games, at least for the time being. The first game was like a celebration of Zelda and was full of characters from throughout the series. But then he approached us with this great idea...I hope we can make more interesting games like this in the future."

...

Um... no thank you! While I liked Hyrule Warriors okay, not even Zelda can get me on the Musou train, and I tend to defend some pretty button mashy games (I liked Tecmo Koei's Marvel Ultimate 3, because at least it's Diablo or Gauntlet with Marvel characters like the X-Men Legends and MUA games of old), Koei Warriors is a just plain mediocre series.

But that's just my two cents. What about you all?

Oh gawd

Crap genre, but Mario has done everything else, so why not?

Maybe they should try something other than a Dynasty Warriors game.

I would be a lot more interested in that than Dragon Quest or Hyrule Warriors.

Zero interest in that. Zelda made some sense for the crossover.

I'd rather there be a Mario FPS game.

I'd much rather they did a proper Fire Emblem Warriors game; the last one was....yikes.

Well that’s an interesting choice. Not entirely sure how Mario would translate into that type of game but I loved both of the Hyrule Warriors games so I’d definitely be down for a Mario one as well.

Nintendo IP been a gold mine for them to milk so it makes sense. The recent zelda game was their most successful one ever after just a few days. Easy money.

Even I liked Hyrule Warriors but this idea is stupid. They should stick to nailing this Fatal Frame re-release first.

@lamprey263: there is a port?

Never cared much for those type of games, so will definitely pass on that.. that being said, mario has done everything else out there so why not I guess?

Makes sense. Nintendo gave them Zelda to work with and they finally got lots of sales for their boring genre. Now they're greedy and wants Nintendo's biggest franchise.

Hopefully it doesn't happen. Sounds dumb.

That would be incredibly dumb.

Persona strikers was surprisingly good.

I would rather see them put their efforts into making a Xenoblade Warriors game.

Was going to write the same thing in these exact words :O

Haha spooky :P

I could see why Koie Tecmo would want Mario over Yakuza for their Warrior games. Mario Odyssey alone, outsold the entire Yakuza series as of Nov 2020; Yakuza series sold 14 million while Mario Odyssey is at 20.83 million right now. Mario has more financial potential than Yakuza.

However, other games are a much better fit than Mario. Like Xenoblade, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, etc. I think Yakuza would fit the musou series way better than Mario. But once again, I can see why they'd want Mario over Yakuza.