Dynasty Warriors 9 (PS4)

To start with I will make it clear that I am playing this on the PS4Pro, which seems to give a different experience. Those that go into this game with the Skyrim mindset when it comes to open world play are going to be disappointed. Yes, the world is huge. But it wasn't designed to be played like an open world RPG. It's designed to give you a greater sense of scale when it comes to the current scenarios battle at hand. You don't start on the enemy's door step and you must now break through outer castles and camps as you move the frontline forward. Move beyond the battle area out into the world where no fighting is happening and of course it will get quiet. It takes no more than 15-30 seconds average to travel between objectives, no longer than the loading and menus of previous DW games. The new combat system I find works really well. Very intuitive and adaptable. In previous games I found the charge attacks were pointless as usually mashing square got the job done. With the new system I find myself using the new moves with great effect and am able to string together almost never ending punishing combos, made even better once I had elements imbued into my weapons. The English voice acting is, admittedly terrible, more so than usual however the Japanese and new addition of a Chinese dub is greatly welcomed and is what I personally use. The overal gameplay is lovely and smooth. I haven't encountered any bugs, glitches or any noticeable frame rate drops (PS4Pro). The graphics aren't groundbreaking but it is Koei's first foray into a game of this scale. They are still nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be. The weather and elemental effects on the weapon attack are beautiful. The AI is also not what some make it out to be. It really is no different to DW7/8 so yes, troops do tend to stand there and take it but if you go too deep into enemy territory they really do perk up and attack you hard. There are limitless side quests to be down if you fancy a change of pace. You can go fishing or hunting. Purchase yourself a nice house and furnish it as you please whilst chilling with other officers. Cook meals that give temporary stat boosts or craft new items and weapons. There is always something to do. Just remember that this is Dynasty Warriors, NOT Skyrim or The Witcher. Saying that, sometimes it's just nice to hop on your horse and have a good ride enjoying the scenery. The Great Wall is a good run, and loaded with high level bandits! I have spent every chance I can get playing this game, it is insanely addictive and fun to play. It's just a shame that people are condemning this game for the exact same things that people took no issue with in previous instalments. This is easily my next favourite DW after DW3!

DW has been in desperate need of a revamp over the last decade, I would say the last brilliant one was DW5 - 6 was lacklustre, 7 was decent, 8 was just 7+ and this is an entirely new take, I'm a huge fan of the series so it is disappointing to say how poorly executed it is. The combat starts of ok, but gets boring really quickly which sucks when its the main component of the game. The world is artificially inflated and the way they've tried to incorporate battles into the open world map just means they can't implement half the stuff that we're used to. There's also little incentive to change character.

Edit: After completing every character's story, after 350 hours, I'm exhausted; never playing this again :end edit Characters are good, voice acting is pretty awful (at least, Sun Jian's), Japanese or Chinese spoken language makes bad VA bearable, music's up to par, combat's overhauled in a VERY good way, more context for interactions and battles than in previous instalments. THE MAIN POINT: it's huge! The world is huge with lots to explore in it, even the cities are the size of maps in previous games; max levelling all characters CANNOT be done in 2hrs per character, like in DW8:ELCE, it's an adventure. The story is broken into chapters, you choose your character at the beginning of a chapter and cannot change mid-chapter. This entire paragraph is about how you unlock characters for chapters, which makes playing through a bit of a pain and is something I really don't like about the game. You unlock characters by completing chapters that involve them and yes, there is free mode. For the first chapter, you get one character from Wei, Wu, and Shu to choose from and, when you've competed that chapter, you unlock every playable character that appeared in chapter 1, but can't immediately choose to play as them in chapter 2. In order to play as characters past the chapter that introduces them, you have to play as them in their introductory chapter and that unlocks them for subsequent chapters. For example, if you unlock a character in chapter 5, you can't play as them in chapter 6, unless you go back and complete chapter 5 with them. However, once you've unlocked a character for a later chapter, you can start from that chapter with that character.

There is a considerable amount of lag for a game that use to run perfectly on a PS4!

Da fan decennale del gioco mi dispiace dire che mai prima di oggi mi avevano deluso così tanto. La grafica è terribile, la giocabilità pure. Open World implementato MALISSIMO. L'ho riportato due giorni dopo e sono tornato al vecchio 8 .

Played all previous versions of the game and this new addition is even better graphically.

Worst game in the series. Completely lost what the series is about

Cet opus m'a laissé un drôle de gout amer dans le bouche. Le système de combo prometteur est finalement mauvais. Les graphismes sont inégaux jusqu'a être indignes parfois. Le monde semi ouvert ne fonctionne pas avec ces animations à pleurer et les décors vide. Je ne comprends pas bien ce qu'ils ont voulu faire mais ça m'a gonflé en moins de 3h. Je joue à dynasty warriors depuis longtemps, sengoku basara, N3 et autres... vivement Orochi4 du coup

The best about DW9 is availability of multi-language in option menu. You can select the language you want for audio and subtitle independent of each other. The game is a bit like Assassin Creed Egypt in the way that you can collect raw materials like wood and iron to forge weapons. It is also an open world exploration and need some time to learn how to get missions and move to the appropriate location for your level to battle. The game is slow to load probably because of the graphic and the fighting mechanics are different from previous DW.