PC vs PS4 Version - View of someone who actually owns both

[Darklord BloodySoul]

Greetings, fellow Warriors.

I have seen many bad reviews about DW9 since it's release on the PC.
Funny enough, though, most of these complaints seem always the same, baseless or people just venting about issues we've already encountered since the first Dynasty Warrior game addaptations to the PC.

I've had it with constantly reading through the same crappy reviews I've seen from every Console to PC re-release, so I have made it my mission to give a full, honest review here to what differences PS4 and PC offer.

On that note - I own the game as solid Copy for both PC and PS4. Heck, I bought a PS4 for this game only.

To make sure that my review wasn't gonna be completely biased, I decide to give some informations to the readers first. So if you just skip through everything, because you're afraid of reading long text, it is not my problem. I am not here to force you to pay attention, but I will also not respond a thousand times with quotes from my previous comment just to point out the bits you've been missing.


First!
I am also not a native english speaker or writer. Thus it might come to it that I missspell/-type or cause grammatical failures. However, my know-how should surfice to explain everything in a manner that basically anyone could understand if they use their head.

Second!
I have been playing Dynasty Warriors since the first game "Dynasty Warriors", back in 1997. I own every copy of the Game and followed it's development to this day. I also own several Romance of the Three Kingdoms games.

Third!
I play games on both PC and Console a lot. Heck, I collect Consoles and PC Systems since I was 7 years old. On that note, I have a grasp of both sides on this term and see benefits, pros and cons for the both of them pretty clearly. I am not here to tell anybody to buy a console for a game or go downgrade console gaming as inferior to that of the PC or vise versa. I will access the whole game and it's problems from a mediative perspective.

Fourth!
I am not gonna sugar coat anything here! This is an honest review from the perspective of someone who's played the game on both PC and PS4! Keep that in mind before lynching and slaying every word I say.


Now with this out of the way, let us begin!


To be completely sure of the massive outlash against the PC version of DW9, I made it my mission to complete one Officer Story on both Platforms, explore the Map as much as possible, fight through road blockades, visit the biggest city I possibly could and have the largest possible number of enemies on my screen, All that combined with the settings set to the very max for both. Thus my results would only be differ from the Platform the game was running on.


Let us start with the PC version.

for that I will offer you the specs of my PC, so that you all can see that mine isn't even one high tech super computer developed by NASA or something.

Processor - AMD A8-6600K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics 3.90 GHz
RAM - 8 GB (3,94 GB usable)
Systemtype - 64-Bit (x64-based Processor)

5 Harddrives with 3 having a capasity of 200GB each, one with a capasity of 97GB and the last with a capasity of 1.7TB

My Steam Library is on the last one and my Windows10 System is on one of the three 200GB drives. That Drive is also free of any other Program that could slow down the capacity of my RAM in anyway.

I play the game with the X-Box Controller and in Game Mode offered by Win10.


I played through the entire "Wei-Cao Cao" Campaign.

Okay, so first of, the game is not unplayable like most of people seem to say. You can play just fine on ultra settings without having much major issues at all.
Lag appears first when you entire areas with a lot of NPCs to load in or in the bigger Forest and Mountain Areas, where falling leafs, massive cload fronts and bird flocks.
The movement of the characters was always pretty fluid. And for a PC addaptation of the Console Game, this one was pretty well-made. The clothes didn't look like paper this time and as soon as the graphics managed to keep up with the speed of my horse/walking, there was not much destinctive difference to me, personally, when I placed it next to the PS4 version.
I noticed a lot of Frame-Rate drop, though, during the night and the battle of Chibi, which was due to the torches and fires everywhere. Fire Attacks expecially became quite a headache, due to button combinations not responding in the amits such slow movement. Having a great number of enemies on screen also often resulted in certain officers not spawning instantly.
The biggest issue I had was the weather, though. Weather changes caused multiple different problems for my PC. Rain and strong winds resulted in lag across rivers, forests and mountains. Fog made the texture loading in cities almost impossible, thus certain NPCs never spawned. Snow just kills the Frame-Rate while in the middle of battle.

That actually covers all the performance issues I had for the PC.


Next up is the controls. Right now everything works pretty much perfectly.
At the beginning I had a major issue, since the game could not register my X-Box controller for some reason. However, thanks to a lot of people on the internet, it was fixed pretty fast. Now the only trouble I have is that my "Draw Weapon" button opens a console on my PC and often tabs me out of the game. I worked around that issue with the simple use of a button command on my keyboard. So, yeah, that's pretty much everything I have to say about the controller issues.


Next up, the sound. Okay, but this I can safely say is an issue with my sound system. My music tends to either be too quiet or too loud. At first I thought that might be the game, since it often occured during battles calming to an almost deafening silence. However, thanks to my father, I figured it might just be my old radio. Yes, my PC Sound comes from the Boxes of my Panasonic SA-PM54 Music Port, which runs on two Boxes that are at least twice as old as that Radio. One of the Box's cables is very old and possibly broken inside, whcih causes the left side to constantly break up and reactivate.

So, yep, an issue on my technical side I might come to repair sometime later.



Let us now look at the PS4 Version.


The first thing I have to point out is that it runs more fluitly, due to the fact that it uses the entire capacity of the PS4 Hardware to do so. In other terms - yes, the PS4 is more powerful than the PC. Which is why the section of long loading areas, lag and frame-rate drops are instantly nullified, entirely. I had none up until Chibi. At the Chibi battle, enemy spawning was a bit slower than usual with the camera sometimes stuck for a few seconds. Nothing which interrupted the game for long, however.

One major issue I could point out was that some enemy officers managed to break a mission.
Like Yu Jin during my assault on Zhao Yun at some point. He kept repeating the same line over and over again and rendered Zhao Yun unbeatable, even with him already defeated and despawned from the field. This issue was very frustrating, since I had to restart the chapter completely, ereasing all my progress with befriending my fellow officers from before. Yeah, that was really bad...

Music also cut off for no reason, but the latest update fixed that issue already.

The controls are very good and only give me some headache when I accidentily press the PS4 new implemented button inbetween my two Sticks... But that might just be me and my big dumb fingers xD

One other major complaint for PS4 that I have is the issue of the camera sometimes not being able to follow your directive fast enough. And if done to aggressively it can cause a huge graphical glitch that crashes you out of the game instantly. An issue that I had happen to me multiple times during the Chibi Offensive and the Battle of Hangzhong. An issue that never occured once on the PC, which is kind of a relieve, considering how long some of the stories are.


My overall impression of the game...
This is a personal factor mostly, so you can either read it or ignore it.

I love the concept! The Map of China is gigantic and it does not force me to go explore. Instead, I discover things by simply playing the game the way I like.
The idea of making everything the historical route was pretty bold. It's still a bit saddening, but I appreciate the many details it offers into the perspective of each individual Officer. The leveling System for both Character, Horse and even the Weapon Enhancement made the overall experience so much more dynamic. To be able to actually make combos without mashing the button like a maniac was a really nice experience overall. The layout of most cities is unique to the area their in, the outpost everywhere make sense and the sometimes empty plains give away how it must have been centuries ago, was still growing into the vast population we know today.
I am a bit disappointed when it came down to some of the characters weapons, though. Seeing Ma Dai with the Twin Halberds, Xu Shu without his Sword and Hook and even Xiahou Yuan without his cool Bow was kind of a downer. Alas, you cannot have it all. I also wished for a bit more variety on the horses, but that might just be something I haven't completely explored yet, considering I only played one Story to the end on both sides.
The idea of owning your own Hideaway was amazing, when also a bit lacking. But this is their first actual attempt on implementing such inside a DW game, so I can see passed it for now.
The utilization of Siege Weapons, the Grapling Hook and even Sneaking! I can't even describe my joy over this. To actually be able to decide wether to just jump the wall or joining my men in breaking the gates. This is how it should be done, but it still could gain improvement. I miss some Balance with those Rock Throwers on the wall. Seriously, getting stunt into complete hold by them for just standing a bit too close is just unfair.
To give hunting and gathering some value in the game is also a unique touch for this Hack & Slash genre. One that I whole-heartly approve with.

The voice acting is so nostalgic. Wackey, weirdly phrased, yet befitting of most characters. The sometimes long drawn pauses made me laugh so hard, I earned a lot of disbelieving glances over the past 2 months I played through that one scenario. It just screams the old era of DW to DW5. Magnificent, I say. Keep those voices, Koei. I love it!



Now let's conclude this whole.

Yes, the PC seems inferior to the PS4 on this matter, but only from a minor standpoint.
Graphics and RAM for Home Computers are always hard to come by and improve on, due to the fact that you have to spend so much money on something that is being improved or even replaced like 3-4 months afterwards. Technology improves too fast for the average PC user to even get close to. PS4 and other consoles are made to already have the best hardware present to use set software, thus given an advantage over the PC System.
However, that lack/gap manages to bias many people into reviewing and judging games unfairly. Dynasty Warriors 9 here, in the year 2018, is one of the best examples I've ever witnessed.
Due to the many frame-rate issues, lag, long loading periods which all are mostly caused by insufficent RAM, almost unaffordable Hardware costs or insufficent know-how on how to best distribute the present RAM, many people will suffer a poor experience with the game. And this is not their fault, I can see that. It is due to the fact that companies keep building these games on way to strong systems already, without taking to account that most of us average gamers (their initial audience) cannot always afford the best equipment just so we could enjoy one specific game.


So, yes, most of you who are complaining about the system issues of the PC version, you are right and you have the right to be mad at it. However, even though the PC experience was way slower than my PS4 gameplay, I had a lot of fun going through it anyway. I hit some points of frustration, but so did I with the PS4 version, as well. Thus I cannot see any reason to degrade everything on just those issues alone.



The PC Version at its current state earns a 7/10 from me. Yes, we have to do something about the lag and frame-drops as they can prove very annoying, however, they did not ruin the experience for me at all. I still had a lot of fun playing and will continue to do so.

The PS4 Version at its current state earns a 8/10 from me. I still have the issue with the crashes during camera movements, so it dampers the experience a lot, considering that this might happens to me if I am grinding for XP, with no Autosaves to rescue me, since they only occure on completing missions.




I hope this overview might be a bit more detailed to those who wish to know why DW9 gets such a crappy reputation on the PC Medium.

And I hope it also helps some people to define what critique and what pointless complaining is. Look at what is wrong, what is it that you wish to convey and is it something bad about the game or just about how the system runs it?

Take that always into consideration, because most good games will never run 100% on every system.

With that...


~Have A Nice Day~

[Power]

Nice review. So, I have a question, about 3 weeks ago I bought the game, but with Warriors Orochi 4 on the horizon, I decided to rufund it and buy WO4. Now that I finished it, I was thinking in buying DW9 again, but with the latest update, it seens the fps got major issues. I saw some people saying that using the same video card as mine (GTX 1060 6GB) noticed the fps going to even 11fps. So I'm a little afraid of buying it and having this kind of issue, when I played it 3 weeks ago I was able to run it smootly, but now I don't know how it will be. So, the question is, you played it on pc only after the new update, before, or both? If you played both versions, the fps really went down? Thanks in advance.

[Darklord BloodySoul]

From previous update standpoint, yes the FPS drop is a bit worse, but not so much that it would actually effect the gameplay unless you're in a certain overcrowded area. #BlameTheFallingLeafs

Yeah, since the newest update, I only had those major drops around the forest areas and during the whole Tao Qian (Quian?) mission with the snow just making my horse go super slow.

Other than that, I did not see much difference than before that.
If you plan on buying it again, make sure to put your game on a different drive than your main system software. That way you spare the PC a lot of RAM power to use.
Also, if you run Windows 10 make use of the Game Mode. It blocks all other Runtimes on your PC and gives all power to the game alone. That way most of the issues with the FPS can be avoided instantly.

[Power]

I see. Thank you very much for the info.

[KomdivCCCP]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Harutora Tsuchimikado:

I saw some people saying that using the same video card as mine (GTX 1060 6GB) noticed the fps going to even 11fps

Yes it did for me, it happens in the specific situation when enemies using fire arrows and background objects like barricades starts to burn, had to turn off particles to fix it.

p.s. TS, you didnt mention your videocard, did you use integrated graphics? If so, i'm surprised it was even running on it.

For me - framerate and slow texture loading are two biggest issues of the game and btw DW9 doesnt take advantage of available ram at all, in my case i have 12gb of system ram and 6gb of vram, DW9 uses like 4-5gb max.

[Darklord BloodySoul]

@KomdivCCCP

I guess that this is also different for many systems.
Without "X-Box Game Mode" active my DW9 gets only up to 2GB RAM usage.
This might also come from the fact that my PC is not a Gamer PC only. I use it also for work purposes, which has several other programs and updates running most of the times.
Thus I use Game Mode. With it DW9 gains access to up to 6GB RAM usage.

[JDPUK]

I've owned all three versions, without question - no comparison, the Xbox One X is the superior version, looks, loads and plays better than PS4 Pro and PC. I have a high end PC, 8700k, 1080ti, SSD and 32GB RAM and still much prefer the X version.

[HaoleDonburi]

Good read. My experience is backwards. Pretty much flawless on my PC. Ultra settings with 54-60 fps. My PS4 Pro is struggling at 30~fps :\

[KomdivCCCP]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Rayhaku808:

Good read. My experience is backwards. Pretty much flawless on my PC. Ultra settings with 54-60 fps. My PS4 Pro is struggling at 30~fps :\

I heard the developers said co-op patch also improved fps on PS4, so the action mode(or whatever they call it) is now running at 60fps on PS4 Pro, did they lie or something?

[Ebon Wolf]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από KomdivCCCP:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Rayhaku808:

Good read. My experience is backwards. Pretty much flawless on my PC. Ultra settings with 54-60 fps. My PS4 Pro is struggling at 30~fps :\

I heard the developers said co-op patch also improved fps on PS4, so the action mode(or whatever they call it) is now running at 60fps on PS4 Pro, did they lie or something?

You know they did. They couldn't even get DW8 to run at a solid 60 on PS4. Their coding team is absolute trash.

[HaoleDonburi]

https://youtu.be/SJDnps5mfcw
Alright 1.17 on the PS4 Pro isn't as bad as 1.14 for me. But in my description I notate when the slowdowns occur. I used an Elgato HD 60 Pro to record it. I'm gonna try use shadowplay for a PC version of how 1.15 runs on this thing.

[Darklord BloodySoul]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από KomdivCCCP:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Rayhaku808:

Good read. My experience is backwards. Pretty much flawless on my PC. Ultra settings with 54-60 fps. My PS4 Pro is struggling at 30~fps :\

I heard the developers said co-op patch also improved fps on PS4, so the action mode(or whatever they call it) is now running at 60fps on PS4 Pro, did they lie or something?

No, they didn't. It really runs better now.

Seeing as the game is running so differently to for so many people on so many platforms, it's bizarre.
I only seen such discord with one other game, which was Batman Arkham Asylum back in the day :o

[GuRu Asaki]

I have to agree with all of this, however my only issue with Controls, were...

When I used my Controller, I noticed that the on screen inputs for the Tutorials...

Had 2 Buttons flopped... At least 2 that I know of, but I forget which 2 they were,
since I haven't played for a while...

I dunno what you guys were complaining about with lack of Enemies?

I had plenty of Enemies on screen to Fight...

Especially durring the end of a Campeign, where I had to fight a Boss
in his Castle, at least I hope that was the end of that Campeign, but
anyways...

The thing was, his Castle was completely crawling with Enemies, &
I actually ran out of time & HP to take them all out, so I had no choice,
but to rush up to him, & very, very slowly tried to kill him with that fact
that I was much, much, much weaker then him, oO

I had to work smarter then him, & I actually beat him with I think 1 HP
& like 0:00 Seconds on the Clock, o_@

I got very, very lucky...



FPS Speed wise?

Yes there was noticable lag, but only durring crowded areas, but I noticed
that the lag only happened durring certain situations... I think durring Attacks
in those Crowded Areas, or something where I would be doing a bunch of
stuff... Thats when I noticed the lag accur, because I was able to run through
a crowded Area without issues if I did not do anything, but Run though...




Anyways, the biggest issue I had was? Was that my Saved Data was not actually
saving my Progress, :(

Weather I had the Game on Cloud Saving, or Regular Saving, it was deffinately
not saving my Progress, :(

So that was very, very bothersome...


I also, did not feel that the Game was Open World, as I still had to revert to
Chapters in between, so I was not in Game Playing the entire Game...

That made this Game feel very, very muvh like the Devs were Lying about it...

They call it Open World, & that it's all of China, such, & such... But?
It still feels like it's a Chapter / Scenerio based like earlier Games before this...

It does not feel like a Game such as a Hack & Slash Version of
Final Fantasy VIX for instance, where you are in the World through the whole
Experience... ~_~



I wish they would remove that Timer in Game, & make all the Chapters be
accessable from the World of the Game, versus the Menu Screen, ~_~

Let the NPC's give you access to the Chapters instead of the Menu,
if you know what I mean... ~_~



But ya, I agree with you guys very much, the Game is very much Playable,
it does not deserve it's Extreme Negative Reviews that it has...

I've had Games, for instance New Doom or any BlazBlue Game on my PC,
where those Games no matter how hard I tried, I could not even get passed
the Start Button from STEAM to even Launch them, ~_~

This one i've actually got Game Play of, so this does not Deserve it's bad Rep...

[Darklord BloodySoul]

I have to add, over the course of these several months, I have finished 5 of the longer story lines.
Including Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Liao and Yuan Shao.

I often see bad reviews on the repetitiveness of the gameplay.
It makes me frown and facepalm everytime, because when was Dynasty Warriors never a repetitive gameplay?
It is always go from A to B fighting through massive Armies, save some Allies, stop ambush attacks, etc.

In DW9 I have more variety actually. Collect certain Items, rescue allies, beat enemies, hunt for a certain animal, discover new location, sneak into places without getting seen, escape places fast, etc.

Yes, it gets boring when the same story arcs get repeated so many times and some portions of it stay the same for most parts. They could've done better by giving more variety to each officers separate story arcs instead of just pushing them into the frame of a conversation they were not in before that. It looks kinda dumb xD

But that does not make the game as bad as they say. It is kind of disappointing, yes, but I can get behind why. After all these poor devs have to slave away while the big shots push deadlines into place without their consent, pressing them to work overtime, risking their health and sanity to make a game at least decent. It's understandable that due to a lack of time (thanks to capitalism ruling their leaderboard) they had to cut short on so many ideas they've probably wished to add as well.