So, after this game got some patches and new features were added I thought it would be the right time to revise my review. I started and tested this game every time they released a patch. After over 120 hours and completing every achievement in this game here is what I think after all the patches and new features. Notice I played every Dynasty Warriors game from 2 to 9 as well as the extreme legends and empires variants.

Technical:

Performance:
The game still has huge performance issues. It depends on the version of the game. 1.13 was okay while the newer versions have big frame drops again. I have a pretty good pc and still get these drops.

Graphics:
It looks better then DW8 but not much. Don´t get fooled by the screenshots in the store they are polished, the game doesn´t look like that in any way.

Now to the game itself:

Story:
It´s the usual storyline the Three Kingdoms. You can play Wei, Wu, Shu, Jin and some other characters storylines like Lu Bu, Yuan Shao or Zhou Ci. Each character has their own storyline while you are going to play the same levels repeatedly. The storyline is divided into 13 chapters which play the same for every character who participates in them.

Gameplay:
The open world doesn´t add anything good to the game. Every battle is extremely stretched out forcing you to run all over the map and fight officers standing around in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes they wait inside a castle, but walls are no barrier for you. You can use your grappling hook to climb over the walls. The game will give you missions and completing them lowers the level of the final battle of the chapter. Unfortunately, the battles are so spread out that the missions start to feel like they are just random.

Fighting system:
The new combat system differs a lot from the one they had before. You have 4 new attack moves. Stun, air, ground and special. You can chain these attack moves together with your normal charge and light attacks. Unfortunately, you have less combination options than in the previous games. This makes the fighting system boring and repetitive after a short time.

Difficulty:
This game is way too easy I play it on ultimate without any real challenge. There are some reasons for that. First the soldiers just stand around doing nothing but being in the game to fill your musou gauge. Second the officers at least try do attack you occasionally, but their AI is not good as well. Third The enemies have a fixed level. The don´t raise their strength together with the player. Fourth the combo system lets you perform infinite combos. The enemies just can´t defeat you because they can´t touch you. Fifth you will get over leveled by doing the story missions. Being level 50 of 100 after chapter 2…

Quality:
Unfortunately, the game also has a very bad quality in general. They went for a new voice acting studio. Now every iconic speaker from the games before has been removed and replaced with the worst they could find. There are also many typing errors in names and sometimes even errors in the sense of their dialogue.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cxp6uBDfs

The cutscenes are all like this.

Now to the usual Koei laziness:

- The weapon models of the tier 3 and 4 weapons are copy pasted from DW8
- The musou and special attack animations as well as some minor attack animations are copy pasted from DW8 and 7
- Some assets are copy pasted from DW8 and 7
- Soldiers are copy pasted from DW8
- The DLC weapons are copy pasted from DW8
- Many castles are copy pasted around the map. You will have to attack the same fortress model repeatedly
- The map is empty half the map is just planes with some dust and grass

Every character has one or two clones except Lu Bu but his attack animations are one of the worst in the game

Full Clone list:
Sword -- Cao Cao, Sun Quan, Xu Shu
Pike -- Lu Meng, Yueying
Club -- Xu Zhu, Huang Gai
Guan Dao -- Guan Yu, Yu Jin, Li Dian
Twin Fans -- Xiaoqiao, Daqiao
Spear -- Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao (Alone these three being clones...)
Poleaxe -- Lu Su, Xin Xiangying
Double Voulge -- Jiang Wei, Wei Yan, Cheng Pu
Great Sword -- Xiahou Ba, Guan Ping
Chain and Sickle -- Gan Ning, Chen Gong, Jia Xu
Chain Whip -- Diaochan, Zhenji, Cai Wenji
Axe -- Zhurong, Dian Wei, Han Dang
Twin Axes -- Zhang Liao, Ma Dai
Shaman Rod -- Pang Tong, Zhang Jiao, Zuo Ci
Fan -- Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Zhuge Dan
Shooting Spears -- Guo Huai, Man Chong, Jia Chong
Sword and Shield -- Xingcai, Li Lingqu
Dao -- Zhou Tai, Sima Zhao
Nunchaku -- Ling Tong, Guan Suo
Greataxe -- Deng Ai, Xu Huang
Flail -- Dong Zhuo, Cao Ren
Rapier -- Yuan Shao, Sima Shi, Liu Shan
Mace -- Pang De, Guan Yinping
Meteor Hammer -- Xu Sheng, Zhang Bao
Gauntlets -- Meng Huo, Ding Feng
Urumi -- Xun You, Zhang Chunhua, Fa Zheng
Chakrams -- Sun Shangxiang, Wang Yi
Fan Sword -- Zhong Hui, Cao Xiu, Guan Xing
Twin Rods -- Taichi Ci, Yue Jin, Xiahou Yuan
Guillotine Sword -- Sun Ce, Zhou Cang, Wen Yang
Throwing Knives -- Zhang He, Wang Yuanji, Xun Yu
Bo Staff -- Zhou Yu, Guo Jia, Zhu Ran
Podao -- Sun Jian, Xiahou Dun, Huang Zhong (Sorry Huang Zhong no bow for you...)
Twin Swords -- Liu Bei, Cao Pi, Lu Xun
Mandarin Duck Hooks -- Lianshi, Bao Sanniang
Halberd -- Lu Bu

In DW8 every character had a unique weapon. I don´t even know why they just didn´t copy pasted all weapons... oh yeah right you can sell them as DLC later.

Bugs, patches and features:

So they released some patches now which added some new features and fixed some bugs. What did these patches do?
They always say these patches fixed some bugs but every time I started the game after an update and tested the new patch and the bugs they claimed they fixed it basically took me only 5 minutes to reproduce the bugs. Ranging from broken controls over enemies not spawning, buggy collisions and missions not finishing.

The new features:
Koei gives you a free trial version of the game now.

With one of the latest patches they added offline and online coop. I tested it with a friend who downloaded the trial version. Both see the other player not running around smoothly but rather like we were halting all the time. It´s like only seeing him every third frame. Then we went into the fighting. The soldiers aren´t synchronized for both players. For him it looked like I was hitting the air while I was fighting hundreds of enemies. Then we were fighting Lu Bu together at Hu Lao gate and besides him teleporting around something else felt off. I dealt pretty good damage to him and said he´s nearly down while my friend said at his screen Lu Bu was nearly full health. We weren´t fighting the same enemy here. He fought his Lu Bu and I fought mine. Depending on who kills his Lu Bu faster the other would just die instantly. We didn´t defeat Lu Bu together I killed mine and the game killed his in response.

The nice things and conclusion:

What is nice about this game then. Basically, after all this time playing this game there is just nothing positive I can say about it besides there is a free trial version now, so you can decide on not buying this game.

Did this game get better by now? No, the frame rate is worse than on release. The same bugs still exist, the AI is still bad, not responding and boring to play against. The game is still way too easy. The leveling system is still badly balanced. The battles are still boring and spread out. The voice acting is still bad. The new combo system is still bad, boring and repetitive.

For me it feels like Koei tries to extinguish a wildfire with bucket of water. This is just not enough to rescue this game. To make this game good you would have to completely rework it. Some patches and bugfixes won´t do it and the price of 69,99€ doesn´t help this game to get a better review from the community.

Steam doesn´t provide enough space to write about every single aspect of the game. If you have more questions, feel free to leave a comment I will respond asap.

I saw that a trial version was available for free, so I thought "What the heck, it can't be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. What have I got to lose?" The answer? My time.

I loaded up the game and watched the intro movie. Awesome, right? Same style of over the top, Zhao Yun-focused intro we're all used to. I actually smiled. I actually thought that this might not be so bad....but then I started playing the game. Story mode to be specific. Where do I begin?

The graphics - Acceptable from afar. Terrible up close. A long-time gripe from DW critics. It's usually not that much of an issue for me, but really guys....with all settings on the highest, this game shouldn't look like something you might have played back in 2005. Okay, maybe that's over exaggerating. Let me rephrase. On the surface, just generally glancing around, this game looks fine, but if you actually stop to look at something, it looks bad.

The voice acting - When I heard people saying things like "The English voice acting is so bad." I thought to myself "Ahhh that's just the old DW style! The "so bad it's good" voice acting! But as my chosen hero, Guan Yu, uttered his first line of dialogue, I almost recoiled in horror. I would have liked to think that, as passionate developers who love their franchise (as they SURELY must be), they would put at least a little effort into employing voice actors that closely resembled those of past games. This was not the case. Zhang Fei opened his mouth, and as he did so, my jaw dropped. "Are they even trying?", I thought. Some time later I heard Zhang Jiao say something. I don't recall what it was, but I do remember VIVIDLY my thoughts after hearing it. "They're not even trying." The voice acting in this game truly is horrendous. I think back to my first foray into the DW world, at DW3. The voice acting back then, at face (or ear?) value, was bad, sure. But Sun Tsu be damned if it wasn't PASSIONATE (and hilarious)! DW9 hasn't a modicum of that passion. It feels like they just said "Eh, they'll do.", to the first people who showed up for the roles.

Animation - In cutscenes, it's partly alright and partly WTF. When a peasant comes running up to your group of heroes and you all turn to them in unison like you've got poles shoved up your backside and someone behind the scenes is rotating you all into position....that's one of those WTF moments. Sadly it seemed to be pretty freqent. Other times your characters face might be smiling, and then instantly turn into a frown. Did someone just stop time for everyone but that one character, and tell them that they hated their mother and then set time back in action, leaving us, the viewers, wondering what just happened? Who knows. All I know is, that kinda split-second emotional change ain't normal.

Tutorial menus - I decided it was high time to just get down to what DW does best. Hackin' and slashin' some enemies. But wait, a tutorial. And another tutorial. And another. And another......AND an-STOP! I should not have to go through 50 damn tutorials just to go into battle! I get it....they're trying their hand at being an RPG, and with that, comes new mechanics that need to be explained. But let me just say, it's not right for DW. I just want to kill bad guys, not spend 20 minutes reading page after page of tutorial info. Keep it simple. The older games in the series just let you get into battle without too much of a fuss. This game throws 8 different menus at you, each with 5 tutorials on how to use them because they're so convoluted. Like I said, keep it simple!

After finally going through all of those darn tutorials, I was free to enter my first battle.....after about 5 minutes on horse back. People have said, in regards to this game's open world-ness, that it's very empty and with little to do. I absolutely agree. So I turned on the auto-pathing thing they have, thinking at least if it was boring, I could make the game do it for me. Wrong. Smacking into trees was an acceptable annoyance, as it didn't really slow you down. But running into a barracade and being unable to move is not acceptable at all, especially given how much it happend in my short time of playing.

So I finally get into combat, and the combat itself is very different. Not bad different, but I find myself thinking of that saying "If it's not broken, don't fix it." They wanted to try something new, but as with the majority of this game, I personally don't think that it was the right choice.

At this point, I was genuinely upset, because I found myself thinking that I can't wait to stop playing. After about 17 years of playing DW games, from 2-8 (I did skip 6) never had I found myself feeling that way. I LOVE DW. It has been a constant game over the years of my life, and I thoroughly enjoyed them, but not DW9. I felt that it lacked passion. I felt it was not polished. I felt that it was not the DW I grew up loving.

If the devs come away with anything from this game, I hope that they have learned that this experiment was a failed one, and that their tried and true methods in the games of old are what really works for this series. DW is not meant to be an RPG.

That's my opinion anyway. As an avid fan of Dynasty Warriors, I cannot reccomend this game.

Technical:

Performance:
The game still has huge performance issues. It depends on the version of the game. 1.13 was okay while the newer versions have big frame drops again. I have a pretty good pc and still get these drops.

Graphics:
It looks better then DW8 but not much. Don´t get fooled by the screenshots in the store they are polished, the game doesn´t look like that in any way.

Now to the game itself:

Story:
It´s the usual storyline the Three Kingdoms. You can play Wei, Wu, Shu, Jin and some other characters storylines like Lu Bu, Yuan Shao or Zhou Ci. Each character has their own storyline while you are going to play the same levels repeatedly. The storyline is divided into 13 chapters which play the same for every character who participates in them.

Gameplay:
The open world doesn´t add anything good to the game. Every battle is extremely stretched out forcing you to run all over the map and fight officers standing around in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes they wait inside a castle, but walls are no barrier for you. You can use your grappling hook to climb over the walls. The game will give you missions and completing them lowers the level of the final battle of the chapter. Unfortunately, the battles are so spread out that the missions start to feel like they are just random.

Fighting system:
The new combat system differs a lot from the one they had before. You have 4 new attack moves. Stun, air, ground and special. You can chain these attack moves together with your normal charge and light attacks. Unfortunately, you have less combination options than in the previous games. This makes the fighting system boring and repetitive after a short time.

Difficulty:
This game is way too easy I play it on ultimate without any real challenge. There are some reasons for that. First the soldiers just stand around doing nothing but being in the game to fill your musou gauge. Second the officers at least try do attack you occasionally, but their AI is not good as well. Third The enemies have a fixed level. The don´t raise their strength together with the player. Fourth the combo system lets you perform infinite combos. The enemies just can´t defeat you because they can´t touch you. Fifth you will get over leveled by doing the story missions. Being level 50 of 100 after chapter 2…

Quality:
Unfortunately, the game also has a very bad quality in general. They went for a new voice acting studio. Now every iconic speaker from the games before has been removed and replaced with the worst they could find. There are also many typing errors in names and sometimes even errors in the sense of their dialogue.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cxp6uBDfs

The cutscenes are all like this.

Now to the usual Koei laziness:

- The weapon models of the tier 3 and 4 weapons are copy pasted from DW8
- The musou and special attack animations as well as some minor attack animations are copy pasted from DW8 and 7
- Some assets are copy pasted from DW8 and 7
- Soldiers are copy pasted from DW8
- The DLC weapons are copy pasted from DW8
- Many castles are copy pasted around the map. You will have to attack the same fortress model repeatedly
- The map is empty half the map is just planes with some dust and grass

Every character has one or two clones except Lu Bu but his attack animations are one of the worst in the game

Full Clone list:
Sword -- Cao Cao, Sun Quan, Xu Shu
Pike -- Lu Meng, Yueying
Club -- Xu Zhu, Huang Gai
Guan Dao -- Guan Yu, Yu Jin, Li Dian
Twin Fans -- Xiaoqiao, Daqiao
Spear -- Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Ma Chao (Alone these three being clones...)
Poleaxe -- Lu Su, Xin Xiangying
Double Voulge -- Jiang Wei, Wei Yan, Cheng Pu
Great Sword -- Xiahou Ba, Guan Ping
Chain and Sickle -- Gan Ning, Chen Gong, Jia Xu
Chain Whip -- Diaochan, Zhenji, Cai Wenji
Axe -- Zhurong, Dian Wei, Han Dang
Twin Axes -- Zhang Liao, Ma Dai
Shaman Rod -- Pang Tong, Zhang Jiao, Zuo Ci
Fan -- Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Zhuge Dan
Shooting Spears -- Guo Huai, Man Chong, Jia Chong
Sword and Shield -- Xingcai, Li Lingqu
Dao -- Zhou Tai, Sima Zhao
Nunchaku -- Ling Tong, Guan Suo
Greataxe -- Deng Ai, Xu Huang
Flail -- Dong Zhuo, Cao Ren
Rapier -- Yuan Shao, Sima Shi, Liu Shan
Mace -- Pang De, Guan Yinping
Meteor Hammer -- Xu Sheng, Zhang Bao
Gauntlets -- Meng Huo, Ding Feng
Urumi -- Xun You, Zhang Chunhua, Fa Zheng
Chakrams -- Sun Shangxiang, Wang Yi
Fan Sword -- Zhong Hui, Cao Xiu, Guan Xing
Twin Rods -- Taichi Ci, Yue Jin, Xiahou Yuan
Guillotine Sword -- Sun Ce, Zhou Cang, Wen Yang
Throwing Knives -- Zhang He, Wang Yuanji, Xun Yu
Bo Staff -- Zhou Yu, Guo Jia, Zhu Ran
Podao -- Sun Jian, Xiahou Dun, Huang Zhong (Sorry Huang Zhong no bow for you...)
Twin Swords -- Liu Bei, Cao Pi, Lu Xun
Mandarin Duck Hooks -- Lianshi, Bao Sanniang
Halberd -- Lu Bu

In DW8 every character had a unique weapon. I don´t even know why they just didn´t copy pasted all weapons... oh yeah right you can sell them as DLC later.

Bugs, patches and features:

So they released some patches now which added some new features and fixed some bugs. What did these patches do?
They always say these patches fixed some bugs but every time I started the game after an update and tested the new patch and the bugs they claimed they fixed it basically took me only 5 minutes to reproduce the bugs. Ranging from broken controls over enemies not spawning, buggy collisions and missions not finishing.

The new features:
Koei gives you a free trial version of the game now.

With one of the latest patches they added offline and online coop. I tested it with a friend who downloaded the trial version. Both see the other player not running around smoothly but rather like we were halting all the time. It´s like only seeing him every third frame. Then we went into the fighting. The soldiers aren´t synchronized for both players. For him it looked like I was hitting the air while I was fighting hundreds of enemies. Then we were fighting Lu Bu together at Hu Lao gate and besides him teleporting around something else felt off. I dealt pretty good damage to him and said he´s nearly down while my friend said at his screen Lu Bu was nearly full health. We weren´t fighting the same enemy here. He fought his Lu Bu and I fought mine. Depending on who kills his Lu Bu faster the other would just die instantly. We didn´t defeat Lu Bu together I killed mine and the game killed his in response.

The nice things and conclusion:

What is nice about this game then. Basically, after all this time playing this game there is just nothing positive I can say about it besides there is a free trial version now, so you can decide on not buying this game.

Did this game get better by now? No, the frame rate is worse than on release. The same bugs still exist, the AI is still bad, not responding and boring to play against. The game is still way too easy. The leveling system is still badly balanced. The battles are still boring and spread out. The voice acting is still bad. The new combo system is still bad, boring and repetitive.

For me it feels like Koei tries to extinguish a wildfire with bucket of water. This is just not enough to rescue this game. To make this game good you would have to completely rework it. Some patches and bugfixes won´t do it and the price of 69,99€ doesn´t help this game to get a better review from the community.

Steam doesn´t provide enough space to write about every single aspect of the game. If you have more questions, feel free to leave a comment I will respond asap.

Tl;Dr at bottom


As of right now I would not recommend this game as a whole, as it is average if not painfully mediocre. This is coming from a fan who has enjoyed every single Dynasty Warriors game since Dynasty Warriors 3. This game aspires to be an interesting one, and by all means achieves it with SOME success, but some of the many components of which it is made up drag it down in an otherwise different game. I'll make this review simple and lay it down in simple pros and cons that long term fans and newcomers can understand. Forgive me if some things are rather specific, but everything I mention is worth considering.

Pros:
-The music is great
-Graphics are above average
-The interface does its job exceptionally
-Large diversity of characters to play as, but requires you to unlock them as you play the game
-Combat is mostly simple but has many components what can be used to enhance it, such as items, environment, and more
-Crafting in the game is balanced enough, offering some specialization to suit your tastes, to a degree
-Small distractions such as owning a house offer some distractions you can use to interact with other characters if you want
-Different factors can decide battles, though it has varying results


Cons:
-99% of the battles are so boring, easily cheesed. Win a battle designed to be 10+ minutes by ignoring the purely optional objectives and running straight to the commander and beating it in 1 minute.
-AI who follow you around more often than not sit and watch
-Even during important battles, the AI will be too stupid to properly navigate, preventing them from joining in like they're obviously meant to do
-Traveling the world is essentially a big chore until many hours later into the game
-Some enemies will just straight up despawn in front of you, forever gone
-Some of the text you need to read flies by during a second, screwing you over if you needed to read them
-Game has issues with rendering, even in cutscenes some things will just not fully render, such as characters in the front of the action.
-The voice acting is something that is more of a distraction than it is a treat to listen to, as almost all voices you will hear in the game are less than desirable to listen to, and you'll hear them often enough, which detracts from enjoying the downtime between combat as well as what are supposed to be meaningful scenes.
-The lip synch in this game is just god awful, with the only passable parts being special cutscenes. This comes a distasteful annoyance, like the voice acting.
-Some of the game's animations come off as being slower than they should be, which is distracting
-Game has inherent performance issues during combat
-Dialogue audio cuts out during combat a lot
-Enemies clip through objects more than often enough, putting them in places they shouldn't be, and becomes painful during battles in castles

Overall, I'd say 100% pass on this game UNTIL they patch some of the problems later down in the road (especially the AI and other oversights). As it stands, I'm being rather fair when I say this game will be worth buying, but only after they fix some of the problems with the game and fine-tune some things. It's not a great game, but it isn't trash, either.

Tl:Dr
I personally cannot recommend this game, but you do you. I'm just here to inform I feel it is painfully mediocre at best, and that is being somewhat kind.

One of the reason I never touched this game until now is because of the bad reviews, awful presentation, bad changes to the combat systems, and the terrible English voice acting. Bought the game on sale, and....

Most of them were right. Most.

The world looks bland, like something out of a Unity Terrain Tool project. Cities also looks the same everywhere I go.

The RPG system kinda works, but you spend the entire early game grinding for experience before you get overpowered real fast. The gem system is kinda okay, tho.

There are too many characters, and you can only focus on one, since characters' levels don't scale as you progress through the story unlike previous installments, and the lack of incentive to replay the game from the beginning(since the game returns to be character-focused Musou Mode instead of kingdom-based as in 7 and 8). Characters lose their unique weapons, and can only select generic weapons.

The new combat system, although works surprisingly well despite my initial disapproval, is kinda broken. You can stunlock Lu Bu and kill him with a finisher when his health goes low enough. And this is how you beat all officers, every single time. Just stunlock them and finish them when the prompt appears.

Horse pathfinding is atrociously bad. Just don't use "Auto-Run", whatever you do.

Photo mode is pure atrocity to navigate, and doesn't serve much purpose with the bland world, it feels like an afterthought.

The voice acting.... well. You can google it yourself.



Now with the negatives out of the way, let's talk about some of the positive things that people don't want you to see, and has kept me from shelving this game too early(as you can see from my playtime).

The writing actually improves by a lot, getting over the small details of ROTK that were missed in the previous installments. I only found out from this game now that Xu Shu's reason for switching sides is because Cao Cao held his family hostage, something that is not explained at all in DW8 (I don't read the source material, so I wouldn't know). If only they animate the cutscenes like in the previous games, maybe I would get the feels, because some cutscenes, like Sun Jian's burial, looks dumb when not animated properly.

The new characters actually have interesting designs, and the new designs for existing characters are very nostalgic and refreshing at the same time. It's like they want to emulate the aesthetics of Dynasty Warriors 4, but with more modern design.

Music has always been one of the best part of Dynasty Warriors series, and this game is no exception. Although it's a bit inferior compared to 8, I was never bored with its music. The battle themes especially are rocking it.

The new movement system is also more fluid and fun. Combat roll from DW6 is back, which is good. Stealth sections are broken tho.

Mission structure has been changed drastically, to my liking. Now, instead of slogging through 20 minutes of scripted objectives, you have the option to ignore it completely, at the cost of facing a higher level opponent. You can do side missions to reduce the main mission's difficulty level, so you are still incentivized to do some stuff before facing the big bad of the chapter. However, I personally think this mechanic is really unpolished (as with the rest of the game). Lu Bu, for example, turns from a level 40 menace to a puny level 10 if you managed complete all sidequests.

Some of these problems(emphasis on some) have been patched(including the stunlock mechanic, but now Lu Bu can just super-armor through anything, which is good and bad at the same time), but this is the problem with this game. From the dozens of cracks in this game, I can safely assume that this game is actually very not finished, like "didn't-pass-the-alpha" not finished. The upper managements clearly wanted them to release this game at February, which is Dynasty Warriors' 21st anniversary. As such, this game came out extremely broken. Perhaps they thought that they can patch this game later. This is an exact repeat of the Sonic 06 situation.

I honestly have so much fun with this game, but I cannot overlook its fatal flaws that will turn away even the most hardcore of the fans. I can only hope that, with the announcement of Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, it can be one of gaming's greatest redemption. As a Dynasty Warriors fan, I'm eagerly waiting for this expansion.

4/10. A redeemable disaster.

Despite all the harsh negative reviews, I do enjoy this game, but I just can't recommend it.

The Warriors series of games (Dynasty, Samuari, Orochi, Hyrule, One Piece, etc), at their core, are just mindless hack & slash button mashing against hundreds of enemies. Just repetitive slaughtering all day every day.

If you prefer having some sort of thought into what you are doing, you will never like any of these types of games. Personally, as much as I like thinking games, I find some mindless killing every now and then is good for the soul, especially after a long/bad day.

The only differences between the games are the franchise themes (Chinese history, Japanese history, Zelda, Gundam, etc) and the extra gimmicks used for the individual games to try to make them stand out from the rest (giant boss enemies, character switching, weapon switching, bonus card tactics, etc), which can all change in between each game of the same series, let alone the different franchises. In this case, the main selling point of entry is the open world gameplay, as opposed to individual mission maps.

Rather than Pro/Con, I'll simply list out what I find to stand out on this verses others in the series.

1. Visuals on here are rather boring to look at. Fairly drab where other titles have been much more colorful.
2. This series of games always have bad dialogue, but not only is this one bad, but it's boring and wants to put you to sleep. No real emotion or energy in it.
3. Lots of weapons and items to craft and purchase, but after a bit, you realize most are all the same and there's actually only a few that are unique, they just each have multiple bonus tiers that make it look like a lot. At this point, you realize that the number of actual Unique weapons/items, is actually less than previous games.
4. Huge cast of characters, which is normal for a Dynasty game, but this has more than some previous titles. You can equip any weapon to any character though, so this results in no real uniqueness between them except their appearance and their special Musou attack. Plus, with all the characters, given that this is Koei, you would think there would be more costume options available to unlock or even as DLC, such as versions from the previous games (this is the 9th gen after all), but no. There are only a few and they aren't very good. And mods only replace existing, none add any (to my knowledge).
5. The new combat system introduces additional moves/control options for fighting, but the actual combat feels much more basic than before because the original combo fighting is no longer there and there's little need to use the new options.
6. Difficulty seems to have dropped in this one. While you could always just charge straight for the enemy general in previous titles, it could still prove to be difficult without at least clearing some of the riffraff beforehand. Especially when you can now just grapple over a castle wall and bypass the bulk of enemies entirely.
7. As with some more recent titles, enemies just spawn in place out of no where instead of charging out from a gateway zone. With the new open world aspect, this really takes away from the immersion into the game. Especially if you think you're making progress in clearing an army only for them all to re-appear in the same spot you just killed them all in a minute later, instead of reinforcements charging in from a barracks off to the side or something.

Lastly and more importantly...
8. A whole new open world concept where there are no more mission maps. Everything is connected. Traveling on foot or horse to each new location, trying to discover hidden spots, conquering the individual little guard posts and enjoying the views. There is Fast Travel available between locations if you need and don't want to run across to the opposite side of the world, but that kills the immersion of charging into the battle. While I think a lot of people dislike the idea, I personally enjoy it. Or I did, until I realized it is not persistent and this is where it really kills me. There are 13 story chapters in the game. With each chapter comes its own presets of who controls what. Meaning, the entire world map gets reset with each chapter. All those hundreds of guard posts and forts you captured to make life easier for your troops over the last couple hours? Now back under enemy hands. Every. Single. One. Even the ones off in the far corner that have no bearing on the current story chapter that should suddenly make them an enemy to you. I get that there is a time difference between each chapter to show the progress of time and change, but it kills the immersion and incentive to fight to capture any of the posts at all. Instead, just fast travel to the required fight scenario, kill the general and repeat. Which brings me to this; what is the point of an open world map if it is just going to be ignored? This is the main draw of this entry to the series and it is completely meaningless. Much the same as all the random bandit and animal groups all standing around on the map when you're traveling between locations. There are better ways it could have been handled, such as switching over the required forts and then just giving them reinforcement boosts for troops charging out to capture the guard posts. Of everything else that I've mentioned in this review, this is honestly what ruins the game for me.

******NOTE: As with all Koei Tecmo games, I refuse to touch this game with mouse and keyboard. Therefore, this review is only relevant for people who have a gamepad.******

Edit: I don't know what Koei did, but I'm getting stupid amounts of lag now (25 fps on a good day).

I'm going to have to give this game a negative review, but surprisingly not because of the new combat system. I actually like the new mechanics - they feel quite fluid, if unpolished (more on that later).

Dynasty Warriors 9 feels like a step forward and two steps back. The open world was an interesting idea, the hunting, fishing, and hideaway systems are fun diversions, and the overhauled combat is pretty good. But unfortunately, everything good also feels like it could have used just a little more time to iron out the wrinkles.

First and foremost, the combat. Gone is the usual "Combo X number of normal attacks into Y power attack that always does Z" system that they've used since the beginning (ignoring DW6, of course). Instead, all combat buttons are contextual. It's actually not too difficult to learn, but the targeting is atrocious. I've lost count of the number of times my character lunges past my intended target in order to counter an enemy attack fifty meters away when all I wanted to do was perform a guard break.

******The BIGGEST issue I have with the game is a simple one: all of the battles and chapters feel exactly the same. "Go here, kill this officer, and move on." Remember when Hu Lao Gate was a huge ordeal, and facing off against Lü Bu was a challenge? Not so any more! Thanks to level scaling, I absolutely stomped Lü Bu at Hu Lao Gate with a Level 5 Sun Shangxiang on Free Play. The same thing goes for every other battle. Gone are the roaring flames of Chi Bi as the Coalition Forces hold off Cao Cao's massive navy. Want to kill Zhang Jiao? Just scale the city walls with your Grappling Hook and kick his teeth in before your allies even breach the city gates! Seriously, each battle is an epic waste of potential.

And what even is the point of Wall Jumping outside of being generally useless and wasting stamina? The vast majority of the time, I'd rather just perform a double jump or use the Grappling Hook (which takes the challenge out of sieges anyway).

Holy crap is the AI useless. Allies and enemies no longer actively push fronts thanks to the side quest system. Instead, they clash at a specific point, get bogged down, and stay there for the entire battle unless you happen to go kill the enemy officer. Then they move up to the next side quest and stop. At least in Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires, your allies could capture bases and be useful for something other than fodder.

Then, you have the hunting and fishing systems, which feed into crafting. Hunting is pretty basic. Just pull out some Poison Arrows and go ham on the trigger. Stealth is pretty broken - you can put 5 or 6 arrows into a Bear before it even reacts. If it reacts at all. Fishing is pretty barebones, but every time you successfully reel in your line (it's almost impossible to fail from my experience), your leisurely fishing trip is interrupted by raucous cheering that goes on for several seconds. Frankly, it's a bit obnoxious.

Speaking of crafting, the RPG elements of this game are actually pretty nice. You get a basic stat system (Health, Musou, Stamina, Attack, Defense, Speed, and Archery) where you can invest stat points as you level up, giving you the ability to fine tune your characters, shoring up weaknesses (e.g. boosting Sun Jian's attack to keep pace with his defense) or min/maxing (giving Xiahou Dun nothing but attack boosts). The stat system is further enhanced by equippable items that give various bonuses. Familiar items like Tengjia Armor return, but there are several new additions as well. On top of even THAT, each weapon has 6 enhancement slots that improve various traits and grant your special attack elemental abilities (Fire, Ice, Thunder, Wind, Slash, Poison). The character customization is probably my favorite part of the game (by virtue of everything else being entirely broken).

All in all, the game lacks depth and polish. IF they improve on the system, I can genuinely see Dynasty Warriors 10 being my favorite open world game of all time, but if they don't, well, it'll be trash. Complete and utter trash.

I have a lot of good and bad things to say about this game, so please do what you will with this review.
The reason why I rated it negative is because someone who isn't a fan of the Dynasty Warriors franchise will NOT like this game, if you are a lifelong fan of the series, then it could go both ways for you.

If you never played a Musou/Koei game in your life, don't buy this game. Seriously, don't.
If you have, consider what I am about to say.

CAMPAIGN
This game claims to have individual campaigns but that's incredibly false, each kingdom is separated into chapters and only specific characters can play certain chapters. For example, Cao Cao will play from Weis chapter 1-8, while Pang Tong is only playable from Shu's chapter 6-7. So if you finish Cao Cao's campaign and you want to pick another character (lets say you pick Xiahou Yuan) then you WILL be starting from chapter 1 again and playing the EXACT same campaign. Each character does have there own ending cutscene but if you want those so badly just look them up on youtube, they're actually quite good. Long story short, the campaign is a long story mode, no chapter is unique to certain characters, they're all the same.


Characters/Mechanics.
The combat was revamped, I can't really say it was for the better... it's different, and I can respect that. So you basically have a knockdown, stun, knockup and a special. Every single character has this, the difference is significant enough but it's a step down, some characters can do some cool stuff (Xun Yu you can jump after using your knock up and hit them with more throwing knives, Zhu Rans down can be used to poke enemies) so on and so forth, Character cloning isn't a big deal, trust me you won't be playing every character, which goes on into the next segment.

Replayability.
None, zero. Pick your characters wisely, because I guarantee that you won't be playing the same campaign twice, playing as Sima Shi in chapter 11 is the same as playing Zhong Hui in that same chapter. I advise you to pick different characters while jumping from the campaigns, pick characters who die early into the campaign so you can have an experience with a bit more variety. So don't play through Sun Quans full campaign, because you would have already experienced the story, and you wouldn't want to play through Wu again.

Story.
The story is actually really well narrated, and I believe that this is the best thing about the game. I don't want to say much since I experienced the story nine times but just know that this is the best of the nine in terms of narration.

One more issue.
No free mode, my favorite character is Pang Tong, and he dies two chapters after he is introduced, in a normal dynasty warriors game I could just select him in free mode and enjoy playing him in whatever era I want. But because there is no free mode I would be stuck playing in the battle of chibi if I wanted to max level him, yeah, not doing that. And it's a shame because his moveset is incredibly cool. This isn't the only character I have an issue with, Sima Shi and Zhong hui gets no playtime either. If your favorite character is a short lived one, tough luck.

"You just need to complete one character's story to play free mode, but it's only unlocked for the chapters+faction that you have already played ie completing Cao Cao's story won't unlock free mode for Shu's or Wu's chapters."

So free mode turns out to be POSSIBLE but only under specific circumstances, personally I won't be going back to play the same chapters, dynasty warriors 8 just has a better mission structure.

So...

The game is fundamentally bad, you really have to be a fan of this series to somewhat appreciate the attempt at an "open world" game.

The best way I can describe this game: Fun, but not fun.

I can spend hours playing Dynasty Warriors. I can literally spend a day off blazing through a Wu or Wei campaign and not grow tired of it. I can boot up an Empires title and spend a day forging my own path across China. I find it a lot of fun, and can put a lot of hours behind it. I can't do that with DW9.

It's fun for about an hour, but I find it to be less fun the longer you play, which should be the opposite of a DW title. I don't have an issue with the revamped moveset (although mass clones, and de-cloning through DLC is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥), but the combat itself is pretty fun. If your PC can handle it, the scale of some of the pitched battles is pretty fun. Assaulting Hu Lao Gate at dawn is amazing. But again, the longer you play, the less fun it becomes. Since there are no individual stages, you are stuck roaming a massive but relatively empty map of China, with no urgency at all. You can literally ♥♥♥♥ off for 10 hours killing tigers in the southwest part of China while all your allies sit camped outside a "mission stage" waiting for you to trigger the battle. There is no urgency and no risk of failure outside of you dying to fire arrow spam from archer towers.

But you push through and complete a character's story. Then you learn that in most cases, you have to play the exact same setup with a different character. For example, I started with my favorite, Sun Jian. His campaign is two stages, the Yellow Turbans and Hu Lao Gate. Once I finished his campaign, if I wanted to play the rest of Wu (this was before the mass unlock feature) I had to play as Sun Ce, starting at Hu Lao Gate (which I literally just cleared) to progress the Wu story. Then his story ends at Chapter 4. The next batch of Wu characters don't let you pick up at Ch 5, but instead you have to replay chapter 3 or 4 with the new unlocks. Rinse and repeat. Jump over to Wei or Shu? Play through Yellow Turban Rebellion (which is no different across all factions, just a different starting location). So yeah, the more you play, the more of the same you encounter, and the less fun it becomes. I can't play for more than about an hour or so per session without getting bored.

Overall, I'd say it's a great concept with innovative ideas, and I'd enjoy it a whole lot more if the execution didn't completely ♥♥♥♥ the bed. There's a lot more issues with the game and the changes they've made as well. But I would not recommend unless you see it go on one of the 75%-80% sales. $60? No ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way? 15-20? Sure.

I've played every Dynasty Warriors game since the second. There have been some mistakes - namely, reduced enemy density in DW4 damaged what made the series special while replacing weapons and reducing the character count in DW6 was not good for me.

Through all that, this is the first game in the series that I just don't like.

Not only is it not any good in general, but I can't come up with any redeeming qualities to soften the blow. I'm not one for hyperbole, I just can't think of any single thing in this game that is better than other games in the series.

I hoped that the DLC would help, but, in its own way, it showed the same poor workmanship and laziness of the base game. Each of the DLC characters reuse a weapon and pose from other characters. To be fair, the DLC characters execute different moves, but if you played DW8, you'll immediately recognize the poses - Dong Zhuo's daughter has Gan Ning's old weapon and pose, for example.

Anyway, I've written good reviews for games that just made me so happy that they deserve the praise. I've written bad reviews, mainly for games that made me angry for one reason or another. This is the first review I've written because a game just makes me sad. Nearly every minute of my play time was spent wishing I was playing DW8.

In short: Dynasty Warriors 9 is like finding your old friend from school - the one who was always nuts and made everyone smile - and discovering that he has become addicted to meth and suffered crippling brain damage from sniffing glue.