Dynasty Warriors as a series hasn't changed much over the years. Sure it's had its playable character roster expanded significantly, and it's had the odd combat system overhaul here and there, but the core concept has always remained the same: it's one super overpowered Chinese warrior (you) versus entire armies that flood the screen. To be fair, it's a formula that's given Dynasty Warriors a unique identity – a formula that fans have come to love and a formula that, for the most part, works well.
In a lot of ways, Dynasty Warriors 9 feels like a reboot. It's easily the most altered mainline entry in the series' history, thrusting the hack and slash action into an open world setting. It's ultimately a risk. Why fix what isn't broken? Is it to try and attract a new audience? Or is it an attempt to simply refresh a series that's often been criticised for growing stale and repetitive? In truth it's probably a bit of both, and the resulting game is the most ambitious Dynasty Warriors title to date – but also one of the most disappointing.
By going open world, Dynasty Warriors 9 abandons much of the series' established structure. Instead of choosing a story mode or a stage before jumping into the chaos with your favourite character, you're now diving head-first into a gigantic map of ancient China, seeking out the next critical mission that moves the story along. The new formula takes time to click. At first, we really struggled to understand what good an open world is to a game that's all about getting lost in over-the-top battles, but it does start to make sense as you delve deeper into the experience.
Unfortunately, the release doesn't make a great initial impression, whether you're a fan of the series or not. The opening story chapters of the game are dull and monotonous, with little more than small skirmishes dotted about the map. It's not until later on that it truly feels like you're part of a vast army going up against an equally impressive legion of enemies. It's here that the open world starts to make sense, allowing for some colossal clashes across huge swathes of Chinese countryside. Dynasty Warriors has never felt so organic.
It's this same open world that also contributes to many of the game's failings, however. When it's not covered in thousands upon thousands of soldiers, the map's shockingly barren – even cities and towns feel lifeless when they're supposed to be bustling hubs of culture and trade. There are side activities that you can try your hand at – fishing, hunting, material collecting – but none of them are entertaining or even worthwhile. And of course there's an unnecessarily convoluted crafting system in place, demanding that you gather laundry lists of items so that you can create weapons and accessories – equipment that's quickly made redundant by the nearest shopkeeper's stock.
With nothing else going on, you'll find yourself just travelling from one mission to the next, capturing the same bases over and over again as you go. While it is satisfying to carve out a path for your army to follow, there's no denying that proceedings start to drag when an objective is way off in the distance. Fast travel is an option, taking you straight to the nearest mission starting point, but without a road that's free of enemies, you'll usually find that your allies frequently stop their march to deal with even the lowliest foe. If you're not prepared to take it slow, things can get tedious very quickly.
The new open world structure also impacts how the classic Three Kingdoms story is told. In essence, each big historical battle has been stretched out over individual story chapters, with dialogue and cutscenes occurring at set points. Each of the warring kingdoms has its own storyline, but you follow the plot as your chosen character, meaning that, at times, you'll see things from their perspective. Strangely enough, this allows Dynasty Warriors 9 to explore events in greater detail. Without the need to quickly jump from one scenario to the next, it's free to illustrate the finer points of each conflict, and we're sure more dedicated fans will appreciate that.
Some characters get a lot more time in the spotlight than others, though. No matter how well you perform within the story, proceedings don't deviate from history, so it's possible that your chosen character will be killed off just a couple of chapters in. The warlord Cao Cao, for example, lives through six or seven acts before he finally snuffs it, while stoic warrior Pang De only hangs around for two before he's taken out. The thing is, unless you know your Chinese history, you might end up selecting a character who only gets you through a small chunk of the story – and that can be a bit frustrating when you're just trying to unlock later chapters.
Meanwhile, much like the open world, the overhauled combat system also has its ups and downs. Mashing square gives you access to 'flow' combos, which are basically your bread and butter attacks. On top of them, you've got specific techniques shared by each and every character: a launching move, which knocks your opponent into the air; a stunning attack, which opens your foe up to further damage; and a knockdown blow, which forces your enemy to the ground for a few seconds.
They may be three different techniques, but these moves all serve the same purpose in that you'll use them to extend your combos. Couple them with the new lock-on mechanic, which allows you to – gasp – actually lock on to key opponents, and you've got a more combo-focused system. It's fun enough, but it feels like a lot of individuality has been removed from the character roster as a result. Everyone has the same basic suite of attacks barring a unique special move that can only be used once every 30 seconds or so.
This issue is amplified by the fact that many characters have had their signature weapons taken away. Where Dynasty Warriors 8 ensured that every officer got their own unique moveset, Dynasty Warriors 9 brings back the clones, with some characters sharing weapon types and fighting styles. It's a real shame, because the varied movesets of games past really helped each hero stand out, and gave you more reason to take them for a spin.
Whether it was budget or time that stopped Omega Force from fully fleshing out the playable cast, the unfortunate truth is that Dynasty Warriors 9 feels rushed across the board. Despite being in development for at least a few years, the game's bogged down by bugs and graphical glitches. The open world doesn't have any load screens, but noticeable pop-in is a regular annoyance, with whole squads of soldiers just blinking into existence at times. The kicker is that aside from some nice lighting and weather effects, the title looks seriously dated.
Worst of all, however, is that the game struggles to maintain a consistent framerate – even on PS4 Pro. There are two graphical settings to choose from: one prioritises resolution at 30 frames-per-second, while the other opts for a “stable” framerate. The reality is that neither works very well. The former tanks the framerate to unforgivable levels during bigger battles, while the latter gives you that “stable” framerate, which seems to jump between 10fps and 60fps depending on how much action there is on screen. It's just not good enough.
Speaking of not good enough, the English dub is abysmal. Dynasty Warriors is well known for its sometimes hilariously camp English voice acting, but recent instalments have featured decent work. Sadly, this isn't the case with Dynasty Warriors 9, which has thrown all the old voices out the window. Now, it sounds like over 100 characters have been voiced by three different people. Many of the new voices barely fit the characters that they're assigned to, and the delivery is often painful. It's so bad that it goes beyond being a joke and simply cheapens the entire experience. Thankfully, Japanese and even Chinese dubs are included.
Conclusion
Dynasty Warriors has been on a steady run since it fumbled with the divisive Dynasty Warriors 6, and now it's in danger of fumbling all over again. Dynasty Warriors 9 goes open world and the result is a game of extreme ups and downs. For every gloriously huge battle there's a boring stint of traversal across a dreadfully barren map. For every interesting story moment or interaction, there's a horribly ugly graphical glitch. Factor in an unconvincing combat system overhaul, and you've got a Dynasty Warriors title that may disappoint even the most dedicated of fans. There's still some good historical hack and slash fun to be had here, but we expected much more from the return of this flagship series.
Comments 41
Those of you who have been on the site for a while will know that I'm a big Warriors fan — been playing them a loooong time. It's worth pointing out that I did enjoy playing Dynasty Warriors 9 — I'm still playing it, even. But when it comes to reviewing it, the problems are just too difficult to ignore — especially the technical ones. Really is a massive shame and I hope a lot of it is patched.
If anyone has any questions about the game or the review feel free to ask.
@ShogunRok I think we both called the frame rate issues a few months back. Great review Robert thanks for saving me £55.
"This issue is amplified by the fact that many characters have had their signature weapons taken away. Where Dynasty Warriors 8 ensured that every officer got their own unique moveset, Dynasty Warriors 9 brings back the clones, with some characters sharing weapon types and fighting styles. It's a real shame, because the varied movesets of games past really helped each hero stand out, and gave you more reason to take them for a spin."
You can literally use any weapon with any character and customise them how you like.
"The thing is, unless you know your Chinese history, you might end up selecting a character who only gets you through a small chunk of the story – and that can be a bit frustrating when you're just trying to unlock later chapters."
This actually doesn't matter?
I'm sorry but this review reads like the reviewer played the game for 2-3 hours.
If the framrate didn't have this issue I would still buy it though, I've seen people streaming the game on Twitch and it still looks fun to me.
@ShogunRok Is the framerate a constant problem or is it more of an occassional one ? If it's Mass-Effect-Andromeda occasional I can live with that, but if it's worse than that I'm not so sure.
Your answer probably doesn't matter though: if the game is having this much trouble on your PS4 Pro, I fear it will be even worse on my regular PS4. That's a bummer.
First Seven Deadly Sins, then FF Dissidia NT, and now DW9. Three games with a 5 in a row. Honestly, I feel like these first months for the PS4 have been a bit underwhelming when compared to 2017. The only PS4 games we got that are actually good are MH World, SotC and DB FighterZ. Meanwhile, at least with 2017 we got Yakuza, Gravity Rush 2, Kingdom Hearts, Nioh, Nier, Horizon, Resident Evil 7, Night in the Woods, and dozens of underrated games like World Next Order (yeah, I like the game, got a problem), 2064 and Flame over the Flood . I'd be danged disappointed if games like Fatal Bullet and MGSurvive actually turns out to be good while games like Little Witch Academia and Secret of Mana actually turns out to be mediocre/bad.
@Chunky_Droid More like 65, actually. And yes, you can have any character use any weapon, but why would you bother when favourite weapons give you more attacks? If anything, using different weapons only limits your move pool even more.
@SoulsBourne128 Three great games in less then 2 months dont see the problem?
@Bonbonetti It really depends on what's going on. You'll always get a big framerate drop during the bigger battles — sometimes it dips to what feels like single frames, which is ridiculous.
Other times you'll be riding through the open world and it'll just drop for seemingly no reason and then fluctuate. It just feels really rough, and when the framerate does drop, you definitely notice it.
I think if you like Dynasty Warriors you'll be able to put up with it. I put up with it and still enjoyed the game, but I don't think it's something that you can ignore — we deserve better than this.
@themcnoisy Hopefully it gets patched up and is more worthy of your hard-earned cash later down the line.
Thanks for the good review. I'm a big fan of the series, but it appears it will now be a bargain pick up.
got this yesterday and have to agree with most of whats been said, i loved the new game-play elements, but the open world is lifeless and barren, you can be spending a good ten minutes riding from one point to another in the lifeless world and having to make your way back, it does have a fast travel system but it can be easily missed if on a horse as it needs to be activated, would of been better if activated when in range, only played about 3 hours so will see what other new things they have implemented.
@Flaming_Kaiser Really hope you're just joking, and if you are, then hats off.
A patch hit yesterday, it resolves a lot of issues.
I'm not sure how beautiful a world people want when the game has to render a bunch of armies, as well as the fact it's a warzone, it doesn't need to be beautiful.
Also, I'm struggling to understand how having more weapons limits movesets but anyway.
Seems like they bit off more than they can chew. I saw the hubbub about the framerate being atrocious on non-pros on some forums when it was released in China, and it def feels like they're just struggling with open world stuff. Probably should have stuck to the type of field that Spirit of Sanada and Toukiden 2 had for a bit longer.
I'll still buy it, because Koei own my soul and I'm bound to by law, but will wait until a drought period.
@ShogunRok hahaha as always you're my reference for buy or skip a warriors game.
I LOVE warriors/musou, and I'm having a blast with Fire Emblem Warriors recently. But I think that SW3, Arslan Senki and DW7/8 are very bad games. Should I skip or try DW9?
Also, after Dissidia and (possibly) DW9 my heart and my ps4 say "sad" and my wallet say "thanks".
@Frank90 If you didn't like DW7/8 I definitely don't think you'll like this. The open world changes things — for better or worse — but it's still modern Dynasty Warriors at its core in terms of characters, story, and general tone.
I'm praying Samurai Warriors doesn't go open world after this, by the way. I just want Samurai Warriors to keep building on what 4 got right.
I'm disappointed it didn't get higher, but thinking about it, this is more or less what I expected DW9 to be like. I thought the open world would be a generally bad idea and I'd been seeing complaints about the weapons/movelists for months now.
Just one correction, though: this isn't really the biggest change the series has undergone nor is it the first time it's significantly changed. The very first Dynasty Warriors was a traditional fighting game, 2.5D like SFIV or SFV, with just a few characters. Not at all like the series from DW2 onwards. To be fair, that game is titled slightly differently in Japan, which is why the Japanese numbering is always one behind us (DW9 is Shin Sangokumusou 8, and our DW1 was Sangokumusou, no "Shin", so the Shin Sangokumusou series started with our DW2. Confusing!)
@themcnoisy £55? You really need to stop going to GAME and getting ripped off. It's £37 on Shopto.net. Doesn't make the game any better, sadly, but it stops you paying 150% of the price you can pay elsewhere.
@Matroska Yeah, I thought about explaining that but then it'd have added an extra 100 words to the review. It's the biggest change for Dynasty Warriors "as we know it", I suppose.
@Matroska
no one should pay £55 for ANY game no matter how good or bad it is. got mine from base and it was 34.99 when i pre ordered but think its about £37 now. it did come with a nice steelbook.
@ShogunRok Yeah, you're right. It's one of those things where hardly anyone played DW1 so it's easy to ignore and it's not REALLY in the same series anyway as the Japanese numbering shows. I just like bringing it up when people say they're ALL the same, haha.
@suikoden Yeah, it's weird how there's often such a disparity in prices for games. Then again, I guess that's the same for a lot of things, from car insurance to holidays, it all depends where you look and usually the high street is by far the worst place.
If there was a chance that Sony would bring DW 1 to 3 and Samurai Warriors 1 as a classic with trophies I'll be all over them, but after playing all of the first 3 on PS2 and warriors I haven't touched a DW game since and it's a shame because I used to love the grind lol.
Jim Sterling hates it as well so it must have serious problems if he doesn't like it since he's a pretty big fans of Warriors games.
@adf86
i think for me and many others the biggest problem is the lifeless and boring open world, like most of the new game play elements, but the whole game is brought down by the poor and bland open world. part me think its the limit of technology on the ps4 for a true open world warriors game.
Yea I would check out Jim Sterlings review.. man he rips it to shreds. Can safely say i'll be avoiding DW9.
I'd prefer they went total sim like total war games but I guess I should just go play a total war game instead. Most pointless comment of the day.
@suikoden Bland lifeless open worlds don't do much for me. The games alway struggle to justify there existence. Even games like Nier I felt were better served being more linear then having you run everywhere to complete quests and that's when fast travel as well. I tend to judge an open world based on how many times I fast travel, if I want to get fully immersed then the game did it's job but if I use fast travel a lot then the world fails to be compelling.
@Matroska Its £55 on the PSN store. Ive got the dough banked and it was on pre order. Im an absolute sucker for musuo games but Beserk drained my soul last year so Im glad ShogunRok reviewed it.
@solocapers @adf86 Yeah much like Jim I've been an outspoken supporter of Warriors games for years — it's actually quite heartbreaking to see him so upset with Dynasty Warriors 9.
Although I think DW9 clicked with me better than it did with Jim, I also watched his review and honestly, I can't deny what he's saying. To a large degree, the shift to an open world really does take away a lot of what makes Dynasty Warriors... Dynasty Warriors.
Personally I'm hoping that Koei Tecmo gets the message that this isn't the way to go. All depends on how well it actually sells, though.
@themcnoisy Berserk was such a missed opportunity. In fact, the last few Warriors games haven't been great. The last truly good one we got was Samurai Warriors 4-II, and even that was basically just an expansion to Samurai Warriors 4.
gamepsot review is up.(not that their reviews are up to much). to my surprise they have given it an 7/10 which is strange for them as they usually dont like these games. mind it could just be a case of going against the grain with other reviews.
i expect if this had gotten better reviews elsewhere gamespot would of given it a 4 or 5.
@suikoden It's not the PS4. It apparently runs terribly even on very powerful PCs. KT are just horribly inept, it's not even like the game looks good. It looks vaguely like a PS2 game running at 1080p in an emulator with various graphical bells and whistles that it wouldn't normally have had. I've still ordered it, though. I can get a weird kind of enjoyment out of bad games - plus I want to see this mess for myself. I actually really enjoyed "Gun" on the original Xbox and that also had a really dead, bland open world.
Edit: Just heard from an Xbox owner that the Xbox version uses the Nintendo controller layout for its on-screen button mapping (e.g. BA, YX rather than AB, XY). Man, they really put no time or effort into this.
@Matroska
don't get me wrong, enjoying it but sadly its the open world bringing it down for me, really should been a smaller world thats more alive(and terrible framerate drops), but with any luck it will be patched and they will learn from mistakes here and address them with the next.
@Matroska Just had to comment and say GUN is amazing. As you were...
Dang, was hoping to jump into the series at some point, looks like I can wait a bit longer. I enjoyed DQH2 a lot, and I'll probably try out Hyrule Warriors at some point too.
Jack Burton: Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."
These games should just stay chinese with subtitles. Stick the money in the game and go back to normal ways just make it look a little better. Even if you have to lose some enemies on screen that popup out of no where no loss for me.
@RedMageLanakyn Just get Dynasty Warriors 8XL its probably cheap to.
@ShogunRok Oh yeah I do agree, SW4 may be the very best warriors game! The flow is so perfect, that it's almost hypnotic!
And to me this is the problem with every DW since 5 or 6. The game is just slow and weird.
Also the character design is bellow the average. DW9 hit the nail with design but open world is just a bad idea.
Was expecting as much.
Last time I counted I had over 80 musou games and that was quite while ago.
This one looked off from the start and sounded worse and worse the more news we got.
I really hope they go back to the previous gen and work upwards from there.
The series sure could use some new ideas and needs to evolve a bit, but this clearly was the wrong way to go about it.
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