Okay. I’m not gonna lie. I’m slightly biased towards any Warriors game as I am a huge fan ever since I’ve first played Dynasty Warriors 4 Hyper on PC some twelve years ago. I actually bought my first console, the PS2, so I’d be able to play Dynasty Warriors 5 and God of War 2.
Despite loving every game in the Koei Warriors series as a favorite of mine… I always had it in the back of my mind that it probably isn’t as great of a game as I made it out to be. And this is fine. Not every game has to be a huge blockbuster title like Horizon: Zero Dawn ( Which I didn’t like, for example. ) to be successful. Every game has its own market and its own fan and playerbase.
I feel like this is what has kept the series going, as I have tried getting many of my friends to play Dynasty Warriors, especially DW8XL, but none of them were even slightly interested, always bringing the argument down to “But the graphics are shit!”, which really isn’t fair, not just to Dynasty Warriors, but games in general. Graphics don’t make a game, gameplay/story/atmosphere/characters do!
But, I digress. Getting back to the point – Dynasty Warriors 9 looks absolutely stunning, and when I think about how there are hundreds and hundreds of soldiers on screen at the same time, the game actually looks great. Fans who try to downplay this latest addition to the series because of the “bad graphics” most likely weren’t fans to begin with. Just like how people love Monster Hunter for the gameplay and not the shiny graphics, the same can be said for just about every Koei Warriors game. Dynasty Warriors 9, aside from a few clipping issues, looks breathtaking for what seems to be a very large open world game.
It doesn’t just look great, however, it seems to play great too. What we’re talking about is the completely revamped combat system, the addition of open world and new and returning ways to traverse the land.
From what we’ve seen, Dynasty Warriors 9 is making a drastic change to the combat we all know and love. Will it be better or are they taking a step in the wrong direction? Well, I feel like this is definitely a step forward for the series.
The new combo system called the “State Action System” by Koei themselves looks great.
“The new State Combo System reacts and responds to the surrounding conditions, building up on the base Warriors action system. “Trigger Attack” offers new ways to start combos, “Flow Attack” is a continuous attack that adapts to the enemy’s current state, and the powerful “Finish Attack” serves as the finale to the action. “
As for the terrain traversal and open world aspects of the game – I love it. I love it ALL. Boats, fishing, swimming, climbing with a grappling hook… WITH. A. FRIGGIN. GRAPPLING HOOK. In a Dynasty Warriors game! Let that sink in for a bit.
A few things I’d like to see featured in this game:
- More costumes. I love customizing my characters looks and as much as I love the old and new designs of all characters, I like to have a bit of variation.
- Having every edition of the Dynasty Warriors within the base game. This means Empires and Xtreme Legends editions. They could also be a part of a season pass, I wouldn’t mind. As much as I love Koei Tecmo, I feel that it’s downright scummy to release the same game just with a few different features at full price three times, meaning DW8, DW8: Empires and DW8:XL as THREE separate games. I know a lot of other publishers do this, but it is NOT okay. I could understand both of these being DLCs, though.
- Making a character have only his/hers unique weapon to use. As fun as weapon swapping was, I mostly used only the EX weapons of characters. Zhou Tai had Heaven and Man Katanas, Lu Bu had Earth and Heaven Halberds, etc. I just never fully understood the point of having all these unique characters with unique personalities and backstories, only to have them use the same broken weapons if you wanted them to, while not being able to use the EX-moves of the weapon that doesn’t belong to them.
Final thoughts
All in all, from what we’ve seen thus far it seems like Dynasty Warriors 9 is going to be the greatest addition to the series and like it might bring more people to our ever growing fanbase!
I, personally, play it because I love the setting, the characters, the story and definitely the gameplay. To some people, these games feel repetitive and boring and that’s okay. People have different tastes and opinions. For me, however, it’s one of my most played franchises of all time and I have never gotten bored of Koei Warriors titles and I ain’t gonna start getting bored of them now. I’m very optimistic about this game and it is definitely one of my most wanted games. I’m hoping for a 2018 release in the west.
