Honey’s Anime was graced with an immense privilege of being invited to a private event hosted by Koei Tecmo at the lovely Mystic Hotel in San Francisco. While we were there, we met with the producer of Dynasty Warriors 9 and had a few words with him in an interview which you can find towards the bottom of this article.

Dynasty Warriors 9, at a glance, seems no different from previous DW titles but what really is noticeable about this particular iteration, is you won’t know how big the game really is until you are deep into the gameplay. When we talked to the producer of Dynasty Warriors 9, this, of course, is the first time they are tackling an open world feature with the series and Suzuki-san mentioned that the depth of the game goes beyond how much you can explore and how much you want to invest your time in it.

Akihiro Suzuki-san told us that they really wanted to give players the freedom to explore as much of the Three Kingdoms as possible and their answer to that was creating an open world for us all to enjoy.

Fans of any Hack and Slash genre will immediately know about the Dynasty Warriors franchise, at least, we hope everyone does?! This new open world will provide a much-appreciated experience which fans can now delve deeper into the history of the Three Kingdom during the Han Dynasty.

The mechanics of Dynasty Warriors 9 has changed a bit, but the environment which you will be immersed in will definitely give you a run for your money if you are not careful. This new feature is part of the new action combat system added to Dynasty Warriors 9 and it provides an extra challenge in the gameplay experience for players.

In addition to the aforementioned, is the HUGE character roster that is now up to 90 characters to play and experience each storyline for them. There are new updates for existing characters as well, so to keep the story going based on the Romance of Three Kingdoms and beyond. Crafting, cooking, and maintenance of your items/goods is another thing to keep an eye out for as you will need to maintain your abilities and skills for the next mission ahead of you, which includes your health, alliances with others, and your noble steed. All this is simply a taste of what we’re going to delve into so kick back and enjoy the ride!

As a note, considering the short time we had with the game and the vast open world that is now Dynasty Warriors 9, we couldn’t experience everything but will try our best to give you a nice preview into this new iteration of Dynasty Warriors 9.

The story of Dynasty Warriors 9 will have us continuing the adventures of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms towards the end of the Han Dynasty. As history is taken into account for the story of Dynasty Warriors 9, we will be able to experience a full 10 chapters which make up the entire story of Dynasty Warriors 9.

Players will have complete freedom to choose the missions they want to accomplish and will also have freedom of proceeding in any way they please within the 10 chapters. This is depending on whether players want complete every single mission, running around doing whatever, or jumping straight into the final battle! And according to the interview and the main website for the title, Omega Force very much wants to continue the story which it seems like a sure thing, as long as history allows for an interesting story to be told.

Right off the bat, Dynasty Warriors 9 is beautiful! We started off from the beginning and went ahead and choose our character. From there, you are able to customize the armor and weapons (which reforging, obtaining, and favoriting new weapons will be key to advancing your progress further) and then got right into the gameplay. We went ahead and tried out the tutorial – I know, newbies – but we wanted to experience everything. The tutorial is quite nice in which you can implement chain combinations when fighting your enemies, and of course, nice finishers to eliminate your enemies with the new combo system applied.

Considering this was, again, a demo to the game, the graphics were beautiful but we did notice a slight drop in framerate but it wasn’t anything to really complain about as we are sure it will not happen on release. Based on previous titles from the franchise, when you looked at your surroundings, the view was glorious but you wish you could explore more… Wait a minute! You can! Aha, and it was glorious indeed.

We first met up in a small village where we got to experience the very nice and almost flawless dialogue. Granted, it was in English, we are sure that in Japanese, the immersion is much better. We went on our first mission and that was to eliminate some opposing officers where we gained character experience, crafting experience, and became accustomed the new combo system which allows you to chain combo attacks better and cooler, and the enemies fight back harder and more precise. And if you are near a forest where animals are lurking, a wolf may come out and land a surprise attack on you.

The thing about this is that, well, the environment can affect you either in a good or a bad way but mostly good if you can kill oncoming animals easily and then harvest their resources for health and crafting. This will go a long way so don’t be discouraged if you find yourself in a pickle in fighting off wolves or other animals that can harm you, you can harvest their remains to your advantage.

The expansive open world we were introduced is indeed, vast! When we asked how much of China you can cover by region/kingdom, we were told literally ALL of China during the Three Kingdoms of the Han Dynasty era. This affects progress depending on the battles you choose to complete for there are small-scale missions between forces, obtaining certain materials via hunting and fishing, again, encountering various animals, and of course, discovering historical and famous landmarks in China towards the end of the Han Dynasty.

It is great to note that when designing the open world map of China and its regions, Omega Force took to NASA to get all the information of said regions so to have an exact replication of China during the time. With that, there is one awesome feature we want to mention and that is with every mission/battle you win under your specified Kingdom, the land in the map will reflect those changes to show what you have conquered in your battling efforts to conquer it all!

You can visit cities and villages throughout the game which will allow you to visit merchants and sell/buy goods you have found or need in battle. This includes finding useful information with certain missions that call for it via villagers.

In this new iteration, there will be a total of 90 characters to play as in the game, with some dying off (naturally speaking in accordance to history), new characters arise as history tells it. We didn’t get much time with the characters and their costumes, but what we do know is that many of the existing characters from their specific kingdoms – Wei, Wu, Shu, Jin and many more – are available to play and dress up and are also updated.

The mechanics for the new open world definitely bring some new challenges as the new redefined combat system known as State Combo System, reacts to and responds to the surrounding environment and its conditions which are built upon the base Warriors system. This system is in three parts and they are Flow Attacks, Reactive Attacks, and Trigger Attacks. All three of these elements in the combo system change depending on the enemy’s state, how an attack adapts to situations in the game to changing an enemy’s state completely.

As we mentioned a few times, the environment is a big part of this new combo system which also includes climbing up mountains, swimming across rivers, using grappling hooks to climb, and using fire arrows against enemies which can be to your advantage.

In short, and like with any other open world game, there will be much to complete which will provide many hours of fun. How many you ask? Well, to start, if you wanted to see each characters ending cinematic story, you will definitely be playing for 2+ hours to complete each one. Now, if you total that up, 2 x 90, you get 180 hours alone!! And that is not including the time spent traveling, gathering materials, crafting, and of course, exploring the entire map! So, we think it is safe to say that you will need to invest some time to get everything done if you are a trophy hunter or want to accomplish everything the best you can.

As a tip, when you win battles in any area of the game, make sure you get that checkpoint so you can fast travel through the entirety of China because like we said, the regions shift depending on what battles you win and they can change back or into another kingdom with time. So, remember and learn from us! ^_~

Like mentioned before, you have the freedom to traverse wherever you please and this helps in various instances of trying to win a battle. If you find yourself unable to win, you can tackle other small missions in the game which will allow you to gain new alliances to call as reinforcements when you decide to return to the mission you had a hard time with. It is suggested to capture Baidu and Yanjing before taking on Yuan Shao in the final battle. If you do not capture them, the final fight will be extra tough for you. And if you want to advance in the most efficient manner possible, reinforcements will be your main goal. This will allow you to expand your frontlines which, in turn, will have bases and battles being taken over smoothly and effectively.

The overall gameplay of Dynasty Warriors 9 met us with great expectations as we loved the new features and the battle system for it. There are a lot of options that can literally take you anywhere in the game and the fact that Omega Force used NASA data to compile the map for gameplay, left us in awe and full of excitement and glee!

The controls felt smooth and the response time was great. Of course, the combo system allows you to take fighting to the next level in regards to Hack and Slash titles by allowing to land better and more effective chained combo attacks, and that is one place where Dynasty Warriors 9 shines! The open world is another one of them, and the integration of region-change based on accomplishments during missions is a breath of fresh air. Not to mention following your beloved characters with several others added, to make a total of 90 characters, is quite impressive, especially, if you account that each character has a story to fulfill that coincides with the main story of the game!

Dynasty Warriors 9 was fantastic and overwhelming. The graphics were beautiful minus the small framerate drop from time-to-time, but overall, our experience was great! Dynasty Warriors 9 is definitely a game changer for Hack and Slash titles where you can now explore more and do more with every mission and/or character.

We highly recommend gamers to check this title out when it releases on Feb 13, 2017. Make sure you use some of the tips we informed you of in our demo review, as it will help in the long run, trust us. Making sure to get them checkpoints will probably be one the important accomplishments you’ll need to achieve! Other than, we hope you all will enjoy this game as much as we enjoyed playing the demo! I know we’re getting on launch! Are you?

Sound off in the comment section below, or whether you are excited about this like we are or if you feel like this isn’t going to work. Not being biased, we can’t imagine why but we would love to hear your thoughts! With that, take and we hope you all have a lovely day!