So I got the game on Saturday like a lot of folk who ordered online in the UK. I've put in 7hrs 30 so far, which puts me in Chapter 4 of Wei's story. For context there are 13 chapters, although they cover the whole game so I presume Wei will stop when Jin comes about, but clearly it's a big game.

Firstly, performance. On my base PS4 it ranges from "acceptable" to "awful". Most of the time, the game runs at an OK rate even if it's clearly failing to maintain a solid 30FPS, but in certain moments (namely indoor areas, high enemy densities and particle effects) the game runs at a real chug. One of those areas is the combat tutorial and I can scarcely believe they thought that was an acceptable introduction to the product - we're taking 20FPS or less here. The poor framerate might have been more tolerable if, like say GTA V, it had been pushing the bounds of what the console can do visually. But DW9 is not a very pretty game with poor textures and abundant aliasing being standout issues. Nobody has ever bought a DW game for graphics, but at least on base PS4 DW9 is a very disappointing showing even by the series' standards.

Secondly, the open world. I'm pretty ambivalent about it. The reality is the game hasn't actually changed that much. You're still going to be largely clearing out camps, defeating officers to gain territory, all that jazz. The issue is there's not a real need to ever do anything other than your main quests and the "tactical" optional objectives (which enable you to lower the level of key enemies, e.g in Xiapi where it's some of those side objectives that allow you to execute the flood attack which greatly reduces Lu Bu and Chen Gong's levels. Frankly, the game is at its strongest where it sticks closest to the traditional DW formula and whilst there is stuff to do outside of that, none of it is either compelling or necessary. And clearing camps randomly in the game gets boring fast.

The other issue is that it magnifies some of the other issues in the game. The AI is still utterly thick and depressingly easy to cheese. I was tasked with defeating an elite archer unit which took me 30 seconds and two poison arrows to the commander, gaining me a trophy for doing a quest in less than a minute, all without them even noticing. Likewise, I escaped from Luoyang using the grappling hook (a comically overpowered one) which turned what in previous games had been a thrilling chase by Lu Bu into 30 seconds of clearing two walls.

Also, there are a few glitches. The most comical was when Hulao gate failed to open, with both my allied officers and retreating enemies trying to run though it. Luckily, there's a side path...

I still have tons to explore and there's definitely some features I haven't fully explored, but that's where I'm at so far.

Also got this on Saturday.

My main issues is the english dub as someone who does not care for the other dubs having english VO back was a big deal for me. Its not so much the actual voices, Its the ridiculous pacing of it. Playing as Sun Jian its infuriating due to all the pauses for example he says "I am.... The Tiger.... of.... Jiangdong!"

The other issue is the narration, it just randomly cuts off before he has finished what is being said.

Ive had zero issues with performance so far, But I am running it on a Pro in FPS mode. I was slightly upset with the changes to combat at first but ive slowly started to warm on it as ive played you can get some nice combos going.

Had some issues on some side quests not being very specific. Had one where I had to get red meat for a guy and his tiger. Diddnt say where or what animals dropped this, spent a good hour hunting Deer and Tigers as they were the only animals nearby and none of them dropped it so I just gave up. Few hours later I randomly killed a wolf and it dropped the meat, there were no wolves anywhere near to where the quest was initiated.

Patch 1.02 has fixed the narration stuff for me. I agree about the VO - I don't mind cheesy, but some of them make me want to cave my skull in.

Thanks for the impressions. This sounds like a "Wait for a sale" type of game for me especially with all the other stuff out and soon to be out.

So here's a question. Say I'm someone whose last experience with the series was Dynasty Warriors 2. Say I enjoyed it at the time but fell off the series and can't keep up with the innumerable editions the series has gone through. Now say that I'm feeling the need for a mindless hack and slash game where I can get into after a 10 hour day at work. Ya' know - just fight a bunch of dudes and maybe kinda-sorta pretend they are obnoxious co-workers.

Is this game a good throw away buy, or am I better off going back to Dynasty Warriors 8, which is cheaper? And sounds like dedicated fans thought was better? And if 8 is better, which of the apparently 10,000 editions is the one I should be looking at?

I'm on a PS4, by the by.

@therealturk: 8 is probably the better buy, coming from a long time fan of the series. Standard 8 and Xtreme Legends are both story based so if you're looking for that go for Xtreme Legends. But, Empires is my personal favorite since the Empires mode combines parts of Civilization and the Dynasty Warriors combat into a pretty fun package. Plus it lets you create your own characters and units for those characters for them to belong. I'm currently doing a playthrough now where Geralt of Rivia controls like half of China for some reason. The PC version of Empires runs pretty well too so there's always that.

@xolare: Awesome, thanks!

Y'know I dunno why, but I imagined armies charging at you from every direction in an open world environment and you having to run from base to base defending and capturing them. That would've been really cool. What they did is just take those big battles of the previous games and spread them out, which is terrible.

Feel like this game is screaming for an empires like style DLC. I'm already clearing all the map essentially because I cant leave any red on the map hah! But it would be great if they fought back more on the grand scale.