Welcome to our review of Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, the franchise taking it a step further in this newest entry!
A new release in the Empires series, featuring a mix of thrilling action and country capturing simulation. Experience the human drama of the Three Kingdoms in a way only Empires can provide. Fight exciting Castle Sieges and manipulate the country’s Politics. Welcome to the Empires experience!
Taking the franchise of Musou games, you know the 1 versus 1000 foes, into the next generation with this newest entry and I was lucky enough to play it on PC. I have to say I was quite impressed at how a niche game manages to renew itself but also make itself a lot more niche than ever before.
Instead of your regular button-mashing, which is present, it is just part of the bigger picture now. We have to do everything, kind of like how the Sims would be in a Musou setting. From entertaining all kinds of warfare to the actual battles in a monthly interval setting, you have to do it all.
For starters, rationing food and money. Without money or food, there is no real army at your disposal because let us face it, would you go to battle for free? Every month is a time setting on itself and this is where you decide to invade a neighboring state or to just train soldiers or get your war chest to bulk up.
Every action you take, has its own specific consequences, go into battle unprepared and you will face all the expected issues like secret plans being played out against you or facing endless hordes of enemies attacking you out of the blue. Planning ahead is everything. Even after battles, offering captured enemies to join your ranks.
Personally, I always offered them to join and if they declined, I would kill them. I know, quite ruthless but I just felt like setting them free was never an option. I read the Kingdom manga and I always think it is conquer only as an option. No use for mercy in a game like this.
That no mercy aspect clearly shows its tail in the actual battles. Fighting in this game is even more hardcore than ever before. With all the added things to keep in mind, you can not just embark on a mission and rely on your best button mashing, no sir.
Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires is by far the most advanced when it comes down to fighting and forget everything you ever learned from previous games. As an avid lover of this genre, I adore this new style and just got blown away by the multiplicity of the title. I just wonder if being able to fight well, will be enough for those new to the genre.
This game is really packing quite the gut punch if you do not see it coming and I swear, even I got caught by surprise a few times. I just wonder if this game might not be too much for a game that is already the ratpack leader in a niche genre like the Musou games. I think for someone looking to try the genre, they might be better off going for a lighter game, perhaps one of the One Piece games, rather than this hot mess of delight…?
As we also played this game on Stadia, it should be noted that this game is actually performing rather well on the streaming service. Obviously there are issues with pixels and all, but for such a high paced game, it does perform very well. It was tested on the newly released Odin Pro with the official Stadia app installed, currently not subscribed to Stadia Pro. I felt the game performed slightly better than on my gaming PC.
In conclusion, Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires is the most advanced of the Musou genre I played so far, but as I mentioned before, is taking a niche game even further down the rabbit hole really the best way to go?
My score is based upon my personal love for the genre, without it, I would possibly go for a 7?
