DYNASTY WARRIORS 9

A fighting game so big you’ll be able to see it from space? Not quite

“WHILE WE CAN STOP FOR A SPOT OF FISHING, WE’RE REALLY ONLY BUYING TIME BETWEEN ROUNDS OF BUTTON MASHING.”

It would take you 18 months to walk across China. We mention this because that’s what’s promised in Omega Force’s ninth Dynasty Warriors, though we imagine some gaming trickery has been used to condense that landscape down to the most memorable landmarks. Size, you see, has always been this series’ bragging right, and while all of China is explorable on foot, horse or even by swimming, standing in the way of you completing your Lonely Planet bucket list will be multiple large armies. So while we can stop for a spot of fishing or explore a quaint village market, we’re really only buying time between marathon rounds of button mashing.

Even here, though, some changes are being made. For starters, combat is now combo-based, and we’re promised the option to customise character movesets. While this is all welcome, battles still descend into tapping rwand and watching hordes of enemies dance into the air. Holding u and hammering the face buttons activates special attacks, which include raining an ice storm down onto the enemy. There’s a some nuance being added in the form of a crouch move for stealth kills, and combined with the new grappling hook to get up onto rooftops, this could present opportunities to kill captains in more strategic ways.

New combat aside, DW9 is still all about scale, and here it could certainly land a killer blow.

Xingcai is ‘calm under pressure’, apparently.

We’re massive ‘fans’ of the Wu clan’s Daqiao.

Above The Flow Attack system means movesets change depending on where the enemies are; Reactive Attacks include counters, dashes, and finishers.

Above While there’s an open world to explore, don’t expect deep side quests.