Given a clean slate with the first DW built from the ground up for this gen, Koei decides to not do anything
Dynasty Warriors has always been a niche game. You either love them or hate them. For a while I loved them just because they were mindless fun. Hell I LOVED Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, but now that I look back on it, that's probably due to the fact they left the Three Kingdoms universe and inserted Gundams. Some people will love this game for being what it is, a DW game, but I'm done, I've had far more patience towards Koei/Omega Force than they deserve and I'm tired of waiting for a NEW game from them.
Nothing has changed, that's what I'm getting at here. You go around gaining control of bases, attacking any enemy that moves, then attacking generals. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Oh every once and while you'll have a different objective like free refugees and get them to the dock but in order to do so it's the same cycle. There's just nothing new here. You hit one button for weak attacks, one for strong, one for specials. Oh there's a new "renbu" system which will let you do an "unlimited combo" but since your moves are bare to begin with its not all that interesting.
Oh I just remembered, this game DOES have new features… you can now swim and climb ladders! OH WOW! Swimming? AND Climbing ladders? Hold me back, what's next, real time weapon change and historically accurate giant enemy crabs? Oh please, when a game advertises that you can now climb ladders and swim, you know they're grasping for straws.
Another thing that is still the same, THE STORY. How many times are you going to recreate the fall of the Han dynasty Koei? Yeah we get it already.
Sure there's a lot of characters, but if I'm correct, they're the same 41 characters that have been in it since Dynasty Warriors 3. It would be a plus for the game if all the characters were fun to play as, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of them aren't and just are awkward to play as.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fanboy writing a bad review here, like I previously stated, I wanted to like this game, but Koei refuses to let me. It's the same game and sure some people will enjoy playing it again, but I see with every new game released the small niche of fans will grow more and more irritated and less and less in size.