Potential wasted.
I don't know about you but a friend of mine thinks that DW:Next has better 'graphics' than Uncharted. This of course is limited to the character (playable characters) modelling and animations but having played both games as well as a couple of others such as FIFA and Virtua Tennis on the Vita, I too have came to the same conclusion. DW of course has most of the character moves to draw from previous installments but the power the vita GPU enabled DWN to have graphics at least on par with its console versions.
Speaking of potential, DWN has plenty, and you can't blame Koei for not trying, but most of the new features should be considered as disappointing. So here comes the cons of this game:
Characters-
With this many playable and custom characters on offer, not to mention the money grabbing effort Koei put in the release of the vastly overpriced 3rd costumes, you'd expect at least some sort of a 'showroom' mode - like they did in the console DW games - where you can sit back and watch the musou generals making their moves and speak their lines without having to be in battle. Oh, you can't make your customized characters wear the costumes from any of the musou chars, how stupid is that!
Game modes:
Single player: Campaign is ok but not very polished and certainly not very player friendly to the extent that you'd definitely not want to play it a second time. Koei also didnt bother to properly separate all elements of campaign and conquest mode: you get to hear your generals complaining and threatens to leave your service when playing in campaign mode, despite the fact that they never will. Also in between your moves sometimes you're forced to do those utterly stupid mini games or duels, which interrupts the play.
Minigames and duels are obviously Koei's interpretations of the Vita's motion control capabilities, but they're all poorly designed and, worst of all, cannot be turned off. Duels feels like a poor man's Infinity Blade when in easy difficulties, then it advances into a massive brain fart of gigantic proportions when you play in hard or chaos. Its random, punishing, requires no strategy or skill whatsoever and can be incredibly irritating. Same can be true for the mini games. The four mini games which you can repeat in gala mode are only slightly better than duels. The horse riding has the worst steering control ever if you use the dual shock stick, and only marginally better in motion control; the 'fake fruit ninja' game where you slice enemy soldiers instead of apples are no better, but at least it's easy. The 'tower defence' shooting game is ten times worse, and your fingers will literally ache when you finish; the calligraphy 'puzzle' is totally stupid, because I can speak Chinese. Lastly, the in-battle sudden encounters: the challenges themselves are better than both duels and minigames, except that the tutorial texts are useless, but it's the timing of those sudden encounters that can drive you mad. I won't go into details here as basically anyone who played the game will know what I mean.
Conquest mode borrows elements from the DW Empires games and looks alright at first. Indeed you will spend the majority of your time playing this mode. However my biggest complain is that, perhaps for the first time in 'turn based strategy (if you can call it that)" history, you cannot defend your territories, which leads to occasions where you literally lose the game without even given a chance to attack anyone. Again this is a big brain fart from the devs. There is also the critical problem that is unique to DWN: In virtually ALL single player modes, capturing the enemy main camp is THE ONLY type of objective there is! I can understand the relatively small (and therefore faster to travel) maps which enhances the game's speed, but this is just ridiculous.
Multiplayer: Coalition mode is challenging, which is good. It also has static requirements for obtaining the four hidden items and static difficulty, regardless of the number of players, and this is retarded. Doesn't Koei realise that DW games doesn't sell that well in the West, and it might very well be the case for most owners of the game that they simply cannot find even one, let alone three, fellow players around them to play this ad-hoc co-op mode? I played through all four challenges and got all the items with a friend and, with 2 persons in total is so difficult it simply makes you want to laugh out loud (in tears of course). It took us an entire afternoon to clear this mode, and we don't ever wanna play it again. Oh, another thing: this is the only multiplayer mode here. No 2 person co-op in campaign or conquest, this is it. Totally useless.
Verdict: Like I said, the game has (or had?) potential, and I spend 60 hours so it's not total garbage, and when you're in battle and are not distracted by all the stupid sudden encounters and duels it is also old school Dynasty Warriors fun. But much of the potential is wasted and you simply cannot feel satisfaction after you're done with it.
Final rant: Shame on Koei for porting Warriors Orochi 3 to friggin' PSP rather than the PSV, seriously WTF?!