Considering this is the most polarizing games of the series, people seem to love it or hate it. Honestly, I lean towards the group who loves it.

The game has obvious flaws that have been pointed out for ages. Yes, most of the voice acting is bad, though there are exceptions (Pang De and Wang Yi sound decent, and Yuan Shao may have the best performance of his career), and some characters just never sounded right in English (Lu Xun comes to mind. They never seem to get his voice right). As a Xiahou Dun stan, I do hate how he sounds like Gan Ning in this game, so I switched to Japanese, but that is something I do with every DW game whenever possible anyway.

Yes, the world is empty, and there's not much to do inbetween missions. As a counter-argument, I ask, what would you expect from 3rd century China? Certainly not highways and mega cities. I don't really mind the emptiness, especially because the phenomenal orchestral soundtrack, mixed with the environment, really brings a relaxing experience of wandering around, hunting in the wild, and best of all, you can take pictures and get creative with filters, angles, expressions, the good stuff. My only complaint is that you can't make your second character move with a command, which makes them all standing still everytime.

Speaking of commands, this is how the combat basically works. Instead of the typical string combos you make, there are predetermined commands that make different animations, and thus, different impacts. Alongside this new system, you can attach gems of diverse (or no) effects, i.e. fire, water, poison. These don't seem to make much of a difference since the effects seem pretty minimal. I have mixed feelings about this system overall; while I find it great that they found a way to not recycle the same mechanic, at one point it can feel more monotonous than the traditional mechanic since the animations aren't often that different from each moveset.

Speaking of movesets, clones are back, and many got unhappy about that. For those who are well-experienced with the series, clones are nothing out of the ordinary, and many past games that in theory didn't have clones, many weapons were just small variations of the same root weapon (gotta love all of these sword users from classic DW). Badly reacting to clones just sound like backlash from those used to the previous game that, in theory, has no clones, though again, many are small variations of the same base weapon. I can take it or leave the cloned characters.

Speaking of characters, their designs are phenomenal. They managed to find a middle ground between the old aesthetic of PS2-era DW games and of the more anime-like soft reboot from 6 to 8. And I don't wish to embarrass myself much as I already do in real life, but HOLY ♥♥♥♥ XIAHOU DUN IS SO HOT IN THIS GAME. The new characters are also some of the best new characters the series has seen in a long time. Cao Xiu and Man Chong are great new adds to the late Wei era. Xun You serves as a rather gentle balance to Jia Xu and the other more rascal characters from Wei. Cheng Pu is another great character that fleshed out the short-lived Sun Jian timeline in the game, Xu Sheng is a cool add for late Wu characters that desperately new characters to accompany Lianshi and Ding Feng. Zhou Cang, though not really a new one since he first appeared in Warriors All-Stars, is a rather charming, gimmicky character that manages to be likable. And about the rest, we will get there later.

Another issue many have is with the repetitive musou mode, because a lot of characters play the same battles and how the battles and the dialogue inbetween are presented are not good, and that is one common complaint that I actually really agree with. Though there are some variations, a lot of the characters that pass by Chibi feel a lot like the same story, but in different perspectives. Though that is to be expected, way too many characters pass by Chapter 6, so you have to constantly do the same mission over and over again. That is also valid for a lot of Jin characters, since most of them have their story start around Chapter 10 and end in either 12 or 13. If they made the musou mode like Libra of Souls in SoulCalibur VI, there would be a lot less repetition, and the characters would feel more unique with a more distinct storyline.

The dialogue inbetween battles, besides the real CGI cutscenes, are made out of preset animations that you can make for photo mode, and they can feel like a slog. That is unfortunate, since 9 has some of the most complete story of the whole series, since they included events removed from past entries. The bad English voice acting from many also doesn't help, but again, why play a Japan-made game with English dubs? Read subs, you lazy ♥♥♥♥♥ (I swear I'm being sarcastic).

One last common complaint to address is how glitchy the game was at launch, and how badly optimized the game is. As of writing this review, many updates came out after launch, and the game is pretty stable, with only some minor glitches happening once in a while (missing characters in the preset cutscenes, disappearing towers, etc.). Though, yes, the game is pretty badly optimized, and that doesn't seem to be something limited to the Steam version, unfortunately.

Now, to my real issues with this game that aren't mentioned as frequently. First, I mentioned before how great the new characters were. Unfortunately, the DLC ones are a huge mixed bag. Yuan Shu is a great add, and his portrayal does a great job at making him despicable as he is often portrayed in other games as a generic. Hua Xiong is another Lu Bu-type of character, though he has an underdog arch. I've seen many praise him, and I do think he makes a lot of sense to be added as he was supposed to be a feared general, but I really don't like the "I'm super strong and I will defeat everyone" character trope. Dong Bai should have been a favourite of mine, though her spoiled, bratty personality and her loli design has truly turned me off; at least her musou story is one of the more unique ones. Xiahouji is... incredibly problematic, not only because of her terrible backstory, but because of how they portrayed her as this innocent woman who looks 12 who is married with a big, gross, drunk guy. It's just creepy and gross.

Another issue comes with the optimization issue. Though you can make the game look good in pictures and in certain scenarios, often you can see textures loading in front of you, especially if you use a checkpoint to skip travel. You can see how the engine struggles to run at times, and it makes the game look much worse than it is supposed to.

One other issue is how pointless the peons are in this game. Though they have always been weak, and from 7 to 8 were basically just an excuse to easily get 1k KOs, you can easily run to the main officer you need to defeat to keep the story going. This makes combating the masses of soldiers, which has always been a gimmick of musou games, and other officers from other sidequests or next to the main character completely pointless. It doesn't help that you can use a grappling hook to hop on castles and quickly get to the main enemy, though later patches made some castles not possible to use the hook on them.

One last major complaint is how shallow the sidequests are, and how a few of them don't even seem to work well or work with any sense. A lot of the sidequests end up being about defeating x person somewhere. Sometimes it's about having x amount of items of y item. Hunting and fishing, though they work fine, are nothing special and pretty forgettable. The sneaking missions simply don't work, and you get spotted in the most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ places possible, and without any reference of the depth of view from the guards.

I can't write any more because Steam won't let me, and I could go on, but tl;dr, this game has a lot of good in it, and I personally can overlook its flaws. Try it and see if you like it.