Dynasty Warriors 9 - Characters

[Dong Zhou]

A potential problem for a pre SSX wife for Liu Bei is either Liu Bei and SSX are flirting while he is married or she suddenly marries him soon after he became a widower having had no flirting before. Whereas right now they have both get time to build a romance (and then she vanishes off the face of the earth once they marry)... Having said that, acknowledging 3kingdoms China wasn't full of one true love (bar Xun Can and Lady Cao!) wouldn't hurt.

I'm pro Sun Luban, would prefer Gan over Mi (whose appeal I have never managed to understand)

[Sun Fin]

A potential problem for a pre SSX wife for Liu Bei is either Liu Bei and SSX are flirting while he is married or she suddenly marries him soon after he became a widower having had no flirting before. Whereas right now they have both get time to build a romance (and then she vanishes off the face of the earth once they marry)... Having said that, acknowledging 3kingdoms China wasn't full of one true love (bar Xun Can and Lady Cao!) wouldn't hurt.

I'm pro Sun Luban, would prefer Gan over Mi (whose appeal I have never managed to understand)

Mi's advantage is that she has a ready made relationship with people in Liu Bei's faction. That said neither Mi Fang or Mi Zhu are characters in the DW series...

[Human5]

I'd probably care more about new characters if the existing ones weren't so one-dimensional.

[LiuBeiwasGreat]

I'd probably care more about new characters if the existing ones weren't so one-dimensional.

This is the major weakness of having so many characters. Koei has to ignore the majority of them in order to actually make a cohesive storyline. Unless they want to quadruple the amount of missions in order to give more people time to shine and develop, but that is hard due to the actual amount of major battles historically.
Unless Koei decides to make missions out of every single skirmish that happened in the time period, sure some of the missions might be short, but they could assign lesser developed characters to them to help develop them. Probably not though, that would cost a huge amount of money and time which probably isn't profitable.

[Xian Xu]

I feel like Yuan Shu would be a good addition. His story fits in rather neatly with the other characters already present, here are some easy examples:

• Relationship with Yuan Shao
• Anti-Dong Zhuo coalition and the supply issue
• Sun Ce joining after Sun Jian's death
• The story of obtaining the Imperial Seal from Sun Ce and declaring himself Emperor
• Lu Bu offering Lingqi for political marriage

In addition, it'd be very easy to give him a unique and memorable personality. I'm actually a little surprised he hasn't been added before now that I'm thinking about it.

[DragonAtma]

Yuan Shu should be added simply because he managed to fight pretty much everyone in only a decade (Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shao, Cao Cao, Liu Biao, Sun Ce, Liu Yao, Liu Bei, the eunuchs, Chen Wen, Chen Yu, Lu Kang [Jining], Liu Chong, Lu Bu, even Lei Bo & Chen Lan).

[Dong Zhou]

I think Yan Shu is popular among the western fanbase, not sure he is in the east. He has the potential to add something to the majority of factions we have (Wei, Wu, Shu, Lu Bu, Yuan Shao, maybe Dong) and to a few that might come in future (Liu Biao, Han)

[DragonAtma]

191-199 were essentially Team Yuan Shao vs Team Yuan Shu, so yeah, he should be added.

But Koei wants to concentrate on the three kingdoms, and since Yuan Shu isn't part of them, they repeatedly skipped making him playable. :/

[Dong Zhou]

Famitsu preview says Cheng Pu is in DW9

Been long wanted by a lot of people but never been a particular fan (decent enough but unexciting for me), his popularity seems to be based around long service rather then anything he actually did. Getting relationship with Zhou Yu will be key but I fear he also needs to avoid being crowded out by fellow elder statesmen Huang Gai and Han Dang in a sometimes squished early period

[DragonAtma]

Cheng Pu served the Sun family faithfully from 184 until his death (210-ish? IIRC he did outlive Zhou Yu). In addition, during Sun Ce's Jiangdong campaigns, Lu Fan is listed as being third in exploits... behind Cheng Pu and Xu Kun.