Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 is out.

[Train Wreck]

They've taken it back to the RPG style of 7 and 8.    This one is even more RPG-ish, even in the way it handles the overland map, as you can move around as an individual officer, get into random battles (duels and debates), look for treasure, etc.  It's incredibly open-ended.   When you encounter other officers outside of city limits, besides the normal interactions in 7 and 8, you can attack them and steal their items and money.  You can even form a personal warband (private army) to be a total bastard.

Dueling is much more enjoyable than the previous titles.  They've made it into a minigame that is largely dependant on your skill as a player.  The higher your character's war stat, the harder you hit.  Different skills determine which commands you are able to execute.  RPG elements are very strong here, but you have to use strategy to employ the right skills at the right times.

Completely new to Rot3k are Debates, which are essentially duels of intellect and words.  It's a seperate minigame in itself, and it's good too see that Debates are not simply dueling with INT instead of with WAR.

I plan on writing an in-depth review of it, but will probably wait until I've completed the game.

[WindupAtheist]

Hrm?  Do tell more.  I haven't followed this series, but the above sounds intriguing.

[Train Wreck]

In a nutshell, Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based on a historical novel written around the 15th or 16th century about events that transpired in Chinese history around 183 to 260 AD.  When the Han Dynasty collapsed, an enormous civil war broke out between dozens of different warlords.  Eventually, three of them became dominant and continued to battle for several decades, thus the title of the book.

The Rot3K series by KOEI is a turn-based strategy game based on this era.  Traditionally, you played one of the warlords and waged war to reunify/conquer China.  It features hundreds of different characters that really existed, and part of your task was convincing them to join you and putting their talents to use.

In Rot3K 10, you play the role of the one officer of your choosing (you can also create a fictional character from scratch).  Instead of controling everybody in your faction, you control this one officer, but the amount of time you focus on him truly makes him your own.

[Riggswolfe]

sounds interesting. Which system is it for? I used to play Cao Cao or Sun Jian or umm...forget the other. My buddies and I always had a standing deal. The first time you get ahold of Lu Bu you execute the traitorous SOB. Heh.

[Train Wreck]

It's for PS2.  The downside is that it's single-player only.

Yeah, Lu Bu has already switched sides four times into my game, and it's only been 5 years.

[Riggswolfe]

Liu Bei  (is that the spelling? ) I always kind of viewed him as the "good guy" of the 3 main characters and played him alot. Especially in Dynasty Warriors.

[WindupAtheist]

No PC port?  Bah.  Me wants to be a warrior-philosopher of ancient China, demonstrating my wisdom in debate and hacking mofos to bits.

[Driakos]

Liu Bei  (is that the spelling? ) I always kind of viewed him as the "good guy" of the 3 main characters and played him alot. Especially in Dynasty Warriors.

He is the protagonist in the book.  A distant cousin of the deposed emperor, trying to restore the Han dynasty.  Though, you can tell he was just a really charming guy who lived by the grace of his friendships.  He hangs out at pretty much everyones house, then runs off with their money and generals.  Then he hides in some other warlords territory and gets them to protect him.  Finally after a few years of that, he ends up conquering a territory of his own from Liu Zheng (another distant relative of the emperor), and founds the kingdom of Shu (I think).  He spawns some inept sissy boy sons, and dies.  His kingdom prospers on for a bit due to the awesome talent he picked up along the way, but mostly due to Zhuge "Sleeping Dragon" Liang.  Then the Sima Clan (after usurping the throne from underneath Cao Pi) crush everyone.

Liu Bei always comes with the awesome generals Zhang Fei (Yide) and Guan Yu (Lord Guan), so he's great to pick in Rot3K/Dynasty Warrior games.  They usually make it easy to pick up the rest of the Five Tiger Generals too.  Ma Chao, Zhao Yun (Zilong), and Hwang Rong.  In the Rot3K games, if you find the horse Red Hare/Chi Tu Ma you can usually get Lu Bu to side with you as well.

I will give 10 a shot.  Sounds interesting.

[schild]

I heart people that play games like this. I just picked up VII, as I hadn't played one since the Genesis era. It looks like I may have to get the last copy of X at my EB. This series is hard as balls to track down.

[Margalis]

I had one of the SNES versions, it was great. I think it would appeal to a lot of people here. In the SNES version you could create a bunch of named characters with different stats and have them appear randomly in the game for your side or the enemies.

[MrHat]

I used to own a game on my NES that sounded a bit like this.

Except it was much much much more like Final Fantasy in Ancient China.

But all the names are familiar.  The title was in Chinese and I've since lost the game.  But I'm desperate to know the name, because I must have spent countless hours on it.

Was one variation of this game on the NES and RPG?

[WindupAtheist]

I'm almost certain one was around for NES as a province-conquering strategy game, but I was just a kid and the game was bloody hard, so I never got into it.

[Train Wreck]

I heart people that play games like this. I just picked up VII, as I hadn't played one since the Genesis era. It looks like I may have to get the last copy of X at my EB. This series is hard as balls to track down.

Since it only came out two days ago, any major game retailer in your area should have it.  Anybody that waits more than a month might run into a hell of a time trying to find it, though.

If you liked VII, you'll love X.  VII seems shallow in comparison to all the new stuff you can do.  It appeals to the best of both the RPG and TBS genres, with some fun minigames added for good measure.

[Train Wreck]

I had one of the SNES versions, it was great. I think it would appeal to a lot of people here. In the SNES version you could create a bunch of named characters with different stats and have them appear randomly in the game for your side or the enemies.

You can still do that, and can even import them from IX.  But you can only control one per game, or none at all if you choose to be a historical officer.

A nice touch is that you can actually assign them to serve any ruler you want when you set up the game, and can also assign them to be friends, relatives, husbands, and wives of historical characters.  I think you might be able to make them Oath Brothers, too, though that may only be an occurance in the course of the game.

[Train Wreck]

I used to own a game on my NES that sounded a bit like this.

Except it was much much much more like Final Fantasy in Ancient China.

But all the names are familiar.  The title was in Chinese and I've since lost the game.  But I'm desperate to know the name, because I must have spent countless hours on it.

Was one variation of this game on the NES and RPG?

There is a Dragon Warrior-esque RPG based on the Three Kingdoms made for the NES by Capcom called Destiny of an Emperor.  The first two were for NES, the third was for SNES.  The later two were never released in the US, though some fans made an English patch for the DoaE2 ROM.  I haven't checked in years, so there might be a patch for DoaE3, now.

DoaE1 deviated from the novel greatly, but DoaE2 follows it almost step by step until the very end.

For the SNES, there is also a KOEI game that is basically "Nobunaga's Ambition: the RPG!"  It is called Inindo, and your character is an Iga ninja that seeks to assasinate Oda for razing your ninja village.  If anybody is familiar with the game, the way you interact with other characters in the tea houses is actually quite similar to the way you interact with other officers in Ro3k7, 8, and 10, and it is no doubt the genesis of this great game mechanic.

[Train Wreck]

I'm almost certain one was around for NES as a province-conquering strategy game, but I was just a kid and the game was bloody hard, so I never got into it.

That would be Rotk1 and 2.  Rotk3 was the first one released for SNES.

[WindupAtheist]

I remember Inindo.  I played a lot of KOEI stuff on the SNES.  Shit, if I weren't so sucked into WoW these days, I'd go download ROMs for PTO and Gemfire.

[Train Wreck]

{ /frontpaged }

[MrHat]

frontpage.

Thanks for the purchase advice, sounds like tons of fun.

[Riggswolfe]

Holy cow. I was already considering it. It sounds like they've dumped the "make one or two tiny changes" formula and made huge improvements to what is already a franchise I enjoy.

Hmm...I may even buy it now instead of waiting for the price to drop.

[Riggswolfe]

BTW, this oughta be a front page review. with a little you know...scoring tacked on.

[Train Wreck]

Ha.  I haven't even gotten into the battle system yet.  In a nutshell, it has the city battles of ROtk3, the gate battles of Rot3k4, the field battles (of course), and a completely new battle type where the shit hits the fan and every single city in a region goes to war simultaneously (called a campaign).

I'll post an in depth description of each, probably on Monday since I just joined a Liege last night and want to get a better feel for it.

I appreciate that you guys find this review to be helpful and interesting.  I do need to polish it though.  I had minimum time to proofread it and already see at least half a dozen grammar errors 

[Viin]

After some looking around, I found this:

http://threekingdoms.gamevn.net/

Which links to this:

http://threekingdoms.gamevn.net/san10pk.htm

Conclusion: PC version of this game is available, with translation pack available from the above site.

[schild]

Train Wreck, check your private messages.

[Driakos]

There is a Dragon Warrior-esque RPG based on the Three Kingdoms made for the NES by Capcom called Destiny of an Emperor.  The first two were for NES, the third was for SNES.  The later two were never released in the US, though some fans made an English patch for the DoaE2 ROM.  I haven't checked in years, so there might be a patch for DoaE3, now.

DoaE1 deviated from the novel greatly, but DoaE2 follows it almost step by step until the very end.

For the SNES, there is also a KOEI game that is basically "Nobunaga's Ambition: the RPG!"  It is called Inindo, and your character is an Iga ninja that seeks to assasinate Oda for razing your ninja village.  If anybody is familiar with the game, the way you interact with other characters in the tea houses is actually quite similar to the way you interact with other officers in Ro3k7, 8, and 10, and it is no doubt the genesis of this great game mechanic.

I played the hell out of Destiny of an Emperor.  Never knew there were sequels.  I got stuck for something like 4 years on it.  There was a part in the game where you had to hold the button down or something in a conversation, one of those things you never knew about.  Not that I actively played every day trying to figure it out, but that I was so stuck, I quit and came back much later.  In any case, it was a great game.  I liked how your life bar and HP numbers, were representations of how many soldiers you had left.  In the beginning it sort of followed the books.  You helped quell the Yellow Turban revolution, then you fought your way through the minor warlords and became a real power.  But near the end, it sort of forgot all about the Kingdom of Wu, and you just did battle with Shu against Wei.  The portraits of the heroes were Capcom stylized and great.

If I remember correctly, Inindo had a metagame to it, where you switched over to a strategy mode and it controlled like the usual KOEI fare.  Then you could send in your ninja, and go back to the RPG mode.

Another great KOEI game for old NES was Bandit Kings of Ancient China.  Played a lot like Genghis Khan, but you could recruit Taoist Priests (and some of the heroes had this as well) and do battlefield *magic*.  Like set a row of hexes on fire, then have your priest change the direction of the wind so it would sweep over the enemy.  The bandit names were great too.  Blue Faced Beast.  Nine Dragons (Shi Jin).  Hairy Priest and Timely Rain.

They always put multiplayer modes in those games, which I guess was great to have the option, but you literally needed all weekend to get a good game going with a friend.  Nobody has that kind of time anymore.  Kinda sucked too that you could watch your opponent take their turns.  We had to honor system to make it interesting, otherwise you knew what countries to stack your units in.  All your spy powers were useless if you didn't.  All the batteries are dead in them, but I still have all the old NES KOEI games.  Even the less popular ones like L'Empereur, Gemfire and Uncharted Waters (which was awesome if you like the buy low, fight pirates, sell high at another port game)

[MrHat]

I played the hell out of Destiny of an Emperor.  Never knew there were sequels.  I got stuck for something like 4 years on it.  There was a part in the game where you had to hold the button down or something in a conversation, one of those things you never knew about.  Not that I actively played every day trying to figure it out, but that I was so stuck, I quit and came back much later.  In any case, it was a great game.  I liked how your life bar and HP numbers, were representations of how many soldiers you had left.  In the beginning it sort of followed the books.  You helped quell the Yellow Turban revolution, then you fought your way through the minor warlords and became a real power.  But near the end, it sort of forgot all about the Kingdom of Wu, and you just did battle with Shu against Wei.  The portraits of the heroes were Capcom stylized and great.

That was the game for sure.

As for that part, turns out you had to not do anything for like 30seconds and he would wake up.  Figured that out while beating on a friend for saying something stupid.

[Train Wreck]

Train Wreck, check your private messages.

Got them and replied.  Looking forward to finishing the review.

[Train Wreck]

That was the game for sure.

As for that part, turns out you had to not do anything for like 30seconds and he would wake up.  Figured that out while beating on a friend for saying something stupid.

The part I got stuck on for the longest was when you need to find the deadwood.  Because of some glitch, it wasn't where it was supposed to be (you have to search the ground by a tree).

Besides that bug, the biggest pain in the ass of all was that Lighting counter spell to Si Ma Yi.  I always fucked up on it and had to walk all the way back.

Getting An Sha'd was the pits, too.

[schild]

Full Review Posted Here

[Train Wreck]

I just came across these gems:

Get yourself a Chinese name.  Very handy for creating custom officers.  Mine is Ma Rui Yi, which sounds uncannily like my real name.

And this is especially a treat, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel, online.  For those that wanted to read it but couldn't find a copy, here ya go.  An interesting aspect to this version is that readers can log in and post comments about each passage.

[schild]

Xia Ang Rui.

Edit: Thanks, I might actually read RotTK again. Mine's sitting in the attic back home, getting heavier.

[Jain Zar]

I still remember playing the original ROTK on my Amiga.  Good times.  Never really played any other Koei games of that sort other than L Empereur (sp?) on the NES.  Which I could never do anything with because the AI always had bigger armies than mine so I couldn't finish taking over Austria.

[Viin]

Sweet, mine is Kong Kang Rui. I've never had a name with 'Kong' in it before!

[schild]

If Viin Kong Kang and King Kong had a fight, who would win?























Peter Jackson.

[Shmtur]

If Viin Kong Kang and King Kong had a fight, who would win?























Peter Jackson.

Vin Diesel.  And then the motherfucker would eat the sun, just because he could.