Knights of Valour

"KOV"

I believe most of you know about the Three Kingdoms. This is spread through the nice Three Kingdoms-related games by KOEI, a Japanese company. The Three Kingdoms belonged to the history of the Chinese, and it is quite a shame to have another to spread the glory of this era. With the onset of this game, a Chinese company is finally able to let people know of the glory Three Kingdoms.

This game is widely popular with gamers from the moment it came out. It combines the fun of cooperative team play, which is hard to find since the Dungeons & Dragons series, and the addictive nature of combo creation, which is found in most successful games.
Sad to say, this game is not widely distributed to regions outside Asia, and most arcades in Asia do not have this game anymore, so most of you may not have a chance to play this game. But now, this game is being emulated, so those of you who want to try this game can go download the rom and play.

Story
This game is about the Three Kingdoms. I believe most of you should already be quite familiar with the story of the Three Kingdoms, so I wouldn't have to be too detailed.
Basically, you play as a warrior of Shu (LiuBei’s Kingdom) and fight against those of Wei (CaoCao’s Kingdom) and Wu (SunQuan’s Kingdom).
You can choose from 5 basic characters, namely ZhaoYun, HuangZhong, MaChao, GuanYu and ZhangFei, and several others hidden characters depending on which version you are playing.

Gameplay
When I first started playing the game, I don’t know anything about combo. I just anyhow punched the buttons, and it was quite a miracle that I can survive pass the first stage.
This game is definitely not newbie-friendly.
The item-menu is arranged like the Dungeons & Dragons series, with eight boxes surrounding the character’s head, and a second page that is accessed by pressing B.
There are a lot of secrets in this game, which is hard to discover on your own. You have to watch others play, and also go online to the official guide to know all of them.
In Knights of Valour (KOV) 1, there are 2 expansions made, KOV PLUS and KOV SUPER HEROES. I personally find KOV SUPER HEROES as the best in the whole series, as the score-earning system is totally orientated combos.

Audio/Video
With every move executed, there is an accompanying voice saying aloud the name of the move. This is a lot better than in others games where there will only be YA & HEH accompanying the moves.
The game is made for arcades, and furthermore is a side-scrolling game, so you can’t expect it to be very realistic-looking. The graphics is cartoon-like, with a lot of bright colours.

Replayability
You will never get tired of this game. There are different scenes depending on which routes you take and which options you choose.
Every character has also his unique moves and combos. As soon as you are tired of one, you can choose another to play. And, after you complete the game, there will be a story of what your character will be doing after he kills the final boss. This will thus inspire you to complete the game using every character.

There are too many bugs in this series, otherwise the score will be higher.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/02, Updated 06/08/02