Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII

"One of the best RTK games in the series"

Storyline-10/10
In the previous RTK games it was really hard to get an historical even to occur and there were only a few of them.
In RTK VIII there are many historical events and most of them can be easily found. My favourite one has to be Sun Ce and Zhou Yu marrying the Qiaos. Another one was one where the officer that I am playing as was made one of the five tiger generals. This game practically includes many historical events and scenes if you follow history correctly. For example if you play as Sun Ce and conquer the Wu province you get some interesting historical events.
This game's storyline also improved in the sense that you can choose a scenario for every year. They even give a brief introduction to each scenario that you have choosen.
The storyline also improved by providing a more accurate measure of the relationship of the various characters. If you play as Sun Ce after Sun Jian you can check his data and find that he hates Liu Biao.

Graphics-7/10
The RTK games were never supposed to be great on graphics since I always consider it more to be a management game.
But the portratis were more nicely drawn. There are also many pretty portraits to be used for your created characters.

Soundtrack/Music-10/10
I really love this game's sountrack. It really suits the mood of the game. It even changes appropriately and correctly based on the various suitations.

Gameplay-10/10
This game has the most gameplay and replay value than any othe previous RTK games.

1)You can play as a follower or as your own master. You can even keep switching sides if you want to or even form your own kingdom if you are sick and tired of being a follower.

2)The game also as mentioned earlier features a scernario for nearly every year. This creates many great replay value since there are many changes in each year. For example using Sun Ce as an example you can play as Sun Ce when he is serving his father. You can play as Sun Ce where he still has his jade seal and is a wanderer in Yuan Shu's province. Or you can play as Sun Ce when he is starting on his famous campaign to the east and even as Sun Ce after he got both the girl Da Qiao and the territory of Jiang Dong.

3) You can play the game just to get all the secret items and to learn all the secret skills.There are also many endings depending on your actions.

4) The game has a better relationship management than most games. You can become someones's sworn brother and can become someone's worst enemy. Also as mentioned earlier you can actually find yourself a wife if you are a guy and a husband if you are a girl. Some of your wives can actually give birth to a child. Your wives can actually affect your endings but I won't say which wife and will leave it to you to find out. They also teach you several useful skills and are really worth the trouble to chase.Besides you can choose from many wives but the only catch is you can only have 1 at a time. This is the my only complaint since anyone who has played Genghis Khan IV know what I am talking about here. Your interaction with the child will affect his stats when he comes of age and joins your forces at the age of 15. At this point of time you can even quite been your current player and choose to play as the child of your current character. Now how is that for replay value. Its better than neo pet or any other lame game that lets you rear some pets for fun.

5)During battles you can ally with many people and launch a really huge combined attack. So battles like the Hu Lao gate would really be possible. Just ally with as many people as you can and launch a combined attack on Dong Zhuo. Similarly if you kill too many you will become the most hated man of the empire. Your rival rulers can also ally and try to launch a combined attack on you. So do try not to be merciless in the begining. Another great feature of the battles is that you can actually beat a bigger army using the appropriate tactics and strategy. You also need to compete against your other allies as there is a report at the end of the battle on who scored the most credit.

6)Since RTK II you can make your own characters and their own familes.But the create your own officer system just get better in each game and you really need to play RTK VIII to find out.

7) The delegate system has actually improved for the better.I was able to be a lazy ruler towards the end and delegate 10 territories each under the control of some of my elite followers. They then proceed to unify china for me

Conclusion-This game has the most replay value in the series. There are many things to do and find in the game.
If you are a fan of the series I would really recommend you to get this game. Also even if you are not a fan of Koei's historical Simulation game you should really get this game since it also resembles an RPG at times.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/03