Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII

"May be ugly, but has a great personality"

Koei has deemed the Three Kingdoms period of China interesting enough to grace the world with a series of games. Evidently, there's several histories and novels, so it must have been a fun time.

None of that's really important, though, because you don't need to know who Cao Cao or Lu Bu was to be able to play the game.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7 is a wonderful example of what a turn-based strategy game should be. This is not a berry-picker. While there is some city management, there are some perks to being in charge (like taking over China). Of course, the beauty of RotTK is that you also have the choice to not take over China, but be an underling yourself, or an advisor, even a mercenary.

Gameplay: 10/10
Four words: deep as the ocean. Koei delivers in this regard in spades. Dozens of different skills and several different unit types will all collide on the battlefield. Officers will betray and assassinate. There is easily hundreds of hours to be spent, learning the nuances of each nation and map.

Sound: 7/10
The music is periodic, and sets the mood very well. However, the sound effects are very forgettable. While above average, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7 doesn't raise the bar in the sound category.

Graphics: 3/10
Well, the opening cinema was nice. The character portraits are exceptional, but, quite frankly, the game doesn't look much better than Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2 that I had on my Genesis. The graphics are bland, and flat-out ugly.
The bland graphics are both good and bad. The bad is obvious, but it's also a blessing in disguise. Pretty graphics are not disguising bad gameplay, and they're not too busy to distract the player from the game itself. It doesn't hide the fact that it's all about number crunching and strategy.

Overall (not an average): 8/10
Sound and graphics do not a game make. However, in the case of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7, the developers are truly not making use of the PlayStation2's capabilities and it comes off as sloppy. This is more than made up for by the fact that Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7 has some of the best gameplay in a turn-based strategy game period.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/02, Updated 07/25/02