"An excellent game for a gamer with patience"

Before I begin this review of Koei's latest venture into the realm of strategy games, I'll admit that I've never played any of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Nonetheless, I was impressed with Dynasty Tactics, and found that it has a lot to offer a gamer with sufficient patience.

Dynasty Tactics is a turn-based strategy simulation with puzzle elements. It's set in late 2nd- and early 3rd-century China, in the midst of a civil war. You control one of three rulers - Liu Bei, Cao Cao, or Sun Ce - and muster armies to lead against your enemies in an attempt to unify the country. The decisions that you make as you work towards unification will determine who supports you and who opposes you, and what goals you must accomplish to end the war.

The puzzle elements of the game become evident during the battles. You can bring up to two customized armies of four officers each into battle. Your officers have different tactics that they can use under the right conditions, and combining these tactics properly is the key to victory in battles. Tactical combos greatly increase the damage done by each tactic, and finishing off an enemy officer with a combo of sufficient length will allow you to capture that officer. As your armies participate in more battles and capture more cities, your officers grow stronger and able to command more troops...and you gain the ability to form even more armies.

Sadly, Dynasty Tactics has a handful of flaws that may reduce its appeal to more critical gamers. Here's a breakdown of its strengths and weaknesses:

Graphics: 7/10
For the most part, the graphics are serviceable. They don't exactly push the PS2's processing power to the limits, but the game has little need for eye candy. You'll see the best graphics, however briefly, during the tactical animations.

Sound: 7/10
The music and sound effects are good, but seriously limited. There are less than half a dozen different battle themes, and most of the 225 officers in the game are voiced by one of three different actors. A bit more variety would have been nice.

Controls: 8/10
There's not a whole lot to say here. Since it's a turn-based strategy game, the controls are very workmanlike; you won't face any problems that can be solved with frantic button-mashing. My only complaint is that you can't use the analog stick, which would have made it much easier to navigate the map of the country.

Fun Factor: 8/10
This is one of the game's strongest points. You always have a lot of options at your disposal, and nearly everything is highly customizable. You can assign different sorts of troops to each officer, give items to individual officers, build structures on the battlefield that aid your army or hinder your enemies, and appoint envoys to form alliances or spies to infiltrate battlegrounds. You probably won't use very many of these options once you've learned how to pull off tactical combos, but they do help spice things up a bit. The game also has a two-player mode, which could be fun if you and a fellow strategist have a few hours to spare.

Challenge: 6/10
This is where the game disappointed me the most. Learning how to set up combos for maximum effect takes some practice, but once you've learned how to do it, you're well on your way to mastering the game. In the single-player campaigns, the AI focuses more on preventing you from setting up combos than on setting up its own, which makes battles more annoying than challenging. Near the end of the game, when you've captured half the forces of your final adversary, the battles will be cakewalks unless your enemy greatly outnumbers you or controls officers with a particularly deadly combination of tactics.

Replayability: 9/10
This is where the game really shines. Depending on which ruler you use, which path you follow, and how aggressively you play, you should be able to finish the game in 20-30 hours...and chances are you'll be wanting more. Thankfully, there's plenty of reason to replay the game. There are dozens of paths and multiple endings to each of the different campaigns. It could easily take hundreds of hours to see them all, but chances are you'll set the game aside a few times before that happens.

Overall: 8/10
In spite of its flaws, Dynasty Tactics is an engrossing game with great variety and replay value. It should keep an avid strategist entertained for quite some time, but its vastness may be intimidating to newbies or casual gamers. If you're a fan of strategy games and even mildly interested in puzzle games, you'll want to own this one. Otherwise, rent it first.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/02, Updated 10/12/02