Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII

"Another great Romance"

Well you either like this game or you don't that's about all I can say. If you are someone that enjoys strategy games then your going to love this one, it combines a great story with a chose your own difficulty kind of atmosphere. All my reviews are laid out in the same way and all are on a 10 pt scale

STORY--10- What more do you want out of a game the story of the 3 kingdoms has it all, love, murder, betrayal, war and so on and so on. I don't know one person that knows about the 3 kingdoms era and isn't fascinated by it.

GRAPHICS--3- Sadly this is one of the games weaker points. It seams as if Koei doesn't even try at times because they know you will buy the game anyway. Excluding the intro to the game there really isn't anything in it that couldn't have been done on the SNES.

SOUND--5- No voice acting in this game so sound comes mostly down to the music. Many of the songs in this Romance 8 are very well arranged and well done but if it ended there I would have given it a 8. What brings it down so much in my opinion is the fact that you have to listen to the same songs over and over for what seams like years. I have grown to hate certain areas of the game because of the same music over and over again, to be honest most of the time I play the game on with no volume.

REPLAY--10- If you want a game with replay value you have found your game. With over 600 characters to play as in about 50 different scenarios the combinations are near endless. Another added feature that this along with most of the other Romance games allows you to create your own character and play as him or her. Lastly you can play as several types of classes in the game ranging from liege to a common free officer.

DIFFICULTY--???- I normally try to put a number under each category but for this game its impossible to put a difficulty to it. Basically you make this game as hard as you want. There are 2 different difficulties beginner and advanced, you can tell the difference between the 2 but it still really depends on what character you are playing and when. If you play as a all powerful liege with 1/2 of China then it is going to be much easier than if you play as a officer under a liege that owns but 1 city.

CHARACTERS--8- Well this game has them all ''well almost all if you are a die hard ROTK fan'' and you are able to play as any of them excluding a few mystic's and the emperor. You can build bonds with other characters and raise the ability's of your own. The one fact that brings this down is as a die hard rpg fan I love to see character development and although you can add ability's and stats there is little to no actual personal development.

FUN FACTOR--10- Well its the game that keeps on giving. I have played this game over and over and have yet to lose interest in it. Another good fact is you can play with up to 7 friends and it can be quite challenging.

By my rating system this game gets a 7.6666 but if you take the low scores of the graphics and the sound this game is better than its score. Over all I would suggest renting before you buy though because many people that are fans of the sister games by Koei ''Dynasty Warriors'' tend to find a different kind of game. Be sure this is no beat um up type this is strategy at its best.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/03