Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX

"Different... and Quite a Victory"

Sometimes developers take chances when they design a game. For over a decade, KOEI has making game upon game to retell the fascinating story of the Three Kingdoms. From its roots cast in the seemingly ancient NES, the series has not only expanded to cover more, but it’s matured with age and, while not all of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games have been perfect efforts, through this development many very appealing and enjoyable ideas have come to rise.

But with this remake upon remake, it surely is a difficult job to keep the games fresh and inventive. KOEI has risen to meet this challenge, and combat it with something that’s very, very different. The chance they have taken with the franchise with Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX is perhaps the largest chance they’ve taken with the series yet, and I must say, I’m absolutely stunned at how well the game turned out. Not only does the game preserve a great many features that previous games have had, it introduces a new level of strategy that is unrivaled among the other eight previous versions.

Many people that have been avid fans of being able to play a role as an officer in Romance VII and VIII might seem hesitant to buy this title. I implore to you that Romance IX, once you’ve played it, and experienced the game engine, will more than make up for the loss of playing the game as an officer. Besides, you must not forget how this series was started – from the series’ roots on the NES, all the way up through Romance VI, there was no officer option. It’s my personal opinion that, while the officer option was a nice addition, this game always had a better feel when you were in command of an entire force. Romance IX allows you not only to control a powerful force and lead China to reunification, but it allows you to do so with unprecedented amounts of strategy and planning with its incredible battle engine.

The best new feature about Romance 9 is the way the game’s turns are now divided. No longer do you perform a set of actions on a monthly basis. Now the game is split into ten-day segments, in each of which you’re allowed to execute commands. Upon completing your orders for the turn, you proceed to the action phase. This is where all military engagements take place. And no longer are there any battlefields. The map is the battlefield, and you can watch your troops in real time as they advance to their target. Battle has many options. There are now sixteen different types of unit formations to choose from, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. The game’s tactics are executed successfully through your knowledge of when a particular formation is best suited. For example, if you send many officers into battle that use arrow tactics, then the sniper formation is your best answer. Or if you were sending officers with a strong grasp of foot tactics, then you’d want to consider the cross or lure formations. There are also siege formations (towers, rams, catapults, and elephant units) for taking down enemy structures and cities, as well as four navy formations for naval engagements.

Another new thing about battle is how you organize your army. Remember how you were able to specify more than one officer in some of the older Romance games (IV, for instance)? That feature has returned, now enabling you to assemble a unit with up to five commanding officers. If you assemble units with officers that are highly compatible, you’ll be rewarded with especially effective attacks during the battle. When officers highly compatible are assembled in the same unit, they have a greater chance of being able to “chain” tactics together and cause absolutely devastating results. You’ll also find that your rank within the game is very important, as it will help you promote your generals, and, in turn, assemble larger units.

If I have one complaint about the battle system, I might as well address that now – duels, in my opinion have been downplayed to an extent. The outcome of a duel now generally only affects morale. Winning a duel does not necessarily mean that you capture the officer you were dueling. But this is one thing that I suspect many people can and will probably overlook when they’re exposed to all of the other aspects of the battle engine.

Troop movement is also quite different than before. Within the game, you are now able to build fortifications within your territories to increase the defense of your army. The improvements that you make to your province can vary widely, depending on the terrain. Some structures are meant to be deterrents. Others will serve as a base away from your city. You can build walls, barriers, forts, military compounds, and camps to beef up your army’s defense within a province. Any forts or compounds serve essentially as a castle – a place for wounded troops to recover as the battle rages on outside the fort. By placing these various types of structures in the right places you can essentially eliminate the danger of your cities being attacked. But they’re not cheap, and they require a good deal of manpower and time to be completed.

Aside from things that you build, you’ll also find many ports and gates scattered across the countryside. Ports are necessary for any travel across rivers or seas. If you want to invade across a river, you need to control one port, and have a force strong enough to break through, or take a port on the opposite side of the river. This makes the game rather interesting sometimes. If you’re especially hostile toward someone, or vice versa, yet you’re not ready to face them yet, you can simply block their only way in with these things. Gates work the same way. You can cut off routes and shield your lands from damage by controlling them effectively.

Economics are also not overlooked in this game, either. Each city has different maximum caps for development, much like many of the recent Romance games. Something new that KOEI has introduced is the “Trust” stat for each city. It’s basically how much the city supports your army. Cities with high trust values grow larger faster, and allow you to draft more troops. Each city has a “draft pool”, which is the maximum amount of troops you can draft in that city. The draft pool increases every quarter. The relative increase of the draft pool is proportional to the trust level of the city. So it’s quite important to hold cities with high trust. Not only do they allow you to draft more troops, but they will also grow faster, and allow more resources (gold, food) to be collected as time goes on. As with all of the Romance games, food is harvested in July annually, and gold is collected every quarter. You can trade for food if you find yourself in need of extra supplies if your city has a merchant present. As with Romance VII and VIII, not all cities always have merchants present, so you must be cautious.

Diplomacy is somewhat disappointing, as there aren’t as many options, in my opinion. But of course… you are still able to give gifts to other rulers to strengthen ties and so forth. The official “alliance”, however, has gone by the wayside. Each ruler’s disposition toward you is measured in five different ways, ranging from trusted to hostile. Rulers that are amicable or trusted with you generally do not attack. And if they do, their officer’s loyalty might decline as a result of attacking a perceived “ally” due to good relations.

Now let’s talk about free officer creation. Nice. First of all, you can import officer data from Romance VIII for usage in Romance IX. Also, if you have the Dynasty Warriors games you are rewarded with “special” officers. That’s a nice little bonus for you DW fans. Officer portraits are really quite well done, as always. You’re allowed to allocate stats to new officers in any fashion you desire. There are no limits, and no random rolling, as all of the previous Romance games had. The part where limitation comes in is the tactics part. You have a limited amount of points to distribute here. Also, you can define the officer’s motivation and personal nature, as in Romance VIII. Additionally, you can set the officers compatibility. If you set it, say, with Liu Bei, then this officer is automatically more drawn to people of the same compatibility of Liu Bei (IE: Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, etc). And of course, you can also establish family relations, if you so desire, with new officers. They can be related to other new officers, or historical officers.

Well… I think I’ve covered enough for the feature list, now onto the vital statistics of the game.

Graphically… the game isn’t spectacular, but it is a strategy game, so that’s not exactly the number one priority. The graphics certainly don’t detract from the game itself, so I’d say that they’re deserving of an 8/10.

Music is average for the Romance series. It’s nothing overly spectacular, but nothing absolutely terrible. 7/10

Gameplay interface is very well done. The controls are quite straightforward, and the game has a help function that will serve new players to the series quite well. Also, being a long time fan of the series, I am happy to report that, unlike many of the Romance games in the past, the instruction book is actually fairly effective at explain how things work. Personally, I’ve found that many of the manuals in the past were grossly lacking of detail. As such, I give Romance 9 a 10/10 for gameplay interface.

Background story… is the same, obviously. Whether you like the story or not is an opinion that only you can form on your own, so I’ll not attempt to place a value upon it.

Challenge is awesome. The game is so complex that it may actually present even veteran players of the series with quite a formidable challenge the first couple of games. I realize in the past, many of my reviews of the Romance series have stressed that each game is a challenge. I think I will go out on a limb here, and say this particular installment surpasses all of them by leaps and bounds. You’ll be quite surprised how tough this one can be.

So, in conclusion… if you’re a fan of the series, and want a game with a solid challenge, then this is most definitely your game. If you didn’t like Romance VIII’s limited feel, then I especially suggest this one. You’re once again, very much in control of every aspect with IX… from civil management, to diplomacy, to the fog of battle. And every step of the way you’ll be confronted with decisions that could either determine victory, or utter downfall.

Spectacular work, KOEI. You’ve taken a rare chance with Romance IX, and at the end of the day, the result is, without question, the best installment of Romance of the Three Kingdoms yet to be released. And, I’d like to thank you, for all of the years of wonderful entertainment you’ve provided with this series. I can also see that the future holds much more with this amazing degree of innovation.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/04