Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII

"Amazing company, Amazing game."

From the first day i got this game to now this game still strikes me as "a good rpg strategy game". I will break the review down into 4 sections, Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, and Replayablity.

Gameplay:

The gameplay mainly focus's around the council room. Which is where you decide what you want to do or propose an idea to your lord. I will start with the options in order. Policy lets you create regions, choose a sity policy, and disband or rearrange regions. Personnel lets you assign, hire award, seize, promote to a prefect, promote to a warlord, and release officers. Military does all of your basic military commands. Transport things, march, buy food and selling food, draft, and last wander. Wander lets you abandon your force and become a band (only if at least one other person joins). Diplomance lets you give a gift to other forces. Demand, annex, ally, annul, form a coalition, join a coalition, and leave a coalition. Tactics lets you alienate, sap, riot, defect, and mole. Last is spy which is obviously spying on another force and/or city.

Then you are taken to a screen where you either assign people to do things or ask to do something. you could repair which repairs the walls, invest which you work with marketing stuff, research new things, and patrol. After you get a job you are taken to the city which you are in. You will see a nice little background of the city. And there are options on the side of the city that will allow you to do commands. I will not go through all the commands for that just look in a strategy guide.

Next i will discuss relationships. You can become someones sworn enemy, friend, or oath brother. You can only have 3 oath brothers at a time.

Last i will discuss battles. In the battles you move accross the field on a grid. The grid consists of many little squares. Once you engage you can attack with arrows, normal attacks, try to duel and do tactics.

I like the gameplay alot in this game. The only problem that i didnt like was a bit of the AI. They seemed stupid and almost everytime in about 30mins to an hou i could conquer more than half of china.

Graphics:

Im not one that judges games on graphics but the graphics look like something from SNES. I mean come on KOEI this is ps2 now please at least make the graphics a little better. I hope they do in the future but i will buy there games either way.

Sound:

The sound is excellent. It has calm music and the music changes in different areas. They did a good job with the sound. Congratulations KOEI.

Replayablity:

I had played this game for months so there is alot of replayablity. One way i made it more enjoyable is by making my own family line. It goes on for awhile.

I enjoyed this game and really hope more people will buy it. It is a good game for people who enjoy these types of games. RENT FIRST if your not sure whether or not to buy it. This game is not for everyone.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/04