Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI: Awakening of the Dragon

"Never got to visit feudal China? Here's your plane ticket"

All right, this has to be one of the weirdest names in the world of video games. Two numbers? Anyway...

Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI is the sixth installment in KOEI’s ever popular strategy series set in feudal China. And for the most part, it pulls of the setting rather well.

GAMEPLAY--10
This is one of the most complex strategy games that I’ve seen in a long time. You have many different options that you can tell your people to do. The battles are complex, and make you think a lot. (And run away a lot.) Out of battle you can make alliances, attack, etcetera. In battle you do not have as many options, but they get the job done. And the battle system is really cool. But I cannot find the right words to describe it, so you will have to see it for yourself.

GRAPHICS--2
Hmmm. KOEI could have stood to work on these a little. Out of battle, the graphics look lines and boxes. The messenger scene looks like it is straight out of a 1995 PC game. In battle, the characters look like little ants. Some of the only things that look decent are the city walls in battle, and the character designs.

Each of the characters looks a little bit different. Sometimes you will swear you see their expression change. These drawing are all very realistic. Right down to their clothing.

MUSIC--3
The music does not help the setting at all though. It does not sound at all like feudal China. It sounds like a bunch of xylophones in a fourth grade music class, with the teacher going wild on a clarinet. The music gets very repetitive and annoying besides. The sound effects are not all that realistic, and they mainly consist of some clangs and bangs here and there.

CONTROL--9
Controlling is quite easy, even without a mouse. With a mouse, it would have gotten a ten, but that is a different story. Telling your troops what to do manages to be simple, even with the many menus, options, and choices there are. Then, you just press a button, and they do whatever you say, wherever you say, whenever you say. The fact that losing teams suffer terrible loses after battles-their generals can be captured, and then locked up or killed-adds to the realism. This in fact, is one of the greatest setting enhancing additions in Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI.

FUN--7
If you can get past the frusteration because of the high difficulty, you will find out that this is a very fun game. It makes you think a lot, which makes it great for strategy enthusiasts, and it is very playable, which makes it fun for the rest of us. But as in many games, this game is only fun when you are winning. If you are losing and you are down to one city and one general, you will find that the game becomes a chore, that you hope it will end soon.

CHALLENGE--HIGH
This game is among the hardest I have ever played. Here is a little question and answer to allow me to explain better.

Reader: It would be easier if you could make alliances.
Matt91486: Well you can. The computer just only agrees to them ones every quadrillion years.

Reader: Well, how about attacking with more than one general. That will make it easier for sure.
Matt91486: No it will not. You can attack thirty generals against one, and the computer can still make you lose.

Reader: Surely there are difficulty levels…
Matt91486: Not a chance.

Reader: They should have them for the sequel then. But is there anything we can do to make it easier?
Matt91486: Yes they should. All you can do is practice and practice and practice and practice…

REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM
The replay value truly depends on how good you are the first time you play it. If you pick it right up and win, you will try to win with someone else. If you lose the first time you play, you will probably never want to play it again. Of course, there will be a few exceptions (me being one of them), but I think this is the general rule. The game itself does nothing to make you not want to play it again. There are so many different, um, ‘tribes’ that it does a good job at making you want to. So, it all boils down to your first experience.

CLOSING STATEMENT
This is one of the more original strategy game series out there, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI improves over its predecessors in nearly every aspect. It is at least worth a rent, especially for those who love strategy games.

OVERALL--7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/00, Updated 07/18/01