"Okay, but nothing great"

Introduction
Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI: Awakening of the Dragon, was the latest game in the series released by KOEI. Based on the popular Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (ROTK), the game was the last for Playstation. As a game on its own, this game is a decent strategy game, yet it is a letdown that some of the features that exist in the previous Romance of the three kingdoms games are missing.

Gameplay
A simulation is judged by its gameplay among others. Romance of the three kingdoms VI offers wide variety of options. You can choose from seven full scenarios, with no time limit, or you could always choose a short scenario, where you have a clear mission to accomplish within a certain time. The addition of these new short scenarios is certainly a refreshing change from its predecessors. It offers players with more challenges.

Despite its bright sparks though, veteran of the series might find the absence of some familiar elements intriguing. Gone are the options to rally and train your troops. There isn’t much option to choose from the ''plot'' menu either. This is certainly one of the game's letdown. Not much focus is given on domestic administration as well.

Despite this letdown, one would notice that there are more officers available in the later scenario. This is unlike the previous romance games, whereby the last scenario of the games could prove to be a headache with the lack of officers. (Especially true to earlier games such as ROTK II and ROTK III).

Graphics
Below average is best to describe the graphics. While graphics are of a lesser important for a strategy game, they are definitely below par, if you compared the graphics to some of the best strategy games for Playstation. Sadly, for a playstation standard, the graphics are below average. Beside the introduction and the ending, one would be forgiven to mistake this game for an SNES game. The graphics at best are only a notch above SNES games. It would be nice, to have some cutscenes at a certain point of the game, yet players would have to be content with the SNES-like graphics. In my opinion, this is one of the aspects that should be improved.

Challenge
Many would find it challenging, especially for beginners. The fact that each officers has their own limit at the number of soldiers they could bring, makes the game harder. Your reputation also come into play here, as you will need it to hire more officers. You will also need to maintain your officers' loyalty. By no means, these are easy task to do. You need to have a long term plan to realize your goal of winning the game. There are two difficulty modes to choose from. Beginners to the series should stick with the easy difficulty until they get the hang of it. Although this game is challenging, it is still manageable. In addition to that, there are many rulers to choose from. You might want to play a strong ruler with a lot of good officer, or you might want to play as one of the harder ruler to manage if you fancy some challenge.

Replay Value
Like many strategy games, Romance of the three kingdoms VI: Awakening of the Dragon offers great replay value. As mentioned previously, there are many rulers to choose from. Seeing this, the possibilities are endless, and this game would have a long shelf life. No two games are ever the same, seeing this it is no doubt ROTK VI offers a high amount of replay value.

Final Words
Romance of the three kingdoms series might not enjoy the same amount of popularity compared to any other strategy games, therefore it should not come as a surprise that it would be hard to seek after this game. Moreover, I wouldn't really suggest this game to non-fans, as the game might not be that enjoyable without any prior background knowledge about the story. Moreover, there are better strategy games available. If you were fans of the series though, it would be worthwhile to get this game. Despite the absence of some features, by no means Romance of the three kingdoms VI is still an okay game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/18/03