Romance of the Three Kingdoms II

"If you've seen one Kou Shibusawa Historical Simulation..."

Let's make it clear that if you're even reading this, then chances are you don't even need a synopsis of this game as you've probably played every Kou Shibusawa Historical Simulation game there is. I wouldn't even be surprised to hear that you openly debate the individual worth of various generals and whether or not one should bother with Lu Bu over the water cooler with unsuspecting and befuddled co-workers.

OK, so maybe that's a little much...

As a youth, I loved those zany KOEI games in all their low-fi/bare bones greatness. Well, not all of them really. The first RotTK on the NES hurt me - bad - but after they came up with the sequel and my all-time favourite Bandit Kings of Ancient China, I learned to forgive KOEI for any past transgressions.

Anyhow, just in case someone unfamiliar with the world of KOEI/Kou Shibusawa steps into this review, here's a brief summary of the game.

Set in the "three kingdoms" era (make that the fictional account of this era), you take the role of one (or more) famous (and not so famous) aspiring ruler(s) of China as they strive to unify the land and restore it to its former glory.

As ruler you have to manage your resources, be they human or material, in a turn based system and partake in complex political games with your rivals along with the inevitable escalation into outright warfare. You'll be making tough decisions and face the dire consequences of your mistakes; patience and practice is of the essence.

Actually, that's not entirely true. See, you're really just a warmongering bully looking out for number one. Much of the game is spent building up your army in hopes of bulldozing your opponents before they take over and it doesn't matter who you choose - the same basic strategy applies for all rulers. You see, it's all about money, rice and good generals to lead the soldiers into the field of battle; a game of numbers if you will.

Graphics/Sound

If you've played any of the earlier KOEI games, you'll know just how much of the game is ruled by numbers - the battlefield itself doesn't even feature actual depictions of soldiers or any other units, rather we are faced with black "score boxes" that tabulate the soldiers in a given unit. But this was standard practice as the limitations of computer games at the time made for less eye-catching strategy games of this nature.

Expect mugshots of your generals, but lesser ones don't always have very interesting faces and I swear some were downright recycled.

Animations never go much further than a few cute graphics on the map screen such an angry peasant or a bunch of flying locusts.

And their buzzing is one of few sound effects in the game. The music remains mostly the same and you might feel a need to turn down the sound or else you'll go insane.

Gameplay

So, you assume then that the gameplay must be the real star of the show. I mean, isn't it always a matter of substance over style?

Sadly, substance is a little light in these early KOEI classics. As was stated before, the game could be divided into two phases - development of resources and warfare. The first phase shouldn't keep you awake at night pondering the incalculable number of variables you must control in the vain hope of achieving your goals while the second will bore contemporary gamers with its simplicity.

Managing the land requires only a minimum of planning and brain power as there are only two months where your hard work will pay off and only three actual areas that are left in your care (population loyalty, land value and flood control). The actual task of upgrading these "stats" is as simple as picking names out of a list and establishing how much money you're giving them.

Managing your human resources is a little trickier due to unseen variables. While generals are rated according to only three statistics (which can be raised on rare occasions), each also have a loyalty rating which can be raised by way of gifts from the ruler/governors. However, there's plenty of backstage stuff for which we have are given little hard data such as the level of compatibility with the three kingdoms (are they loyal to Liu Bei, Sun Jian and sons or Cao Cao) and personality quirks (Zhang He and Lu Bu are notorious for their lack of loyalty to any one ruler and will gladly accept bribes). Obviously, you can recruit characters from other opposing rulers along with free roaming ones. Some options are given that allow you to better your chances (forged letters and the like), but outside of one scenario, you'll be busy doing other things.

One of these is probably waging war which just happens to be the real meat of this game. A strong, war-like ruler can easily win in any scenario provided he's given a suitable starting position. As I said, it's all about killing people before they kill you. You are asked to manage the number of soldiers assigned to a given general and their training and weapons (arms). Again, more numbers that go up and down and that you're asked to keep as high as possible - especially arms which make a huge difference in any fight.

Battles are fought on all too familiar invisible grid terrain with points attributed to movement and the like - nothing groundbreaking. The map screen doesn't reveal the locations of rivers and the like so veterans will have an edge if they recall which domains have formidable natural defences. Options during battles aren't spectacular but are better, or at least more reliable than those of the first RotTK (at least fire won't travel freely over water). The addition of duels is nice idea but the element of randomness along with certain generals being a little hotheaded make it more annoying than anything.

Difficulty

Speaking of which, obviously the AI is a little on the slow side so the computer makes up for it by cheating. Still, a speedy player is likely to overcome this without too much difficulty.

In the end, winning the game is really a matter of knowing who can best meet the goal of going to war quickly, frequently and efficiently. A well armed but otherwise unspectacular army can easily decimate the opposition on lower difficulty levels if they attack early enough in the actual game - higher difficulty levels add such a disadvantage that nothing short of the top generals will be able to put a dent in the average non-armed opposition.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that fans of more contemporary real time strategy games with complex systems of min/maxing and fake-outs along with insane levels of micro-management will probably scoff at the overall simplicity of it all, not to mention the lack of graphical bells and whistles. Even fans of later entries into the series might complain about these war-intensive early RotTK games, but given the amount of upgrades that come with each new entry into the series, one needs to put things into proper perspective here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a game that shows its age if played today with knowledge of all the sequels that would follow and the related turn-based and real time strategy games that would come to rule the gaming world. However, in its time it seemed so much more complex than other graphical strategy games and that it tied itself to a rich historical and fictional background helped in shaping its legend.

Even today, I can enjoy a few days of mindless bliss as I take a newly created general out for a spin in a later scenario and watch her kill her way to top of the food chain. But, that's all there is to it. Once you've climbed to the top, there's nothing else to do but try again with a weaker start, but it all ends the same way. Variety is the key, but each ruler is the same faceless (figuratively as we do get a head shot of each character) bozo as the next, only one might have an easier time for a variety of reasons which boil down to more number crunching.

But nostalgia being what it is, I have to give it a 6. Mainly because of how much better it is than the clunky original. In fact, I suggest that all newcomers to Kou Shibusawa franchise try this sequel first to get a feel for the basic gameplay and some character background which features much more prominently in later games.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/23/07