Romance of the Three Kingdoms II

"An old game, but still a good one!"

Overview:
Eighteen hundred years ago, in the end of the second century AD, Ancient China was falling apart. Plague gripped the country, the Yellow Scarf rebels swept across the lands, and the traitorous Dong Zhuo even kidnapped the Emperor. Thus begins the story of Luo Guanzhong's novel ''Romance Of The Three Kingdoms,'' regarded as one of the best novels in chinese history. As one of up to sixteen rulers, it's up to you unify China... by conquering all 41 territories!
As a ruler in ancient china, you have complete control over your territories. You control the game via multiple menus, which you use to give many commands, including recruiting new generals, spending gold or rice on economic development, hire and train soldiers, plot against other rulers, and invade their territories.

Graphics:
Ro3K2's graphics aren't the absolute best, but they're pretty good, especially for a strategy game. Among other details, the various generals you control have vividly colored facial graphics, and the main map and battle map change color four tiomes a eyar to reflect the shifting seasons.
8/10

Sounds:
As a strategy game, Ro3K2's music will be heard over and over. Fortunately, the music is good enough that it doesn't get annoying. Still, like the graphics, althoguh the music is good it's not exceptional.
8/10

Challenge:
There are three levels of difficulty, and on the higher levels the AI is good enough to be a strong opponent, so you don't have to worry about the CPU being a pushover. In addition, you can make things easy by selecting a strong ruler (such as Cao Cao) or boost the challenge by deliberately selecting a weak ruler, such as scenario 4's Jin Xuan and Han Xuan.
10/10

Fun:
There's something innately fun about playing a ruler of a vast domain. Especially when conquering other rulers. And laughing at them. And playing as a custom ruler named after yourself.
In addition, up to 12 human players can be playing in the first two scenarios, so there's the additional bonus of crushing a friend.
10/10

Replay:
There are so many possible outcomes for the game -- a ruler who becomes strong one time through can do poorly in the next game, and the reverse is true as well. Even if you load a saved game and give control of all players to the computer it can play out in many different ways (and it plays for a long time -- I've seen the computer play itself for twenty hours or so! How's that for a demo?)
10/10

Overall:
Ro3K2 is a great game. It has a slow learning curve, which is probably part of the reason that it never became wildly popular, but once you get to know it, you'll find that it's extremely fun.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/02, Updated 08/08/02