San Goku Shi Taisen DS

"Exciting RTS for DS"

Quick Summary

If you do not already know, this title refers to the popular historic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Loosely translated, this Japanese title Sangokushi Taisen means Romance of the Three Kingdoms: The Great Battle. Two minutes into the game, you would realize that this RTS title makes full use of the touch screen and sits so comfortably on the DS platform. It is a pity that there is no English translation for this fantastic game which will possibly widen the fan base even more.

Although this is a popular arcade title, I have never played the original version. In fact, my knowledge of arcade gaming is pretty ancient – it stopped in the days of the original Daytona and Virtua Fighter II. That means I will be unable to compare this DS title against its original video form. At the same time, I am a fan of games based on this classic novel and this will skew my review in some way. As I like to stress - Our viewing glasses are all tainted by past experiences; so let us simply acknowledge and begin the review.

General Description

You hold your DS in a book manner, opening it from left-to-right as compared to the typical down-to-up. To rephrase, it opens like Hotel Dusk. This is probably because of the layout of the battle field. And as the game involves organisation of troops, you will use the stylus all the time.

The whole idea is to have two opponents – you and the enemy – to deploy generals and battle it out on a pre-determined battle field. In the story mode, each battle field may have different objectives: for example, taking out a specific enemy general, destroying the opposing castle or simply surviving within a required time.

Once that battle is won, you may randomly gain new generals (and also new strategies, more of that to be explained later). The game will proceed to tell its story before moving on to a new battle field. And the cycle repeats. It may sound simple, but there is actually enough depth to keep one going on and on.

In addition, the single-player story mode consists of four playable kingdoms (actually it's three as the translated name suggests, but the developers have included “Others” as the fourth). This allows the player to play the game from four different points of view. You may recall the excellent Warcraft III employing the same story-telling style. The only problem I have here is that I do not understand Japanese.

Deployment of your generals requires some tough decision-making. As you win battles, your pool of generals increases. Each general is assigned two basic skill statistics - physical and intelligence – ranging from 1 to 10. At the same time, each general has a cost point – ranging from 1 to 3. The higher the basic skill statistics, the higher the cost will be. Here's the catch. There is a maximum cost allowable for each battle. Thus, if you assign stronger generals, you will end up having less general (in numbers) in the field. A simple example, a specific battle field allows only a maximum of 9 costs for assigning generals. You could assign three strong generals, where each has a cost of 3. Or you could assign nine weak generals, where each has a cost of 1. Of course, this example is simplifying things by ignoring some other factors, but you can appreciate the purpose of having “cost points” for each general.

Although the generals come in the form of cards, I will avoid calling this a card game. Most true-blue card-based game uses random deck-shuffling as a game tool. This is missing from this game. Thus, lovers of card-based games will feel a bit cheated at this “card” game while haters of card-based games should not feel disgusted to give it a try.

What's Good?

As described earlier, the “cost” element adds an intriguing value to the game. This will be my first tick in the “What's Good” category as it forces you to balance between quality and quantity.

Presentation of the RTS battles is close to perfect. As you hold the DS in a book-style, the right side touch screen is the battle field where you deploy your generals and order their attacks using the stylus. Here, the generals are represented by small simple icons so as not to cluster the field. The left side is the same battle field where there is more graphical representation of the fighting. Although both screens refer to the same field, they serve different purpose. The right side shows your command of where you want the generals to go, while the left side shows where the generals are currently at. Somehow, the old PC title Sword of Samurai comes into mind. But hey, commanding by stylus sure beats using a keyboard to draw a line of action. The only complain here is perhaps the screen is too small to contain all the information, but there's really no way to rectify this, is there?

The combination and permutation for deployment are endless. Each general belongs to a specific troop type: from typical units such as infantry, cavalry and archery, to more fanciful units such as elephant-riders and siege fighters. At the same time, the generals may possess unique characteristics such as charisma, bravery and ambush, which enhance battle performances. In addition, each general has a specific battle tactics such as HP recovery. Using these special tactics will utilize troop morale (ie. troop morale is similar to RPG game's idea of mana). Also, you have a special strategy card which you can use once per battle. This set of strategy cards grows randomly as you win battles. All these details add strong variety to the deceptively simple gameplay.

This may become another Pokeman game for you if you are not careful (meant in a positive way). This is because there are simply too many generals to collect in the game. Also, some generals may appear in multiple cards with different attributes. For example, you may have a Zhang Fei card as an infantry and a second Zhang Fei card as a cavalry. This adds more fun in collecting the cards, scrutinizing each one and choosing the right match for your deployment.

In addition, you may discover randomly-generated items after successful battles. Each item can only be equipped by specific generals. Thus, if you own both the item and general, you have a match. This general auto-equips the item and there is likely to be bonus in battle. Why do I say “likely”? That is because I am not sure - I do not understand Japanese and my equipped generals do not seem to perform any significantly better. For those who do understand the language, feel free to set the record right here.

Artwork is another point worth mentioning. Lovers of Japanese manga will not be disappointed. Apparently, generals are illustrated by famous Japanese artists. Although I know none of the names, the artist names are featured in all the general cards. Also, one general may appear in different cards where artworks are performed by different artists. It is interesting to observe the different artistic impressions of these famous historic generals.

What's Bad?

If I really need to complain, the tiny icons make the touch screen looks small during battle. The touch screen is a perfect match of the battle screen and so, you will not need to scroll the screen. The down side is that all the icons and actions are squeezed into the screen. But there's nothing much we can do here. If the icons are enlarged, it would probably mean that the map needs scrolling. For me, this alternative would mean a step back.

The lack of English translation is frustrating. It is quite amazing how I slog to complete the four-kingdom story mode without understanding the language. My wife does give some tips once in a while as she understands basic Japanese words (she explained the cost element to me). Most of the time, I am groping in the dark. This is only the second game in Japanese language I have ever completed, the first being the Captain Tsubasa series in the SNES days. Well, not exactly “second” if you count Captain Tsubasa 3, 4 and 5 as separate titles.

The Recommendation

My score for this title is 4 out of 5. If you are either a fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms or a RTS fan, there is little chance for you to dislike the title. If you are both, your score will likely be higher than me. For me, I am keeping this title despite not being a great RTS fan.

<Review by Ray Lightcaster>

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/07