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Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI - Free Demo - $20 direct download

FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
edited October 2008 in Games and Technology
There was an old thread, but I felt the need to emphasize we're not just talking about old Ancient China, but also new Ancient China. I could have just told the other guy to change the old one, but, like a Chinese Warlord, I have decided to take matters into my own hands.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI(Pronounced 'she')!

As the roman numerals would suggest, it is the eleventh title in Koei's strategy series set in Ancient China. An overview, courtesy of old thread-
During the late-second century in China, a rebellion known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, combined with the fall of the Han Dynasty, China was thrown into a time known as the Three Kingdoms period. During this time, three Dynasties, the Wei, Shu and Wu, fought for control of China. And thus began the Romance of The Three Kingdoms.

Based on the historical novel of the same name, the game focuses on the many important figures in Chinese history as they battle for the leadership of China. The game has gone through numerous iterations, with XI being the latest. While the early games focused on battling, the later games added roleplaying elements in which you could choose to play everything from a wandering Ronin to a powerful Warlord, with your ultimate goal to reunite China under one banner - namely, that of your leader's.

It is essentially the strategy counterpart to Koei's other games about Ancient China, Dynasty Warriors. The gigantic number in the title, along with the comparison to Dynasty Warriors might arouse fear of rampant franchise milking, but there are a number of things which should help to alleviate that fear.


-It has solid, engrossing, gameplay, like most good games of the genre. Centered around developing cities and clashing armies. Also has duels and debates between officers.
-This gameplay does see a lot of changes between iterations. From changing up the way you gather resources and develop cities, to completely revamping combat and the units available to produce and use, and even including some roleplaying elements which can be seen in 7, 8, and 10.
-Ancient China is pretty awesome, you have to admit.
-$20
-Stupid low system requirements.


Those last two should warrant a try from anyone with even a moderate or possible interest in strategy games or fabulous Chinese history.

The free demo on the official site goes on to warrant a try from anyone, period.


It's not without some fault, though.


-The names can start off quite confusing if you have no knowledge of the period or Chinese in general. Expect plenty of names with a grand total of two syllables and more Cao's and Sun's than it seems you'll ever be able to keep track of. (Though on the plus side, the game comes with voiced narrations that make a reasonable attempt at proper pronunciation. No Cow Cow here.) Until you get the hang of things, though, you can be helped along by the swell portraits, so you can simply refer to people as "Guy With Awesome Red Hat" or "Awesome Eye-Patch Guy." Probably slightly more efficient, you can sort officers by whatever stat you're looking for, and cities can be selected from a map.

-The system requirements are low for a reason, and the graphics aren't anything to write home about. It's passable for the genre, though, and along with the game's excellent score, it certainly doesn't detract from the mood.

-While the character models (which you do not see terribly often) are fairly limited, the portraits generally look great. There's quite a bit of menu-crawling, but the pretties sprinkled in can make that a little more visually pleasant than it generally is.

-Being so heavily menu driven, it does suffer a bit from some poor interface options. Some things feel like they take a click or two more than they should, and my biggest complaint is that you can't directly command any sub-districts you establish, but you can just dissolve and re-establish the district and do what you want in between. It's an excruciating process that has no reason to exist.

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I probably shouldn't have made the con segment bigger than the pro...but that's mostly stuff about why they don't matter and the game is super awesome regardless.

So buy it for $20.

Then there's some stuff about an expansion pack we don't have, and old games, and some other snoozer material I might cover later.

Frosteey on

Posts

  • GrisloGrislo Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I wasn't going to buy any more games for a while, but damn. Romance of the Three Kingdoms.. Luckily it's a good price, I guess.

    I haven't played one since 8 (I think?) on the PS2. Am I going to be woved and amazed?

    Grislo on
    This post was sponsored by Tom Cruise.
  • FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise 1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I would say, tentatively, very likely. If you really enjoyed being an officer, then you might hold it a bit against XI, since you have to be a ruler, but on the plus side of that, rulers aren't penalized for having low POL (to my knowledge) like in those games (not sure if X still did or not), you can imprison other officers in addition to executing, recruiting, and releasing them, and battles are able to fluidly take place on one gigantic map of China, which can lead to all manner of strategic goodness, while you still have full access to your cities in order to develop them or prepare reinforcements or what have you.

    Like with any game of the series, you might hold some nostalgia for an older one where you could trick the AI into dueling with 100% consistency or arrows killed people at an absurdly fast pace or whatever, but it's definitely good. I've only played one full game, but I've found myself saying I'll only play until the beginning of the next month or season several times per session.

    Frosteey on
  • 043043 Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Isn't someone making a ROTTK MMO? I'd like to see how that works.

    Also: I love the confusing, name filled story of these games (and Dynasty Warriors). I'll have to try this, as I haven't played a proper strategy game in ages.

    043 on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I was really looking forward to this until I heard it didn't have all of the cool sounding RP stuff that the previous game had.

    Sir Carcass on
  • RedMageDarionRedMageDarion Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Oh shits.

    This is only $20?

    I wonder if my laptop can run it...

    RedMageDarion on
    Pokemon White - 3954.6369.6328
  • RockyRocky Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Downloading demo, I have this on the ps2 but I don't know if I should spend 20$ on this or 20$ on hinterland.

    Rocky on
    LOTRO: Hurindar Halimhar
    GW2: Hurindar
  • FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise 1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I was really looking forward to this until I heard it didn't have all of the cool sounding RP stuff that the previous game had.

    I think X definitely had the strongest gameplay when you weren't a liege of all the games that gave you the option. But it's still just a small factor in the overall scheme of things. The biggest thing is the whole friendship thing, but, honestly, that was a lot of times more of a boring grind of writing letters than anything else.

    Frosteey on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    YES! I grew up on Ghengis Khan 2. KOEI needs to gives us Americans more loving. We do NOT get enough these games. I'd even go as far as to get the chinese versions get english patches for the menus (I want a full translation of 9 dagnabit!).

    rayofash on
  • RockyRocky Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    alright the demo took 2 hours on the dorms internet (went to eat and did laundry), how big/long will the full game be, or should i wait untill I go home one weekend.

    Rocky on
    LOTRO: Hurindar Halimhar
    GW2: Hurindar
  • ACSISACSIS Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Oh, a new KOEI ROTK title. I just love the ancient china setting. An to think they are in the business for so long i expect an excellent game.

    *grabs demo*

    ACSIS on
  • JubehJubeh Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    The demo was really fun. On the one where you have to capture the opposing village, I called in like every single officer I had just to see what would happen. I still lost. ):

    Jubeh on
  • RockyRocky Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    In the demo i captured the first gate and as soon as a transport from one of my other provinces came in the game crashed :(

    Rocky on
    LOTRO: Hurindar Halimhar
    GW2: Hurindar
  • The Cow KingThe Cow King a island Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Grislo wrote: »
    I wasn't going to buy any more games for a while, but damn. Romance of the Three Kingdoms.. Luckily it's a good price, I guess.

    I haven't played one since 8 (I think?) on the PS2. Am I going to be woved and amazed?

    Man me to.

    I love anything that is this time period. Well namely Dynasty Warriors and Romance, (GO GO LATE NIGHT CO-OP!) I haven't played either in ages though. The only way I could ever win 8 was make a super strong melee guy and befriend Cao Cao and win a tourny for some ridiculous spear, then either defect or have Wei win and get hung by Cao Cao.

    Good times I may have to pick this up.

    The Cow King on
    icGJy2C.png
  • ZarcathZarcath Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    So getting this. Is there online mutliplayer?

    Zarcath on
  • JohnnyCacheJohnnyCache Starting Defense Place at the tableRegistered User regular
    edited October 2008
    man I played the old ones on my en-ee-ess

    back in the day.

    JohnnyCache on
  • FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise 1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Zarcath wrote: »
    So getting this. Is there online mutliplayer?

    No. I'm kind've on the fence about whether I really would've wanted it. On the one hand, I think it might've been able to work, since each individual turn doesn't take that long. But on the other, actually completing a game takes a really long time compared to the others. I might just be imagining that, though. Not really sure.

    Frosteey on
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited October 2008
    man I played the old ones on my en-ee-ess

    back in the day.

    I remember renting that once. That was a quick 10 minutes. My 8 year old mind wasn't ready for that.

    Okay, so I said what the hell and am giving this a try. My brain melted just trying to set up a game. Guess I should play the tutorials first.

    One thing I will say is that I love the art in this game. Most of the female portraits are downright beautiful.

    Sir Carcass on
  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Yay, tutorials. The game actually makes sense now.

    Sir Carcass on
  • FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise 1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I really like the tutorial. It was moderately entertaining in its own right, and pointed out small but useful things like the proper mint:market ratior. And it taught me the valuable lesson that I should not attempt to intercept an enemy unit with all of the troops in a city.

    Frosteey on
  • strebaliciousstrebalicious Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    The last Romance I played was number III on the Genesis. Guess it's time to play another one.

    strebalicious on
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  • sethsezsethsez Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    I was the guy who resurrected the old thread, so anybody who read it already knows my enthusiasm for this game. I personally think it's quite nice looking (not a technical marvel, but the art style is fantastic), but more importantly it has that elusive "just one more turn" feel that all the best turn-based strategy games have.

    Without a doubt my personal favorite game of the year, even though it's technically been available in other formats for quite some time. Playing it in English on the PC is just too damn perfect for me to want to go back to the PS2 versions any time soon (though I can't resist the call of VII and X forever).

    sethsez on
  • ZhaosukeZhaosuke Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    -Ancient China is pretty awesome, you have to admit.

    Yes. Yes it is :^:

    Zhaosuke on
    9h05lz.jpg
  • ZhaosukeZhaosuke Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    Zarcath wrote: »
    So getting this. Is there online mutliplayer?

    oh how i wish there was

    Zhaosuke on
    9h05lz.jpg
  • ZhaosukeZhaosuke Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    sethsez wrote: »
    I was the guy who resurrected the old thread, so anybody who read it already knows my enthusiasm for this game. I personally think it's quite nice looking (not a technical marvel, but the art style is fantastic), but more importantly it has that elusive "just one more turn" feel that all the best turn-based strategy games have.

    Without a doubt my personal favorite game of the year, even though it's technically been available in other formats for quite some time. Playing it in English on the PC is just too damn perfect for me to want to go back to the PS2 versions any time soon (though I can't resist the call of VII and X forever).

    lol greetings sethsez

    another bout of ROTK awesome-ness

    i think so =p

    Zhaosuke on
    9h05lz.jpg
  • ZhaosukeZhaosuke Registered User regular
    edited October 2008
    043 wrote: »
    Isn't someone making a ROTTK MMO? I'd like to see how that works.

    Also: I love the confusing, name filled story of these games (and Dynasty Warriors). I'll have to try this, as I haven't played a proper strategy game in ages.

    the book itself boasts 1191 individual characters..

    Zhaosuke on
    9h05lz.jpg
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