maybe the best dynasty of ever
ok, let's begin:
first of all a special mention to the story: amazing! you'll love every single character. the courage of zhang liao, the insane strenght of lu bu, and his unaprecciation of his strategist. i personally hated liu bei, and i preffered overall sun ce, and the wu dynasty, but it is just a matter of personal taste. the stories are still all great, and are various. yes, you get to take important decisions during the game. and different decisions will get you to different conclusions. also, every character has special statistics and a special personality. zhang fei likes to drink, guan yu is the perfect boy scout... yeah, i didn't really like liu bei. the only one i liked was ma chao...
learn all the characters and their friends, and it will help you in spectacular combination (i forgot to say "often are amazingly porwerfull").
the question some of you may have is: is this game some sort of mindless hack-and-slash game in wich i do nothing but run and kill thousands of people all alone by myself? truth is... yeas and no:
yes, you kill people in the order of thousands, but no, you don't command a single guy, you command an army! the game is somehow similar to the normal chess game.
you have officials, each one with different experience and abilities. there are the ones more gifted in the art of war, the smarter ones, the leader ones, the ones that are good in more than one of the above, and the ones that sucks in all. you choose a commander for an army (you can make as many army as you want, the only thing you need is enough people), and depending on his leadership you'll have as many official. it's up to you to decide who you want as your strategists, or in the army, or if you want lu bu to be a brigaders, a horseman, or a bow rider. though decision, cuz every of these has different movements and different attack and defence.
you can decide to move against neutral countries and than convince their officers to join you, or to send spies to ruin another army, or where to attack, or which city you want to conquer...
there really is a lot to do...
during battle you move your people in a square map divided into other squares, just like chess, but every square has a different kind of territory, and some tecnics works only on a few of them. there are more than 32 tecnics you can use, and believe me, are not useless. graphic and music are pretty well made, but are not really important for the game. i often turn off the music and turn on my stereo. not because it is bad, just because i prefere my music .
this is a game who anyone can enjoy, and that can give many hours of fun. it will take you no time to get the mechanics of the game, but it will get you forever to be the best there ever was on it. this is the kind of game in which you can always learn something. play it and it will surprise you.
have fun!