Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a big learning curve but it is only because it is so deep.
User Rating: 8.6 | Romance of the Three Kingdoms II NES
Romance of the Three Kingdoms II is based on the historical novel with the same name. The story takes place in the last days of the Han Dynasty where rebellion run rampant. During this time regional lords begin to rise in an attempt to establish a new Dynasty by unifying all of China. The game lets you play any one of these regional lord in your bid for China. Just like the goal of the game, the task of learning the how to play the game can be very daunting but well worth the effort. With hunderds of character and over 40 provices to control the game is very demanding. Not onlly that each of the character have attributes like loyalty, war, charisma and intellect. At the same time each character can hold troops along with arms and training is a factor. The game also asks that you take care of each province by keeping the population happy, developing its farm and economy and constructing dams just in case natural disasters hit. The game takes a lot of patience to learn but once you learn it the game's innovative menus make it second nature to develop your land, train your troops, recruit generals, go to war and use spies. This is what you can do for yourself but in order to reach the ultimate goal of reunification you will need some allies. The Diplomacy is handled well in this game. You can ally, have a marriage alliance and even joint attack. If you have an ally and you do good things to him your trust goes up which gives you certain privileges like loyalty of your generals will go down much slower. Besides domestic affairs and diplomacy, there is strategy to think during war. Intelligence allows you to minimize damage of ambushes and fire attacks. On the other hand having war ability allow you to excel in personal combat and general fighting. Charm will help you bribe those unloyal general in the midst of war. The graphics is not the strongest thing about the game. However the portraits of each chracter and the brighter menus is a big improvement over the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms and does help add some life into a very stat driven game. The sound also isn't great but definitely fits the theme of the game. Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a big learning curve and in the end isn't for everyone because it is so statistically driven. However the game is very deep with all the nuances you would think there would be in trying to unify and manage a growing empire.
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