Doesn't distinguish itself? Are we talking about the same game here?
And in some ways, this one is even better. It hosts a better character creation and a more in-depth role-playing style. With the removal of multiplayer, however, Koei dashes ROTTK 10's hopes of beating VIII in every way.
For fans of the series, 10 is a lot different than 8. It's layout is completely different, you play by the day instead of month, there is no strategy phase (you can do strategy phase tasks anytime), you can walk around on the world map to travel and complete missions and random quests, and events are just fabulous.
Campaign battles were also added, which allow you to battle for an entire province at once. Time-saving, but more difficult.
Sorry, one more thing is that debates are added. You can challenge another officer to a debate to try and convince them of your point of view. Especially important when forming alliances.
Pardon my ramblings.
Anyways, in this game you can pick from about 6 or 7 HUNDRED characters from the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (which is where the game gets it's name) and duke it out for supremacy in ancient China. If 700 completely unique characters isn't enough, you can create 110 new characters. All with unique portraits, traits, skills, and abilities.
That's just crazy, wicked awesome.
Next you take your crazy, wicked awesome character and begin the game. The gameplay varies greatly depending on what position your officer is in. You could be a ruler, a prefect (master of a city, serves under a ruler), a viceroy (master of an entire district of cities and prefects, serves under a ruler), a vassal (a normal officer that does not rule anything), a leader of a rogue army (basically a ruler, except you don't own a city. you can claim a city and become a ruler), or a free officer (self-explanatory).
Besides going to war, forming/breaking alliances, hiring officers, and other fun stuff like that, you can also now complete local quests given by the citizens at each town. These quests can be interesting, and the rewards can be great.
The Good
*A deep and rewarding strategy
*Amazingly good character portraits (and for all the artistic beauty there are well over 900 of them)
*Campaigning for territory instead of battling out every city can be a big time saver
*The creation of your own officer is a very cool feature
*A ridiculous amount of events that piece together one of the greatest strategy games of all time.
*This game is a strategy game, but in a way it's also an RPG, making it a combination of the two deeper and more intriguing game types.
*I'm sure there's something else, but I can't think of it right now.
The Bad
*The lack of multiplayer...
The Just Plain Ugly
*Liu Bei and Cao Cao are STILL resilient cusses that just won't die! (If you play any of these games you'll understand :D )
Now, the sum up.
Graphics: As I stated previously, great portraits, the artists here are experts. (8.5)
Gameplay: Very good gameplay. Very addictive. (9)
Sound: The music sets the scene just fine (7.5)
Story: You can follow the historical events or completely veer off into fantasy. Do as you please. (9)
Re-playability: Ridiculous (9.5)
Overall: (8.7)
If you like strategy games, role playing games, historical simulations games, or all of the above, at least check this game out.