Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI dated Comments by Robert Purchese

Awesome, although I got this demo ages ago. I don't come to EG for promptness though, I come for... actually, I have no idea. I like it here though.

So is the demo any good?

Are you sure you don't mean ... um, that other Koei game?

/looks it up

Warriors Orochi. That's what I played a demo of a few months ago.

I used to love Romance of the Three Kingdoms...I think my favorite was around III. Sadly, after playing the last iteration I wanted to see nothing more than a graceful death for this venerated series. Koei just doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'core gameplay' and how that applies to this series as they littered later versions with ill-concepted minigame fluff that only served to distract from an epic empire-building game. That, and they have no F'ing idea on how to design an fun, user-friendly interface.

Sadly, outside of Stardock I don't think any companies are filling this niche anymore. Oh well, I guess such a intellectual game is lost on a mainstream audience.

Zzz, Koei lost the plot after their nth title.

Warriors Orochi was horrible on PC.. So, um, all I'm saying, this demo better deliver it. In spades!

VIII for the PS2 was by far the best they made, since then it's gotten worse every year.

I preferred RottK 3 most, on the SNES. I loved the music, and hadn't played anything even remotely like it at the time. Plus it has plenty of depth.

Most versions after that haven't really improved anything, just tarted the visuals up and changed the world map. It's ideal for PC though, a mostly menu driven game is begging for mouse controls - although I'm just assuming it has mouse controls, I downloaded Dynasty Warriors Online at the same time and forgot about the demo entirely.

Just to make it crystal clear, this is not one of the Warriors series, not even slightly. Sure, it's set in the same period of chinese history, but that's it. It's a strategy game, with turn-based combat. Don't expect Dynasty Warriors.

"Koei just doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'core gameplay' and how that applies to this series as they littered later versions with ill-concepted minigame fluff that only served to distract from an epic empire-building game."

Last one I have is PS2 VIII, which I rated pretty highly. Its emphasis on having to "be" one of the characters is fairly heavy (and you can choose to be a relative grunt and work your way up to advisor, or whatever) - this looks like slightly more of a disembodied overseer player role. I think I kind of like the "minigame fluff", though. Part of the appeal of the series to me is its eccentric campiness and the impact of daft, over-the-top personalities - the debate stuff from the trailer looks hilarious, and isn't the sort of thing I object too as distracting, unbalancing, or "not serious enough".

I think the grotesque inaccessibility gets exaggerated because it's (originally) on a platform that doesn't really do this genre. It's fairly strategy-lite compared to scary grognard-targeted PC games. Quite tempted to give it a shot, despite not really having time for it, and the apparent consensus among many who've been keeping up with the series that it's lost the plot.