Super FamiComplete #34: Romance of the Three Kingdoms II (Redux)

 

Title: Romance of the Three Kingdoms II (NA)

Release Date: 9/15/91

Developer/Publisher: Koei

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a long standing video game series dating all the way back to the days of the NES and having released a new entry just in 2019 for the PS4. Now I have only been acquainted with this series through its glorious spinoff, Dynasty Warriors, which, itself, has spawned its own genre of large-scale beat-em-ups. Romance, though, is quite the different series, as it is a war-time/kingdom building simulation. For this retread, I am revisiting the game again to try to give it a deeper dive.

Background

This video game is based on the epic Chinese novel by Lou Guangzhong that shares the same name. It tells the story of the fall of the Han Dynasty in China, around 170 CE, through the reunification of China in 280 CE, and the lives of the Chinese lords, their retainers, and the common people surrounding them. It was a period of intense political and social turmoil for China, where the entirety of the country was thrown into conflict as a series of micro-wars broke out between three powerful kingdoms: the Wei, the Shu, and the Wu. This conflict and the families involved gave this era and the story its name: The War of the Three Kingdoms. 

The novel itself, written in the 1300's, romanticizes this era. The three protagonists are the three "brothers" of the Shu Kingdom: its leader and populist hero Lui Bei, his "barbaric" friend Zhang Fei, and the god-like warrior Guan Yu, who is one of the most popular and recognized characters from the epic novel. These three men, from different levels of society, become brothers through the famous "Peach Tree Oath" where they promise, over a bowl of rice wine, to fight with each other for life and die on the same day. The imagery of this oath has been used over and over again in popular and anime culture. The most recent example that comes to mind is in the show One Piece, where Luffy, Ace, and Sabo make the same sort of vow as children. 

Their opposition in this grand tale, though, are the kingdoms of Wei and Wu. Wei is led by the indomitable Cao Cao, a ruthless general who, at the fall of the Han, takes the Emperor and his seal hostage, thus trying to legitimize his rule over China. The kingdom of Wu is led by the Sun family, a noble, powerful, and longstanding family that have descended from the author of the Art of War, Sun Tzu. 

Overall, it is a sprawling and entertaining book. I read it in college and was more than happy to revisit it to recap for this blog.

Koei is a long standing developer that has now merged with Tecmo to become Tecmo-Koei Ltd. They were long known for their simulation games set with a historical background, and had gained a loyal cult following for titles like Nobunaga's Ambition, Uncharted Waters, Liberty or Death, and Celtic Tales. Their flagship series though, is of course, Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Gameplay

The game itself plays like a kingdom building simulation mixed with a dash of war sim. The game asks you to pick one of six "micro-wars" throughout the Three Kingdoms period. For example, you can pick one of the events that led to the dtisintegration of the Han Dynasty Chinese Han Dynasty: the regional governor Dong Zhou staging a coup against the imperial throne. Each period has a preset series of opponents with varying degrees of strength and resources. From there, you pick one of the regions in China and begin to grow your empire. You will have a choice of the three leaders of your region, who will have varying stats. You then play the game until you have conquered all of China. Aside from the starting board and lineup that each of the six scenarios, each scenario plays out in a completely random fashion.

The amount of choice, as well, in how you play is quite fun.You can intercept messengers, arrange marriages, convince enemy lords to defect, and a whole bevy of other options. It allows you to play as a brutal leader who crushes your enemies through sheer force, or a cunning one who wins through deceit, trickery, and coercion. Why defeat your enemies and waste resources when you can steer them over to your side?

At the time, I imagine this was quite revolutionary for a sim: a sim set in a little discussed historical setting filled with tales of honor, intrigue, and deception. Now, though, the game is starting to show its age. The interface of the game is rather bland. It is a lot of maps and menus and pictures of Chinese lords without much represented action. It is an early strategy game, mind you, so this is rather expected, but it doesn't make the experience any more pleasant.

The variety of options is also nice, but compared to modern games, the options here are limited and basic. The amount of depth you can dive into the most recent Romance game is really quite astounding. The games have developed to the point where you can influence almost every aspect of culture during this period.

One thing that kind of breaks the game is the new "adviser" mechanic. You can hire an adviser, such as the famous Zhuge Liang, who will tell you how likely a ploy or tactic will succeed. This is a stat-based check, but if the adviser's wisdom stat is high enough, they will predict the correct course of action each and every time. Definitely sapped a good bit of fun out of the game, because I just rolled on the advisers until I found one who was wise enough to help.

The game boasts an impressive amount of characters (around 200). Like the eventual Dynasty Warriors, Koei seems to pride itself on the amount of historical figures and generals represented. The only issue is, in a game this rudimentary in presentation, this just boils down to two hundred different stat sheets represented by a picture card. It is a neat aesthetic/presentation conceit, but one that serves more in the "huh, I wonder who this person was; I'll research them later for my own personal curiosity" kind of way.

The scenarios themselves, though the board is set differently each time, devolve into basically the same game each time. Some scenarios are more challenging, as the board in some situations are really set against you, but the game comes down to slowly expanding your region and taking China.

Finally, this would definitely work better on the PC. This is, after all, a PC game to start, and I can see the interface working better with a mouse and keyboard. With a controller, the game is really rather clunky.

Any good Romance music in there?
There is not a lot of music in this one, so I included all of them in one video.

Ads, Art, Commercial
No commercials or anything interesting; just two magazine ads pictured below.

Worth Playing
With Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII out for the PS4...not really. It is a fun curiosity that makes it interesting to see how far the series has come, but other than that you can skip it.