Romance of the Three Kingdoms X review:5 stars (A great mix of RPG and Strategy) - Romance games are known for kingdom management and stategic battles. RTK X focuses more on the life of officers during that time. Unlike the previous games where you play kingdoms and their leaders, this game allows you to play any officer of any rank. You can be a free officer, doing deeds for the people (or against the people), be employed by the kindoms and progress the ranks, or be a kingdom leader your self.

Confrontations come in different sorts,
1) Turn-based battle where you attack an enemy city or army.
2) Large scale campaign where you attack a whole region with several armies (turn-based).
3) One-on-one duels
4) Debates (for officers with low WAR but high INTELIGENCE).

The new debate mini-game makes it even fun to play officers who are not good in fighting as battles can be won by wits. My best description of debating: The game is like 'Trump Card' where you have a hand of balls of different numbers. Higher numbers defeat the enemy's played balls and damages the enemy. The balls are then palced on a board based on the played numbers. Like Bingo, you can form lines and you can deal greater damage to the enemy when this happens. So even if you lose out in Trump Cards, you might win in Bingo. It all depends on strategy. Characters with higher intelligence have more powerful counter moves.

The game has a lot of features and I don't want to make this review too long so here's my summary.

Pros:
Limitless replay value
Lots of roles to play
Lots of ways to play the game
Good background music (historical flavor)

Cons:
Might get boring doing mundane tasks
Needs a lot of patience4 stars (The Best RoTK Yet.) - The thing about Romance of The Three Kingdoms games is that they can seem complex, confusing, and intimidatingly alien to a newcomer. In fact, it's bizarre seeing such an odd bird on a console rather than a PC. However with the popularity of the spinoff Dynasty Warrior action games many of the characters and much of the Romance story is a familiar thing these days. There are certainly much more complicated strategy games on the PC for that matter and few of them have half as functional an interface for managing all the information about the game's world.

Romance is a strategy game for roleplayers. It allows you to create a character, or step into the shoes of any one of hundreds of historical and fictional officers, or his entire family and try to unify China under one ruler. How you go about that or whether you even decide to pursue that end is up to you. Other possible goals for a given run-through of a campaign might be collecting items like treasures, tomes or weapons, winning debates, battles or duels. Certain conditions unlock special events, locked gallery content, or new portrait art for custom characters.

The sheer variety of things to do in RoTK assures that it never feels the same twice. In my first game I played as Zhou Yu, a Lancelot sort, and ended up spending a goodly amount of free time after the Yellow Turbans were defeated just accomplishing private missions and exploring the map. My Liege was allied with most of the other powers and so peace remained stable until He Jin, the Emperor's protector, unified China.

The next game was with a custom character as the son of a minor warlord Kong Rong. Kong, the younger, spent much more time helping his father build up their small city and delved into diplomatic missions as well. All for naught as Yuan Shao overran the city. But that didn't mean game over. Instead Kong's son was released from captivity with many fellow officers. He formed a rogue army on the spot, as he was close with these worthies which included Taishi Ci and his own father, and marched on a distant unclaimed territory. After conquering it, he swore allegence to Cao Cao, a rival of Yuan Shao, and has been working extremely hard to build the city up.

To make ends meet he's had to take on common missions and put his own funds into the city's accounts but it is slowly paying off. His networking with wandering officers has built his ranks up. And the occasional bandit raid keeps his armies in practice until revenge can be exacted on Yuan Shao. There's also a young maid who recently gave him a zypher as a gift. Perhaps she's marraigeable and a new Kong Dynasty will come into being? Must save gold and get a fine present for her. She seems literate, constantly quoting from historical works, maybe a rare treatise?

Anyhow - this is how things go. Over time you can become the magistrate of a city, the overseer of a province or a ruler in your own right. You can form alliances with other forces and friendships, even sworn blood oaths, with other heroes. There's political intrigue, espionage and a decent tactical game which rewards preparation of both your military, economy and character's evolving abilities. New features include a campaign mode which seperates out a section of the strategic map and feels much more like the regional campaigns described in the novel. Also a fine debating mini-game allows non-martial heroes to have some fun for a change.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms X Features:
Video Games
PS2 (PSX2)
Sony Playstation (Play station) 2
Playstation2 (Play station2)
Action
Adventure
Role Playing Games (rpg, rpgs)
Strategy (Strategic)
Play as any officer! Includes 650 playable characters. Also create up to 110 new officers.
Social class, wide-ranging personalities, and events affect the personal life of your character. Choose from five ranks: Sovereign, Viceroy, Prefect, Vassal, or Free Officer.
Become a diplomat and experience the significant political victories of the time. Debate with other officers and officials and master the politics of war.
Acquire over 40 skills plus an array of new commands. Start a rogue army, fulfill civilian requests, swear an oath of brotherhood, foretell of disaster, and much more.
The constant threat of enemy campaigns adds a new level of tension! Regional conflicts escalate into large-scale wars as the fighting spreads. Build a massive army and launch full-scale campaigns against your enemies.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms X is the CD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 45.95USD.