Hands on with Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake - Preview
Tales of conquest, war, love and glory. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is perhaps one of the most iconic epics of pseudo historical accuracy. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 is one of the best in the series, and now it has been remade for the modern day.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 (RotTK) has received the modern-day remake treatment. For those unfamiliar with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, they function similarly to the Dynasty Warriors Empires titles, just with a much stronger focus on the tactical management. There is a combat element to the game, akin to unit controlling turn-based tactics games. Whilst it is an interesting part of the game, it isn’t where RotTK gets to shine. No, RotTK shines in how seamlessly it blends iconic tales of the historical epic known as the Three Kingdoms period of China.
For players who’ve played the original, there is a lot of new content included in the remake to make coming back to one of the more well-known entries into the series. Aside from the graphical enhancements, which has seen brand new officer images, as well as the use of ink paintings, and combined 2D and 3D, creating a wholly unique style for the game. The big additions are the inclusion of “Tales” and “Destiny”. Tales are events that occur in the world, that you as the player can decide to invoke, work towards the requirements of unlocking them, or ignoring for sake of creating your own journey and story in the Three Kingdoms China.
To put it simply, Tales are essentially major plot points that fans of Dynasty Warriors and other Romance of the Three Kingdoms titles would be hugely familiar with. These include things such as Sun Ce being poisoned and Sun Quan stepping up as his replacement to lead the Wu Dynasty. Or the gifting of the Red Hare to Guan Yu from Cao Cao in an attempt to sway him to their side. These are markedly easy ways to engage with the decades long events that transpire. Certain tales will require specific officers to be in certain areas, or for different regions to be controlled by a particular force. Whilst you don’t actively have to work your way towards these events, they do give you something to focus on. There are even fictional tales that you can work towards to completely change the ways events unfold and create a story that fits your own fantasies.
Which is where Destiny or Links Forged come into play as well. As you interact and become closer with other officers, you’ll have a random chance to build a relationship with them. Upon becoming devoted to each other, and fully unlocking the soul bonds, you’ll create a Link. These can even go so far as to leading to characters becoming sworn siblings, or even getting married. These connections give you advantages in battle, as well as reward you with knowledge and unique interactions that help you to develop your skills and stratagems. There is some random luck to this, but for the most part you can focus and force the bonds with most officers with enough persistence. There is an antagonist and rival relationship outcomes too, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to cause these to occur in my time with the game.
Where this game will truly shine however, is for those who just simply want to get lost in the countless scenarios and interact with every possible officer. Over 55 scenarios are in the game, spanning 80 years’ worth of war, love, conquest and everything else you can think of. RotTK 8 remake touts the largest roster of officers in the series, and with the sheer number that I was regularly interacting with, trying to recruit, or fighting, you’ll never find yourself without someone new to meet, talk to, debate with or even duel.
The Duel and Debate gameplay is sort of underwhelming, however. Almost like a random card stacking game, the debate and duel options are essentially just the same thing with different names attributed to the cards, with a different backdrop to watch these things play out. Frustratingly, despite the care put in to give so many of the officers’ unique character portraits, in the debate and duel scenes the 3D models for a lot of the characters seem to be very generic. Iconic characters such as Lu Bu and Guan Yu got care taken for unique 3D models, but for the most part its generic officer 1 and 2 staring at each other or slapping someone with a spear on a horse. There is some level of strategy to the mechanics, but for the most part if you have a significantly higher STR or INT skill for the corresponding minigame, you’ll blitz the opponent every time. In fact, in situations where you are higher skilled, you can just choose to let it automatically do the debate or duel and get the wins that way. An area that could have benefitted from some extra love.
Though I have only scratched the surface, it took me over ten hours just to get my first ending in a scenario. With over 55 different ones to play, with varying degrees of responsibility depending on if you are playing a ruler, viceroy, governor or just a free officer, RotTK has enough packed into it to keep you busy for literal hundreds of hours. For people who enjoyed the strategy side of the Dynasty Warriors Empires titles, but wished they’d have expanded that system even further, then Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake, may be the title you’ve been waiting for.
The game is set to release on October 24th for both PlayStation consoles, PC and Nintendo Switch.
