'Romance of the Three Kingdoms Touch' Conquers the iPhone
posted by Eli Hodapp on October 29th, 2009 10:14 AM EDT in $9.99, Strategy, iPhone games, iPod touch games
KOEI's Romance of the Three Kingdoms Touch [App Store] is a strategy game that takes place in China during the second and third centuries. The iPhone version is the latest in a long line of ports, sequels, and remakes starting with the original PC release in Japan in 1985.
In a nutshell, Romance of the Three Kingdoms is pretty much the dream come true of an App Store gamer that have found the current offering of strategy games not detailed enough, or lacking depth. The game is split between managing your forces on a map of china broken in to smaller areas where you build up your armies or weaken the resolve of others and a sequence of turn-based battles when push comes to shove. The amount of choices you have in game is mind boggling, and even with the in-depth tutorial system I've felt slightly overwhelmed trying to get a grip on this game not having experienced any of the other entries in the series.
AppBank shot a brief video of the game in action, and while they're not playing the English version of the game, you can at least get an idea of how the game looks and feels in motion:
It's hard to say how much appeal Romance of the Three Kingdoms Touch will have on the App Store. Currently we have a thread on our forums with a few very enthusiastic members posting how much they love the game, but if you weren't around for previous iterations of the series or don't enjoy extremely involved strategy games, it not going to be for you.
App Store Link: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, $9.99
I used to love the old Romance games on SNES. I may pony up and get this.
Awesome.. sick marketing to release with the Chinese iPhone
…it's Japanese.
…the game is set in historical China.
anyone try this one yet.
this was a classic of pc and consoles, i just wonder if this is the right platform.
love to hear feedback from users on this one.
Gotta pick this up. LOVED this game way back on the NES/SNES. Now if they could make Nobunaga's Ambition…
YES!! Nobunaga's Ambition! Please!
For those who doesn't know the story behind the game, watch the movie Red Cliff.
Not aviable in the Swiss Appstore…
This game will be super popular in Japan– just goes to show you how much popularity the iPhone is gaining in that market.
The story revolves around China, not Japan.
Amusing how two people made the same mistake, hmm.
Especially becuase one of the screenshots in the news post shows a map of China.
It is you who are making the mistake. Yes, the Sankokushi ("Romance of the Three Kingdoms") is set in ancient China, but manga, TV shows, and games based around it are very popular in Japan. This game is produced by a Japanese company, with probably the Japanese market their primary target.
Thus, the statement that it will be popular in Japan is in no way wrong.
In fact, this game has nothing more to do with China than a US-produced strategy game based around the conquests of Julius Caesar would have to do with modern day Italy.
uhmm.. It's Japanese game SET in China…
i used to LOVE the game!! and it's on app store for only $10? omg that's definitely worth it!
In fact, not to belabor the point, but do we even have any evidence that there is a Chinese port of this Japanese-produced, Japanese-target-market game?
buying this asap.
I would love to see Warsong brought to the iPhone
Wow…omg…every Korean and Japanese boys will be out to get this one.
For those who don't know the game…Watch RED CLIFF. (its a chapter in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
Its a Japanese game…not chinese….
RTK is a Japanese game, but is set in ancient China during the time period of the Warring Kingdoms. This game is awesome. Deep story, actually has historically accurate points, and is really realistic. IMO, worth the $10 price tag.
Instant buy.
BUT
Besides the pleasure I have playing this game, there is a major issue in my opinion: backups are manual, so if someone calls you in the middle of a game, and you haven't saved your game for, say, the past hour, you lose everything that happened since the last backup. It is especially annoying since the game is captivating, and it's quite easy to forget to save. Plus, you actually never know when someone might call you. Something to keep in mind if you play on an iPhone… for once, iPod Touch owners have an advantage here
This sucks BIG time. There are several way to correct this problem, one would be to remind the player every 10-15mn to save his/her game. That would be the easiest way for the developer to fix this issue.
To clarify the historical background: Koei, the company, is Japanese. They're the makers of many games based on the Three Kingdoms Era (not to be confused with the Warring States Period) in Chinese history (ca. 220-260). The game itself loosely follows Chinese history, but the game series (and the Three Kingdoms Era in general) is very popular in Japan. The movie titled Red Cliff (or Chi Bi) is centered around a particularly important battle in this time period, but does not cover the period's entire history. If you're really interested in learning more about the Three Kingdoms Era, check out the epic written by Luo Guanzhong. It's a great read.
220-280*
220-280* not 260
R3K FANS BEWARE! The game has some serious changes from previous installments of the series, that amount to the game being a huge disappointment.
Most notably, and insurmountably painful to an old fan, is the limitation of one action per turn. During a province's turn, regardless of the number of generals present, you can do only one action (i.e. buy food, or hire soldiers, but not both). Say you just conquered an enemy province and are worried about a counter attack, you can not have one guy hire soldiers, another one train them, and a third one give food to people of the province, to say nothing of rewarding that new general you just acquired to get his loyalty up above 20. Every turn, you must choose what one action is most important to do that month, in that province. I am not even sure what the benefit would be of owning lots of provinces in this game. If you wind up getting lots of gold and food in a back province , it could take you most of a year just so move it to the front lines, as even an action such as moving a general takes an entire provinces turn (oh yeah, and there is no option to just move goods).
Another LARGE gripe: would it have really been that hard to just number the provinces? Instead Koei has chosen to only refer to them by their (presumably) historically accurate names, which are not labeled on the map. The result of this is that, when ever you want to do something involving any province you are not intimately familiar with, you have to spend several minutes in the info screens, then several more minutes scrolling through and touching each province on the map to find the one you were looking for. I could see not wanting to clutter up the math with the long province names, but that could easily have been avoided by just giving them numbers for god sake.
This app goes down in my list of "I wish I had not wasted my $10".
P.S. when will someone come up with a SNES emulator app, so I can just play the good old R3KII.