Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI review (PC)

One of the most famous works of Chinese literature in history, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (RotTK) has spawned countless adaptations in all kinds of media.

Now in its eleventh iteration, Koei's latest Romance title sees you doing pretty much what you did in the previous games. That is, take control of an empire and, with the help of your loyal officers, attempt to take control of China through force.

You can make alliances and use diplomacy, but, in the end, only one can be rightfully known as the emperor of China.

For those who are new to the game or have not touched a RotTK game for a while, there's a handy tutorial mode that is simple to get through and even humorous due to the characters 'breaking the fourth wall'.

Here, the game takes you through a variety of steps and, at the end, you have to fulfil a certain condition (for example, for the first tutorial, you must make sure your revenue reaches 1,000 gold and your harvest reaches 16,000).

Once you've gone through the tutorials, it's onto the scenarios and the real meat of the game. You can create your own officers for any of these - choose to make them powerful, realistic or weak for differing levels of difficulty. It's all very customisable, which fanatics of the series will love.

Another thing that will impress people (not necessarily the hardcore fan base) is the presentation. While the in-game graphics are basic, they are nevertheless sharp and the season changes are pretty neat.

More impressive are the portraits, which are very detailed and imaginative. Also, the music is very soothing, though a bit more variety in this department might have been nice, just to avoid quick repetition.

The game itself, as mentioned before, is pretty much the same as in previous iterations, although it does seem more forgiving this time out. Commands now have tool-tips assigned to each to make things more accessible.

There's still some head scratching at times, but this is usually when it comes to deciding which officers to use in a given city, what should be built in the limited spaces and so on.

RotTK XI is a game that, unlike many of its predecessor, won't put off newcomers with an impenetrable interface and confusing statistics.

However, it does start to become dull as you start building up your cities, constructing markets and farms, a barracks and a war building or two. Following this, you take over an empty town or a vulnerable castle and then rinse and repeat.

The tedium can be broken by duels and debates, which are pretty fun, but they don't take place all that often - unless you're at war constantly - and even then the novelty starts to wear thin.

RotTK XI is a decent game, but it lacks any real oomph to make anyone but hardcore fans play it in the long term. Everyone else is likely to get bored sooner than intended and migrate back to playing a more satisfying strategy game like Civilization IV.

6.5/10

Gabriel May