Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI (PlayStation 2)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.9 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Mueller
• Reviewed on: 02/23/2007
• Released on: 02/06/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI (PlayStation 2) Review

Whether it's Madden, Final Fantasy, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you have to respect a game series with releases numbering in the double digits, because it's a milestone that so few franchises reach. But at some point it gets hard to muster up any sort of anticipation for the next title in a series that peaked about five releases ago. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is certainly a solid turn-based strategy game, but it feels tired because it covers the exact same territory as its 10 predecessors--four of which were released on the PlayStation 2 in as many years. The 11th game in the series does overhaul the basic gameplay mechanics, but the net effect of these changes is marginal. This is still a very dense, very slow, no-frills strategy game, but with a forgiving approach and enough time and patience, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI can still be quite satisfying.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI once again lets you experience ancient Chinese history as told in the famous novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The historical setting is a perfect fit for a strategy game, because without a strong central government at the end of the Han dynasty, China is essentially up for grabs. This sets the stage for seemingly endless conflict among hundreds of officers and factions vying for dominance. It's up to you to take control of a force and do whatever it takes to unify China, which is a nice way of saying that you have to kill or otherwise subjugate all of the other forces on the map.

In the previous game in the series, you played as a single officer and recruited other officers, gathered resources, and developed forces personally. In XI, you play as a ruler of an entire force. So for example, instead of relaying your strategy entirely through Cao Cao, you now have direct control of all the cities, officers, and resources in Cao Cao's entire force. It doesn't sound like much of a distinction, but the result is a game that is focused on large-scale strategy rather than the actions of individual officers. There are no longer separate screens for battles and administrative tasks; instead, everything takes place on one large 3D map of China. The city management has also been simplified, and the focus is on amassing a military force, so you'll typically see greater success as a warmonger than as a diplomat.

You start off each scenario with at least one city and a handful of officers under your command. Developing a city is as simple as building farms and markets to provide food and gold so you can feed and equip your soldiers. You can use the gold produced by your market to build new facilities such as barracks and smiths, which let you recruit soldiers and make weapons. You'll spend most of your time recruiting soldiers and making weapons, and then you'll move those resources around the map to either fortify your position or expand your reach. Of course, no strategy game would be complete without plenty of battles.

All of the battles in the game take place on the same map, which is divided into squares. The military units include ships, cavalry, and foot soldiers, which can be equipped with swords, pikes, spears, and bows, as well as weaponry such as rams and catapults. The different types of units all have specific strengths and weaknesses, but battles are usually decided by which force has the largest numbers. You can eventually research special techniques to make your units more powerful, but they are expensive and take quite awhile to develop. But even with the variety of units and techniques, the battle strategy in XI isn't very involved. Instead, the strategy lies in amassing resources and shuffling them between cities.

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