Which Romance of the Three Kingdoms SNES Games Are Worth Playing Today? - SNESdrunk

[@BrunoCarvalhoPaula]

Lemme tell you a story. I played this game for MONTHS, renting it every single weekend, uniting china step by step until I went in and BOUGHT the cartridge from the rental place so I could finish it. Then, after months of grueling grind to finish it, my younger brother found a way to win the game in one turn (on the last scenario) and saw the ending before I could do it.

[@Marzimus]

Dang dude! Great to have that kind of time as a kid and it probably shaped a present day interest or skill. I felt similar recently (though miniscule in comparison) playing through Blasphemous. Late game I finally was able to "run" and found out there's a bullcrap way to warp between save points by donating 20k, which would have saved me at 5-10 hours of trekking.

[@Sephiroth144]

So, how long did it take for your brother to heal...?

[@STB]

That's usually how supervillain origin stories begin. :D

[@Spllyn]

This made me smile, thanks for posting.

[@NeoDragonKnight]

These games started my love of the Romance of the 3 kingdoms novels. I started with RTK2 playing with my cousin in hotseat, it was super fun playing together as allies. Being of Cantonese Chinese descent being born in Canada, I actually had no idea what this was based on, I had assumed it was just a fictional world and fictional characters, the names did not seem like chinese as they were in Pin Yin Mandarin, and the nature of the game was that Characters had very little characterization. My dad one day saw what I was playing, and I he saw the name Guan Yu (Guan Yu is one of the few recognizable name in Mandarin that is very similar to Cantonese), and he suddenly said, oh thats from Sam Gwok Yin Ye (San Go Yan Yi), and he gave me the back story of Guan Yu and the 3 brothers. Finally I had background on who these Characters were! And from there we began to go through each major ruler to see if he recognized them, he had to think hard because Pinyin Mandarin was so far from Cantonese but we slowly were able to piece it together. Liu Bei = Lau Bei, Cao Cao or Cow Cow = Choh Choh, and each time we figured it out it was a happy eureka moment! Finding Zhao Yun he could not figure out until he saw the ending montage with him holding a baby, and he immediately knew it was "Chiu Won, Chiu TziLong" and he immediately told me the story of him going through the army of Cao Cao to save A-Dou. A few months later we went to HK and I got my English copy of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms (which I still have) and could not put down the book (my grandma was in hospital so I spent a lot of time there reading). Now I understood everything that the game was about, what each officer was, what each scenario was, what plots/ploys were based on, why Lu Bu at 100 loyalty was able to be recruited no matter what, and what the montages at the end were. It added so much more to playing the game having this knowledge. I was stoked when RTK3 came out (it is still one of my favorites to this day), it was even deeper with more officers more fleshed out stats, awesome music, and deep gameplay, and maybe the best battle system they have had. Played it for years as the replay value was great. By 1994 we went to a chinese mall we usually frequent, and we found a rental store with the brand new RTK live action show, and we would every week rent new tapes and go through the series. When RTK4 came out, it was pretty mindblowing, as SNESDRUNK said, everything was more immersive and made to be SNES. I loved this game, but the loading times and scrolling through towns became difficult to bear if it werent for the amazing soundtrack. I ended up playing the PC port which was superior as the mouse interface was truely needed to navigate town to town without scrolling, something the SNES could not do. From there I religiously bought each new game even when they didnt have english ports. And eventually dynasty warriors gave a new fun factor to my love of the RTK story. And when Wikipedia became a thing, I suddenly had yet another new Three Kingdoms to learn as I realized Romance of the 3 kingdoms was a fictional telling of the real history, and I wanted to learn more about the actual History behind it. Sorry for the long post, but RTK was such a huge part of my childhood that I cherish, having that eureka moment with my dad is so special to me.

[@rinkuhero]

i'm also in the 'i read the novel because of these games' gang, but it was probably mostly destiny of an emperor for the nes (which was the first game based on rotk that i played). the version of the novel i read was in 4 volumes and had like 2400 pages.

[@pingunooty]

That's a wonderful story. Ive been interested in reading the books for a while now, i think i will finally take the plunge.

[@rinkuhero]

@@pingunooty there's also a great chinese-made series that is slowly being translated into english subtitles by a fan group that you could look into if you don't have the time for the full novel. the series is almost as good, i've been watching it as they release new episodes. search for 'gentlemen of the han' and you'll find it

[@piercebros]

Awesome comment! Love the passion.

[@lucannorthemightyandcompan6953]

Sweet nostalgia!!!

[@Dxtuned]

Games like this were why rental stores were so important. I nearly fell for the cover art as well and would have been stuck with something way over my head

[@Dalboni]

I agree, but in the other way. My friend who worked there always pointed to these masterpieces. I even got discounts for long rent cause they were not popular at all.

[@Yamaha38XCRacer]

That long rent was awesome, I was good friends with a kid who’s aunt owned a rental store..I remember keeping games for weeks on end..I never bought a game I knew I didn’t like..I mis the rental era..

[@williamjarrett9119]

Renting did get me into buying RPGs and strategy games so I wouldn't have to rent them out for weeks at a time and I surprisingly like a lot of the strategy ones. 😊

[@deathsnitemaresinfullust2269]

Yeah, back then badass cover art was the bain of my existence, more so with Atari and NES but SNES had some tricky ones too. 😄👍

[@ItsGroundhogDay]

I thought rental stores were important because nobody sold these games, so I had to keep renting them over and over.

[@Kamawan0]

I love when a developer makes a game for a very specific audience. I'm not into these, but I see their novelty for folks that enjoy this type of style. I understand that in modern days, making a game that sells to a wide audience seems to be the norm, but it's nice that we still get new releases for incredibly niche audiences from time to time.

[@Just.Kidding]

The undisputed king of games that are the absolute GOAT for an extremely specific type of player is Aurora 4x. Mandalore hactuallyas a pretty good video on it. It's sometimes said that such-and-such game (Dwarf Fortress is a common one) looks like a spreadsheet, but Aurora might be the only game that you can actually, _truly_ be the only game one can play at work (if one works in an office) without letting your boss/coworkers know that you're gaming - if it weren't for the fact that you'd constantly be alt+tabbing to guides lol.

[@tralhas]

I love Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV with passion. It's my comfort zone. I've been playing this game at least a campaign a year since 1996.

[@COOLAUSTINO]

it’s insane how many top tier soundtracks there are in the SNES library. that sound chip was/is amazing, so unique and identifiable.

[@josephbradshaw6985]

Romance 2 is my most played SNES game. By a mile. EDIT: We did tournaments in high school, they lasted all weekend.

[@ryanweston1867]

Bro, it is my fav game ever. If you told me I could only play with one game for my whole life, THIS IS IT. I was probably something like 8-years-old, but that didn’t stop me from working everything out. I don’t think I’ve played it since having kids, but it sure does bring back fond memories ❤

[@josephbradshaw6985]

@@ryanweston1867 If you get a chance, check out Romance of the Three Kingdoms 11. I never thought there'd be a better Rot3K than the SNES ones, but Romance 11 is now my fav of the whole series. It came out like 15 years ago.

[@davidyoung2111]

It's still my favorite game. I'm playing it now, while smoking.

[@josephbradshaw6985]

@@davidyoung2111 Which one? #2?

[@Nemo2342]

4 is the game I spent hours upon hours with in highschool. I fell in love with the setting thanks to Destiny of an Emperor, and was over the moon to finally find another game from the time period (I never saw 2 or 3 in any local stores). I can't say I was particularly good at it, but I loved making officers based on family and friends, then letting the PC play out the scenario (hopping in myself every now and then to try and tip the scales via forcing rulers to make alliances). The soundtrack lives rent-free in my head, and I got a huge rush of nostalgia hearing it in this video.

[@y2a1979]

Destiny of an Emperor hype! :D

[@someoneelse1534]

I applied for a game dev job recently and closed my cover letter with "thank you for reviewing my application, and I hope you have a great rest of your day." Let's hope someone gets it.

[@ohiopigeon]

This will not work.

[@someoneelse1534]

@@ohiopigeon just got the confirmation. I got it!!!

[@bennett420316]

This game definitely should've had an age suggestion. I remember returning it 30min after i rented it and told blockbuster I picked it by accident. God this game was like Sim City meets MS Office.

[@jcollins1305]

😂😂😂

[@redmario7]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms III? Release in 1993? That's too many threes!

[@danbauer3669]

Three many threes, two too many and in the end, we won one, Juan!

[@BrunoCarvalhoPaula]

Not too many, only three

[@robintst]

Wall of Fire is definitely my favorite entry in the ROTK series, even in the face of the more advanced later iterations. I have the Saturn port, the redbook CD music is fantastic.

[@nunyanunya4147]

going back now as an 'adult' with tactics games under my belt... these, the American Revolution one, and even gemfire are all over my heads NOW...

[@y2a1979]

I loved these and Gemfire, but I could never get into the revolution one for some reason.

[@nunyanunya4147]

@@y2a1979 i liked gemfir... i know i beat it multiple times as a kid. my buddy had it couldn't understand it. i remember my strategy was to build fences and shoot with my archers. i remember playing my buddy and he being pissed because he would die and id loose only a few soldiers. remember him telling me to play the single player game and getting mad at me beating it... went back a few months ago... no fucking clue what I was doing...

[@ColinoDeani]

ROTK 10 and 7 were the best imo Only thing part 10 was missing is the letter system that part 7 had where you could send letters back an fourth to generals you either have only heard about or just those not in your army increasing your relation with you... The relationship systems are the backbone of these games and really makes you focus on the individual officers in your army... knowing their strengths and weakness's etc... great games!

[@Wolfburns]

I really like the longer in depth videos. Thank you giving some insight into how to play these insanely deep games.

[@mondomoleno.3404]

FWIW, I like the simplicity of 2. Also the battle music that has no reason to be as hype as it is. Could be a nostalgia thing because my brother and his friends would play it when it was new in big 4/5/6 player games, and I got the RoTK bug from playing Destiny of an Emperor on NES so the source material was already sort of familiar to me

[@hexkwondo]

Romance of three kingdoms 2 will always have a place on my heart. I couldn’t get into any of the other ones but, part 2 had an awesome music track and easy interface that kept me wanting to keep playiing

[@ryanweston1867]

I am exactly the same as you, the later versions just didn’t improve it for me. It did feel slow when I tried playing it again, so I played it with some sort of super-speed setting on the emulator, the only problem with that was it made the incredible soundtrack go equally as quick 😢

[@kanstyle]

Love that Wall Of Fire’s overworld graphics look like Ogre Battle… or the other way around

[@jeffp1629]

Don’t think I could ever really play through this, but I absolutely appreciate you bringing a spotlight to it because I find games like this fascinating. Plus, I listen to your mixes and the music from these soundtracks always stand out!

[@mosthauntedghosty]

Thanks for breaking down all these Koei games in a quick, easily digestible format. I'd always been Koei-curious but I've only recently started getting into strategy games, so it's interesting to see what the earlier days of the genre were like. Even on the SNES, it's wild to see the leap in presentation from one game to the next!

[@RinaRetro]

*In bed, relaxing with KZbin. Always a treat when SNES Drunk appears in my Feed* 💙

[@Unquestionable]

As someone who was super into RPGs and had a budding appreciation for strategy titles even back in the early 90s these games were so overwhelming to me. I had rented 2 or 3 (it was like 1994 or something and I was around 10 years old) and loved the concept but barely made progress. Helped I had gotten a copy of Shingen the Ruler on NES a few years prior from a rental place that was clearing out old titles so I had a general idea of what to do. Fast forward to the Wii Virtual Console release of Wall of Fire and I picked it up day one, being very eager for more in depth experiences on the console, only to forget "oh it's 2007, we're over a decade removed from this being cutting edge". But it's still installed on my Wii (and I recently picked up a component to HDMI converter) so always have that choice to revisit it.

[@fargoretro]

RotTK 4 on the PSX was a game my dad and I played all the time. It was a surprisingly great mp game

[@y2a1979]

It had some of my favorite moments ever gaming with one of my friends. The two best we dubbed "the Cao Cao Maneuver", since he was the first we saw do it, where your general fakes fleeing a duel only to shoot his pursuer with an arrow and win, and "the Ma Chao Maneuver". The second one happened when we were near the end of the game and just starting being silly while invading one another. He had managed to recruit Cao Cao, and send him out to duel my Ma Chao. He attempted the Cao Cao Maneuver, only to have Ma Chao cut the arrow out of flight an run him down like the cowardly dog he was. And thus the Ma Chao Maneuver was born. :D And given that in the source material, Ma Chaos father died after being betrayed by Cao Cao, a very fitting turn of events, I think.

[@Sarothias]

Good video! Personally Part III, Dragon of Destiny is my actual favorite. I've beaten every scenario with every ruler at least once over the years lol. Still replay and put it in my top 10 games overall. Spent so much time as a kid playing these alongside my RPGs. Also played all the other KOEI games on NES and SNES as well except the two Aerobiz games on SNES. I was definitely one of those niche people KOEI targetted >_> Kinda tangentially related for those who may not know, their is a Capcom turn based RPG for the NES (I think it's their first RPG actually) called Destiny of an Emperor that let's you play the game / go through the novel roughly by going through Liu Bei's story through the creation of Shu at which point it does it's own thing.

[@starblaze27]

As someone who did play all three of those games around the time they are released, I can confirm this. RotTK 2 got me into these type of games like Nobunaga's Ambition, Liberty or Death, and Gemfire. The third game of the series was hard to find in my town for some strange reason, but I did get to play it and did find it better. The 4th one I happen to get for Christmas and still own. That one was indeed the best of the three and even now I often get the next one of the series and will play them till the end. Same for Nobunaga's Ambition. I would love to see them try to make a new Liberty or Death game, or maybe another Gemfire. Maybe something else too like the Civil War or the hundred years war.

[@starlightrevenant]

Finally the Sangokushi games, I remember playing some of the games (my favorite is still RTK XI). Btw ROTK 8 is the best game in the series overall and is so popular that it got a remake recently.

[@UtushoReiuji]

8 has the big benefit of being one you can co-op multiplayer too (or, in the likely event you can't find another fan of KOEI games, run up to 8 characters at once)

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, XI is my favorite in the series as well. Having everything take place on the big map makes the tactical options feel almost limitless. I'm just sad Koei never localized the PUK, since city management is pretty bare-bones in the base game.

[@Blobby_hill396]

RotTK2 will always be one of my favorite and most important (to my personal gaming tastes) games. I rented it so many times.

[@ryanweston1867]

Just hearing the music again in this video instantly warmed my heart, no game has ever brought me as much joy or pleasure.

[@BriahnAznable]

My brother and I rented IV for like 4 months straight, ended up finally getting it for Christmas. Created a lifetime love for the Romance legend

[@HLuisGarcia_UplinkInc]

Dude, thank you for putting this on my radar!

[@sagepirotess6312]

4 was insanely good. You could light the whole battlefield on fire, literally. You could thunderbolt an army. You could learn skills and if playing fictional, learned skills carry over on replays.

[@EpicLebaneseNerd]

Dude did such a good job that he ran out of decent games to talk about on the SNES these days....such a dual edged sword I must say.

[@BUPMY1]

lol Edit: I wouldn't be surprised if he just started playing some of these games.

[@Brocuzgodlocdunfamdogson]

3 is my favorite on SNES. Though I do like playing 2 and taking some no-name general with ass stats and turn him into a monster. All you have to do is invade Luoyang over and over. Every time you win you’ll get a sword that boosts a general’s war.

[@MentalLiberation]

Koei and the 3 Kingdoms games: a winning combination to say the least. Great videos as always, SNES Drunk!

[@FlyingTurtleLP]

In Germany we say: SCHHHHHHHNESCHDRANK.

[@ryansc0tt0]

Gesundheit!

[@FlyingTurtleLP]

@@ryansc0tt0 Danke!

[@rodmunch69]

As a kid I loved these games on the NES. So much depth and strategy, it was awesome. But I was also extremely smart, all my dumb friends just wanted to play Fester's Quest.

[@unj]

I appreciate the deep dives into genres that the SNES isn't usually known for. I think people would probably rather do the Tactical RPG hybrids like Fire Emblem and Ogre games. Totally fascinated by the the early SNES just being loaded for games that you'd rather play on PC like Sim City, Populous and stuff like these. (That said, the Sim City for SNES is pretty solid!)

[@mattb6522]

Good review! I think my kid self would have seen this as "Office Manager Simulator", but they sound at least pretty interesting. I appreciate Koei at least giving the SNES library some variety for those who enjoy these types of strategy games.

[@alen7492]

To get rid of upscaling lines in all Romance Games played with PSX2 Emulator: Right click game>Graphic>Rendering (tab)>Manual Hardware Renderer Fixes(this will make "Upscaling Fixes" tab appear). Set 500 for X and 500 for Y. This also helps some other games, mainly Front Mission 4.

[@UtushoReiuji]

I originally got got into this series about 20 years ago, starting by emulating 4, which is a pretty great place to start I think. I know a bunch of people who absolutely swear by the Genesis port of 3, which I've never really tried myself, and by that time I had already gotten into the PS2 ports starting with 8.

[@technomage6736]

Been loving the Three Kingdoms movie series! Must've watched the whole thing 3 times this year. 😂

[@TheItalianTrash]

I'm currently watching that series.

[@technomage6736]

@TheItalianTrash It's pretty legendary!

[@pablofmc]

you're right, SD, the music is pretty chill

[@BadAxeEntertainment]

Wow, those Toys R Us tags you had to take to the cashier. That brings back memories.

[@777dulera777]

Thank you for your dedication to these games, your videos and channel. Every day there is a new drunk video is a good day.

[@BrunoCarvalhoPaula]

Romance of the Three kingdoms IV was amazing and I owned the cartridge

[@VBrancoPT]

"Don't pursue Lu Bu."

[@sagepirotess6312]

Actually in rot3k. Its rather dont appoint him as a governor. He will revolt.

[@Jwight1984]

I remember playing this as a kid. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I loved it nonetheless.

[@kuntymckunterson]

Great start to a great day! Thanks, bud!

[@MrClasicgamer]

I was thinking about Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire I wondered if there was a recent KZbin video about the game Happy to find a recent video!

[@isaacmackey1950]

Lots of good memories playing Wall of Fire with my dad back in the day. Thanks!

[@LordelX]

I loved these games as a kid. Romance IV was incredible.

[@UndrState]

I love Romance 4 - have been playing it over and over again for many years on emulators

[@WhispyWoods.]

Great job covering all of these 👍

[@thenostalgiafactor5023]

Total length of video: 770 secs. Total length of "SNES Drunk": 3.5 secs. .45% of the video was spent listening to "SNES Drunk".

[@Sparkbomber]

Renting was a must-do in a sense... try telling that to me and my brother as kids though, lol. But Wall of Fire looks good.

[@zachholstine]

I’ve been waiting for the video. Wall of fire was one of my favorite hidden gems (if you don’t mind this type of gameplay)

[@TheStudioManila]

Shao Kahn : " PREPARE TO BE ROMANCED ! "

[@tpolutts3309]

Your toys r us was different than mine. The little plastic flaps about the paper flipped up and had the back of the box on it. Many hours spent hour deciding what to buy.

[@smartperson1]

Oh my gosh I totally forgot about the Toys R Us game cartridge flyers ♥️

[@darkgemini615]

I love this series so much. i began by playing the original when i was 8 on my NES. I made sure to get every sequel in the series. Koei will always be one of my favorite game producers, and, for me, it all started with this title.

[@j-rod4600]

Got an SNES, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and other games at a garage sale. It didn’t come with a manual so had to figure everything out on my own. Me and 2 of my friends played it all the time!

[@ZeroondA]

On my way to finish every SNES game, I've just won Romance 3 yesterday, genuinely surprised at how much I like the series so far for a guy that doesn't play strategy games

[@MegapiemanPHD]

Some of the pixel art for Wall of Fire is fantastic.

[@SuperRamos619]

My favorite thing about wall of fire growing up, was creating my own officers, and then spend endless amounts of time rerolling for amazing stats, just to have a leg up when starting the game.

[@Sarstan]

Can't believe I sat down and finished out one of the first scenarios with Cao Cao (starts with 3 cities IIRC) a long time ago. Essentially made sure I was completely going to overpower a city before moving in then it was a matter of trying to get more officers so I could keep expanding. It was a long grind, but I miss it. The music and atmosphere are top notch if you can sink into it.

[@unnaturalselection8330]

My start in RoTK series was 3 and I was blown away in era. 1st console strategy game to really satisfy.

[@LanEXHikari]

The more I saw that overworld map, the more it reminded me of Ogre Battle even though it wasn't made by Koei. Thanks for sharing some more of these relics, SDrunk 👍🏼

[@josephbradshaw6985]

Romance 11 is my fav of the whole series.

[@Justforvisit]

Video count starting with following intros: SNES drunk: 877 NES drunk: 5 Segadrunk: 69 Steamdrunk: 43 Switchdrunk: 7 Turbodrunk: 4 Advancedrunk (NEW): 1 Without any kind of Intro: 41 Previously on SNES drunk IS drunk: 2 SNES drunk IS drunk: 1 Previously on SNES drunk plays StarFox: 1 Previously on SNES drunk plays Final Fight: 1 3 Hours of the SNES drunk Intro: 1 A four minute and 30 second long SNES drunk Intro: 1 Videos completely about Clyde T. Dog (No Intro as well): 3

[@Str0b0]

How many of the SNES drunks are about arcade games? ;)

[@Justin-TPG]

Much as I love the Mega Drive and SEGADrunk, I’m kinda hoping there’s never another one

[@ZekeZanzibar]

Still weird.

[@Justforvisit]

@@ZekeZanzibar Yeah, still way too few Clyde T. Dog exclusive content.

[@KDis0815]

Sadly no Koeidrunk.😢

[@Sephiroth144]

Always been fascinated about the Three Kingdoms period, so I played the heck out of these games (heck, even the NES games) Seeing these covered is a blast from the past. And yes, put in enough rental with RotKIV that I just saved up and bought it- if memory served, had to have the Babbages at the mall special order the game.

[@michaelengelbrecht-hk8zw]

Seeing these old SNES strategy game reviews on your channels makes me really thankful that Civ VI is as accessible as it js!

[@KTF0]

Has SNESdrunk officially played every SNES game yet?

[@SNESdrunk]

No

[@nickparsons337]

​@@SNESdrunk This reply made me feel the need to ask; did you do a video on The Great Battle series on the Super Famicom; and I somehow missed it?

[@SNESdrunk]

Yes kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqHbf4qpiNKgjNU

[@seanmcbay]

4 looks really good. I’ll give it an honest shot.

[@sisyphusmyths]

I had the PSX version of this title and loved it as a kid. It was definitely much prettier to look at and a bit easier to tell what was going on, but man, there's just something magical about this era of Koei.

[@Justforvisit]

Just coming from work, having shopping done and fresh bakery goods and candy at my desk and the new SNESdrunk video is just 14 minutes old? Perfect day I'd say!

[@Ozzymandiyas]

I never really got into the koei games on the snes much. mostly because of what you said. Wall of Fire was one that I really wanted to like, but, with how slow these games go, i've never really gotten into the meaty part of them. The one RTK game that I played the most would be 3, but with you singing praises for 4 maybe I'll try it again soon! I've even got it for win98 just because the sprite map is beautiful

[@riffcrypt8438]

I still barely have a clue how to play these games but messing around with RotTK2 as a kid and it's beautiful soundtrack game me a life long love for Koei

[@GarrettPetersen]

I love Romance of the Three Kingdoms! I'm currently reading the novel and it's great.

[@sagepirotess6312]

Jia Xu and Zhang laio are cool in it. Guan yu... a panzy.

[@redualnek]

RoTK3 is still a top-5 game of all time for me!

[@awiedhuman159]

I just realised That i wasnt subcibed yet, though I have watch your channel for about 3 years... Sorry. Your great!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

[@Str0b0]

Great and in-depth episode. Thanks!

[@madspunky]

Real Nintendo fanboys play Koei games. And the Genesis versions, just to be sure the SNES version is better. And the original PC versions to understand their legacy. Keep up the good work!

[@Dantheman11281]

I remember the Toys R Us flyers, brought them to the little window cause the games were kept behind glass behind the counter.

[@Marzimus]

My friend's birthday party was great - bigfoot pizza and renting three, count 'em three, movies/games. He received what was obviously a CD but inside was the slip and receipt for Sonic & Knuckles. First pre-order I encountered and an epic troll by his parents. Thirty years later and I still respect it...

[@niXity9000]

Wall of Fire was great. I ended up getting RoTK XI on PC several years later and playing that a lot too.

[@youremakingprogress144]

One guy I knew when I was a teenager would talk about this series as the best game ever whenever our group talked about video games. It's good to see what he was always going on about. It does look interesting, but yes, very dry. I bet I would enjoy at least the last one.

[@Bored_Barbarian]

I love RoT3K 8, but yeah the pre PS2 ones were rough.

[@northerncatto]

That's the one they just remade right? Why is it so special?

[@redpointt]

I like “suitable for the right audience” I missed this series but absolutely loved Gemfire

[@Toddobvious]

I loved all of these 🥰🥰🥰🥰 my favorite was Genghis Khan on the og NES platform

[@caseyhayes4590]

I love that we got so many of these games translated to English on SNES and Genesis...but It always makes me wonder why we only got half of the Square games on SNES and no 16-Bit Dragon Quest. I mean, those games would have sold more than any KOEI strategy game in the US/EU.

[@professorjobs2646]

I remember going to toys R us wanting to buy RotK 2, I took the ticket to the front and got my game, however, once I reached the car I realized I had bought RotK 3. I didn't even know there was a 3. Best game I ever played on SNES. 4 just didn't get it done for me. It seemed overly simple compared to 3. Get a bunch of catapults and 5 good generals and you could beat anyone. While I was only 14, it took me awhile to get decent at RotK 3. RotK 4 I beat in a couple days. It was way too easy to get to the META strategy.

[@goranisacson2502]

I never played these strategy games, too advanced for kid me even when I looked at emulation. But I did find the story of the tags in Toys'r'Us very interesting- I can't remember any such store back in the old days of THAT size, but it sounds very impressive to have experienced.

[@shepherdsgamingrun]

Definitely the 3rd and 4th. While the 4th has better graphics, it plays a bit slower because of all the graphic presentations and has the weird use of boulders, which gives the advantage heavily to defenders and makes it a long slog. The 3rd one is better balanced.

[@NachtKaiser666]

Oh yeah, that reminds me I have to check the Rot3K 8 remake that came out recently! While it's still a menu heavy strategy game, the original 8 had the ability to play as a regular officer or even a free agent, giving it a cool RPG twist that didn't necessarily involved uniting the country under your rule. As a free agent, you could spend the entire game farming in a village, ignoring all the political intrigues, or you could go around the country and recruit a bunch of capable officers to form a band or merry mercenaries, eventually overthrowing Cao Cao and uniting China under Emperor Shamoke 😂 Really night and day with the SNES games, but hey!

[@atoth62]

Oh neat. I remember playing the heck out of Rot3K 8 on the PS2. Out of the RoT3K games I've played, 7, 8 and 10, 8 was the best. Honestly they were all good, but I remember it was hard to get the good ending on 7, with very specific requirements to do so.

[@The16bithero]

I really love these "Which [games in this series] are worth playing today?" type of videos This series in particular, ooff, talk about niche

[@makenshao9886]

Selective reading is so real, I was hoping this would be about romancing saga 😂

[@donovanloreman]

These are my kind of games. Nothing like winning over Lu Bu early and letting him lead your armies to victory.

[@seanmaclean1341]

slowly turning SNESdrunk unto a grand strategy channel

[@vsoco4921]

I played so much of Wall of Fire when I was a kid. I played the sequel in Playstation, and even got a friend hooked to play with me - and the guy eventually destroyed me

[@Kaido_928]

The Amiga version's soundtrack was so good.

[@chriss3418]

YES!! I have been waiting for this one!

[@Hadriex]

I grew up on Koei games. I still consider Bandit Kings of Ancient China on the NES to be their best title.