Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV Review for PS4

Modern releases often have the issue of spreading themselves too thin. Many like to keep the gameplay and story simple to understand so that as many people as possible can enjoy their IP. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV by Koei Tecmo America knows how to tackle a niche and expand on that appeal to its maximum possibility

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV Review for PS4

In January of 2020, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV was ported to PS4. The series first released in 1985 and has had a steady stream of sequels ever since. The series is a tactical turn-based roleplaying game similar to the likes of Sid Meyer’s Civilization. One of the ways it distinguishes itself, however, is that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is entirely focused on the Han Dynasty era of historical China. This distinction makes the gameplay focus less on the progression of technology and ages that are associated with Civ, but more on the social hierarchical relations from that time.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV knows it has a complex game and gives you an extensive tutorial right as you load it up. It does well to cover the basics of how to explore the game and its extensive mechanics. As a new player to both the series and the genre, it took me a bit over two hours to complete the tutorial missions. There is an incredibly high amount of content to cover. There is resource gathering with your subordinates and ways to upgrade your resource gathering. There are area and city politics and economic management systems for both. There are public relations mechanics in your own territories as well as politics with foreign powers.

Armies are a resource to manage and they can be upgraded and customized for different situations. Commanders of armies will affect how the forces are utilized and how well they are utilized. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV simulates just about everything you might want from an historical, tactical conquesting simulator. But just as these are strengths, those very same appeals will be the factors that turn certain players away.

It is terribly easy for a new player like myself to get lost in the massive amounts of information. Even during the tutorials, there are numbers and UI’s that dot the screen, with some of them not even being touched on during basic gameplay. What doesn’t help is that unless you do outside preparation, the gameplay can be very unintuitive. On easy difficulty, unless you take the game very seriously, it is normal to be promptly defeated by the AI. This difficulty is amplified by the clunky controls from a console port. You can tell immediately when playing that it would be more convenient to play on PC.

These issues are very apparent. But they are mostly issues inherent to a game that deeply commits to its niche. Players that are big fans of historical or strategic political games will be deeply captivated by Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV. I, myself, am not a usual fan of the genre but found myself impressed by the clear complexity it offers. It is for these reasons I rate Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV:

7/10.

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