My previous experience of Koei products extends as far as the Dynasty Warriors series, which consists of some of the most simple and repetitive games I have ever encountered. Despite this, they are some of the most fun too! I'm sure that says something about me - but who doesn't love hacking their way through thousands of troops who can barely hurt you, using just X, Y and occasionally B?

As the roman numerals in the title suggest, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series has been going a lot longer than the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors; a little research reveals that it goes as far back as the days of the Commodore Amiga Regardless of RTK's extensive history, this was my first experience of any of the games - and my first observation is that it's nothing like Dynasty Warriors whatsoever, other than being set in the same era and having the same characters.

RTK is based on the classic, and very long, Chinese novel of the same name. You are dropped into the late Second Century as the Han Dynasty collapses and the game spans pretty much the entirety of the book, stitched together with various cut scenes that don't seem to come along that often, given the length of time covered. The artwork and style of China in this period of time is captured superbly in the game (the screenshots don't really do the art justice), as well as having one of the best intro videos I've seen for a long time, not in terms of graphical supremacy but rather sublime stylishness.

The game itself is certainly not for the faint of heart and is quite frankly huge in pretty much every possible way; even the tutorial feels like it could be a campaign in itself. A lot of the time I will admit to skipping past tutorials, but completing the tutorial in RTK, especially for a first-timer like myself, is more of a necessity than an option. Yet this is only covers the basics; a fair proportion of the mechanics are left to the documentation that occurs during the game, which isn't overly helpful.

When you actually start one of the campaigns you assume the role of a Warlord for the faction that you opt to play as. Each of the Warlords you can select are different and are rated against different abilities that can affect numerous things including how they fight, build, raise and train forces, and govern, with ratings for politics, intelligence, leadership, temperament and so on and so forth (getting an idea for how big the game is yet?). With your leader and faction selected, you set about achieving your objective, which is to control all of the cities and provinces in China. To make even a few in-roads into the sizable task that is the campaign, you have to be aware of numerous things such as city building, morale, training, strategy, food, social order, traps, deceit, finances, trade and many other things that I won't include to save making an overly long list. Suffice to say, there's a huge range of factors that you'll need to take into account if you want to avoid seeing your cities and best-laid plans crumble around you.

Needless to say, RTK is a tremendously deep and complex game that will take quite a while to get into, even if you're a fan of the genre (those who've played the previous incarnations of RTK excluded), so naturally it's most definitely not for everyone. However, if you can prepare your brain for some hard work that doesn't involve shooting someone in the face (for a change), there's a good chance you will grow to like RTK and the emotional pull that comes with it. I certainly did, and it became almost personal when things happened, like one of my generals defecting to the opposing army.

Taking away the fact this is going to be appealing to a very specific audience, there really isn't too much to fault in RTK in terms of what it's trying to be and trying to do. My main issue with the game is its repetitiveness. The campaigns are so extensive that they take a while to really get into and ingest the huge amount of content - a long break may well be required before embarking on another campaign that's pretty much the same as the one you've just completed. I don't think the interface is as good as it could be either; to carry out certain tasks such as recruiting men takes about four clicks of the mouse, when in all fairness it should probably only need to take two. It's nothing major, but it does make the game a little less friendly to play.

To add a bit of a change of pace to the game there are two mini-games to experience during the campaign. The first is duelling, where you can challenge another general. The idea is to pick a stance, build up your power and attempt to knock your rival off his horse. Duelling can also serve as another aspect to your strategy, because constantly challenging a cowardly general who is going to refuse the contest will sap the morale and will to fight of the troops he commands. The other mini-game is debating and you'll be doing far more of this. Debating plays like a card game with different leading suits and chances to shuffle your deck. While both are nothing substantial in their own right, the distraction from the main game is welcome.

To complement the crisp graphics, the audio is of equally high quality, capturing the feel of period effectively, even if it can become repetitive after a while. The rest of the sound effects add nicely to the battles and the game in general without any fault. I mentioned briefly earlier how the artwork and graphics are quite sublime and I feel it deserves another mention; it's certainly a unique style of art and giving each character their own illustrations and history is a nice touch.

If you can overcome the daunting task of getting into Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI, as well as ingesting all the finer points, then you could really grow to love it. This game is pure strategy and should appeal to those with a definite interest in the genre. As I've already stated, it's not for everyone, but as far as turn-based strategies go, RTK is up there with the best of them.

Reviewed by Tom Selwyn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).