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Romance of the Three Kingdoms (RT3K) is a sprawling strategy series that has changed immensely over the four decades of entries Koei, now Koei Tecmo, has released since 1985. For its vast panoply of characters and broad gameplay where you focus on a single person as your own avatar, 2001’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 is particularly fondly remembered not just in the series stronghold of East Asia but in the West because it got a proper release on PlayStation. The recently released remake of RT3K 8, however, is catching fan flak for being less of a remaster that respects the original and more of a remake that tries to bring in elements from the series’ more recent releases.
“This is dumbed down version,” reads one of the top positive Steam reviews. “Perhaps its easier for new players to enter into this genre.”
Which could just as easily be a line from a negative review, couldn’t it? With 1,675 user reviews on Steam at press time, just 48% of them are positive. Fans are especially willing to criticize where it’s limited and repetitive compared to the original release of RT3K 8: One of the biggest complaints is the restrictive system by which in-game events, called Tales, happen. Comparisons to repetitive second and third playthroughs of a visual novel abound, a brutal condemnation for a series where variety of replays in differing starting scenarios is a key feature.
The game’s AI is also taking a shellacking for being passive. That’s nothing new for strategy gamers, who usually put up with lackluster AI as a genre staple, except when it’s bad at its own game in a revised format players are already calling dumbed down. Players feel like they traded the nuanced complexity of the original for… nada, really, and a passive AI is no good in a game people enjoy roleplaying in as the sandbox throws surprises at them. It’s not a great outlook for future remakes and remasters of a series that has a long history lots of people would probably enjoy digging into and that stands on the precipice of winning more western fans as Steam releases open it up to the greater PC gaming world.
This kind of controversy is nothing new for the series, and there are surely die-hard fans of any one of its game styles from over the past four decades. Just go look at reviews for the last couple entries for a great example: 2016’s RT3K 13 is much-liked, but 2020’s RT3K 14 got panned pretty hard by reviewers—including here on PC Gamer—leading most comparisons of the RT3K 8 remake to compare it to… 13, the last “good” entry, rather than the most recent one.
You can find Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake on Koei Tecmo’s website and on Steam.
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Kurt Indovina
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