Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV: Diplomacy and Strategy Bundle

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy

Players: 1

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Review:

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is the latest in a long line of Turn-Based Strategy games that dates all the way back to the original release on Japanese PCs in 1985 and brought to the US on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. The series has come a long way since then, with the 14th entry in the series releasing on PC and PlayStation 4 in 2020, and coming to the Nintendo Switch a year later bundled with its Diplomacy and Strategy Pack expansion. However, with that extra content comes an extra-high price, with this game selling for a whopping $70 ($100 if you want the Digital Deluxe Edition). It bears mention that this is cheaper than buying the game and expansion separate on another platform, but it’s still galling that Nintendo Switch owners were denied the option.

For those unfamiliar with this series, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games are set in Imperial China during the Han dynasty, when various warring states struggled for power. Players will have the opportunity to command one of these states as they recruit various historical (and on occasion mythical) heroes, build up their resources, make deals with friendly neighbors, and conquer less-than-friendly neighbors.

And if you are new to this series, let me give you a warning: this game is dense. You will spend multiple hours in the tutorials alone just learning the ins and outs of running your kingdom, commanding your troops, and managing your resources. This is not a game that has any intention on making things easy or straightforward for newcomers, and while it is not totally inscrutable, it will take quite a commitment of time, attention, and memory to absorb everything that’s going on here, even more than most strategy games.

Simply requisitioning new troops requires players to appoint multiple officers into relevant positions to enlist and train troops, claiming cities within your province to conscript forces (and then assigning a governor to that city), conquering enough territory to ensure you have a sizable enough population to draw troops from, keeping track of your various resources to ensure you can afford the army… and all of those appointments and territory factors into the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts… and many of these steps aren’t instantaneous, actually requiring in-game time to see results.

Due to the depth of the game, this can make for extremely lengthy play sessions – completing just one of the game’s missions can take hours of work. If you’re looking for a massive Strategy game to waste your hours on, this game promises to offer a massive number of hours of enjoyment… if you’re the sort of person that can enjoy this sort of thing. However, many players, even Strategy game fans, may find this one tough to get into. It’s not like you’ll be challenging other players, either – as with other versions of the game, the Nintendo Switch version of this game is strictly single-player only.

On the topic of the port to Nintendo Switch, we should talk about this game’s presentation and performance. In short, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is not an especially-impressive game, save perhaps for its sense of scale, which lets you zoom in to see individual units on a battlefield or zoom out to see a more simplified view of all of China. However, this is far from seamless – at times, the game absolutely chugs on Nintendo Switch trying to keep up with you as you move your cursor around, and when you are zoomed close enough to see details like trees, you’ll also be close enough to see them pop in at an absurdly close distance. It’s frustrating that, despite that this is not a terribly visually-impressive game, it still runs quite poorly on Nintendo Switch.

That’s not to say that everything about this port is bad – this game actually makes very good use of the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen. However, even that comes with a caveat – in handheld mode, much of the text is pretty small, and buttons become difficult to press with precision. As much as this game promises to give players dozens or even hundreds of hours of enjoyment on the go, I just don’t think this port is very conducive to handheld play, even with the very good touchscreen controls.

Oh, and because I have to fit in my comments about the sound somewhere… it’s okay. You get Japanese-voiced characters (a bit odd for a game set entirely in China) who each only have brief utterances to match with the lengthy paragraphs of text, and the game is backed by a decent orchestral soundtrack that occasionally adds in Asian-influenced melodies but is mostly fairly generic “historical war epic”-sounding. Not bad, but nothing spectacular either.

Anyway, to sum up my feelings on this game… I feel like, no matter which way I look at Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV: Diplomacy and Strategy Bundle, I need to warn players about it. It has an absolutely massive amount of content… but you need to pay $70 to get the game on Nintendo Switch and don’t have the option to get that content separately. It has some incredibly deep and detailed strategy… but it’s so deep that even skilled Strategy game players may feel lost, and just trying to get through the tutorial is an ordeal. It has a great sense of scale… but terrible performance despite unimpressive graphics. It has touchscreen controls that are a wonderful addition to the game… but playing in handheld mode also means dealing with the game’s tiny text on the small screen. The result is a game that will absolutely still be enjoyed by a small subset of Strategy game fans… but one that most are better off avoiding.

tl;dr – Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is a Turn-Based Strategy game set in China’s Han dynasty, where players try to guide a province to victory. This game is incredibly deep and detailed, but that detail is so involved that only a small fraction of Strategy game players will be able to fully appreciate it. To make matters worse, this game’s performance on Nintendo Switch is terrible, the text is a pain to read in handheld mode, and players still interested in the game only have the choice to shell out $70 for this “bundle” (well, or an even pricier $100 bundle) rather than just buying the base game on its own. In the end, I am positive that some diehard Strategy game fans will absolutely love this release, but most are better off skipping it.

Grade: C-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Worst Port/Remake

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