On the subject of senseless beat ’em up motion specializing in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Musou video games have lengthy been the one present on the town. However Kunio-kun and his associates are again with a themed journey to supply one other angle to the historic carnage. It’s been fairly a while since a correct Kunio-kun recreation was launched, which was both River Metropolis Ransom: Underground or River Metropolis: Tokyo Rumble, relying on how you are feeling about these. River Metropolis Saga: Three Kingdoms has all the basic components of the collection, albeit with a distinct setting, however the query stands: is River Metropolis Saga: Three Kingdoms price it?
The sport begins with a quick introduction to the setting. It begins off with Guan Yu (who seems to be and acts like Kunio-kun) in his village. However the Yellow Turban Rise up casts a shadow on the countryside. Guan Yu instantly runs into Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, inflicting the three to enter the village and change into sworn brothers beneath some peach timber. Clearly, River Metropolis Saga: Three Kingdoms focuses on a Shu kingdom story. The sport is split into six chapters, with the primary specializing in preventing again towards the Yellow Turbans, whereas the subsequent one has the heroes going up towards the villainous Dong Zhuo, which additionally introduces Cao Cao. You already know the place that is going.
That is well-worn territory for followers of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, however the execution is cute right here. The characters are all Kunio-kun characters principally dressed up as Romance of the Three Kingdoms ones. Much less essential characters with acquainted faces pop up all through the story as effectively. Every chapter can simply take a few hours relying on in case you do sidequests and in case you really feel like grinding, so there’s quantity of content material right here, though that’s par for the course for the collection. The environments are a mix of 2D and 3D components, with all the characters being 16-bit sprites. It’s charming, if somewhat jarring at occasions.
Kick and kick once more
The world of River Metropolis Saga: Three Kingdoms is surprisingly giant, as you maneuver your character by means of a bunch of interconnected cities and roads. You may pay a small price to quick journey to any main location that you just’ve been to, which is effectively price it contemplating all of the operating round you’ll be doing. Enemies spawn on the roads and drop cash and expertise, making it price it to repeatedly get into scraps.
The fight, whereas strong, shouldn’t be all that nice in comparison with different beat-em-ups, nevertheless. As a substitute of being skill-based, it revolves round stats. Enemies roam in teams and have the identical normal motion guidelines because the participant. That signifies that everybody punches, kicks, blocks, and will get stunlocked each time they’re hit. Critically, you simply get stunlocked always, to the purpose the place I solely approached enemies through jump-kick. When you accrue sufficient expertise, you stage up and achieve 5 stat factors to allocate to numerous talents, reminiscent of punch, kick, throw, protection, and weapon assaults. But it surely’s preferable to choose one and pump stats into that with the intention to keep threatening to your foes.
You’ll use cash to buy new armor, therapeutic gadgets, and particular assaults, however many of the particular assaults make it so to’t use your default strike, which is awkward. It led to me largely sticking with a particular assault that I received early on. You’ll additionally get tremendous assaults and ways assaults, the primary of which calls fireplace arrows down in your foes. River Metropolis Saga: Three Kingdoms is fairly good and has loads to see and do in comparison with different video games within the style, but it surely’s additionally missing when it comes to gameplay. For those who’re a fan of the collection or the thought of wandering China and beating up thugs is interesting, then the sport is actually price it. Simply be ready for some archaic gameplay components.