As a long-time devotee of this fabulous series, picking it up was a foregone conclusion. And, as is common with Koei's strategy releases, I wasn't disappointed. Not at first, anyway. The gameplay is another interesting expedition into that insanely complicated micromanagement that fans of the line have come to know and love. Nothing particularly innovative or revolutionary, though this installment does incorporate several new features that weren't around for the previous games. Officer management is a bit more detailed, combat has a few more options, and there are an impressive number of plot-related cut scenes that pertain to the classic work of literature upon which this series is based. The most outstanding aspect, similar to, but vastly improved from its incarnation in ROTK VII, is the freedom you have when setting up your character's path. You're no longer obligated to become a ruler of a massive tract of land, nor even an advisor to one. ROTK VIII allows you the mobility to do pretty much whatever you want, responsibility-wise, including striking out alone and forming up a raider band to pillage every province you traverse. VIII also allows you to control up to eight different officers, many combinations of which are required to view some of the game's hidden cutscenes. But I mentioned a mild sense of disappointment earlier. That disappointment really has nothing to do with the game's features, but rather with what we were cheated out of with the NA release. Upon doing some investigation, I came to discover that (as usual) the Asian release of this game was vastly superior to the North American release. Agonizingly so. When reading about all of the features that were snipped or dumbed down for us westerners, it really devastated my opinion of the game. And of Koei in general. As the US never recieved a PC release for this game (an ROTK game hasn't seen a PC release stateside since #3), the possibility for the 'true version' is virtually nil. It is an unfailing mystery to me why Koei doesn't just start releasing these games on PC over here. The target audience is obviously a PC crowd and there's just so much more they could -do- with a PC platform. Alas, until such time, it looks like we're stuck with watered-down ROTK VIII Lite. Still, if you can overlook how badly we were cheated in the release, its still a darned fine game to play and play and play.
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