Saturday, June 5, 2010

Romance of the Three Kingdoms II (#6)



My day started by dragging my sick ass out of bed for a long day of work. I had slept the previous 31 out of 35 hours after getting some kind of flu/fever combination and after about 30 minutes at work I threw in the towel and called someone in to cover me. I had the cold sweats and my valiant attempt at fighting them off ended with me right back in that bed, searching for the one spot I felt comfortable in.

By afternoon the fever was gone and even the aches and pains started to abate. I had to pick up the kids at a house I had never been to before (friend's birthday party), so I was trying to gather the energy to get up and shower. I made it through the shower without getting dizzy and picked the kids up without incident (though the parents at the party probably thought I was a zombie dad, as I weaved through the kids to gather my own and hustled them out rather quickly).

The wife gets home a bit later and tells me the kids are having friends over for the night and if I want to go to my mom's or something to escape the bedlam, it might be a good idea. *Click* "How 'bout I just shut myself up in my den and you all pretend I'm not home?" Somehow this logic worked with the wife and I figured I would finally have a solid chunk of time to knock off one of my 6 remaining games.

Good ol' Rey had posted some codes for Romance of the Three Kingdoms II at thegshi.org recently, so I might as well go after that one. I had no idea how long my energy would last and I assumed that at the first sign of game failure I would just slink into the bedroom and get another 15 hours of sleep before work tomorrow.

2 hours (and a shitload of rice codes) later, Romance II finds it's way off the "Games Left To Beat" list. I'd love to say I beat this game fair and square, but since most people now view my quest as null and void since I have used cheat codes and emulators to beat games over the last several years, my goal now is to just fight my way to the ending by any means necessary. There are now only 5 US released NES games that I have not seen the endings to.

Gemfire
Miracle Piano Teaching System
Nobunaga's Ambition II
Silent Service
Uncharted Waters


A few months ago, Koei was my worst enemy. Now with 3 of the Koei games off the list, the remaining 3 actually seem friendly compared to the Miracle Piano gorilla and that pesky little submarine game. It's too bad Konami/Ultra decided to put a sub simulator out for the NES, rather than a cool sub game, like that one for the Sega Master System. Oh well.


I'm glad your journey is over friend. Mine still continues on....

3 comments:

  1. Nice. Good to see you're feeling better. Try Nobunaga 2 next. It's not hard, but a bit time consuming.

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  2. I remember seeing the ending to this years ago when my father beat it. I remember the ending actually being pretty good as far as Koei games go.

    Despite the improvements the sequel made over the original, my dad always seemed to prefer Romance of the Three Kingdoms over the second one. One factor I remember was him having a harder time seeing the smaller battlefields. I can understand why Koei used those in their later games, as you'll remember that the Nes didn't exactly have an easy time loading the huge battlefields of the first game and Genghis Khan.

    The game did seem a little easier to get into than the first though. My brother actually got into it at one point, but unfortunately when he was halfway through conquering China, he just lost interest. One of these days when I stop being lazy and actually try to beat one of the Koei games legitimately, Romance of the Three Kingdoms II seems like a good candidate.

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  3. RoTK2 is the best candidate, aside from the most recent ones (RoTK8 and 10 especially) which are naturally more user-friendly by way of improved technology and changing tastes.

    Adam, I'd say you should put Uncharted Waters in the middle of your list as a break between the dense strategy games and That Piano Game. It doesn't really matter which of the other Koei games you play first, though having played through RoTK2 you'll probably be more used to the mechanics of Nobunaga's Ambition II.

    Rob

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