Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny

Romance of the Three Kingdoms III

The non-combat interface
Developer(s) Koei
Publisher(s) Koei
Series Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Platform(s) MS-DOS, PC9801, Sharp X68000, FM Towns, PC-Engine, Super NES, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Mega-CD, PlayStation, Windows 95
Release date(s)
  • JP 5 February 1992 (PC-98)
  • JP 8 November 1992 (SNES, Mega Drive)
  • JP 5 February 1993 (Mega-CD)
  • JP 1 October 1993 (PC Engine Super CD-ROM)
  • JP 22 February 2001 (PS)
  • JP 8 June 2001 (Windows 95)
  • NA 4 February 1993 (Genesis)
Genre(s) Turn-based strategy
Mode(s) Single Player, Multi Player
Distribution 3.5 inch floppy (PC-98, MS-DOS), 5.25 inch floppy (X68000), 1 CD (Windows, PlayStation, Mega-CD, PC Engine)

Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny is the third in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series of turn-based strategy games produced by Koei and based on the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This version was released in Asia and North America for the PC, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Mega Drive/Genesis.

Gameplay

Upon starting the game, players choose from one of six scenarios that determine the initial layout of power in ancient China. The scenarios loosely depict allegiances and territories controlled by the warlords as according to the novel, although gameplay does not follow events in the novel after the game begins.

The six scenarios and the warlords present in each are listed as follows:

  1. Dong Zhuo's reign of terror (AD 189)
  2. Warlords struggle for power (AD 194)
  3. Liu Bei seeks shelter in Xinye (AD 201)
  4. Emergence of the Crouching Dragon (AD 208)
  5. Rise of the Three Kingdoms (AD 221)
  6. Jiang Wei inherits Kongming's legacy (AD 235)

The PC-Engine CD-ROM version includes an additional scenario:

After choosing the scenario, players determine which warlord(s) they will control. Custom characters may be inserted into territories unoccupied by other forces. A total of 46 different provinces exist, as well as hundreds of unique characters. Each character has several statistics: War Ability, Intelligence, Politics, Charisma, Army Command, Naval Command.

The player wins the game by conquering all territories in China. This is accomplished by being in control of every province on the map.

External links