Three Kingdoms Mushouden

I think that the setting of Three Kingdoms Mushouden is very cool, and the game certainly has some awesome ideas! However, I will warn you right off the bat, this is one of the hardest and most challenging games I have played this year. This is a strategy RPG, and it is one that is hard right from the start. If you love that kind of thing and relish a challenge, you are in for a damn fine time with this game. I found that the very cool setting and the various characters, along with the fantastic art, were more than enough to keep me interested.

Set At The Right Time!

The setting of the Three Kingdoms Mushouden is the Eve of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, or you may know it better as part of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms saga. One thing that is pretty neat is that the game allows you to follow the story of a real warlord and experience the story from their point of view. However, a nice twist is that you can play as an original character and explore a more personal and original story. They clearly have a great respect and knowledge for this part of history, so if you are a history buff, I am certain that this will be something you greatly appreciate.

Can You Please Say That Again?

While the premise, setting, and the whole Romance of the Three Kingdoms setting of Three Kingdoms Mushouden is awesome. I do have to be honest and say that the execution of this tale does need some work. The translation is a bit spotty. The thing is, I would say that the better part of ¾ of the story is fine, but you will get some sentences that make next to no sense, and this really took me out of the moment. While the game is hard, I found that these spikes in the translation made it harder for me to stay invested in what was going on. To be fair, I could get the gist of what they were trying to say after a while, but the times it was bad, it was pretty bad.

Take That!

Gameplay wise, Three Kingdoms Mushouden has you wandering around the map and getting into skirmishes along the way. You have warlords and units that will attack for you, and there are passive and active abilities that you can use. I found myself just spamming the hell out of my powerful abilities, just praying that I would survive long enough to use one again. This managed to get me through most of the smaller battles, but as you progress through the game, just like the real saga this is based on, battles get larger and larger, and my units were falling like flies, so I had a very hard time keeping on top of everything. While it was a bit overwhelming for me, I am sure that there will be many people who will relish this challenge.

Bringing History To Life

The game has a very cool top down high end pixel art style about it. In many ways, the presentation of Three Kingdoms Mushouden reminds me of stuff like Octopath Traveler. The landscapes and the characters have a lot of charm and personality to them, but I did find myself sometimes losing sight of people who were in my squad. The character portraits and the way that the story is told are very well done. I was super impressed with how this went down and thought that it was all very stylish. If you are into this time period and love this story in general, I am sure you will greatly appreciate what they have done here.

Pros:

• I thought that the setting was really neat
• They have some characters you may recognize
• You can even play as an original character
• The game looks very stylish

Cons:

• The translation made parts of the story very hard to follow
• I get that this is supposed to be hard, but some parts were more frustrating than fun