Was Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms Worth It?

This retro-style RPG takes you on a quest through a war-torn period of ancient China. Was Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms worth it?

Full disclosure: We received a review code for the Nintendo Switch version of this game. Rest assured that this will not affect the quality or candor of our review.

A variety of character art, assets, and information can be found on the game’s official website, and you can see their other products at the developer’s homepage.

Background

Time for the briefest of history lessons: China was in turmoil in the late first century A.D. Several warlords would rise to power and vie for control of the land, leading to the Three Kingdoms period. There are a lot of adaptations of the source material, but Westerners like myself are likely most familiar with Koei Tecmo’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy titles, Dynasty Warriors, or the anime/manga franchise Ikki Tousen.

This is relevant because the events in this game loosely follow the big historical events. If you’ve read Luo Guanzhong’s account, or if you’re familiar with the saga, then you’ll get a lot more out of this game. Otherwise, the large cast of characters and their relationships can be overwhelming.

What does Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms do well?

The character art is good, and the sprite work is nice.

If the music sounds familiar, it’s because the composer worked on titles like Final Fight, and Megaman 3. The sound design consistently shines through. There’s also a large number of characters (took a cue from Suikoden, apparently) who have a variety of weapons and spells to differentiate them.

What could Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms do better?

The single biggest issue is the battle system. You’re on a grid, but can’t actually control your movements. Characters move in predetermined paths toward an enemy. Your options are to move forward or backward (often in an undesirable direction). You’ll waste a lot of turns trying to reposition your characters, especially since they can’t move through each other.

This results in battles that take too long, especially when the random encounter rate is so high. I absolutely must recommend that you buy the black amulet item when it becomes available.

The game never felt difficult per se, but there is very little feeling of progress. Your character’s stats (aside from HP/MP) increase very sparingly, if at all, so what was an easy kill on an enemy with 200-300 HP becomes a slog against a grunt with 500 HP. It does get better once you get the AoE spells, but it’s rough going for a while.

The English translation could have used some care. I assume it was machine translated, because the dialogue is weird in a lot of places. Skills presumably correlate to idioms or terms that don’t translate seamlessly to English. It’s jarring to see character abilities that make no sense, like “Single Family”, but then you’ll see a character shout “Can you handle this phantasmagoric scheme?” in battle.

Was Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms fun?

Working your way through the big battles of the period can be exciting. As someone familiar with the source material, I was consistently looking forward to seeing how famous characters would be portrayed, and I was excited to participate in some of the campaigns.

Who is this game for?

This game is for retro RPG enthusiasts who have at least a working knowledge of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I mentioned Suikoden earlier; think of this as a stripped-down version.

Is Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms good value?

This game is at the very crowded 14.99 price point. It’s an interesting game, and it’s clear that it was made with a lot of love, but it’s going to have a hard time standing out against more mainstream titles at this price.

Was Twin Blades of the Three Kingdoms worth it?

It’s a cute throwback RPG with good chiptunes. Fans of Romance of the Three Kingdoms will find this title interesting, but I would recommend waiting for a discount.

This game is also available on the JP eShop for 1480 yen, and it has English listed as a supported language, so keep that in mind if you’re waiting for a sale.

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