KOEI, anyone?

Comrade Tribune · January 20, 2002, 01:23

I think they made some of the greatest games, ever.

So sad they produce no more PC games in English.

Anybody else who thinks that Genghis Khan I/II and some other KOEI games were brilliant?

Urban Ranger · January 20, 2002, 07:19

I played Romance of the Three Kingdom. The first version was very good, with a simple elegance to it. Then it just got too complicated.

General Ludd · January 20, 2002, 10:44

Areobiz Supersonic and Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, for the SNES are my favorite KOEI games. There are probably others that I liked which I don't remember, though.

I still play them on an emulator.

Comrade Tribune · January 20, 2002, 19:32

Most KOEI games were created by Kou Shibusawa; he is my all time favourite game designer!

I played quite a number of his Dos games; so sad he never made a game for Windows.

The guy did so many original things no one else thought of. Personnel Management; a limited number of actions per turn; Genghis KhanII had *three* different levels of play: Empire level for Personnel and Resource management, Diplomacy and Army building; Province level for Military operations; Tactical level for the actual battles. No one else ever did this!

Even ImperialismII skipped Operations: You went directly from the World Map to the Battle Map. CtP and EU series: You can only watch the battles, without giving orders. CivIII: Grrrrrr!

I really wish Kou Shibusawa had designed CivIII. Btw, there is a page dedicated to his classics: You can even download them. http://www.theunderdogs.org/company.php?name=KOEI

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 01:03

I picked up a good few of these a few years ago in a compilation called Wargame Classics or somesuch. Very good although they struck me as more of those "easy to play - hard to master" types with a steep learning curve.

Comrade Tribune · January 21, 2002, 01:49

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
...they struck me as more of those "easy to play - hard to master" types with a steep learning curve.

Heh; precisely the kind of game I´d like to create myself.

ravagon · January 21, 2002, 03:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune

Heh; precisely the kind of game I´d like to create myself.

Ditto - but unfortunately getting a dozen or more at once with similar curves was a little too much for me

- Nowhere near enough time to use each to its fullest extent. An embarrasment of riches so to speak.
Unlike many today which have exactly the opposite. Flashy gimicks, 10-minute learning curve and near-zero replayability

Ah, for the good old days...

Comrade Tribune · January 21, 2002, 17:33

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon

Ah, for the good old days...

All my sentiment. (Except for interfaces, which were a bit awkward in the good old days.

)

Dark Sheer · January 23, 2002, 03:11

KOEI is one of the best and still is until today

And when you play some of the KOEI games they are really stick very closely to what really happen historically. I used to play their original japanese version of the games such as Nobunaga's Ambitions.

What I would suggest you do is go to the nearest bookshop and pick up a copy of Japanese/English dictionary and then look for some of KOEI's great games in original japanese version. (Well, that is what I do, being a hardcore KOEI fan

) I even managed to pick up lots of japanese language from there.

korn469 · January 23, 2002, 04:28

Comrade Tribune

if you are referring to Genghis Khan II for the SNES it was fundamentally flawed at the tactical level which totally destroyed the entire game

the problem was as long as a unit wasn't destroyed it would return to full health in the next attack, so a small force of mongols was virtually invinciable and the game was basically broken because of this

Another poor choice in GK2 was that if you killed the leader of a nation the nation wouldn't fall apart, and because of this territories soon consolidated into super states, this is very disappointing because of the revolts and disintergration of empires it made internal discontent a real enemy of a conquer and the chaos helped make for interesting games, unlike in GK2 where there wasn't any going back from consolidation

however the first Genghis Khan is (i'm referring to the NES) probably is about as close to perfection a strategy game has ever came in my opinion

i would LOVE to see an updated version of it, even just a gold version with better graphics, made for windows etc

Comrade Tribune · January 24, 2002, 17:53

I think the gameplay of GKI plus the additional units/features and better graphics of GKII would closely approximate perfection, indeed!

Insofar as applicable to a Civgame, the two GKs are the starting point for my own design!

Urban Ranger · January 25, 2002, 00:00

Quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Genghis KhanII had *three* different levels of play: Empire level for Personnel and Resource management, Diplomacy and Army building; Province level for Military operations; Tactical level for the actual battles. No one else ever did this

My take on this is: that's too complex. Gornards might get a kick out of it, but not newbies.

It's always a tradeoff when a game is designed. Clearly, it can always made to as realistic (read: complicated) as possible, though that's not the hallmark of a great designer.

I always go by the motto:

A design is perfect not when you cannot put anything in, but cannot take anything out

It's always way harder to achieve simple elegance than a high degree of complexity.

Comrade Tribune · January 25, 2002, 14:06

Heh heh; my game is for the Grognards.

Cookie Monster · January 25, 2002, 15:48

I still have just about every game Koei published in the USA! I'm talking NES and SNES. Does anyone remember that Napoleon game for NES? I forget the name but that was a great one.

Anyway Koei was the only reason why I bought Nintendo. When N64 came out I bought it thinking that Koei would produce monster titles for this system. It never happened and I have never played a console game since. I stick solely to PC. Notice how Nintendo is not the number one console anymore? Funny how when Koei stopped producing games for Nintendo they went downhill.

PTO2 was my favourite game. I know that there is a PTO3 in Japan. There are no plans to bring it to the states and that's too bad (for just me I guess) because I want more Koei games!

Oh well back to Civ3.......

Comrade Tribune · January 26, 2002, 07:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Haupt. Dietrich
Does anyone remember that Napoleon game for NES? I forget the name but that was a great one.

L´Empereur! I had the PC version. But I have heard the NES version of some of their games was even better.

Cookie Monster · January 28, 2002, 08:51

Quote:

L´Empereur! I had the PC version. But I have heard the NES version of some of their games was even better.

Ah yes L'Empereur! That was a great game! I've never played the PC version so don't know how it looks. I agree that some of the NES/SNES versions of their games were better. I have the PC and console versions of RTK3 and 4. It seems like it is easier to play on the console. But nonetheless Koei made excellent games and wish they would come out with more!

Dark Sheer · January 28, 2002, 10:37

Hmmm...I thought one of the reason KOEI no longer make its new title into english version is because they don't sell so good in US and Europe

But from the discussion here it doesn't seems to be the case

I used to get some of the english title but since they are no longer available I am sticking to both Chinese (those Chinese historical ones like RTK series) and Japanese (Nobunaga, Daiko series).

In fact I just bought RTK8 on the same day as Civ3 and it is still not open

pg · January 30, 2002, 05:47

i use zsnes to play old koei games. my personal favorite is rotk2. it's simple yet pretty deep. genghis khan2 is really cool too(even with it's bugs/broken gameplay). aerobiz supersonic is really good especially in multiplayer. the other ones i really could never get interested in. they were just too complex or required too much thought.

i also like how the battles are done on a different map.

i prefer games with simple rules that allow for maximum flexibility in your decisions.