Niahak's Place

UFO 50 is a compilation game with a “found collection” aesthetic. Although it’s not quite exactly NES in terms of capabilities/music, it’s close. Most games have some indie sensibilities, so it doesn’t feel exactly like a found collection, but more along the lines of “what your nostalgia told you games were like”. I’ve enjoyed playing it over the past few months, and although I don’t feel I’ve given every game a fair shake, I’m down to about 5 or so that I want to dig into deeper. Each game has multiple different completion options: Item (typically an hour or two into the game), Gold (think of as “beaten”), Cherry (completed a “challenge”).

I wanted to write up some quick (or not quick, in the case of Avianos) impressions to give some idea of the flavor of games in the collection I felt particularly stand out. Since there are so many of them, and this order represents the (roughly, as it’s from memory) chronological order, I decided to split this post into several to keep things straight.

For decades now, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series has been a gaming comfort food for me. Its more traditional, ruler-focused entries are relatively simple grand strategy games. Complexity comes from the vast supporting cast of history, with even the earliest games having hundreds of officers. Koei assigns various stats to officers based on what they did either in the novel or in historical documents (typically splitting the difference a bit where they disagree). This typically means that, like the Paradox grand strategy games, there is a massive set of playable options with varying degrees of difficulty. The player can either try and role-play or break the mold of history from the start.

In 2000, Koei released Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII. This was the first entry to allow playing as a subordinate (or free) officer, allowing you to influence things as a “bit player”, more like a Crusader Kings count under a duke. The RTK officer play entries involve take a more restrictive, but also more focused view than Crusader Kings – while intrigue can happen, it’s not as much the focus beyond officer rebellion/recruitment. As a subordinate officer, you receive monthly goals set by your governor. You can also play as an advisor, governor, or viceroy (commanding your own sub-force although still not able to do your own diplomacy). Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII came out a year later, with more focus on inter-officer relationships (marriage and sworn siblings in particular). Although I personally favor VII of the two, VIII is one of the more popular entries in the series and thus got recently remade.