They were absolutely cranking these out during the 8 and 16bit eras. Are they slop? Hidden gems? Somewhere in between? And are they still fondly remembered in Japan?
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Koei Strategy Games
I find them incomprehensible, like I need to take a 3 week course to figure out how to play them
Absolutely need the manual to play these. The console versions are a bit easier to deal with in general.
As someone who has played quite a few KOEI games I say they are definitely an acquired taste and since they have a lot of details and intricate mechanics more often than not, it might take a while to learn how to play some of them which turns a lot of people away from them. Many of their games were meant to be played with manuals.
Props to being the only guy talking about the games eight replies in.
>Props to being the only guy talking about the games eight replies in.
Thanks for the heads up lol I had to go to warosu to see the original thread
They do seem to be very well known in Japan, the fact that it got so many titles is telling enough
What are the best ones?
Not that old but RotTK XI is amazing
Nobunaga’s Ambition on Sega Genesis has the best simplified gameplay of any Nobunaga game available in English. It looks better than the SNES and NES versions too. The menus also have transparency (that the SNES lacks) and that helps when you’re trying to manage prefectures while trying to remember which is which on the map cuz you’ll see the map through said menu. It’s just fun!
I’ve tried most of the other English language Nobunaga games but they get really complicated for later ones or just aren’t as fun. I really, really want to play the one not brought to the US but I’m not going to suffer through screen grab machine translations and learning moon runes is not possible (at least for a gaijin like me).
And the Aerobiz series on Genesis (and SNES) is fun too.
Special mention goes out to Heir of Zendor for the Saturn. It’s dogshit and I’m not joking. Not all of their games are great and this one is especially bad.
No, I’ve never gotten into the Romance of the Three kingdoms games because they baffle my brain with the amount of micro managing that’s necessary BEFORE you can even start the game. They look like fun though but I’m just a gweilo without the necessary patience.
Genghis Khan II for the Genesis is hilariously good with a friend in two player mode. You can even have a son with a concubine and keep playing as him when your character dies. Nobunaga’s Ambition should have had this option.
Other than those aforementioned titles, I can only wish that some nice people would translate the later Koei games! I want to play them.
There's a partial translation for Genghis Khan 4 if you are interested
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1169
Looks neat and I'll check it out. thanks!
No problem. Aerobiz 96 (Air Management in Japan) also got a translation patch. The NES port of Ishin No Arashi (where you play as Ryouma) was also translated into a playable state.
>Aerobiz 96 (Air Management in Japan) also got a translation patch
The video game gods smile upon us to provide such a wonderful and goofy business game! I'm amazed at the hilariously fun games KOEI made during this era.
>Heir of Zendor
HOLY FRICK. This was one of three games I had for Saturn, along with Croc and Nights. This was the primary reason I was convinced the Saturn was a shit system for so long. Thank you for reminding me of the name.
It’s mind boggling to think you had (or only had for some time) those three games. I paid $30 in the late 90s for a Saturn with Gungriffon and then went out and bought an imported and new copy of SoTN for either $60 or $80 back then. Then came Metal Slug with the 4mb cart. It was a truly amazing experience to finally get a mostly accurate arcade game port for a home console. It was far more difficult to find Saturn games back then but the prices are ridiculous nowadays in contrast.
I’m japanese so I hope I can give some valuable input
>They were absolutely cranking these out during the 8 and 16bit eras. Are they slop? Hidden gems? Somewhere in between?
I would say in between for me, but in itself they were good strategy games.
>And are they still fondly remembered in Japan?
They’re remembered fondly because it got a hardcore niche following. By hardcore I don’t mean the game but the loyalty of the fans because very few made historical strategy games set in Asia. It also was one of the most pirated games and imported takes outside of Japan within Asia. This series is the very reason Koei got so rich back then and ended up buying Tecmo. I know someone here is going to say it’s a merger but no, it’s an acquisition. In the same vein when Sega got acquired by Sammy and became SS
the only one remotely playable is Gemfire.
I like them. I'm currently playing NA Awakening, but I like the old ones as they are less stressful and more simple to play. At the same time they're also more punishing. I usually starve in the Gameboy version.
I have an interrupted playthrough of Genghis Khan 2 (very cool game) and want to try Aerobiz (seems cozy). Too bad their other business sim never got localized. Uncharted Waters is a great open ended RPG.
Did you know that some of their games like ROTK1/2 got releases on Amiga and have mouse support? Pretty cool.
I honestly find it sort of crazy, that in an era where only the most accessible and guaranteed seller RPGs were localized, that all these fricking dense and incomprehensible strategy games got English translations.
THAT is what is strange to me, I don’t know a single person growing up who played these, they were already niche in Japan, but they kept localizing them.
My uncle had a game on his shelf, can't recall the title and never saw him play it but I recognize that art.
I tried Kessen but got confused.
A buddy of mine gave me a box of SNES games that belonged to his mother's new husband a few years back. Among them were all the Star Trek games, a handful of RPGs (including the Final Fantasies and Earthbound!), and all the Koei strategy games. So I'm guessing it was just older guys who played them.
My sister and I rented Genghis Khan for NES and enjoyed it, although we weren't good at it. I would later (at age 19 or so) try to actually win a war in it on an emulator. I succeeded. It was fun, though the game becomes a slog after a while as is normal for this genre.
The appeal of these games is in the presentation was something that made three kings fail, good gameplay but poor presentation.
how do the pc engine versions compare? they're the other 16-bit console, but not ever discussed
The Pc Engine CD? They're in Japanese so it's tough to imagine anyone would even play them when there are English versions.
A lot of people don't like it, but I enjoyed Inindo:Way of the Ninja a lot. Had the same overarching Nobunaga stuff going on, as well as party/army management when you're invading castles and an economy system, but the primary game is a very FFIV-style JRPG. It's not a great game, but it's a unique game, and certain people might really enjoy it.
>Are they slop
Stop using this term, or at the very least, stop abusing it.
"Slop" is a very specific niche of games. Shit like Friday the 13th comes to mind, not niche genre titles with limited appeal. More like dogshit that was designed to cash in on popular brand names or instantly grab someone's attention with poorly or quickly developed gameplay and mechanics.