It’s time to take the Reigns on your exploration of Ancient China! Three Kingdoms is the latest continuation of the Reigns series. Set in Ancient China between 180 and 220 AD, you take the role of a character from the present day who is working for a time-travelling research company called Synapsis. They send you back in time to under the Han Dynasty in China, at the Yellow Turban Rebellion. The game is loosely based off the book ‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms’.
The gameplay has two main components. Described by the publishers, Devolver Digital, as ‘Tinder for Monarchs’, most of the game is reading dialogue from various characters on your journey and responding by picking between two answers. These answers will affect your general 4 progress bars: supplies, popularity, military and intellect. The Key is to find a balance between the 4, if one of these bars is either too high or low, you will die in a variety of different circumstances that stem from being in your house when it’s burnt down or pushed down a well. It’s your job to respond to the texts in ways that will help you complete ‘deeds’: objectives.
The decisions you make will also ascend you to a leadership role quite soon into the game. This means you’ll be in charge of various political matters from military to taxation. However, that’s not to say the game takes itself seriously by any means. On one occasion my fisherman told me that he wanted some support for his investments in ‘Non-fungible Fishing.’
The other gameplay component is in its combat. Whether you’re defending or attacking you’ll be thrown into a turn-based combat scenario, which is a card game. The combat is reminiscent to Gwent from The Witcher 3, each card is represented by an in-game character, with an attack and defence number, as well as unique attributes that vary from healing other cards, or swapping your defence and attack numbers. Defeat usually will not lead to death, but victory will result in expansion or defence of your territory. The combat mode is playable more regularly through multiplayer but unfortunately, I was not able to find anyone searching for a game.
On the whole, Reigns: Three Kingdoms is great fun. It is a fun indie title that works particularly well for portable gaming, I played it on the Steam Deck, but have also heard it works fine on the Switch. It’s very addictive I found myself playing for hours at a time as you’re repeatedly given a decision after decision. However, the game does feel a little limited. Many of the same prompts come up over and over again which get in the way of decisions that actually count towards your main journey. For example, I was prompted so many times to bet on a rooster fight and every time the same person won. Visiting the different areas of the map was fun and all the backgrounds are beautiful, however, this can only be done through text prompts. This means you can be stuck in the same area for a while with the same repetitive prompts. Though all things considered, the game is generally very satisfying. I do wish there were more combat scenarios as these are where the game provides the most fun. The combat is simple and easy to pick up but still very satisfying to win. Overall, for a very low price, this game provides a lot of content which is very easy to pick up and fun to get on with and I look forward to what the developers at Nerial do next.
