Hey everybody!
Today I've decided to review Genghis Khan for the SNES/Virtual Console (WII).
Before we begin:
Synopsis/Key Features:
- Deep political/strategy game where you can control multiple rulers on a quest for world conquest.
- Initially there's 3 varied scenarios to choose from, and one to unlock.
- Ease of accessibility to the historical simulation genre, yet has a very strong difficulty curve.
- 800 Wiipoints (Virtual Console).
Arguably, Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf is one of Koei's better strategy games from the early '90s, SNES-era in general, and backseat to perhaps only the Romance of the Three Kingdoms franchise. Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf is a deep political historical simulation with below average AI, boasts an above average soundtrack, decent gameplay, and a below average turn-based battle system. How much will you enjoy playing it? Well, that depends entirely on your childhood. Growing up, did you enjoy two week long games of "RISK"? If so, this is a game right up your alley.
To the other 97% of the world who didn't, you'll probably want to sit this one out.
Don't get me wrong--Genghis Khan is a very interesting, challenging and fun game to the other 3% of us in the world. Unfortunately, it's almost worth downloading the old DOS abandonware version as the AI in that version was superior. In the DOS version the AI could be set to either "intellectual" or "hostile" and would act accordingly. If the AI was set to intellectual, they would be much like a metaphorical lion on a wounded zebra waiting for the perfect moment to attack. "Hostile" they would over expand and thin themselves out quickly, and the SNES version suffers mildly from the latter limited AI setup. The AI for the most part on the SNES counterpart follows that "hostile" mentality, and once one country attacks another, another country will attack the weaker previous invading country (and rinse and repeat). It's not unusual for a few countries within a season to be wiped off the map because of over expansion which partially takes away from the potential diversity and difficulty of the game.
The core gameplay itself though is very simple. You play as Temujin (Or later, Genghis Khan) or an option of 11 other rulers in a conquest to try and take over the world. As forementioned, there's a very deep learning curve here. You simply can't just massively invade states and hope to prevail, and you'll quickly find a lot of time is evenly spent between two components: a) family, and b) politics/military commands. A lot of strategy is involved in taking over the world (who would have thought?). A few examples of the depth are alliances. Alliances are essentially vital to ensure through long-term relationships between countries your vassal states can't be invaded, but the key to them is setting up successful alliances that not only protect you, but also don't hinder your progress (as there's no way to terminate alliances before they end).
Another is successors in this game. If your main ruler dies in war, without children, the game is over. If he dies of old age without children, the game is over. If your future-successor children die without children of their own, the game is over. The boys can become successors, and can only be made into a prince at the age of 10 (equal to 40 turns, and in 40 turns a lot can happen). The game is very unforgiving in the sense if you have no successors that are old enough to replace your current one if they die, you'll have no future. Additionally, if you set the policies in your state(s) poorly, you'll lose gold and food each season, and your troops will be unpaid and disband. If you think you can easily draft a massive amount of troops at one time to avoid economy issues, you'll decimate the loyalty and population of a state which in turn will leave it defenseless (as they'll literally be unable to draft more troops due to a lack of population), and it'll take years upon years to recover its populace, ecomony and farming. And that all goes without even mentioning global disasters like the plague, floods, sandstorms or blizzards which ruin economy, or rebellious servant generals who claim your vassal states as their own. Genghis Khan is easy enough for beginners to pick up and play, and the diplomacy and military aspects are hard for veterans to master, and there's a lot more to the game than simply invading a country, hiring a bunch of new troops and doing it again.
The soundtrack in this game partially excels for the most part, particularly the theme KOEI created for the Mongols. Some of the songs on the soundtrack are so good, that it could almost be set to ambient background music in general, and you'd never get tired of it. Of course, that can't be said for all the countries (as there's different music for different regions all themed appropriately, like Mongolia, India, England, Japan, etc) but there's enough flavor that it'd probably satisfy everybody. Graphically, it's not outstanding. There's detail where detail should be (character portraits) and the battle system, but overall KOEI's trademark simplistic graphics are here. The game is a bunch of menus with very few animations. This doesn't really detract from the experience; however, as the gameplay itself still remains deep whether or not the graphics are good.
The combat system in Genghis Khan is also sub-par. It does the job, but with the year this game was made it obviously predates other tactical games such as Final Fantasy Tactics that utilized a grid-based system. Sometimes when moving your troops, you'll move too far away for a short ranged attack, or too close for a distance attack (and the enemy can melee you back). This isn't really a major problem as through practice you'll quickly get the hang of it, but it would have been nice to see a grid system implemented at the time. The game has exactly 20 different unit types which highlight diversity and region (Japan for example has Samurais while India has elephants). All the units have their own strengths and weaknesses which make for some interesting battles as you expand.
Overall, Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf will either greatly appeal to you, or you'll hate it much like the game of RISK. The rather deep political and strategy elements needed to ensure world conquest far extend what people would probably expect from a strategy game of this caliber and age. Unfortunately, this is hurt partially by the AI often over expanding itself and attacking every state it presumes to be that metaphorical wounded zebra. As far as I know, the AI never attempts alliances with other AI-governed provinces, which also takes away from the potential difficulty as they'll again turn to over-expanding (and when they do over-expand, very few states keep their newly acquired states). Adding that with a barely below average combat engine, and you have yourself a pretty mediocre game. Genghis Khan II had a lot of potential, and is still a good game, but personally I believe fell a bit short of its mark.
It could have been much more polished.
Graphics: 4.3/10.
Gameplay: 6.8/10.
Sound: 7.7/10.
Controls: 7.0/10.
Replayability: 6.4/10.
Overall: 6.4/10.
Today I've decided to review Genghis Khan for the SNES/Virtual Console (WII).
Before we begin:
Synopsis/Key Features:
- Deep political/strategy game where you can control multiple rulers on a quest for world conquest.
- Initially there's 3 varied scenarios to choose from, and one to unlock.
- Ease of accessibility to the historical simulation genre, yet has a very strong difficulty curve.
- 800 Wiipoints (Virtual Console).
Arguably, Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf is one of Koei's better strategy games from the early '90s, SNES-era in general, and backseat to perhaps only the Romance of the Three Kingdoms franchise. Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf is a deep political historical simulation with below average AI, boasts an above average soundtrack, decent gameplay, and a below average turn-based battle system. How much will you enjoy playing it? Well, that depends entirely on your childhood. Growing up, did you enjoy two week long games of "RISK"? If so, this is a game right up your alley.
To the other 97% of the world who didn't, you'll probably want to sit this one out.
Don't get me wrong--Genghis Khan is a very interesting, challenging and fun game to the other 3% of us in the world. Unfortunately, it's almost worth downloading the old DOS abandonware version as the AI in that version was superior. In the DOS version the AI could be set to either "intellectual" or "hostile" and would act accordingly. If the AI was set to intellectual, they would be much like a metaphorical lion on a wounded zebra waiting for the perfect moment to attack. "Hostile" they would over expand and thin themselves out quickly, and the SNES version suffers mildly from the latter limited AI setup. The AI for the most part on the SNES counterpart follows that "hostile" mentality, and once one country attacks another, another country will attack the weaker previous invading country (and rinse and repeat). It's not unusual for a few countries within a season to be wiped off the map because of over expansion which partially takes away from the potential diversity and difficulty of the game.
The core gameplay itself though is very simple. You play as Temujin (Or later, Genghis Khan) or an option of 11 other rulers in a conquest to try and take over the world. As forementioned, there's a very deep learning curve here. You simply can't just massively invade states and hope to prevail, and you'll quickly find a lot of time is evenly spent between two components: a) family, and b) politics/military commands. A lot of strategy is involved in taking over the world (who would have thought?). A few examples of the depth are alliances. Alliances are essentially vital to ensure through long-term relationships between countries your vassal states can't be invaded, but the key to them is setting up successful alliances that not only protect you, but also don't hinder your progress (as there's no way to terminate alliances before they end).
Another is successors in this game. If your main ruler dies in war, without children, the game is over. If he dies of old age without children, the game is over. If your future-successor children die without children of their own, the game is over. The boys can become successors, and can only be made into a prince at the age of 10 (equal to 40 turns, and in 40 turns a lot can happen). The game is very unforgiving in the sense if you have no successors that are old enough to replace your current one if they die, you'll have no future. Additionally, if you set the policies in your state(s) poorly, you'll lose gold and food each season, and your troops will be unpaid and disband. If you think you can easily draft a massive amount of troops at one time to avoid economy issues, you'll decimate the loyalty and population of a state which in turn will leave it defenseless (as they'll literally be unable to draft more troops due to a lack of population), and it'll take years upon years to recover its populace, ecomony and farming. And that all goes without even mentioning global disasters like the plague, floods, sandstorms or blizzards which ruin economy, or rebellious servant generals who claim your vassal states as their own. Genghis Khan is easy enough for beginners to pick up and play, and the diplomacy and military aspects are hard for veterans to master, and there's a lot more to the game than simply invading a country, hiring a bunch of new troops and doing it again.
The soundtrack in this game partially excels for the most part, particularly the theme KOEI created for the Mongols. Some of the songs on the soundtrack are so good, that it could almost be set to ambient background music in general, and you'd never get tired of it. Of course, that can't be said for all the countries (as there's different music for different regions all themed appropriately, like Mongolia, India, England, Japan, etc) but there's enough flavor that it'd probably satisfy everybody. Graphically, it's not outstanding. There's detail where detail should be (character portraits) and the battle system, but overall KOEI's trademark simplistic graphics are here. The game is a bunch of menus with very few animations. This doesn't really detract from the experience; however, as the gameplay itself still remains deep whether or not the graphics are good.
The combat system in Genghis Khan is also sub-par. It does the job, but with the year this game was made it obviously predates other tactical games such as Final Fantasy Tactics that utilized a grid-based system. Sometimes when moving your troops, you'll move too far away for a short ranged attack, or too close for a distance attack (and the enemy can melee you back). This isn't really a major problem as through practice you'll quickly get the hang of it, but it would have been nice to see a grid system implemented at the time. The game has exactly 20 different unit types which highlight diversity and region (Japan for example has Samurais while India has elephants). All the units have their own strengths and weaknesses which make for some interesting battles as you expand.
Overall, Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf will either greatly appeal to you, or you'll hate it much like the game of RISK. The rather deep political and strategy elements needed to ensure world conquest far extend what people would probably expect from a strategy game of this caliber and age. Unfortunately, this is hurt partially by the AI often over expanding itself and attacking every state it presumes to be that metaphorical wounded zebra. As far as I know, the AI never attempts alliances with other AI-governed provinces, which also takes away from the potential difficulty as they'll again turn to over-expanding (and when they do over-expand, very few states keep their newly acquired states). Adding that with a barely below average combat engine, and you have yourself a pretty mediocre game. Genghis Khan II had a lot of potential, and is still a good game, but personally I believe fell a bit short of its mark.
It could have been much more polished.
Graphics: 4.3/10.
Gameplay: 6.8/10.
Sound: 7.7/10.
Controls: 7.0/10.
Replayability: 6.4/10.
Overall: 6.4/10.
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