Introduction: The mighty Yangtze River flows eastward, its waves washing away heroes; right and wrong, success and failure, all turn to nothing in retrospect. The green mountains remain, witnessing countless sunsets. White-haired fishermen and woodcutters on river islets are used to watching the autumn moon and spring breeze. A pot of turbid wine brings joy in meetings; the many events of past and present are all shared in laughter and talk.” — "Linjiangxian" by Yang Shen (Ming Dynasty)
The stories of the Three Kingdoms are an eternal classic theme in the Japanese gaming industry, and Japanese game companies always manage to find new inspiration and creativity from them. A war RPG card game released by the Japanese social mobile game company COLOPL, Inc.—"Azure Three Kingdoms"—stands out among the many newly released Japanese mobile games. Its fully kanji login interface allows players who do not understand Japanese to fully enjoy the game.
The game has a slightly flamboyant and luxurious style, with exaggerated, passionate cutscenes, yet the image quality is handled with great detail. The music also changes according to the battle, sometimes heavy and intense, sometimes light and brisk, evoking excitement and a sense of immersion.
In "Azure Three Kingdoms," players appear as the leader of a new faction, recruiting soldiers and equipping their city's army to participate in the power struggles of the Three Kingdoms. Every building in the player's city has significant functions. Early buildings include: the Main Hall, whose upgrade greatly increases the state power level, expands territory, and allows recruitment of high-level generals; Shops and Lumberyards continually produce gold and building materials, with upgrades raising the maximum storage capacity; Farmlands increase the "battle food" (action points) required to enter battles; Barracks, Training Grounds, and Schools respectively increase all soldiers' HP, attack, and intelligence. Players can also sacrifice low-level general cards to strengthen main generals, increasing their level and abilities, or use "Dragon Orbs" to summon new powerful generals. Logging in daily or completing a game chapter grants five Dragon Orbs, or players can purchase them with real money to obtain new generals, army action points, special buildings, and more.
Once on the battlefield, players only need to command three types of troops—Cavalry, Archers, and Spearmen. The principle of troop countering is: Spearmen counter Cavalry, Cavalry counters Archers, and Archers counter Spearmen. Players can create their own tactical formations to sweep across the land while ensuring their base is not breached by enemy forces.If you attack the enemy from behind, you can deal triple damage, so the battlefield is essentially a 'find the back' game (if you're strong enough, you can also fight head-on), but the back is not that easy to find. Players must master the principle of troop countering and lure the enemy by exposing their own side, otherwise they will be brutally defeated. In addition, the most unique feature is the general 'duel' system. Player generals will randomly engage in a duel with enemy generals. The duel is carried out by clicking the screen as soon as the 'click' button appears, and the fastest action wins. After the duel ends, no matter how much health the losing general's army has left, it immediately collapses.
Although this game is innovative in its battle system and development mode, it cannot escape the fate of recycling the Three Kingdoms theme. Moreover, the battle scenes are a bit chaotic; when armies clash in large numbers, they cannot fight entirely according to the player's intentions. The fortunate thing is that players can repeatedly stage 'the enemy is ashamed, I go strip his clothes!' moments in the duel system of this Three Kingdoms game.
\'Cang Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms,' who dares to fight me?!
