Codex Review Prince of Qin Review

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Object Software; Prince of Qin

Our review of Prince of Qin, the ancient China themed CRPG from Object Software.

This Five Elements belief manifests itself in the mechanics of the game through a number of ways. For example, one elemental aligned item can push another elementally aligned item if the first promotes the second. If you have a weapon in your hand that's based on Fire, and a ring on that hand that's Wood based, abilities in that weapon will be unlocked because Fire is promoted by Wood. Likewise, a necklace with a Metal alignment can promote a helmet with a Water alignment, and so on.​

Ah, sweet, sweet elemental alignments.

 

[Mistress]

In fact, you may think your character is a pretty tough character. You may think he or she is extremely powerful in combat and that may be true - until he meets up with something of an alignment that restricts his or her alignment. He'll have trouble doing damage to that creature while the other creature will be doing significant damage to him. Like Sun Tzu said, Overconfidence in your own ability is a mistake.

That white wolf and his pals left you a little scarred didn't they?

Unfortunately, you are Fu Su in the game. Fu Su is a Paladin. You're not allowed to make a character yourself, so you're stuck starting the game as a Paladin and as Fu Su. I really would have preferred that they had done one of two things. Either allowed you to change your name, since Fu Su needs to stay hidden, and pick a class, or another nice route would be if it had given you the option of generating a fictional friend of Fu Su and playing that way. While there are a lot of options that can be had from being a Paladin, I'd rather have that choice of being what I want to be.

This is a shame - it's always preferable to be able to choose your own character. I don't think it would have been that hard to fit in with the game plot.

Another interesting addition to the combat is that you can't just keep pausing, eating some health giving food, and repeating this until the enemy is dead. After you eat something that gives you health, there's a set time before you're allowed to eat again. In other words, health supplies won't make you immortal, so you have to rely on both tactics as well as spells in order to win some fights.

This is nice. How long is the time delay? I know there is a small delay in IWD2 between drinking potions - but it's not that great.

Prince of Qin is a very nice CRPG for those who are looking for something different to play, other than D&D CRPGs or the traditional fantasy setting. In keeping with Chinese lore and tradition, the setting offers gameplay that's not too different from other CRPG settings that a new player will be confused by everything, but it does offer a highly unique flavor.

Yeah - that's me - I'm looking for something different, and I like the sound of Prince of Qin, the Chinese lore slant appeals to me - it's just a shame I can't get it in this bloody country at the moment

Nice review :wink:

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I recently got it and have been having fun with it. I mostly agree with the review. I also like the slightly-off dialogue, it kind of gives the game a sense of genuineness.

One thing that kind of bugs me, though, is a lot of Fu Su's dialogue seems pretty anachronistic. I kind of wonder if they had to do it to please the PRC censors or something. I'm only in chapter 2, but I've seen a good bit where you get experience and other rewards for going on a diatribe against superstition, religion, or traditional ideas. It just seems really awkward at times, I sometimes just want to say, "Dude, you cast spells and put gems in your weapons because it gives you magical powers, why are you chastising the old lady who thinks her well is cursed?"

 

[Sol Invictus]

In real life, Fu Su was a big supporter of the Confucian philosophy and the philosophy includes not believing in superstitious nonsense. I suppose the game itself exists on two levels: the 'realistic' level, with the historical chinese character and setting, together with a fantasy portion, in which the game mechanics are used.

The Five Elements mechanic is a pretty marvellous feature for the game, even though it contradicts 'realism'. Feng Shui in itself is pretty logical, that is, if you take it as a metaphor. It is for example, a very stupid idea to build a house at the shore of a beach, or riverbank.

While that might seem like common sense to educated people, most people in real life (let alone most people in ancient times) don't even realize that the tide swells at a certain time of the day (dusk), or at certain times of the year, due to the moon's gravitational exertion.

The Feng Shui system makes it easier for the commonfolk to not fuck themselves up and win Darwin Awards during the process of living their short and pathetic lives.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That white wolf and his pals left you a little scarred didn't they?

Wolves BAD!

This is a shame - it's always preferable to be able to choose your own character. I don't think it would have been that hard to fit in with the game plot.

I'd love to see Object Software make a sequel that allowed this. Perhaps not "Prince of Qin 2", since that story's only got so much milage on it really, but another Chinese themed CRPG with similar mechanics.

This is nice. How long is the time delay? I know there is a small delay in IWD2 between drinking potions - but it's not that great.

Five seconds on normal difficulty.

Yeah - that's me - I'm looking for something different, and I like the sound of Prince of Qin, the Chinese lore slant appeals to me - it's just a shame I can't get it in this bloody country at the moment

Yup, it's a shame it's only available in Asia and North America. I honestly thing it would have sold better in Europe than in North America, judging by the CRPGs that come out over there.

One thing that kind of bugs me, though, is a lot of Fu Su's dialogue seems pretty anachronistic. I kind of wonder if they had to do it to please the PRC censors or something. I'm only in chapter 2, but I've seen a good bit where you get experience and other rewards for going on a diatribe against superstition, religion, or traditional ideas. It just seems really awkward at times, I sometimes just want to say, "Dude, you cast spells and put gems in your weapons because it gives you magical powers, why are you chastising the old lady who thinks her well is cursed?"

Not to mention the specialty of the Witch class is cursing. I guess it depends more on what superstitions are real and which ones aren't in the game.

 

[protobob]

I ordered this from gamestop this week (20 bucks) based on the 2002 year-end round up you guys did. Looks like a good game. I will give it a go after I finish Geneforge (another game I bought based on your 2002 year-end review).

 

[chrisbeddoes]

The interface is very cool. Much better than the Lionheart one.

 

[Markman]

Cool game but a bit too hard for a regular, I think I spent 10 hours on it and I'm still stuck with the same sword I started the game with.Same thing goes for my 2 companions.

 

[protobob]

Huh, I've spent 30 minutes in the game and I already have a new sword, other than the one I started the game with.

 

[Markman]

Then I just suck at the game then. :D
Lol.
I think there's a quest at the begining of the game where you help that old lady find something and she tells you about a sword in her backyard.Well, I couldn't find it.


Its a good game but it requires alot of time, I'd like to play little more with forging items, testing skills, and all that mambo jumbo.

 

[protobob]

Yeah, you have to decline the offer twice in a row to get the sword...it's pretty goofy.

 

[sabishii]

Eh, I wish it wasn't so combat heavy. I like the setting - I'm Chinese and... well even besides that, there are not a lot of games that are set in Asia besides Jade Empire and crappy free MMOs. I like the forging system - very unique, sometimes useful - and the five elements system gets you more involved into the item-buying/equipping process.

I'm ambivalent about the combat. The system is okay, just annoying to have to click on each character's little portrait in order to control them and tell them to use a different skill. Why can't I use a hotkey? But anyways, it wouldn't be so bad if there were just one or two strategic fights per hour or so... but then between towns you get randomly attacked, where then you have to fight like 20 or 30 enemies sprinkled throughout the area. And there is no map of the random encounter so you basically have to explore the whole area in order to find a tiny little exit. Got to a point where I just autoattacked because it was too tedious to switch between characters and switch skills.

I was level 12, maybe 7 or 8 hours into the game, when I got my 5th (or more!) random encounter. I explored almost the whole map, of course having to fight at least 15 enemies already, when during one fight I didn't notice that one of my NPCs was being attacked and got killed (usually the sprites aren't that unclear... but I looked around and I couldn't find the enemy). So I reloaded, and was wayy back in the beginning of the area because somehow the rest of my quicksaves didn't register(??). Well, didn't feel like reclearing the instance, and the save this one was at least an hour behind, and I had done a long and tedious backtracking quest inbetween. The story didn't really interest me, the quests weren't really complex enough, and I didn't feel like playing just to level up and get lewts, so I uninstalled the game.

I would give the game maybe a 6/10. The mechanics are nice and somewhat distinct from other games, and the setting is unique. But I feel that they didn't reach their potential. Like I showed, the combat mechanics would be fun for smaller, more tactical, encounters, but just managed to be tedious with the waves of enemies the game decided to give you instead. The setting is unique, but there were only 1 or 2 quests per town/city and they were too simple. Even the long and complex one I just did really just meant a lot of backtracking and sitting there for 5 minutes while my NPCs navigated the town back and forth. I could even say the crafting wasn't all that great - very good mechanic on paper, yes, but it turned out that they were far inferior to looted/bought equipment so my crafted items were nothing more than extra gold.