Reviewed: October 3, 2002
Reviewed by: John Bowlin

Publisher
Strategy First

Developer
Object Software

Released: August 20, 2002
Genre: RPG
Players: 500
ESRB: Teen

8
6
5
6
7.0

System Requirements

Many previewers have called Prince of Qin a Diablo clone, which really does not depict an accurate portrayal of the gameplay. Sure, the interface is somewhat similar to the Diablo style, and the skill and level-up system is quite reminescent of Diablo II. But the pausable real-time gameplay seems much more like an Icewind Dale or a Baldur's Gate type of game. Consequently, Prince of Qin could more accurately be described as an amalgem of Baldur's Gate and Diablo II gameplay set in an mystical ancient Chinese setting.

Prince of Qin puts you in the role of the crown prince of the Qin Dynasty, Fu Su. Fu Su was an actual real-life prince of the Qin Dynasty around 200 BCE. Fu Su had been sent away to the far north to help with building the Great Wall after standing up to the First Emperor during the time of the Burning of the Books when many scholars were executed. After an untimely death of the First Emperor, a plot developed by which the emperor's advisors Li Si and Zhao Gao sent false orders for Fu Su to commit suicide, so that they could install a puppet emperor using Fu Su's brother Hu Hai. Fu Su unknowingly obeyed the orders in actual history, but in Prince of Qin, Fu Su seeks to confirm the orders and gets embroiled in a mystery and adventure.

Prince of Qin features:

• Multiplayer support for up to 500 gamers on a dedicated server and up to 20 gamers on a LAN or over the internet
• Over 100 different locations including 28 cities, 18 counties, and 78 country fields. This does not include building interiors at these locations.
• Different endings evolve depending on player's actions during the game.
• Choose to play from one of five basic character types ranging from Paladin to Wizard.
• Game content inspired by the actual art and history from the period of the game.
• Interact with over 70 different NPC's in stores, palaces, mansions and inns.
• Magic based on the five elements Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth. In ancient China, philosophers believed that the world was made up of these elements.
• Players can combine raw materials to make new weapons.
• Weapons feature the ability to be damaged and repaired

You do not build your party at the start of the game like in some RPG games. Instead, you start off with a single character Fu Su, and are able to find other party members as you progress through the game. You can convince them to join you and they will help you out in combat and also out of combat. As you gain levels, you are able to assign attribute points to your stats Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Savvy (affects the rate of experience gain), Charm, and Wisdom. You also get skill points which can be used to increase your choice of a few different skills which varies by character class.

At first the combat is quite simplistic, just attacking and running away when you get too wounded. The computer automatically attacks and even choses targets (sometimes unwisely), so there is not much to do other than monitor health. After you have several party members the gameplay becomes more like Baldur's Gate, where you pause the action using the space bar to set spells/skills and targets, then resume and watch the battle unfold in real time. In addition to being able to use the space bar to pause, you can also configure the game to automatically pause for certain events, such as if your hit points get too low, or autopause upon sighting a new enemy. One flaw with the combat system is that your party members do not seem to stay focused on what task you've told them to do, and will often times change targets for no reason even after you've just selected a new target for them.

Combat strategy consists of picking the correct targets to reduce the damage capacity of your enemies and keeping a close eye on the health and mana bars of your party members. Chosing the right skills to use is also important because certain types of foes are more suceptible to different Elements. Items can be placed in a quick-belt similar to Diablo II's which you can use for a quick boost to mana or health in a pinch. Characters can also regenerate their health and mana over time just by not being in combat.

The key to mastering the combat system of Prince of Qin is mastering the match ups of the Five Elements - Earth, Water, Fire, Wood, and Metal. Different elements have different special effects. Certain enemies are more succeptible to certain elements. Enemies will display their favored element next to their health bar when you mouse over them. You should use the opposed element to attack them for the best affect. You must be careful about which elements you wear on your person, however, because wearing opposing elements can actually counteract your effectiveness. This system of elements and balances adds quite a bit of complexity and depth to the game.

The equipment in Prince of Qin is one of the gameplay highlights. It's similar to Diablo II's where you get random attribute modifiers on the items you find. Fu Su gains a power early on in the game where he can actually collect items and combine them together (along with some gold) to create new equipment that aquire the properties of the items that were used to make it. For example, you can put together 2 ore and 3 beast skins to fashion a suit of armor that has the properties of the items you used to make it. Weapons can also be inlaid with magical gems that will increase their capabilities. Items degrade with use over time, and you may need to spend some money to repair a wanted item occasionally.

There is an overhead map that can help you find where you are and where you have been. Like Baldur's Gate, the game map is all back at first and as you explore an area it reveals itself on the map. You can also move and be watching the map at the same time. The only problem with the map is that it can't be moved out of the way of the action and it takes up a huge space in the very middle of the screen. Had the map been translucent or resizable and movable this would have been more optimal, but it is still fairly useful as it is.

The game supports a proper save-anywhere, anytime feature. The only negative thing about the save system is that it doesn't let you name the saves or add any kind of description to them but it does give each save a time stamp and location so you can usually figure out where you were last. You should save the game frequently, using the quick-save key (F9), because the game tended to crash to the desktop from time to time for this reviewer. This was only a minor irritation given the save game system, but could develop into an irritation if it became more frequent.

Most of the story from Prince of Qin is told through the taking and completing of quests. There is an automatic journal log that will keep track of your quests and also give you vital information about the plot as you go along. The quest log automatically clears completed quests for you. In addition to gaining information and background story, you can also get experience points or stat improvements from talking to people and performing their quests, so it is advisable to speak to NPCs frequently.

The quests are mostly typical fetch this or that, but there were some that were quite interesting and unusual, such as one where you had to settle a dispute between two neighbors by convincing them to be civil to one another. There was another quest where you are tricked by some vengeful ghosts that seemed fitting for the Chinese mysticism background to the game. Most of the main plot quests revolves around the deception of your brother Hu Hai and his councilors and the treachery they have done. The many side quests fill this out with little details about the historical setting and its people.

The printed game manual that comes with Prince of Qin is an adaquate 45 pages, along with a supplemental PDF online manual that is installed into the game directory. The PDF manual includes additional historical information that greatly adds to the background story of the game. It also contains many gameplay details only briefly mentioned in the printed manual, such as descriptions of all of the skills and equipment modifiers.

Many of the quests and dialogue with the NPCs reveal the culture and history of a mystical view of the ancient Chinese Qin Dynasty era. Some of the dialogue can be pretty goofy sounding at times, as if they tried too hard to put a history lesson into the game, but for the most part it fits in nicely and is interesting. Some of the translations seemed awkward but it wasn't nearly as bad as some games. One wonders how accurate a historical view a gamer could learn from playing Prince of Qin, but at least you can learn a few things about a culture mostly unfamiliar to westerners.

The animations during combat seem somewhat stilted but they're about on the level of games of its type. During combat blood splatters on the ground; this can be turned off if your'e a concerned parent. Wolves and tigers jump around a lot in the combat but their jumping seems very mechanical. On the plus side, the game's spell and skill effects look nice and make the combats fun to play and watch.

The cutscenes are handled using the same 2D gameplay engine. The opening video for Prince of Qin is superbly done, with great John Woo style action scenes. The game could have really used a lot more of this quality of production during the game itself. There are quite a few scenes where an important event occurs but this is all handled in the same manner as the regular gameplay and doesn't add any special emotional impact due to graphics. Overall, the game's graphics are nothing spectacular but neither are they unattractive. The graphics are functional and do not detract from the gameplay.

Unfortuntately, there isn't much else to appreciate regarding the sound system for Prince of Qin. There are very few ambient noises throughout the game. The combat sound effects are merely average, nothing too thrilling there but for the most part, competent. There are plenty of grunts and groans as the combatants get wounded, as well as growls and screeches from the animal combatants. The game just sounds quiet compared to other similar RPG titles.

By far the weakest part of the sound and possibly the entire game is the poorly delivered voice acting. These actors sound as if they might have been the artists and programmers who worked on the project rather than actual professional voice talent. Accents seem out of place, the emotional lines delivered with too much melodrama, and overall just uninspired acting. It's not so bad that you want to turn it off, but it's pretty distracting. The only good thing I can say about the voice acting is that there seems to be a lot of it. Had it been well done, this would have been a great boon, but it seems almost a curse. Considering that the game's plot and story is fairly key to the gameplay, the poor voice acting is a serious shortcoming.

Prince of Qin supports TCP/IP multiplayer. You can run the game as a dedicated server or the server can also act as a client. The multiplayer gameplay is quite a bit different from the single player experience. First of all, when you begin a multiplayer game you have the option to chose which of five classes you wish to be and also your character name. Your class can be Paladin, Muscleman, Assassin, Wizard, or Witch. These classes have the same abilities that Fu Su and his companions have respectively during the single player game. There is a grouping option that works similarly to Diablo II's, where you select which players you want to team up with from a team menu.

The combat in the multiplayer Prince of Qin is much more action oriented. Instead of autoattacking your enemies, you are required to rapidly click on your enemies to get off attacks and spells. The gameplay for multiplayer is much much closer to Diablo II's gameplay compared to the single player game. However, you can still use the spacebar to pause the game so it's not quite as frantic as you might suspect.

Teaming up with other players also works very similar to the way it works in Diablo II. You form teams and can share experience. However, one major multiplayer gameplay flaw seems to be that you can disband and immediately go hostile on team members. This means that player killers can pretend to befriend you, take you out to a fight, and then after you're wounded, quit the team and slay your character.

Another problem with Prince of Qin's multiplayer is the lack of a town-portal type functionality, which means long treks from the starting town to wherever you want to adventure. Saving the game from the server computer does not seem to save your position, only your character status.

The biggest flaw with the multiplayer is that there is no matchmaking service for the game. I don't just mean none built into the game, I mean, none. Nowhere. Nada. I couldn't find any place online after a few hours of searching that was anything remotely like a matching service for Prince of Qin. The best I could find was the Strategy First message forums where there were a few people who seemed to be trying to get together for games.

To play over the internet, you have to know the IP address of the server, and plug it in manual style into the dialogue box when attempting ot join in a multiplayer game. This seems like a major oversight for a game that is supposed to have support for up to 500 players in a game! Perhaps the multiplayer community could take off if Strategy First spent some money and provided a 24 hour public server or a match making service. Had this component been well done, I could easily have given Prince of Qin a much higher rating in the value department.

Who is this game targeted for? If you are looking for a fresh setting but loved the system offered in Diablo II, you will most likely enjoy Prince of Qin. Fans of the Baldur's Gate series will miss the D&D system perhaps but they should be able to enjoy this game's wealth of background story and side quests, and above average NPC interaction. In general fans of RPG games that aren't afraid of real-time action oriented combat should be able to get something out of Prince of Qin.