A Hidden Gem on the NES, Destiny of an Emperor

One of my favorite RPGs is Destiny of an Emperor on the NES. I found it one day while I was looking for a ROM to download. It was one of those days when I was home sick and didn’t have anything else to do.

I spent most of the day playing it, and I loved it! When I started collecting games in the late 1990s, this was one of the first games I wanted to find. It took a while for me to find it, but I eventually did.

We only got the first game in North America. I didn’t even know it for a while, but Capcom released three Destiny of an Emperor games. The sequels never left Japan, and all the games were on the Famicom.

TLDR: An Underrated RPG and a Hidden Gem on the NES

Capcom’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms Games

As far as I can tell, Capcom made five games based on a reimagining of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. These games used a series of manga called Tenchi wo Kurau.

The manga is a fictional retelling of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. It leans into fantasy instead of being grounded in the events in the book Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The story centers around Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei.

These names should be familiar if you’ve played the Dynasty Warriors or Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. There is a lot of media based on the Three Kingdoms period. Koei has made several series based on it, and Capcom made two. I’m sure there are others.

Narrative

Destiny of an Emperor is based on the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. The game starts with the Yellow Turban Rebellion, then moves to the war between Yuan Shao and Dong Zhuo, and finally, the Three Kingdoms. It ends with a battle against Sima Yi.

That is a basic outline of the story. There aren’t too many twists to the game, as it is very linear. Even the few side quests don’t cause you to deviate from the set path of this game.

It is a fairly good story, and I would’ve liked to see how close it is to the manga, but I couldn’t find an English translation of it. The game has a very straightforward story. It is a good story, and it plays out as you would expect it to.

Gameplay

This is a turn-based RPG. You have a party of five generals, with two generals in reserve. One of your generals has to be a tactician so you can use the game’s replacement for magic, which is battle tactics.

Most generals don’t gain experience or levels during the game. You can get better generals by defeating them in battle and recruiting them to your side. This might require you to bribe them with money, a horse, or a special item. For example, Lu Bu will only join you if you give him a Gem Sword.

There are five generals who gain experience and levels in the game. They are the Five Tiger Generals:

• Guan Yu
• Zhang Fei
• Huang Zhong
• Ma Chao
• Zhao Yun

The characters’ names might be spelled differently in the game. This is either a transliteration error, or they were carried over from the Manga.

During battle, you can select an “All Out” attack that will let you watch the battle unfold. Tactics aren’t used here; it is just the two sides charging at each other. I used these during battles with weak opponents, especially later in the game.

The gameplay is very good. It is a fun RPG that offers a nice alternative to the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games. I wish the other games in the series had been released outside of Japan.

Visuals

I like the look of Destiny of an Emperor. It looks a little like one of the Dragon Warrior games. I’m not sure if Capcom licensed the engine or worked with Enix on this game, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Destiny of an Emperor looks good for an NES game. It isn’t as detailed as some games, like Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star. It is comparable to Dragon Quest II.

The tactics are one of the weaker parts of the game. I could extend this to the combat as a whole, but I’ll point out that the tactics don’t have a special animation. They look like a regular attack.

Your party is lined up on the left side of the screen. This feels wrong to me. I’m used to seeing them on the right or the bottom, but never on the left. It makes the game stick out in an odd way.

There isn’t too much else to say about the graphics. Everything else looks fine for an RPG on the NES. I didn’t see anything majorly wrong with the game from a graphics standpoint, and there were only a few things I wish had been better.

Reviews at the Time

It took me some time to find a review for Destiny of an Emperor from the winter of 1990. That is when the game was released in North America, and the gaming press wasn’t what it is today.

Nintendo Power had a short write-up on the game in the November/December 1990 issue. The game received a 3.5/5. The paragraph write-up is very funny, as it seems clear that whoever wrote it didn’t know when the story took place.

The game was covered in other publications in 1990 and 1991. I didn’t see reviews for the game, but there were advertisements, so there was at least something.

Most of what I saw in other publications was advertisements. These magazines had to serve all the consoles, so space was limited. Destiny of an Emperor did have full-page advertisements in at least two issues of Game Pro, but I didn’t see a review of the game.

Destiny of an Emperor has plenty of reviews from the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s. I didn’t look into these too closely because they don’t tell me what people thought at the time this game was released.

Reviews for Destiny of an Emperor haven’t really changed much over the years. It has been between 7 and 8 out of 10, aside from AllGames shoddy work, which gave it a 2.5/5. I cannot express how little I trust their reviews on anything.

9/10. Great Gameplay, Good Graphics, and a Fun Story. There isn’t too much to complain about here. Destiny of an Emperor is one of the best RPGs on the NES.

Pros

• Great Gameplay
• Good Graphics
• Good Story
• Unique Party Building Mechanic

Cons

• Linear
• The Final Battle is very difficult

Conclusion

I was a little surprised by the lack of information on this game. It feels like one of the many NES games that have been ignored over the years. If it had been hilariously bad or more memorable, it would’ve stood a better chance of being talked about.

Destiny of an Emperor is one of my favorite games on the NES. I love the game, but if it hadn’t been for me randomly finding the ROM online back in the mid-1990s, I wouldn’t have played it.

Sometimes on the internet, people act like everyone knew about every retro game when they were a kid. That just isn’t true. If a game wasn’t in the store, rental store, Nintendo Power, or something you heard from a friend, then you didn’t know about it. Information on video games was very fragmented, and not every region of the United States got every game. I can only imagine how other parts of the world got gaming news.

This game will always be one of my favorite RPGs. I like it as much as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest IV, and Phantasy Star.

If you liked this post, please read my other reviews of RPGs like Thousand Arms and Cosmic Star Heroine.