Nov 192014
 

Ep82

Reunite a war torn China with 20 years of great SRPG tunes, including tracks from Romance of the Three Kingdoms II, III, IV and more.

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0:00:00 – Title Theme (Romance of the Three Kingdoms V PC)

0:22:19 – Opening Scene (RTK II)

0:23:34 – War in the Kounan (RTK II)

0:24:29 – Unification (RTK II Genesis)

0:34:26 – Opening Cinematic (RTK III)

0:35:41 – Usual Theme (RTK III)

0:36:57 – Battle at Night (RTK III)

0:38:08 – Theme of Wei and Wu (RTK III)

0:42:58 – Main Theme (RTK IV)

0:46:04 – Governor’s Theme (RTK IV)

0:48:22 – Naval Battle (RTK IV)

0:50:21 – Battle Side Superior (RTK IV)

0:53:40 – Track 02 (RTK V Saturn)

0:54:54 – Track 06 (RTK V Saturn)

0:57:45 – Track 07 (RTK V Saturn)

1:01:24 – Generations Rise and Fall (RTK VI)

1:02:58 – Dawn (RTK VI)

1:04:31 – Traces Quartet (RTK VI)

1:11:09 – Prologue (RTK X)

1:12:11 – Harvest (RTK X)

1:13:59 – Hometown (RTK X)

1:19:36 – Ending (RTK X)

Again, this episode is likely filled with historical or pronunciation errors so feel free to point them out. Also do hit up kongming.net for tons of info regarding this series and the book they draw from.

  26 Responses to “VGMpire 82 – Remembering Romance”

  1. Oooooh! this should be a very interesting and enlightening episode! I know virtually nothing about this series, which is why it’ll be fun discovering it’s music! ^^

  2. Just like when playing this or Dynasty Warriors, I actually learned somethings! I’ve heard Romance of Three Kingdoms mentioned countless times in anime and games, but I never knew these games existed. I imagine that if the Shen Yun Orchestra was making a video game, this would be their music. Good stuff.

    PS Brett, when you go to Japan, do you have any OSTs in mind you plan to buy?

  3. Dammit! Based on the title, I was hoping this was going to cover Japanese dating sims.

    Seriously, you get copious amounts of geek cred for this one, Brett. Actually, some of my fondest memories of my high school years include Romancing 3….or better yet, Nobunaga’s Ambition 2. Every once in a while, 5 of us would get together and pull an all-nighter where we’d have 3 SNESes set up: Two had SFII Hyper fighting and one had a Koei game. 4 guys fought on SFII while the 5th one took his turn at Romance. The games can be a chore in single-player mode, but they were pretty fun multiplayer…..as long as everyone else had something to do.

    I’m not all the way through the episode, but this has got to be one of the funniest ones yet. I don’t know if it’s the source material or what, but you guys are in rare form on this one. Thanks for brightening my day!

  4. Great episode. It reminded me of a different game I played a lot as a kid that isn’t technically associated with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, but featured many of the same characters: Destiny of an Emperor for NES. The music for that game is amazing; classic Capcom goodness:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnCzVUK4Eqw

    I can’t remember if you already covered any of the Destiny of an Emperor music in one of the older RPG Battle Themes episodes.

  5. Wow, a blast from the past. A lot of good memories around these games. We used to evangelize about the goodness that is the Romance 3k games, bandit kings of ancient china, destiny of an emp, genghis khan.

  6. Isn’t Yoko Kanno the woman everyone blames for breaking up the crew of the Enterprise?

    I played a little bit of the first Romance around the same time (at least it seems in my adult memory) as Nobunaga and Shingen the Ruler, and Destiny of an Emperor was around that time, too, I think. It was probably the most “Oriental” period in NES history, maybe in all of Western console history. Certainly not the most fun, but very Oriental, and not the sort of games that kept my interest past a rental as a kid.

  7. Should be a good episode. Fun topic

  8. Whoa, just 15 mins in and I’m really loving it so far. This is a game series I’m aware of, but it’s great having it explained like you guys are doing.

  9. […] Reunite a war torn China with 20 years of great SRPG tunes, including tracks from Romance of the Three Kingdoms II, III, IV and more. LISTEN NOW! […]

  10. Well, I’m certainly on board for more deep dives. This is some excellent vgm, and I’ve never even heard of this franchise.

  11. This episode was fantastic! And hey, I actually really liked the weather cast music Brett played at the end, I’ll definitely be looking that guy’s music up in the future! ^^

  12. One point of feedback: It took about 22 minutes to get into the actual music of the episode, which is the point of the show. You may want to do a basic introduction of the series, then play a little music to tease some of the great tunes we will hear and then come back and continue your discussion of characters to break up some of the explanation. When I am listening at work or in the car, it is easy to get lost with a series that I honestly know nothing about.

    In the past, I have been given feedback about my public speaking that I need to get to the actual point of the presentation more quickly and I think that applies here. I appreciate the podcast though and enjoy listening to it every other week.

    • Yeah I realized later how long it took to get to the music. Typically there isn’t this much of a gap between the opening and the first batch of songs, but due to the large amount of history and setup this series needed, I crammed it all in the beginning. Fair point though!

      • I’m late to reply but every podcast on the Lasertime network has a bit of “Lasertimeness” to them. I for one enjoy the info at the beginning and the quips from Antista and Grimm were entertaining as well.

  13. I would also listen to BGMpire. More obscure retro weather channel music please. The Laser Time Network doesn’t have enough podcasts yet anyway

  14. I never went so far as to record weather music, but I vaguely remember being similarly geeky about music I liked, regardless of its origin. I remember listening to a friend’s evangelical pop music that had a long instrumental bit that was heavy on the synth. I remember thinking, “This would go soooo awesome in an RPG!”

  15. Great episode as always Brett, introducing me to music i would have never listened to/had no interest in listening to.

    Also Brett, serious question; what does boilerplate techno mean? (from the F-Zero GX episode), its stuck with me and i have no idea what it means.

    Just realized with OCRemix, videogame soudtracks (and Aqua :)) your recommendations are half of my music collection. (Did you know Aqua reformed in 2011 and released their third album?)

    • “Boilerplate” typically refers to the regurgitated legalese you might find in a user agreement in an app installation or a loan application. Brett’s referring to generic techno that sounds the same as everything else.

  16. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of those games I’ve only ever heard about in passing without really understanding what it is. To be honest, I thought you meant Dynasty Warriors before the explanation kicked in. Oops. Not going to lie, the orchestral songs seemed better than anything on the other consoles (Theme of Wei and Wu, aside). I really liked the use of actual Chinese instruments plus this is the kind of series that needs the extra oomph a orchestra can provide. You gotta have something interesting when you’re fiddling around with menus. Also, vaporwave is awesome music, totally worth getting into. Good episode as usual, guys, and thank you for teaching us some Chinese history!

  17. Great episode. I spent a lot of time as a kid passing the controller around and playing RotTK with friends. Later, my brother and I received RotTK 3 on the PC and put hundreds of hours into it — it’s still my favorite of the series.

    I would enjoy hearing you do another podcast on Three Kingdoms-inspired games and include music from Dynasty Warriors and especially Destiny of an Emperor, which is a criminally overlooked Capcom RPG with a great soundtrack. DoaE made a huge impact within my friend group as a kid — we all played it. I remember renting that cart from my local game store over and over again during the summer until I beat it, and I still play through the game every couple of years.

  18. I’m not sure if I could ever get into Romance of the Three Kingdoms, although I sure would like to attempt to some day. Great music, though! I especially loved IV’s OST and the Sega Saturn stuff.

    I’ll have to give it to Dynasty Warriors for telling me about Cao Cao, Liu Bei and all that jazz though 😛

    Also, epic quote right here: “[Romance of the Three Kingdoms] is like Game of Thrones with thinner mustaches.”

    And thank you for reminding me of how hilarious Tales of Games is. Nobunaga’s Jambition, LOL. I met those guys at MAGFest in January. Great, incredibly funny dudes all around. Can’t wait for MAGFest 13 in late January. Will I be seeing any VGMpire fans there??

  19. This episode was so romantic I proposed to my gf and we are getting married

    just kidding I don’t have a gf and I’m gonna die alone =D

  20. I never played any Romance of the 3 kingdoms games before, but I actually really liked this episode. I’m a big history buff but Chinese history has always been a glaring blindspot in my knowledge. Would be pretty sweet to read up on Chinese history while playing these games.kongming.net seems like it’ll be a great resource.

    Also Yokko Kanno is freaking awesome. everyone shold give the Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the shell: stand alone complex OSTs a listen. They’re great.

    ps: would totally give BGmpire a listen lmfao

  21. Talking about Yoko Kanno without mentioning Cowboy Bebop? Also, she’s a SHE 🙂 Great episode, really interesting.

  22. yayy a shout-out!

    Man, these games were so overwhelming. I remember renting them and seeing save states that just looked like numeric insanity. Plays like a giant spreadsheet

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