Rise of the Phoenix

Rise of the Phoenix is a strategy game made by Koei. The game is set in ancient China during the historically accurate Chu-Han Contention between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu.

The gameplay and control are one of a kind, quite unlike the similarly themed Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga's Ambition series, and its controls were considered more inconvenient. The commands are set in four weeks during one month. The player must first choose the "planning" stage where they can decide to improve their cities or make allies. The next week is called the "Action" stage where the player choose where to move their armies.

The player chooses either to be Liu Bang or Xiang Yu. Liu Bang has below average stats for Politics and Skills however his Charisma is high and hence it is easy for him to make allies, while Xiang Yu has high personal stats while his Charisma is lower.

Although the story is set during a five-year span, as in actual history, where the war took 5 years, the player is not penalized if they don't finish the game under 5 years.

Oddly enough, this game's English version only came out for Super NES internationally (albeit in small quantity), as Koei has a long tradition of producing in the PC market first, before porting to other systems. However this game appeared in PC form and ported to the PlayStation (in 1998) in the East Asia market and is considered a rare game as a collectors item.