The game is based on the novel The Deer and the Cauldron by the popular Chinese wuxia (martial arts) writer Jinyong. The game is set in China of Qing Dynasty, during the reign of Kangxi, the second Qing Emperor (late 17th century). The hero of the game is Wei Xiaobao, a young boy whose mother runs a brothel in the town Yangzhou. One day he accidentally encounters Mao Shiba (Mao “Eighteen”), an escaped convict from the Tiandi martial arts school, which opposes the rule of the emperor. Wei Xiaobao is taken to the capital city Beijing and begins a brilliant career at the imperial court, gradually becoming involved in a net of intrigues.
This is a fairly traditional Japanese-style RPG with “super-deformed” character graphics and backgrounds reminiscent of SNES games. The battles are very similar to those found in early Final Fantasy titles. They are round-based: you assign commands to your party and watch the round unfold. The battles are viewed from top-down perspective, the player party to the right, the enemy party to the left. You have standard HP and MP bars and can attack physically or cast a variety of MP-consuming spells.
