I used to LOVE the old Koei company games, like Nobunga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms series - the games were nothing super-duper special, but it did get me to read a bunch more about the period, and you can actually play as Cao Cao! Although for challenge I started with lesser guys with still-decent stats, there was some 1 province guy on the coast I remember using over and over in the one in the series I was playing a lot (probably ROTK III or IV).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms_(video_game_series)
I think some of the quibble with RoTK/Dynasty Warriors is that it doesn't necessarily teach Chinese history as much as Chinese legendary history.
Obviously, having characters that can rain down fireballs...not historically accurate. But it is *culturally* accurate.
Again, to me it's in the same vein as playing a really good game based on the Arthurian cycle. Of course, the problem there is which version do you use as your basis? if you go with Le Morte d'Arthur, you're going to have an ahistorically Norman-esque Camelot with anachronistic weapons and armor and feudal structures. But it will be drenched in a particular segment of English history/culture.
Well, the thing is Koei did a good job of translating the ROTK stories into a game world. Sure, it's over the top action in DW, but let's not forget how incredibly awesome the encyclopedia is, and how much depth of info that it gave on
every named officer you run across. Some much more historically accurate than others. It's all a great read though, especially the entries about the later Han, [which aren't included in the games] which are the more accurate of the entire readings. The corruption of Sima Yi, the horrible inefficiency of most of the governance.
Kessen? Much better. [Skirting all the made-up bits and magic] ROTK?
Incredible. It seems like Koei has such a hard-on for their own mythology that they wouldn't want to muss it up too much.
They are pretty good at base level knowledge of the
conflicts of the time, even if it is a bit overglorified in some aspects.
Overglorified: All the made up
everything about Lu Bu. But that's why ROTK is heads and shoulders above the others, depiction-wise.