I have been looking forward to this game for some time now, and why not, if past experience with the Total War series have anything to say, then this version will top them all. Who doesn’t like ninjas, samurais, and massive tactical battles.  So lets go back in time when Japan wasn’t a place where weird random internet memes get their start and screaming porn stars fill your computer screen. This is the review for Shogun 2 Total War.

Being a fan of the series since the very first Shogun, every game in the series has made me want to play the next installment, even with the random bugs and the somewhat inept A.I. I have been looking forward to the next game in the series. With this Total War some of the issues have been address and some are still there, simplicating some elements of gameplay, such as reducing the different types of siege units, and making trade and commerce a bit more easier to get an handle on.

The Basics

The Japanese island in the 16th century is fill with many clans with the capital based in Kyoto, rules by the current Shogun, who is appointed by a weak emperor, who technically is the spiritual head of country, while real power, military and financial rest with the Shogun. Kyoto is located right in the middle of the mainland Japan, the map is rotated 90 degrees, so think of it has North is Eastern Japan, and South as Western Japan. There isn’t an Okinawan Clan, or a Korean peninsula city you can invade, or an invading Chinese force that pops up half way through the game, at-least not in my play-through yet. If you know your history Tokyo is present but with its ancient name of Edo.

The game starts with atleast 20 or so clans, the main 10 clans start with 2 provinces each, while the smaller clans start with 1. Twenty clans may sound like a lot, but believe me by the tenth turn, most will be destroyed or rendered almost to just a rebel province. I picked the Hojo because of the Triforce flag! If your a beginner start with the Shimazu or Chosokabe, both start on an separated island, where you don’t have worry about attacking and defending multiple fronts.

Gameplay

If you don’t know how Total War game play is set up, where have you been? Quick recap, start in a turn based strategy, and switch a real-time strategy game play when battling enemy armies. With a now full 3D map of the island of Japan, you can now rotate 360 degrees and zoom in and out in both the turn-based and real-time. Your army is represented by a general, if one is not present, a basic infantry unit will take its place. If the general dies, your a in for a hurting, so make sure he doesn’t die. The map starts out being a flat water painting of Japan and its provincial borders, until you explore it with your units then it will turn to a rendered 3D environment.

Turn Based Game play

Your town will start with a castle, one to two military buildings or one commerce building, then each province will hold a farming town, and road network, and depending on the province, a special town (gold mining, horse farm, stonecutter, steel melting), which of course gives you better gear or units.

Deciding on where to place a certain military building is crucial, its no longer each province can hold all the military buildings available, you’ll have to choose from a limited slot on which building to build and which unit you want that province to produce, so if your siege workshop is 2 provinces away, your gonna have to wait a few turn before they can walk their way up to where the main army is located. Along with that, you have Ninjas to perform subterfuge, assassination, and sabotage, Monks to spread Buddhism or Christianity, or entice riots.

Diplomacy is important has will, make sure you keep clans that are stronger than you friendly by making periodical payments, try not to invade a clan with an ally that shares a border with you, unless you know you have the manpower to handle 2 front war. Make sure you are producing enough rice so the populace don’t revolt, which I found out is the hardest thing to do in the early game, you will eventually have to deal with revolts many times over, because upgrading your town consumes a lot of food, and the farms just can’t keep up, even fully upgraded, (tip: upgrade to allow for max farm construction through your chi tech tree, its takes 25 or so turns, but it will be worth it).

Real Time Game play

Once you have mass up enough units through recruitment, its time to attack, engage enemy clans or rebel provinces. You will be drop into a tactical real-time strategy game, each unit will consist of 90 – 130 men, this does not mean the unit will fight to the last men before it is rendered useless. If they get tired, demoralized, or simply scared shitless, they will turn tail and run, each unit routed will cause the unit next to them to become susceptible to the same fate.

This is where your talent has a General comes in, use basic rock-paper-scissor formula when engaging the enemy. Spear units are easy picking for archers, archer are easy prey for mounted calvary, and heavy armored samurai are good against basic spear units, and so on, and so on. keep maneuvering units to strike from behind to cause panic, use your generals rally and inspire to keep moral up, and before you know it, your enemy flags will start flashing white and a full rout is in effect. The tactical game play can get intense, so use up what ever brain cell that are left to think up new tactics.

The A.I. in this game seems to have been giving an upgrade, it wont simply just sit back has you shoot arrows at it anymore, the minutes it detects a archer unit coming, it’ll either sent its own archer or a calvary unit directly at it. if you are attacking an enemy general with an evenly match or  superior army, the A.I. will choose to defend a hill rather than charge everything at you. if he is superior in numbers, it’ll come at you with everything its got.

Controlling your army is pretty simple, select a unit to attack, or choose a special ability if available (ie, flame arrow, wedge, or banzai attack). Don’t worry if you lose sense of whats going on on every front, cause you will and you will feel like an idiot for not remembering you have left a unit somewhere, forgot to defend an archer group from getting destroyed by calvary. It’ll happen to everyone, just make sure the main army isn’t damaged beyond repair, and the minor losses during the frenzy of battle wont be too bad. Chances are you’ll be max zoom out during this and only go extreme close up during the final few seconds of battle.

90% of the time, you will be looking at this

Sieging an enemy castle is still freaking annoying. unless you have overwhelming odds against the defender, it wont be easy, running to the castle, absorbing arrows and climbing a wall will fatigue your troops pretty fast, you siege weapons can cause some major damage, but are too inaccurate and carry too few ammo to be a viable solution for long. There is an issue with the A.I. here though, when a town upgrades to a larger castle, the A.I. tends to favor one side of the castle than the other, you can simply sent your whole army to the less defended side and set up a good defense before the A.I. can reposition its forces to do anything about it.

Color coordinated for max eye candy

Online

The online multiplayer I haven’t try yet, but it will allow you to customize your own daimyo for online play. you can play the whole campaign online has well, you probably wont have a lot of sieging or sea battles in online game rooms, but no body enjoys those has much as the ground battle. I’m sure there will be many hours of replay value once you have finished main epic campaign

Sound

I love the sounds in this game, the music is awesome, nothing can top the music in this game, the turn based music is very lay back, while the real-time music are intense and set the battles will. The sound effects are realistic, from the grunts to the random Japanese soldiers shouting out during combat. arrow flying over-head, sword hitting one another, all the sound you expect during battle are there for you ears to suck up the awesomeness. Also, pre-battle speeches are back.

Graphics

The environment and imagery used in this game are outstanding, the rendered maps are detailed. the Japanese island are full of cherry blossoms and waterfalls, each little detail can be seen, to hills and deep forest, where ninja clans set up shop. Even the loading battle screens have some very nice artwork. Effort was given to make sure every part of this game felt like you were in feudal Japan.

I want this as a poster

Overall this is an very impressive game with top notch graphics and music, the game-play might not have changed much from other Total War games, but thats what I wanted and I’m sure a lot of other Total War fans want has will.