One Gamer's Struggle to Keep Good Gaming Alive
Shogun 2: Total War
Hey folks, I know it's been a few months since my last review, but I'm back with my next installment of Dying Genre!
Sorry for the lateness on this review, there is an interesting bug on stream preventing this game from launching, after a few hours of frustration and a lucky forum post I was able to fix the issue and bring you this review of...
This week we take a look at the Creative Assembly's PC strategy series, Total War. Starting back in June of 2000 the Creative Assembly released Shogun total war, a great strategy game that blended turn based strategy, resource management, and province upgrades along with real time 3D battles that were extremely good for the time.
After Shogun was Medieval: Total War, followed by Rome, then the sequel Medieval II. Each game enhanced the mechanics, added more unit types, and greatly enhanced the graphics. Empire total war was released in 2009 and introduced a new mechanic for firearm based combat and was quickly followed up by Napoleon: Total War, having the largest array of unit types and the best graphics to date.
Many fans were expecting the Total War series to continue moving forward in time, leading to speculation of a world war 1 era total war (The Great War: Total War) but Creative Assembly instead announced a return to their roots, and revisited their first title, Shogun. This game replaced the vast and complex array of unit types seen in Empire and Napoleon, and instead had the basic four from the old games: spears, swords, horses, and archers. Each unit was effective against another type and forms the game's basic rock-paper-scissors style of combat mechanic. In many other games that style of combat reduced everything to simply what unit choice you made and an enemy could simply ruin your force by bringing one rock to your dozen scissors- here in Shogun II effective use of the unit types requires not just weapon advantage but timing and experience of each unit.
At one point in my first play-through, I was at war with a powerful neighbor who had won every battle against me. My smaller force was comprised mostly of Katana and No-Dachi samurai (the types that are weaker to horsemen) and I knew an open battle would be certain death. In fact, my army had been retreating for multiple turns to take shelter in my capital and was harassed at every step. I then waited for them to attack my castle, and the ensuing battle was a scant handful of swordsmen versus a large force of infantry, archers, and horsemen attacking en mass. The battle began with a vast wave of infantry climbing the high stone walls of my castle, and every time one lost their handhold and fell to a rocky grave. I chuckled a little. Awaiting the scaling invaders at the top of the sheer climb was my grizzled and anxious-for-revenge Katana samurai. Things went about as you'd expect: men becoming exhausted climbing were struck down upon reaching the top. Very few were able to even strike back before being felled like so much bamboo. This went on for a time, and eventually the vast numbers whittled away my Katana-men, but not before wiping out the enemy infantry completely. The field was bare except for the opposing general, and his elite guard of horsemen, my force was ragged, tired, and hanging on by a thread. Their general and his unit dismounted and started toward the wall to climb and end this fight once and for all. I did what any tactician would do, and placed my few remaining Katana samurai in a thin line along the top of the wall to await their guests. In reserve I had a broken handful of No-Dachi samurai as well, 1/8th of a full unit, placed thirty or so feet away. When the enemy general and his men reached the top of the wall, their extremely brutal weapon skills tore my Katana men apart, and after inflicting only a handful of casualties on the general's unit my men had been all but wiped out. Seeing my plan coming to fruition I sent my battered and feeble No-Dachi on a full charge against the enemy general, who was regrouping at the edge of the castle walls after the melee with my now dead Katanas. The No-Dachi charged into the enemy and impacted with the force and ferocity that I was hoping for and actually sent the general himself and a good deal of his comrades off the side of the castle, falling from great heights to their deaths. The rest of their force broke and fled. It was a good day. In other words, if your force is paper, and your enemy is scissors you can always force them to fight you in a rock-factory.
Combat mechanics aside, this game has some extremely well polished visuals and animation. From the cherry blossoms blowing over a battlefield to the slick of rain rolling off the roof of a fortress during a stormy siege, the game constantly impressed me with the level of detail. It is really quite breathtaking to see a vast host of soldiers each engaged in individual sword combats, parrying and dodging with motion captured accuracy.
The story of Shogun II: Total War is straightforward, as all Total War games are. It is the Japanese feudal era, and warlords from across the Islands vie for control from the ineffectual emperor to be declared the highest warlord in the land, the Shogun. To do this you must choose one of the factions and bring them to dominance.
Here's a quick rundown of the choices and their bonuses
Chosokabe - Bow Infantry are more effective and cheaper to recruit
Shimazu - Katana Infantry are more effective and cheaper to recruit
Date - No Dachi (two handed swords) are more effective and cheaper to recruit
Hojo - Castles are cheaper and easier to maintain
Mori - Ships are cheaper to build and maintain
Oda - Ashigaru (peasants) are cheaper to recruit and are more effective
Takeda - Cavalry are more effective and cheaper to recruit
Tokugawa - Ninjas and Diplomacy are more successful
Uesugi - Warrior Monks are more effective and cheaper to recruit
Personally I like the more challenging factions, namely Oda. They receive one of the worst starting positions, surrounded by enemies and with an uprising threatening the capital.
Seen here, Oda's starting position- surrounded, outnumbered, and fighting a civil war, all on turn one.
Shogun 2 has a few new and interesting features, most notably a multiplayer campaign that allows two players to play the main game mode in either cooperative or competitive mode. These changes may not sound that groundbreaking, but this is the first Total war game to allow for complete multiplayer of a campaign. Prior to this type of campain multiplayer battles were simply point based and lacked any kind of context or weight.
The DLC packs for shogun have so far been only semi-appealing, adding a unit pack and a new faction (Ikko Ikki), however the next pack titled 'Rise of the Samurai' promises a new campaign set 400 years earlier showing the rise to power of the warrior class in Japan.
The Total War series is a set of games that I highly recommend to the strategy gamer. Each title has its own charm, challenge, and flavor that formed the staples of my PC gaming experience. I don't often recommend an entire franchise of games because one or two will be poorly designed or just a bad idea to begin with (I'm looking at YOU Command and Conquer), but the Total War games are all perfect in my eyes. Of course, some have aged better than others, and it is sometimes hard to look at Shogun 1 and Medieval 1, but luckily both have seen a remake that greatly improved the engines of each.
Overall Score 9/10 - Great game experience, challenging and beautiful
+ unique factions guarantee replay value
+ simple to learn, but difficult to master battle system creates challenge, not frustration
+ Multiplayer campaigns add a new dimension to the game, get a friend and spend hours sending ninjas to assassinate each other!
I hope you all check out at least the demo of Shogun II (available on steam)
Kyle Baker is a multi-faceted nerd with interests in table top, dice and miniture based gaming, comics, movies and other areas of pop culture. He has been an active gamer for more tha 12 years and runs weekly RPGs with his friends via the internet and from his home. He is married to avid cosplayer, gamer and Comic Relady Kelsey Benoit.
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