Thoughts: Shogun Total War 2
Posted on 14 April 2011
One of my favourite games of all time was Shogun Total War, so I was very excited to get started on the recent release of the second version. There have been numerous releases of Total War games since the original (Medieval 1 and 2, Rome etc) and they have been good, but without ever really capturing the fun of the initial game. At least in my opinion anyway! I’m glad to say that the latest game is the best yet.
The problem I have with the other games is that they became so difficult to manage. It’s one thing managing provinces across Japan, and another entirely when you’re struggling to keep hold of regions across the world. The new Shogun game feels a lot more enclosed and limited than the other versions (where you could conquer the whole of Europe and even America) but that definitely isn’t a bad thing.
The combat has also been made more fun. Enemy units seem to be smarter, especially on the higher difficulty settings, so you have to really think about how a battle is going to play out. There are still some strange things that happen – when the computer tries to attack a castle it often gets it horribly wrong – but these can be forgiven.
An interesting feature is the “drop in battle” mode. When you’re playing the main game and start a battle, you can select the drop in mode and the computer will be taken over by another player online. I haven’t actually tried this mode yet, but it sounds like fun and should extend the longetivity of the game. It also increases the difficulty.
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