Shogun 2: Total War Review
MrsNekoJeans
Published
04/20/2011
I finished the game's campaign an I have to say it's pure shit. It fails on almost every level. Not only because it's rather boring and the mechanics are a refreshed Medieval: Total War in Japan.
Firstly, the combat sucks ass. The units are unbalanced. Cavalry units are pretty much pointless and only thing they work for is charging at archers (the occasion to do that rarely happens since the horses stop on infantry units) or killing routing units. They are expensive and useless, they get easily killed by peasant militia pikeman which are cheap and in numbers. As for archers - after I captured Kyouto, I filled it with samurai archer units and put them together tightly. It didn't matter who attacked the walls and if he did that from all 4 sides of the games world - concentrated fire killed 3/4 or the unit in a few seconds, even without using fire arrows.
As for flaming arrows and shit like that - most of the new unique features of the game are pointless. Fire arrows are supposed to be more effective against heavy armed units, I suppose? Who uses that shit? Oh, the generals? There's like 30 cavaliers in the general's unit. What point in using the flaming arrows if you can just use (yes, yes!) peasant pikemen. They'll kick the shit out of any horsemen. You don't even have to bother with recruiting the samurai pikemen. They're smaller in numers and twice as expensive/ takes longer to recruit them.
The strategic part? Don't make me laugh. There's just a bunch of scripts. As soon as you get too popular or claim the shougunate, everybody declares war on you. This means all other clans are your enemies AND that you can't trade with them. So, basically you need to loot the towns instead of peacefully claiming them to sustain your armies and won't go bankrupt. But wait, there's more! If you loot the town, they'll get mad at you and rebel. A rebel town will generate an army that you'd have to spend a fortune on and wait 4-8 turns to recruit. They'll get it for free in one. And the rebels will become the enemy clan of that region reborn as soon as they claim a castle. Neat-o. You're fucked on the easiest difficulity level.
The buildings are a joke too. You can only build the ones you learned the skill for. And the skills take too much time to develop. You'd need to spend all the Arts points for architectural feats and still get the ability to build a citadel near the end of the time limit. And what would you build a citadel for? You won't have the money, unless you looted a bunch of other kingdoms. And it'll still take maybe 7 turns to build.
The diplomacy system is idiotic. Not only does honor mean shit to all your enemies - making allies or offering Daimyo's family members as hostages to ensure the deal makes no sense. The game is governed with scripts. So you could marry the ruler's daughter to another clan, send them gifts and form an alliance, having them as "Very Friendly" on your diplomacy panel and they'd still break all the bonds and dishonorably attack their biggest friend for no apparent reason. Just because the game ordered so.
The only cool part about the game is sending assassins. After I obtained silks, I could build a yoshiwara and recruit geishas (they can assasinate with a higher chance of success than ninjas but can't sabotage buildings and are always visible by the enemies). They are the coolest aspect of the game - especially the short clips showing the outcome of their mission.
Other than that, the game is pointless, boring, stupid and doesn't bring much fun.
Firstly, the combat sucks ass. The units are unbalanced. Cavalry units are pretty much pointless and only thing they work for is charging at archers (the occasion to do that rarely happens since the horses stop on infantry units) or killing routing units. They are expensive and useless, they get easily killed by peasant militia pikeman which are cheap and in numbers. As for archers - after I captured Kyouto, I filled it with samurai archer units and put them together tightly. It didn't matter who attacked the walls and if he did that from all 4 sides of the games world - concentrated fire killed 3/4 or the unit in a few seconds, even without using fire arrows.
As for flaming arrows and shit like that - most of the new unique features of the game are pointless. Fire arrows are supposed to be more effective against heavy armed units, I suppose? Who uses that shit? Oh, the generals? There's like 30 cavaliers in the general's unit. What point in using the flaming arrows if you can just use (yes, yes!) peasant pikemen. They'll kick the shit out of any horsemen. You don't even have to bother with recruiting the samurai pikemen. They're smaller in numers and twice as expensive/ takes longer to recruit them.
The strategic part? Don't make me laugh. There's just a bunch of scripts. As soon as you get too popular or claim the shougunate, everybody declares war on you. This means all other clans are your enemies AND that you can't trade with them. So, basically you need to loot the towns instead of peacefully claiming them to sustain your armies and won't go bankrupt. But wait, there's more! If you loot the town, they'll get mad at you and rebel. A rebel town will generate an army that you'd have to spend a fortune on and wait 4-8 turns to recruit. They'll get it for free in one. And the rebels will become the enemy clan of that region reborn as soon as they claim a castle. Neat-o. You're fucked on the easiest difficulity level.
The buildings are a joke too. You can only build the ones you learned the skill for. And the skills take too much time to develop. You'd need to spend all the Arts points for architectural feats and still get the ability to build a citadel near the end of the time limit. And what would you build a citadel for? You won't have the money, unless you looted a bunch of other kingdoms. And it'll still take maybe 7 turns to build.
The diplomacy system is idiotic. Not only does honor mean shit to all your enemies - making allies or offering Daimyo's family members as hostages to ensure the deal makes no sense. The game is governed with scripts. So you could marry the ruler's daughter to another clan, send them gifts and form an alliance, having them as "Very Friendly" on your diplomacy panel and they'd still break all the bonds and dishonorably attack their biggest friend for no apparent reason. Just because the game ordered so.
The only cool part about the game is sending assassins. After I obtained silks, I could build a yoshiwara and recruit geishas (they can assasinate with a higher chance of success than ninjas but can't sabotage buildings and are always visible by the enemies). They are the coolest aspect of the game - especially the short clips showing the outcome of their mission.
Other than that, the game is pointless, boring, stupid and doesn't bring much fun.
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