Customer Reviews

Shogun: Total War

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This game is an ideal mix of turn-based and real-time strategy. All of the boring stuff, farming, economics, and the like, are handled macroscopically on a realistically rendered, RISK-like game board. Combat takes place in real-time with hundreds (hundreds!) of troops, including archers, yari samurai, cavalry, and ninja. It's like playing the medieval Japanese version of the combat sequences in Braveheart.

Combat is, thankfully, not painfully microscopic. Troops are organized into units of up to 60 warriors, and formations are easy to set up and move. Fatigue and morale are also nicely handled. If your troops are overwhelmed, you lose control over them, and they (realistically) flee the battlefield!

The dialogue is minimal, but satisfying. My favorite: "the enemy daisho is running from the battlefield like a whipped dog!"

I see that there is a medieval Europe version of the game in the works, complete with catapults, castles, and siege machines. Somebody please help Total War's developers obtain a license to make Total War: Middle Earth. I'm ready to play the battle of the five armies...

I wasn't going to review Shogun: Total War, except that everyone seems to be reviewing Medieval. So, I figured Medievals predecessor deserves some lip service.

The Total War series is without a doubt a standard to which any war game must be compared, and it all started with Shogun. Quite honestly, there are no games on the market that can give you anywhere near the experience of Shogun or Medieval. I used to be interested in RTS (real time strategy) games before this came along. I thought that the notion of hundreds or even thousands of warriors on a battlefield simply meant there were units that represented numbers of soldiers. The box said soldiers were individual units, but I simply didn't believe it because the idea was unheard of at the time. But when you see your army for the first time on the battlefield, rows upon rows, you know it's for real. And it's awesome. To me it is much more realistic and exciting to watch armies engage one another as they would have in real life. It's like watching and taking part in braveheart battles on your computer.

The game basically runs on a dual interface. The first is a
turn-based interface in which you move armies and agents, build and train, and issue all your orders for one season. There is no time constraints whatsoever, so you can spend as long as you like deliberating and making your decisions. When you are done, you end the season and face the results of those decisions.

This is the point at which you (may) enter the second phase, which is the battlefield. Also if you sent an emmisary or ninja on a mission, you will be notified if they have failed/succeeded. If you attack an enemy or someone attacks you, you will be given a choice(fight, don't fight etc.) The Battlefield interface is really the creme of this game. Without it any Total War fan would throw this software in the garbage. The battle field is truly 3-d, sometimes with rolling hills or high mountains, forests and bridges. You get a number of different units to choose from, that you have to train beforehand of course, to send into battle. While Shogun does not have as many unit types as Medieval, it has a respectable number, and almost every group serves an important purpose. There are many checks and balances between group types that keep the battlefield tactics interesting, and a good understanding of your troops ability really can turn the tide of a battle. It's not Just who has better troops or More of them! Winning a battle because of smart battlefield strategy is very satisfying, and gives you the feeling that what you do on the battlefield is just as important as what you do off of it. Mastery of the battlefield takes some time to obtain since the player must also consider elements like morale, your troops honour(how skilled a particular unit is), weather conditions, and various types of terrain as these all significantly affect what happens in battle. For example, hilly regions are much easier to defend so you may decide to make that a key defensive province by beefing it up with soldiers. When fighting large groups of archers, it's often wise to attack when it's raining as their bows don't fire as well. There are many more examples like these, but I won't get into them all right here.

The map interface is rather a bit abstract, and if you've played Medieval you will notice that the political scene is more fleshed out than Shogun's. This however is not a low point. By simplifying the map interface as much as possible, The game's makers allow the player to concentrate much more on the battlefield action without being bogged down by endless chores in the map interface.

Besides Medieval:Total War, this is the best war game out there. These games are really a genre of their own, and as of yet no one has even attempted to challenge Activision in their domain. If you have Medieval/Viking Invasion already, I would say there is enough difference and new stuff here to keep you satisfied for a while, although Medieval is more or less an improved version of this game and runs on the same engine(Rome:Total War will have a new engine). I certainly don't mind having both games, and besides this game isn't terribly expensive. If you've never played a Total War game, there is no reason not to buy either this or Medieval, they are both fabulous war games.

ps.- someone mentioned the manual for this game stinks, so I should mention that if you need help understanding strategies or tactics for battle check out www.totalwar.com. Among other things there's a section in there that gives a detailed description of all the different units and how they should be used in battle. It's very good.

Just 5 minutes ago my brother'sfriend was over, and he played Shogun for 4 hours straight! He never gets bored of it. When he comes over he says "Let's play Shogun"!Even my friend is adicted to it. If you despise violence you would still love this game. You can even control the battles yourself. A cool thing you can do is play over the internet with your friends. So buy Shogun:Total War!!

This game is great! The spies and ninjas are an interesting part because it lets you learn about the enemies armies. A easy gaem to learn to play and yet challenging for ever top players. The graphics are awesome and so detailed that the swordmen's swords are visible will they walk. Making allies and enemies is a important part of the game. They units are awesome ranging from archers to spearmen, spearmen (yari) calvary to calvary archers, warrior monks to priests all play a part. The ability to get gunmen by building trading posts with the dutch or spanish is a great feature. I recommend this game to anyone who doesn't have it.

I got Shogun Total War last week and I love it! The tutorial is tough to learn, but once you get into the game it gets fun. There are several different modes, including Full Campaign, Historic Battles, and make your custom battles. In full campaign, you begin your quest to become shogun. It has a GREAT board game interface, and the gameplay is wonderful. Once you get into battle the graphics get a little worse, but they still aren't bad. You can train units such as Samurai Spearman, and Ninja Assasins. It also has a turn based system which surprised me. This game is great, a best buy for everyone!

DISCLAIMER: I am a Japan-buff and games based on the Sengoku period of the Shogunate Wars have to be really bad for me not to enjoy them.
Now imagine how much I enjoyed one of the BEST strategy games ever!!!

SHOGUN: TOTAL WAR is admittedly such a great game in every aspect it has become a RTS game benchmark. Not to mention it has fathered the TOTAL WAR series!

Alternating between a tactical map (in which units get moved and improvements built) and the battlefield map (in which real-time unit movements and battles are fought) SHOGUN:TW has struck the perfect harmony between Turn-Based and Real-Time Strategy gaming.

The graphics are by now only a bit dated - and, on the other hand, they can truly shine even on mid-range systems today. The units are easily distinguished during battle, controlling them is done via a user-friendly interface and the issued orders are followed fast and effectively (something not true for much latter games, such as SUPREME COMMANDER).

The sounds manage to be both majestic and realistic (even after so many years, I am using them as my main WinXP Sound-Theme). Both Japanese and English is available.

Birth of an heir, earthquakes and assassination attempts by ninjas all add to the unpredictability of the gameplay. The particulars of the terrain and the weather, the troops deployment and the placement (and survival) of the general, all make the real-time battles such a unique experience!
Alliances are made and broken; rebels conquered and their shock troops assimilated; Christian traders allowed or shunted. Every decision has consequences.

Do not miss on it!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Love strategy? You'll love this game. If you have never played any of the Total War series, this would be a great start to begin. When you first start to play, give it a few. It may seem overwhelming with all the options you can be able to do. Practice. In no time you will rate this at the top of your list.

I bought Medieval and played Shogun's demo, and got the same strong impression: the game is too reliant on control of the camera as the action is too fast to both get the right perspective and issue orders. I played 4 scenarios and uninstalled it as I wanted to think about command troops in the field, not fly some camera about a battle.

While there is clearly some value here that is not found elsewhere (I'm sure you'll find it in the positive reviews), I found better choices for the thrill of real time grand tactical sim in the Myth series (particularly The Fallen Lords... fewer units used to accomplish the same depth of tactical richness, combined with better camera interface) and in Sid Meier's Gettysburg! and SM's Antietam!

Have fun whichever you choose.

tone

A beautiful game,the color,the animation is perfect. When I loaded this program to my laptop,it 'crashed' my laptop (so I removed and reinserted battery),but the second time I loaded the 'Shogun: Total War' Program,it purred like a kitten,sorry to say 'laptop'(Microsoft windows XP) still crashes. This is no x's and o's game,this is truly like watching a movie like 'Ran' or 'Kagemusha'... Next you have to punch-in a 22 digit serial number from a 'red card' located in the box,then press 'next' on the program like 8 times before you get what your looking for. The custom mode is great,you get horsemen [60],riflemen[60],lancers[60]. You get about 16 units of [60],what ever you want. Means in custom mode you can have 960 men and the enemy limited to 60,which is great,you have the control over numbers,you are the 'master' of the game play. Hope this was helpful. Update: 5/17/03,just got new laptop,'Sony VAIO PCG-GRV670 Notebook','Intel P4,2.6GHz Processor w/400 MHz,512MB DDR RAM Memory,40GB Harddrive,ATI Radeon 9000(64MB of dedicated video memory),8X DVD ROM Drive,can get you 'in' and 'out' of 'Shogun:Total War' and 'Medieval: Total War' with a smile on your face,guaranteed! You can play these games on laptop after all! You learn something new every day,ready for 'Rome: Total War'!!!