![total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/201275/ss_e33e03012ff77713cec032350001e457189ad102.1920x1080.jpg)
As firearms get better and better, riflemen more and more skilful, and artillery more abundant, modern armies will eventually massacre hordes of samurai or peasants with barely a scratch.Ī bang, not a whimper: the power of modern weaponryĪs such, modern weaponry is a literal game-changer. At the start of the game, samurai and even levy spearmen will roll right over peasant musketeers, but soon enough, trained soldiers with modern rifles will take their toll on anyone who approaches on foot. Within the span of a single campaign, you’ll go from the shock-dominated battlefield of the Middle Ages, through the pike-and-shot era, to the fire-dominated age of industrial war. As you fight your way across Japan, you’ll witness the end of an era, or more precisely, the transition through several eras, compressed into a single frantic period. Gameplay mechanics are another vital way to communicate theme, and this is where Fall shines. (Compare the descriptions for six techs: “ arms deals”, “ modern army”, “ cordial relations”, “ gold standard”, “ capitalist production”, and “ charter oath”.)īut text is only part of the story. New technologies are accompanied by poetic blurbs, running the gamut from bleak to resigned to hopeful. Generals receive stat boosts by picking up Western knick-knacks: pianos, penny-dreadfuls and more. Trains puff smoke and chug through little tunnels. As you build up your empire, you’ll see more wonderful touches in the graphics and flavour text. You’ll notice the game’s new aesthetic straight away: riflemen face samurai in the game’s loading screens, the new map looks like a nineteenth-century atlas rather than a Japanese scroll, most of the playable daimyo are dressed in Western uniforms. In fifty years, Japan went from a land of shogun and samurai to a power that could beat a Western empire and from look to feel to mechanics, that wrenching transformation is written all over Fall. How does it compare to its illustrious parent?įall’s greatest strength is the clarity of its theme: this is a game about change, in a way that no other Total War game has been. Now the latest, stand-alone expansion, Fall of the Samurai, wraps up almost a millennium of Japanese civil strife by moving forward to the nineteenth-century Boshin War. CA soon followed it up with a first expansion, Rise of the Samurai¸ which wound the clock back to the Gempei War of the twelfth century. Set during the sixteenth-century zenith of the samurai, Creative Assembly’s Total War: Shogun 2 (2011) was one of the best strategy game in years. Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 3 (Final): Ride Forth Victoriously.
![total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f3KZTDfA11Y/T5nfCGWeVfI/AAAAAAAAStk/X6Rui3Ivc4o/s1600/1.jpg)
![total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review total war shogun 2 fall of the samurai review](https://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/6998TWS2_Fall_of_the_Samurai_A4_Shogunate_FINAL-1.jpg)
Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 2: Patience and Preparation.Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 1: Awakening the Tiger.Matchlocks for my Eyes, or Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai – The Verdict.Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai first impressions.Postcards from Sengoku Japan: The Mori’s Last Stand.Total War? Only for the undiplomatic: the lessons of Shogun 2.Shogun 2 impressions: THIS is a difficulty spike.