Total War: Shogun 2

Preview from Matt - Thursday, 03 March 2011 @ 10:59am

If there's a word you could use to describe the Total War games, it's "history”.

Of course, the series has been long known as a favourite of the historical war "crowd", and a big part of that is its focus on historical accuracy, rather than flashy shiny stuff for more fun warfare.

But there's some personal history there too, for me. I've always been a fan of history, and especially historical war. I'm one of those many millions who separate "ooh, how fascinating" from the brutal reality of medieval and ancient (and modern) warfare.

I also have quite a fondness for Japan, and Japanese things. In fact, I'm going there in a few short weeks. I’ve always wanted to visit, I’ve had a yearning to go there. You could even say… a yen...

So considering those two things and that combination of interests you would think that the whole "Shogun" thing would appeal greatly to me. And of course, it always did. I bought the original Shogun with great anticipation. It was a rare period in my life where I actually had a computer capable of these "games” the kids are always talking about, coincidentally timed then, with the release of Shogun, and now, with the release of Shogun 2.

Or so I thought.

Shogun 2 - Now featuring water and birdlife

You see, Shogun had a special feature, and that was that it would only work with GeForce Cards. Try as I might I could not get the thing working with these new-fangled "nVidia" things, and the enthusiasm and excitement I had waned and died.

My relationship with the Total War series continued to be rather disappointing. Some time later I got the Medieval 2: Total War demo, and was enthusiastic about that. The familiarity of these medieval units should make the game more approachable than Japan's rather arcanely named troops, and all would be well. Everything I'd heard and read suggested that the Total War series was impeccably recreating the combat techniques, strategies and experience of combat with a degree of physicality and impact that had been lacking in previous strategy games.

But the demo put me off. The issue for me was when I charged a heavy lance cavalry down at a group of archers, at the bottom of a hill. They formed a wedge, and thundered down the bank. In my mind what would happen was that they would plunge through the line of archers, smashing it relentlessly before wheeling around to hit them from the flank, scattering the bowmen to rout. I would then reform my cavalry and run down the cowardly peasants.

What happened was slightly different.

They charged down the hill. Got to the bottom. And stopped. They just stopped there. They went TO the archers, not through them, in a bizarre parody of momentum. They then engaged in a strange and stilted flickering exchange of melee combat. The only thing that did happen according to plan was the the cowardly archer bastards DID break and run, and my cavalry did persue. But things didn't get better there either. As the enemy ran the cavalry chased. But when they caught an archer they'd stop to hit it. The archer would keep running, and the cavalry swipe at air. Then continue the chase. This farce continued for 15 minutes before I "conceded defeat" and ragequit.

I didn't buy Medieval 2: Total War.

And somehow I skipped later games. Empire: Total War. Napoleon: Total War. They just didn’t catch my attention. The settings and overall experience didn’t grab me.

So Shogun 2 is my first return to the Total War series since that debacle, and I entered it with trepidation.

How did it fare, you might ask? Well, I have to report mixed results.

First of all, since this preview has started out negatively I want to get the negatives out of the way.

The preview build I played had some bodgy stuff. It's hard to tell what's a flaw in the game and what's a bug that's already been fixed, but I suspect everything I encountered will be fixed in the final game. The most critical issue was that the "process" sometimes failed. Not a technical process, but a... step in a chain. Where a tutorial required you to go to point a, then to point b, followed by point c, sometimes point b would fail, leaving point c broken and inaccessible. You would get no idea what was wrong, just that you couldn't attack for no reason. Sometimes maybe it was that you didn't confirm a tutorial conversation from Stereotype-san, other times it just... didn't work.

Several times I had to quit by conceding defeat because I simply couldn't find any way to attack the enemy, and any combat just sat there animating without any effect. It's possible I was just doing something wrong, and I'm willing to admit that.

The other notable issue was the videos, particularly the intro. They seemed strangely low quality. Considering the exceptional videos we've seen for other games I hope this one is a place holder. It's not a big deal, but it suggests a lack of polish and finish.

Eat spikey death. Bowmen are effective, but matchlock "rifles" are available too

Still, when the intro video comes up as the second major flaw, you know things are OK, right? And I have to say... Shogun 2 is pretty much OK.

I'm pleased to be able to say that my cavalry charging down the mountain smashed through bowmen, splitting their ranks and routing them, before running the worthless peasant into the ground.

There's a lot to like about Shogun 2 and the main things that deserve commendation are small details. Early Total War games used sprites on a 3d map to get performance from the number of units drawn, but now they use detailed 3d models, and they're very effective and impressive. You can zoom right down and watch an individual soldier in combat. Animation there is surprisingly good, with the units fencing, spearing, and even kicking their way to victory (or defeat). The match-ups work out as expected, too. A single spearman facing a cavalry soldier spikes him and pulls him off his horse before returning to his unit. An archer against a samurai pulls a hasty sword out, but is quickly overpowered by the superior warrior.

Many little men obeying your commands! Kill, minions!

Some of the details are impressive. My troops left some dead enemy behind them and I happened to catch some movement so I zoomed in. I assumed it was “ragdoll fail”, making enemies twitch. But it wasn’t some of the men were mortally wounded, rather than dead. They writhed in what was clearly pain. One suddenly stiffened, arching his back, and then collapsed. He did not move again.

The battlefields are the core of the gameplay, but they’re not the exclusive experience. There is also a turn-based campaign mode, that is not unlike something like Civilisation in its resource management and development system. Personally I found this less compelling than the battlefields, but they provide a context and are well executed. Handling your resources well is necessary to get the units you need for battle success. In fact, you can actually skip battles, letting them “autofight” and just get the conclusion afterwards. You can do that if you’re crazy.

Another nice addition is that of ocean warfare. Ships can engage each other, boarding and firing on each other, and that adds a new element to the land based battles.

Shogun 2 is not without reservations for me. Some of the bugs that block progression definitely need to be fixed, and the game is and always has been fussy and finicky in gameplay and control. I think it would take some time to get particularly fluid and precise, so that “orders” are carried out how you expect them to be.

Unit names are confusing. What’s a Yari? What's an Ashigari? There’s very little help given to what differentiates or defines the units. Yari would appear to be lesser peasant troops, by comparison to the superior Samurai troops, for example. But I had to figure that out with my giant brain and it’s not exactly immediately apparent.

Also, my figuring out with my giant brain shows how defective my giant brain actually is. I'm told now yari means spear, and I made an ass of myself. I don't think this undermines my point, though. Regardless of what it means I still didn't know, and it still wasn't apparent.

There's a lot of focus on water in the screenshots, but the game is pretty balanced

Shogun 2 rewards a love of history, and a love of study. It rewards a love of battle, of strategy and thought. I think it would well reward online multiplayer as well, and I could see that two people attempting to outwit and outmanoeuvre each other could be very satisfying.

This is definitely one to watch out for. A worthy contender for a solid chunk of your time over the upcoming few weeks, a period that sees some impressive titles so far.