Shogun 2 succeeded because it took a couple good ideas from Napoleon Total War and ignored just about everything else the series had tried since Rome. This is the series at its very best, its arrival at a goal it started chasing with Shogun and Rome.Total War: AttilaClaim to Fame: Tries (and succeeds!) new ideasHidden Weakness: It’s about as balanced as CaligulaAfter Rome 2, it was hard to be optimistic about the future of Total War. The narrow and mountainous geography of Japan also gives the perennially hapless campaign AI a chance to succeed.No other Total War game does a better job combining the fantasy, the history, and the game design. The factions are all roughly balanced because they are from the same civilization and share the same level of development. Once the battle is joined and the last reserves have been committed, Shogun 2 is a game where you can just zoom to ground-level and watch individual sword duels play out amidst all the lovely carnage.The series’ return to Japan and its self-contained strategic context also solves a lot of other problems. Its look owes more to films like Kurosawa’s Ran and Kagemusha than to reality, and gives each battle a vivid, dreamlike quality that’s unmatched by any other Total War. Shogun 2 is where all the series’ best ideas have been gathered into one game, and married to a gorgeous aesthetic inspired by its setting.Īnd with its Fall of the Samurai expansion, Shogun 2 also turned into the best gunpowder-era Total War.All Total War games have had impressive graphics for their time, but Shogun 2 remains beautiful even today. We’ll save the worst for last, because if there’s one thing that every Total War fan loves, it’s an argument over which games were the biggest disappointments.Total War: Shogun 2Claim to Fame: Of all the Total Wars, it’s the Total-est.Hidden Flaw: Secretly conservative and unambitiousIf you could only play one Total War, if you could only have one for your desert island exile, it should be this one. At its worst, it’s a middle-school history textbook as told by Drunk History and filmed by the cast and crew of The Patriot.So before the series (temporarily) leaves history behind for the grimdark faux-history of Warhammer fantasy, let’s put into order the times that Total War was at its best and why sometimes its lows were so very low. Total War at its best is interactive Kurosawa and Kubrick. While the series has been on a linear trajectory in terms of graphics, the quality of the games underlying those vivid battlefield vistas has varied wildly.
Each decision on the strategic level is a gamble on the immediate future, where “one more turn” isn’t just a stepping-stone to a new upgrade, but a perilous step onto thin ice.Įach time you take to the battlefield is another do-or-die moment, a possible Hastings or Austerlitz that can open the road to conquest or plunge you into a desperate fight for survival.But the Total War series has also been defined by massive, abrupt swings in quality. Your empire rises from nothing, surrounded by enemies who are poised to trample it into the dust.
Amazon Music Stream millions of songs: Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers: Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon.Ĭontributor4th January 2016 / 9:00PMAt its best, the series casts a spell over you. Empire and Napoleon Total War Collection - Game of the Year (PC DVD) UK IMPORT ESRB Rating: Mature by Total War.