Like I'm sure many of you, I was blown away by the trailers for Total War: Shogun 2. Not only did they look great, the fact that the battle footage clips were in-game recordings was even better. Now a demo is out, so I took a dive in to see if the game behind the pretty pictures lives up to the hype.
Playing this game was a tad weird for me, as I hadn't played a Total War game since Rome. I looked at Medieval 2, (having found the first one to be fantastic) without ever actually playing it, and Empire and Napoleon completely passed me by. But I've got to say, even after so long, it felt comfortable as ever playing through the missions on offer in the demo for Shogun 2.
The demo consists of a skirmish mode and a tutorial, which I went for. You are quickly but comfortably introduced to all the mechanics within 2-3 hours of play, including the battles.
First, the campaign mode. The interface is a lot more streamlined than I remember, with units and buildings able to be queued up easily without wandering through menus and such. The colour scheme and art style is lovely, and you can really be drawn into the campaign by the map alone. A feature I really liked is the Arts system. Arts are little talents that can be picked up along two trees: the Arts of War and Arts of Chi. The trees, and the Arts within them, provide a variety of different bonuses, units and abilities, and you can pursue researching them in any order. Research is automatic as well: you don't have to select an Art to begin researching it. After an Art is researched, the game will inform you which one it will research next, which is useful in case that's not the one you want.
The demo tutorial also lets you try out the battle mode, which is just plain fun. Units are controlled with the tried and tested leftclick-select-rightclick-order system. You order units into formation by drag-and-drop, or group them together (damn useful for two-pronged attacks) and give them one of several flavourful formations depending on how you want to use them (Cavalry-based defence, missile attack , etc). During multi-player (so the game says, I didn't get to use that, but it's in one of the tutorial siege battles) the matches use capture points to represent key areas and buildings on the map, from shrines to gatehouses to the tenshu, which when captured will win you the game.
Total War has a tradition of being a thinker's RTS, and it doesn't let up here, even in a demo. The scenarios forced me to work out how to use the terrain to my advantage, and split second timing and advanced tactics (two things I could never get quite right) were key to winning the day (I managed). However, the game does it's beat to not get in the way of your clever warmongering, helping you get there with the controls and interface, which remains clear and concise in the battle mode.
Wow...that was a lot to say about a demo. The demo hints at a lot more, including naval battles (which I couldn't try) and many more agents and units to throw around (ninja are fun on and off the battlefield). I thoroughly recommend that all gamers, especially fans of the series, RTS games or Japanese military history, to give this demo a go before March 15th when the game is released.
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Total War: Shogun 2 and the Total War franchise are the property of The Creative Assembly.
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