Shogun 2 Total War...Back to basics...

A little while ago the new installment on the Total war series came out. After the disappointing Empire I completely gave up in the series which I was an immense fan from the first Shogun. Empire was a disaster. Problematic A.I., overcomplicated mechanics that did not seem to make sense and sea battles that looked cool but never really made sense on how they were supposed to work...And I personally had many technical problems in my system. For me the game was almost unplayable. There were enough people that thought the same I guess, so CA proclaimed that the series would go back to basics by releasing Shogun 2  so many years after the original that begun this series. Oh my were they successful. Shogun 2 has again everything the Total War series had that made it one of the best strategy franchises in gaming history....

Shogun 2 keeps of course the basic premise of the series. A turned based campaign map were you administrate your faction in a Civilization kind of way and of course huge real time land and naval battles when each faction's forces clash.  One of the good things in this new Shogun is the simplified game mechanics. Now the military units are just 30. Many thought that this is a downgrade to the previous games this is actually a good thing. Empire's numerous different units was an huge overkill. To many to learn, to understand and well... too many to really balance them out correctly. Now the unit types return to the typical ones of first Medieval and Rome games giving back the chess-like feeling of the battle tactics. Add to this the special abilities of each function, unit and player characters that can influence a battle and you have a pretty deep and fun experience. Finally also the naval battles work, make sense and are awesome. The A.I. is greatly improved and, although it has its problems, it is far better than in Empire that your units were sometimes uncontrollable. The Administrative part of the campaign is refined and well balanced. The mechanics make more sense and seem to keep all the good stuff from Empire like complex diplomacy and trade and throw away the unneeded stuff. It is really an accomplishment of this series to make the organizational part of the game as fun as the epic battles. The player has to take into consideration the loyalty of his nobles , finance , technology research and diplomatic relations to survive. Everything not too complicated but also not too simple to become superficial. 

Visually the game is a marvel. To bad I had to enjoy it in someones else's PC. Mine could not handle it. But at least a can enjoy the gameplay even on low settings. Anyway...The environments, the effects and the solders models are beautiful, vibrant and impressive. The details one can see in the battle and the animations during the bots' fighting can easily make you lose a battle just because you were concentrated on them instead on what orders to give to your troops and how the battle is actually going.     

A great innovation in the game is its  multiplayer aspects. Besides the typical quick battles and the hardcore, life burning full campaign multiplayer these is also a feature that lies in the middle between the two. The player can actually create a General avatar and begin conquering Japan province by province by battling in each. His opponent is another player that is trying to conquer the same province  in his own game. Great idea for one that gets bored of quick battles but does not have the time to spend on a full multiplayer campaign. Also a cool new feature is that one can allow in his single player campaign battles an actual human player to enter and control the opponent instead of the A.I. This could really spice up the campaign mode.  

All in all this game completely saves the series from the Empire failure. Some say that is might not have so many new ideas but it is not true. It has enough to make a player interested and also more importantly it remembers what made this type of strategy game great and refines every single aspect of it. It is really worth it.