Shogun 2 - PC Review

Me and the Total War series – we go way back. We go back to Shogun, the original that put The Creative Assembly on the map over a decade ago. I’ve played every core game in this long running series and most of the expansions from the high point of Medieval Total War with the Viking Invasion to the low point of Empire: Total War.

The frustrations of Empire left me cautious about Shogun 2’s prospects. On the one hand the developer was returning to familiar territory – they knew this game before beginning to design it. This was home turf. This was Shogun and I was hoping that this familiarity would pay off. On the other hand, maybe The Creative Assembly had simply lost its touch? In many ways, this was an incredibly important release for the developer because if this one failed it could start to erode its core fan base.



It turns out that Shogun 2 is the best game The Creative Assembly has released in years. It’s a triumphant return to the era of rival clans, yari ashigaru, ninja assassins, and honor filled katana wielding samurai. It’s a huge, complex design, yet constrained and restricted enough so the AI is able to play its own game. I see myself playing this one for years to come.

What makes Shogun 2 such a joy to play is that the AI, for the most part, knows what it’s doing. This cannot be stressed enough as it was a key reason why Empire Total War struggled as mightily as it did. The AI in Shogun 2, while it may cheat a bit at the higher levels of difficulty, will use the same skills you use, the same tricks, the same unit’s special abilities and will do so in a way that makes sense. You never feel cheated. When I first discovered that another clan’s ninja had sabotaged my stronghold’s gates I was both ticked off (damn ninjas!) and thrilled to see the AI play the same game I was playing. When my bountiful sea trade route was attacked, thus crippling my economy, I was ticked (damn pirates!) but thrilled to see the AI recognize that I was financially cleaning up on the seas with impunity.

The AI shrewdly works diplomacy, knowing when to press your buttons and when to try and beg for a clan’s life either by offering payoffs or even offering to become a vassal clan (basically a puppet state). Attacking a clan will bring its allies into the war – if it suits them. On the other hand if you bring your allies into a fight they very well may conquer territory instead of you, which is great for your ally, but likely not quite what you had in mind. You truly get the sense that you’re playing against a working AI and not a placeholder for you just to steamroll to an easy victory.



Even on the battlefield the AI has received an obvious shot in the arm. While it still loves the wild charge of cavalry at your defending general, it now uses feints, is much better at defending, and luring units away from its front lines isn’t quite as easy as it usually is in a Total War game. It still isn’t great at sieges – either attacking or defending – and you will see the occasional AI hiccup every now and then but for the most part it’s an engaging game that forces you to stay on your toes and it’s hard to ask for much more than that.

Perhaps the greatest achievement in Shogun 2 is that The Creative Assembly has gone back to telling a story through its massive campaign structure. Empire felt like a sprawling game with little sense of direction. Shogun 2 is the polar opposite. Yes, it’s a huge game and there are a ton of moving parts but the campaign does a tremendous job of telling the story of your clan’s struggle for dominance.

This is done via the skills and traits acquired by leaders, heroes, wives and daughters as well as each special unit such as ninja, metsuke (secret police) and monks. Your family tree is front and center and you can see your bloodline as your Daimyo ages throughout the course of a campaign. The real kicker is the campaign timeline which allows you to read back and study the important events that transpired from beginning to end – the clans that die off and then resurface, religious rebellions that broke out, treaties that were broken and battles that were won and lost. It gives the campaign a fantastic sense of place and you get the feeling that you have created your own sense of history. After playing one long campaign, I spent a lot of time simply looking back at the timeline, remembering events that happened several real life days ago. “Oh, wow, yeah, that rebellion was a game changer.” It’s a small touch but an appreciated one.

I was hoping for a meaty single player experience from Shogun 2 and that’s exactly what I got in return but what I didn’t expect, and what still amazes me, is that the game has also delivered a stunningly brilliant multiplayer mode – for the first time ever in a Total War game.



In the first section, dubbed Avatar Conquest, you create your Shogun avatar and build a small army and start in a single province (each starting point provides a particular unit specialty) and you begin conquering Japan one province at a time, earning achievements, new units, new traits and skills and decking out your avatar with gameplay laced items such as funky hats and cool looking armor. The design even allows for detailed clan formation so you and your buddies can tackle this challenge together. You can spend weeks playing this mode and collection junkies will be drawn in hook, line and sinker.



In addition to Avatar Conquest, the game allows other players to drop in on your single player battles, if you wish, to take the AI out of the equation. However, the real show stopper is the inclusion of co-op multiplayer. Always a tricky subject when talking about a Total War game, the developer finally nailed down a way to pull this off.

It works like this: you and a friend take two different, allied clans, and take turns as normal. However, when either of you get into a fight you have this handy “share” button which allows you to split your armies in half so both players get to take part in the battle, which provides a lot of tense and sometimes hilarious scenarios. There’s very little down time in a co-op campaign game as you’re either taking your own turn or helping your allied partner in a battle or vice versa. The entire multiplayer suite in Shogun 2 is magnificent and fans of the Total War series who normally stick to single player are doing themselves a disservice.

Either playing solo, with friends or against them, Shogun 2 is the pinnacle of the Total War series. This is how you pay homage to a brilliant game that started a franchise, and I wouldn’t be upset after seeing what the developer has done here if we saw remakes of Rome or even another Medieval Total War. Whichever direction The Creative Assembly manages to go, I am officially back on the bandwagon.


This review is from William Abner of GameShark. I posted it as a test for blogs that we should soon be posting for everybody.