Be a ruthless Japanese ruler!
Conquest of Japan puts you in the shoes of what was the Japanese version of the war ruler, the mighty general, and gives you all the tools you need to conquer as much as you can of the adverse factions around. Thus, Conquest of Japan is a nice, well put war prone strategy, in which you take to the sides of conquest. Nice up at this point, and a premise I can totally get behind. However, the catch is that the game plays pretty badly and takes a long time to get used to. The interfaces, the controls as well as some of the pictograms used for certain troops are not really that well put together, and for that, the game suffers playability wise, which is by no means a good thing. Yes, you can source a manual and learn the game's quirks, but if you've used to classic wargaming control tropes, you know, the kind that seem much more streamlined, playing this one seems like such a step back. So, yes, give it a go if that is what you fancy, but don't expect for the game to be a smooth sail. It's not. It's a pretty cumbersome experience through and trough, and that takes away a lot of the fun. And there is fun to be had, because the game ahs both a high level strategic portion, as well as a good low level tactical bit, with economics binding both together. Too bad it wasn't as streamlined as Sword of the Samurai, which managed better overall control and a similar historical (though not historically accurate, per se) build.
