Let's go to war!
The first in a short-lived series of Shogun: Total War-style games which continued with Warrior Kings: Battles, this is an unoriginal but mostly enjoyable strategy experience which is worth a look if you've exhausted all the others in your collection. The game takes place in a medieval-style world and tasks you with restoring power to your faded empire. As is usual with such things, this basically involves building up your armies and your people by setting up supply buildings, collecting resources, researching new technologies, spying on your rivals and of course engaging in epic combat with said enemies when diplomacy fails. The main focus here is a substantial single-player campaign which features over twenty levels and eighty quests, while some of the key attractions are the importance of massive sieges and the several distinct endings to the game which actually make you feel like there's a reason to play through multiple times. For the most part, this is actually a pretty decent bit of strategy gaming. There's not much that's overly new here, but what is on offer is well implemented and gives fans of such things exactly what they want. There's a good variety of activities to engage in here, with a nice sense of being able to approach things how you want, while the range of units and potential strategies is also impressive. The graphics haven't aged all that well, and look a little rough today, but the simple, intuitive interface, depth and variety make up for this and result in an enjoyable strategy game which is more than worthy of investigation.
