"Total War Shogun 2 is an excellent title, albeit one held back by a lack of identity, and some design choices which are questionable to say the least."
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
PvP Multiplayer.
I must preface this by saying Total War: Shogun 2 is an excellent game at its core.
However, it has suffered greatly from some design choices that failed to improve upon the Total War formula and made it objectively worse in more than one area.
Many Total War games have pretty lacklustre diplomatic AI, and even more recent titles suffer from this issue to some degree. While AI is much better overall than it was during the first decade of releases, and it’s now possible to maintain an AI ally from start to finish, there are times when certain titles (such as Total War: Shogun 2) introduce debuffs, which frankly make no sense.
A perfect example is the Realm Divided debuff, which in the vanilla game causes the vast majority of allies, trade partners and vessels to attack you because the Shogun commanded it.
What makes this even more frustrating is that during a recent playthrough, this happened when I was already at war with the Shogun, after joining my allies in their war against the Shogun and his allies.
As my armies and those of my allies slowly pushed back the pro-Shogun forces, my clan reached the point when it was so powerful and famous that the Realm Divided debuff was applied to my clan’s diplomatic relations.
This action resulted in my vassals, allies, trade partners, and friendly neutral factions breaking their treaties with me, and in many cases declaring war outright.
While mods exist that address this issue and more, diplomacy feels broken in the base game, and players who do not install mods will find it nearly impossible to maintain alliances once the realm divided debuff is applied.
Unfortunately for me, while I appreciate modders and their work, I generally prefer playing games without mods, and being forced to use them almost entirely robs me of my desire to play the Total War: Shogun 2 .
Over the years, The Creative Assembly has attempted to change the Total War formula in various ways.
While some changes have worked and improved the series as a whole, others were quickly replaced, modified, or removed altogether after they proved unpopular with players or resulted in other issues, such as poor performance or general instability.
One of the biggest changes to how Total War games are played came with Empire Total War, which introduced new recruitment and map mechanics and a vastly different economic system than in previous titles.
By the time Total War: Shogun 2 was released, many of the changes introduced by Empire Total War were already being phased out. They would vanish almost entirely by the time of Total War: Rome 2, which saw the original formula returned with some modern quality-of-life improvements.
This change resulted in a solid mechanical base that remains central to almost every Total War title released since then, except for A Total War Saga: Thrones Of Britannia, which kind of did its own thing and as a result remains one of the least played and lowest-rated titles in the franchise’s history, despite being a pretty decent game in every other regard.
Unfortunately, Total War: Shogun 2 was released during this time of change, and as a result, it is a mix-and-match of various systems and mechanics.
The base game campaign plays like a modern Shogun: Total War, while the other two have more in common with Empire: Total War.
As a result, Total War: Shogun 2 feels like playing three separate games and not in a good way.
While I liked Empire: Total War when I first played it, after playing through almost every title in the series, I must admit that games released both before and after Empire & Naopelon Total War were not only more fun to play but also looked much better visually, with the obvious exception of the oldest titles, which are pretty “ugly” by today’s standards.
I must admit, I never really played much of the original Shogun: Total War, and as such, I do not have much nostalgia for it, but I can appreciate why they wanted the base game to pay tribute to it visually.
While I am not a huge fan of the map design or unit cards, I understand they are thematically correct for the period of Japanese history in which the base game is set, and I learned to appreciate them the more I played the base game campaign.
Unfortunately, both DLC campaigns, Rise of the Samurai and Fall of the Samurai, launched with unique visual styles, neither of which looks as good as the base game visuals.
While I appreciate it when developers introduce new units and building designs to better match the era in which a campaign is set, the new designs are normally drawn in the same art style as the rest of the game, which is not the case with Total War: Shogun 2 .
While it’s not a deal breaker, combined with the mechanical inconsistency mentioned above, Total War: Shogun 2 feels like a fusion of three very different games, and as a longtime fan of the series, it just rubs me the wrong way.
Total War: Shogun 2 is a 4x strategy video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Feral Interactive, it was released on 26 July 2012 and retails for $49.99.
Total War: Shogun 2 is available exclusively on PC.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Total War: Shogun 2 is rated PEGI 16+ and contains:
Total War: Shogun 2 is fun to play and performs well.
The real-time battles are both exciting and a visual treat that have aged incredibly well, and are sure to please both new players and Total War veterans alike.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing Total War: Shogun 2 , at least until every AI faction (including long-term allies) decided to declare war on me because the Shogun told them to, even though many were at war with the Shogun.
Ironically, the reason for most of my clan’s fame came from fighting a war in defence of the Shogunate, talk about being stabbed in the back!
When the Shogun directed all of Japan to attack me, I was the Shogun’s most loyal ally, having successfully fought a four-front war to protect Kyoto from invaders.
While I could understand a jealous leader deciding to deal with a faction which was becoming too popular, that does not explain why my former allies would betray me, or why former diehard enemies of the Shogun would suddenly flock to his cause.
While mods fix this issue to a degree the the visual and mechanical inconsistencies present in the base game, I must review the game as it is sold, and for that I must dock the score accordingly.
Ultimately, Total War: Shogun 2 is a lot of fun to play, and mods address most of my issues with the game. While I recommend it, I only do so for those willing or able to use modifications to correct issues that have remained unaddressed since launch.
We found Total War: Shogun 2 to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
