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UK Edition + [web site] have the full manual

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Wow - this is one of the most fun games I've played in a while.

The campaign side of the game is minimal (and a bit tedious), and some of the AI seems to be cheating. But you forget that once you are launched into battle. The graphics are amazing - fully animated armies of thousands of soldiers that you can control over beautiful terrain. You'll need a high-spec PC though - I have a fairly hi-spec dual P3-733 / nVidia GeForce 2 system, and can get good performance at 1024x768 (I cant wait to take it to 1600).

Some people have complained about the game shipping with a poor manual. According to the Shogun website, the US edition shipped with an abridged version of the manual. My copy (bought in the UK) came with a thick user manual, and two reference cards - which is just as good as any other game I've seen. If you want the full documentation, you can also download it from the [total war] website.

The manual doesnt discuss tactics in detail, and leaves it to you to discover the benefits of the various unit upgrades available. As with any other strategy game, you're best off looking in internet forums for this sort of info - if you want to shell out on the strategy guide you can too.

The best part of this game is easily the battle sequences. The music, graphics, and enemy AI produce not only the best wargame that I've ever played, but one of my favourite of all games. Once you see your Samurai swarming over the battlefield to chase some rival scum off the face of the earth, any criticisms of the game just seem irrelevant.

Saying that, I do have a wishlist. There's no editor available yet, and the campaign game is pretty limited (theres not much you can do in the way of diplomacy). The unit types are all very alike too - you get samurai with bows.. samurai with spears... samurai on horses... and thats about it. Its certainly nowhere near Age Of Empires 2 in that respect.

Pro: Fantastic graphics. Great ambience when you're in battle mode. Lots of variety of tactics, terrain, and very realistic.

Con: Needs a high spec machine. No editor available (yet). Not much variety in units.

Great Strategy game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is a must for anyone who likes to be both the warrior and the strategist. This game actually happened by chance since the store i was walking through only had one copy left i decided to check it out. And I loved it from the start. It's easy to get into and the tutorial is pretty explanatory showing how to form your armies on the battlefield. but it's not just war, you have to manage your income to which is manage by rice or koku. then you can move your armis around the map and either negotiate or go to war with other nations. eventually you'll go to war with all of the surrounding nations and thats when you get to the battles. The battles are real time and are extremely remarkable. The layouts of the field are great from the mountains where you can position archers from to fire down at your enemies, or the forests where you can make a surprise attack. There are only two problems though and that's the control and the morality of your troops. You can have the largest army there is and still you end up falling back because of your generals rank. The control can be a pain sometimes especially if you're positioning your troops in diffeerent areas and they are facing the opposite way of the enemy. But these are only small problems, this is worth the purchase.

Incredible

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As I am student of the sengoku jidai period of Japanese history, this review will be slanted, and will overlook some shortcomings of the game. Since I was born 400 years too late, and in the wrong country, this game is my only opportunity to be the daimyo of thousands of loyal samurai. The interface takes a little getting used to, but the AI is good, and even better, you can play online against some really good opponents. If you have the right graphic card, the 3-D terrains are outstanding.

excellent game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Their are times in any RTS game Junky life (don't deny it) when you get frustrated. Frustrated with the lack of strategy needed to play, games like Z: Steel Soldiers and C&C. It gets annoying send your troops in watch them fight no real thinking involved. Well, now there is a game that combines great battle scenes with plenty of strategy.

The plot is take over Japan. Not much of a plot but still you know what you got to do (it's called total war for a reason).

There are two main parts of the game the board and the battlefield. The board is a giant map of Japan that looks like a risk board where you make all economic decisions. It has a great turn based theme with every turn being one season. There are many ways to wreck havoc upon your opponents with many plenty of different troops and even ninja to get rid of unwanted generals and ambassadors. When you place your troops on opponent's land you go into the 3-D battle feed with over 50 different battlegrounds. You also pick the right season to attack because certain troops work better in different conditions. Once your outs you get to pick you're what days to attack. Then you give your orders and you hope your plan works. If you're losing the battle they run off. Its not any easy came to master. The Battlefield is a bloody site and is not for the weak hearted; the body's with a small pool of blood under and with the thousands of troops at your biding it's not a pretty site. It gives you a small look at the more bloody side of war.

The graphics are amazing and are undeniably good. The tutorial is useless but it is funny to here your guide speak to you in a Japanese accent. It does have a lack of formations, which may frustrate more hardcore RTS gamers.

All and all is a excellent game

Excellent play, graphics make this game a true winner!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Having played the board game of the same name for years, I had to get this game when I first heard it was coming out. True to reviews online and in Time magazine, the graphics and playability are outstanding. From the white haze of the morning fog to the patches of sunlight that filters in between intermittent rain, the tactical terrain graphics are excellent and should produce many copycat games in the near future. The strategic play in the campaign mode is also well made. Managing the ever scarce koku and deciding your kingdom's technological path are great attributes to the game. The diplomacy of the game, however, is unfortunately random, unstrategic, and becomes useless as the game progresses. Also, the spies and shinobis are useful only for counterspying and once the geisha is produced, it is only a matter of time before you are left with only the passive ronin to defeat--a cheap way to win!

Also, the game is limited in replayability. Sure, multi-players can go forever with custom battles but the campaign game becomes repetitive once each daimyo is played out. They should have made it like the board game with an option to start the game with random provinces.

The difficulty levels are useless. Beyond normal, it is almost impossible to win battles since your men, regardless of strategy and strength, flee at the slightest provocation.

But beyond these limitations, the tactical real-time battles are the greatest draw and it is they that make the game a winner.

One of the best games i've seen this year

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is a really good game. The graphics are very good, it doesen't lag up during the battle parts of the game, and the strategy section of the game is great. In addition, the battle area of the game is actually realistic, not like the fight to the death things of Starcraft, but it is realistic concerning how the battlefeild works. Buy this game, because it's really worth it

WARNING: DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: March 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is not such a bad game, it has some good intentions but the bugs and incompatibility problems make it unplayable for some people, plus there are quite a few good games to buy out there today so dont waste your money on this one. To add some credibility to my statement I'll say that I'm 23 years old and I've played games all my life from board games, pc nes, super nes, nes 64 and playstation and even dominoes. This is not a good one, I returned it the next day and got AOEII, and this one is good (microsoft should stop making os's and office and take game making seriously). I don't value a pc game for its graphics and sound, and specially today, where all new games have great graphics (I would give shogun 4 stars in graphics and 5 in sound), if you dont agree, try playing again final fantasy (1) or quest for glory or pool of radiance or even your old version of tie fighter (one of the best ever made). Well, enough talking for now and lets go to the game review:

1) incompatibility: it will not work for half of the people who bought it, although it did "work" in my computer, a 500 pentium with 8mb accelerator that is very decent machine for a third world country like mine.

2) heavyness: as I said the game loaded in my computer, but unless you have 500mb memory and 100mb accelerator the game will SLOW if you control an army over 400 men (about battle number 10 in "easy" mode), or if you have more than two other programs installed in your computer (this is mostly a windows problem)

3) interface and gameplay: now who said civilization call to power had a clumsy interface? this one is 10 times worse, it is only good if you command 1-3 units (or armies, whatever). I got the "mouse move bug" which means that when you ordered your men to move to a spot they'll actually move 2 or 3 times further, this made all VERY complicated and frustrating. Selecting armies was a little complicated, you only need to click once but then you'll realize that the army you selected is a totally different one, of course, you can always check which banner is "moving", this will take you aprox one minute, and your men will probably be slaughtered when you discover it, since the computer reacts very well. Some people say that the AI is tough, this is only true to defending AI, when you are defending all you have to do is place an army in a hill and the enemy will rush to you and get killed in an arrow rain... If you are attacking a bridge, you'll need an army 10 times bigger to win, unless you dont handle the attack yourself, its just better to let the computer handle it, there's probably a trick to this, but it'll take you a few months to learn, and since the game isn't fun, you'll probably just wont do it. The turn to turn part of the game is pointless, there's very little economy and politics to handle, all you have to do is move your armies from the place they are created to the front you are attacking, the stealth units suck, and as a matter of fact, the whole turn to turn system sucks too. I would like to keep on going but I think I may have convinced you already.

4) graphics and sound and historical setting: very good, the only thing that saves this game from a zero star.

5)replayability: I dont know since I did not finish the game, actually I didn't get to the middle of the game (or quarter).

Well. That is "most" of the bad things I have to say about this one, and the designers need to take their time before launching another fiasco sequel. I advise you not to buy or rent this game, you'll lose money either way, get aoe II if you want a RTS game or just play cac again for that matter (i wouldnt get tiberian sun either). Or if you have them both or have played enough of them just buy a good scotch whiskey bottle and invite a girl home :).

Great simulation of feudal Japan

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: May 23, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The game many historical strategy players have been waiting for! Finnaly we can control mounted samurai, geishas, and ninjas all in beautifully rendered landscapes and decent graphics. Great for first timers and veteran gamers. Setting up thousands of troops(yes, THOUSANDS! literally!)can be difficult but it only adds to the realism. Appropriate music adds a nice atmosphere. Weather conditions and unit personalities are just a couple of all the realism factors you'll experience in this fine game.

Beautiful game. Unfortunately it doesn't work.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: March 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you luck out and have a system that runs Shogun without any problems, it is one of the most beautiful wargames ever made. The graphics are amazing, showing you armies of thousands of soldiers moving over super-realistic terrain, with real weather that actually effects the game play. You can see lightning in the distance, or watch flights of arrows swerve to one side in a strong gust of wind. The AI seems to be great as well.

Unfortunately, chances are very good that the game won't run for you. It takes up a lot - A WHOLE LOT - of memory, and has major compatibility problems with most graphics cards. And while it can run with software acceleration as well, it isn't anywhere near as nice in this mode. I've worked over every configurable parameter my system has to try and get this work of art to run, and worked together with the game's technical forum to try and solve this issue. No good. In fact, those forums are full of people with the same problems. nVidia cards in particular do not seem to work with this game, even after two patches.

great game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: May 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I got Shogun Total War last week and I love it! The tutorial is tough to learn, but once you get into the game it gets fun. There are several different modes, including Full Campaign, Historic Battles, and make your custom battles. In full campaign, you begin your quest to become shogun. It has a GREAT board game interface, and the gameplay is wonderful. Once you get into battle the graphics get a little worse, but they still aren't bad. You can train units such as Samurai Spearman, and Ninja Assasins. It also has a turn based system which surprised me. This game is great, a best buy for everyone!

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