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Just a pretty picture

» Pros

Breathtaking battles
Runs smoothly on modern machines
Great tactical sim

» Cons

Poor strategy element
Endgame is endless
Accents a little silly

» Review

Shogun seemed to be a revelation on its release. Here were epic samurai battles, all in real time. It was like Myth, only with daimyos and monks beating the hell out of each other.

For a lot of people this was enough. There is no denying the appeal of a battle well fought or the attraction of a bunch of horsemen hitting a weak flank, sending the whole crowd running for the hills. Shogun is all about the tactics and making your army work for you.

For me, though, the attraction of a game like Shogun is sending armies that you build into battle; armies that you have a stake in, whose fate really matters. This means tying these battles into a strategic campaign of some sort. And what you get in Shogun is an advanced game of Risk, only with rampant AI cheating and interminable endgames where you hunt down the last remnants of a dying dynasty. Diplomacy is pointless, since alliances mean nothing besides a short breathing space. When the highlight of the strategic game is a bunch of mini ninja movies, you know something is a little amiss.

None of this takes away from what Creative Assembly accomplised here. Real time historical battles that Kurosawa would have been proud to choreograph.