Shogun 2: Total War Review Round-Up

Shogun 2 has brought some sweeping changes to the Total War series of games. Many of these improvements have been well received by the gaming press, which have hailed the game to be the series' best. Notable reviews include PC Gamer's 9.2, which called the game an "admirable re-setting of Total War's sights" with its "tighter, more focused experience than the continental sprawl of Empire and Napoleon" and Strategy Informer's equally high 9.2 review, which says the game is "well worth your money, even on launch day."

10

gameblog.fr review
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9.5

gamingbolt.com review
The team at Creative Assembly have truly whipped up a masterful game this time round. Setting out to restrain some of the excesses of previous titles, Shogun 2 takes a step back and retreads the ground of its youth in Feudal Japan. A game as smoothly coded as it is streamlined, it is easily the most immersive Total War since Rome and will delight long-time fans of the series and invigorate an entirely new set of followers.
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9.3

spaziogames.it review
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9.2

strategyinformer.com review
The Total War Community, especially in recent years, has become a bit hard to please. We're confident though that this will meet most of your expectations. Given the nature of the franchise, don't expect a ton of depth on the scale that Paradox manages, but there's enough here to play around with. This is the most fully featured Total War to date, and a great homage to the game that launched the series. There's more we haven't talked about, but if we told you everything about the game then there wouldn't be any surprises left would there? If you pre-ordered Shogun 2, good for you, if you didn't, this will be well worth your money, even on launch day.
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9.2

pcgamer.com review
Shogun 2 demonstrates an admirable re-setting of Total War’s sights. It’s a tighter, more focused experience than the continental sprawl of Empire and Napoleon, sacrifices none of their intricacy, and brings improved AI to the battlefield. In the final count, it’s consistently thrilling, grand in scope, surprisingly atmospheric, and bloody hard to put down.
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9.2

nowgamer.com review
Other than the campaign’s diplomacy and management elements, pretty much everything else has been rolled into Shogun 2’s online multiplayer, which challenges your avatar to conquer Japan’s provinces via a series of match-made one-on-one or team-based land, sea and siege battles. Capturable buildings that offer battlefield buffs for troops ensure armies go on the offensive, generally resulting in the type of swift outcome entirely appropriate for online, while the constant rewards of XP, new retainer cards and unit types – not to mention the underhand tactics you only get from human opponents – add another layer to an already huge game.
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9.1

vandal.net review
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9.0

eurogamer.net review
Then there's Yoshihisa, my longest-serving metsuke (Metsuke are Sengoku-era gestapo, used mainly for hunting ninjas and bribing enemy armies). And Sanetok the Monk, the lynchpin of my anti-Christianity drive.
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9.0

eurogamer.it review
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9.0

meristation.com review
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9.0

gamekult.com review
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9.0

gamer.nl review
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9.0

everyeye.it review
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9.0

metro.co.uk review
The Japanese sense of feudal honour also turns out to be a perfect concept for video games, ensuring that breaking a pact is never a trivial decision - either in your opponents' eyes or your own populace's.
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9.0

totalvideogames.com review
It's certainly a multiplayer offering that's chockfull of content and long-term appeal, adding considerably to the existing single-player setup and providing a vast amount of potential game time that's hard to better elsewhere in gaming as a whole, let alone the strategy genre.
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8.8

cheatcc.com review
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8.7

3djuegos.com review
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8.0

bit-tech.net review
If you actually manage to have a battle, you'll find the Bark of the Pine Tree army formation unbeatable - we managed heroic victory after heroic victory all too easily, even with the difficulty set to Hard. While on paper these two issues should culminate to ruin the game, they don't. Shogun 2 is presented with such style and grace that it's still engaging and fun. For hardcore strategy players, the need to balance units will lead to more taxing encounters online, even if the singleplayer game doesn't scratch your armchair-general itch unless you crank the difficulty all the way up.
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8.0

gamespy.com review
Overall, Shogun 2 is a vast improvement from recent Total War missteps, and revitalizes the glory of the original Shogun, while adding so much new and interesting content that you might not even remember said original. And this one, finally, does right by newcomers, making things as easy and as polished as a game of StarCraft II. If you don't dig Shogun 2, then just go ahead and get out of the genre altogether. I hear Maple Story still needs players...
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