It's 1548. Japan has entered into a state of civil war following the collapse of the central government. A young Samurai comes to hold the title of Lord of the the Takeda family. A family with nothing but a small mountain province and a handful of skilled and loyal cavalry, can the Takeda family unite the country or will it vanish amongst the conquered? The fate of Japan is in your hands.

Let's Unite Japan

Starting up Takeda 2, I mentally prepared myself for the epic amount of responsibility set in front of me. I had to unite Japan and bring peace throughout the country. Now in the past, I’ve conquered armies, towns, counties and worlds, but I had a feeling that with Takeda 2, I would have my hands full in tactical and strategic senses. Trying to unite Japan in this turn-based strategy title will be difficult.

From the start, you can select three different sides: Takeda, Oda and Nagao. Compared to the rest of the families you will be facing, this constitutes as less than half. There isn’t much of a difference aside from location of where you start and who are your ally and enemy, but I wished there was more variation than just three families. After you that set up, you are shown your territory and the nation of Japan. You’ll notice that you can see who controls what through different banners and you can select to show your allies and enemies on the map.

The first thing you’ll want to do is raise some troops. The surrounding warlords are quick to start as well so it will help to get going quickly. Armies consist of at max, five different kinds of units. You got the basics: cavalry, archers, pikemen, samurai and teppo, soldiers armed with black powder guns. This keeps the strategy simple and yet effective. An army of samurai will march slowly, while cavalry units can move faster. On the battlefield, classic rock-paper-scissors strategy must be used. Pikemen can take down cavalry, archers can destroy pikemen, cavalry will be effective against samurai and archers, etc. It is very important to keep your armies balanced as you never know what you’ll be going up against.

Once you have raised troops, you can do several things with them. Unlike previous turn-based titles, where you can move into territories like Risk, you move your units based on range, speed and terrain. This is represented in small squares and a green or black line of travel. While this makes moving your troops more precise and allows you to occupy some important ground, you never know what kind of terrain you are occupying. It would have been advantageous to know if the ground you are on has any benefits so that you know whether to stop there and fortify or find another spot.

The real-time battle mode of Takeda 2 will bring a lot of memories of Shogun: Total War, which came out in 2000. In fact it should look familiar as well, but more on that later. You can first resolve the fight automatically using information such as number of troops, morale, army strength, etc. While it may seem useful and time-saving to auto-fight one-sided match-ups, I have had several battles end in total disaster even when I have advantages on all numbers by a high margin. I can believe that ineptitude of my generals could lead to total defeat, but losing nearly one thousand troops an army half my size and a much lower rating can cause people to lose hair over. I recommend sticking with fighting the battles yourself since you can probably turn a probably defeat into victory.

Fighting the battles in real-time is a mixed bag that generally disappoints. Before a battle begins, you can opt to arrange your army in several various formations. From there you can move your generals into boxes within that formation and even allow for some generals to come in on certain flanks during the battle, although how long they wait is never revealed. Some formations are meant for attack or defense or to look intimidating. Once you are ready you are taken to the battle, which starts right away. I must mention that there is a pause mode, but you can’t give commands to your troops. Why this isn’t allowed truly blows my mind, as sometimes I get so confused that I need to pause the action. The troops are represented in sprites (remember when I said it would remind you of Shogun: Total War?) and while brightly colored, tough to distinguish in battle unless you directly select their general on the lower panel. Commanding the troops as a unit is tougher than usual. You can’t just select and right-click your way through the map. You must either use hotkeys or the command panel to issue your orders. Generally this can get frustrating until you learn the key commands.

The difficulty is battle is always set; there is no way to make the game easier or harder aside from being just plain bad at strategy and tactics yourself. Having generals with great command influence are obviously going to have better results than those who aren’t, but I haven’t noticed any glaring differences. Units will desert or retreat when they decided that they have had enough and been beaten up bad. The AI will generally attack en masse, no matter what unit they are using. They will also have reserve forces to protect their banner and head general units. The AI of your troops however varies. Some will just stand around while a rain of arrows hits them, or they will break rank to engage enemy troops. If you find your troops a little unorganized, you can have them regroup, but they select the place where they go and regroup. This can lead to problems when you want them to regroup somewhere out of the line of danger or closer depending on your strategy.

If you are talented enough to win the battle (or lose, I know there are some less-gifted people out there with games like these), you are shown your results. This will show how many troops you lost, deserted, any generals killed, the usual information you would want to know. Sometimes your force has enough units to stay on the map, sometimes they’ll return to their origin town.

Now there is more to then just running around Japan and beating up people. Sometimes you have to do it through words, ninjas, and even marriage. Diplomacy has never been one of my strongest points, but I found Takeda 2’s diplomacy gameplay to be rather random and generally confusing. Sometimes you will get announcements of war against you, or calls for marriage and alliances. Marriages can increase the relationship between families and lead to stronger alliances, while declaration of wars obviously mean someone in Japan hates you. There is however one huge annoyance out of this system. Sometimes your towns will defect. Usually for no apparent reason and more than likely when you least expect it. There is no warning nor signs of when a town will defect, which always gives you a sense of weariness of newly captured towns or even ones you already control. Sometimes you can wind out on top with defections, with towns joining you at random.

Overall, Takeda 2’s general concept is to fight your way to the top. The combat feels like it is missing more features than Shogun: Total War and plays as if it was its predecessor.

Look Familiar?

Remember when I mentioned above how Takeda 2 looks like Shogun: Total War? The latter came out in 2000 and now nearly six years later, nothing has changed. Troops are represented by flat and blurred sprites, even at highest graphics card settings. The terrain itself is 3D, but seriously lacks in any amazing design. There is no animated water and buildings look very plain. There are some decent fog effects and dust that kicks up during charges, but the fog looks like it is mainly used to hide the box-effect of the map. When troops are breaking down front gates, they just swing open with a rather plain fire sprite. The backgrounds are just as flat looking as the troops and can appear very ugly when you get close enough. I realize that it is tough to represent hundreds of troops on the field, but Rome: Total War manages to do it quite well.

I know it seems like I am comparing Takeda 2 to Shogun: Total War too much but they both look and play alike. Take into consideration that Shogun: Total War came out six years ago and that Takeda 2 came here December of 2005. The arrows in Shogun: Total War even look better.

The main map for the country of Japan looks very good on the other hand. At close views you’ll see clouds lazily passing though the mountains. Your units on this map are represented well so that you know what it comprises of by glancing at it. Aside from these parts, the graphics in Takeda 2 could have been a lot better after all these years. While the first Takeda makes this sequel look like the large jump in graphics, when compared to more recent titles such as Command and Conquer: Generals and Rome: Total War, it looks dated.

At Least the Troops Speak Japanese

The sound isn’t that much impressive as the graphics are. There seems to just be two different songs that play during battles and when viewing the larger map. These songs do sound right and incorporate a Japanese influence in them. Sounds during battle however are lacking. You’ll hear your generals shout orders when you issue orders, which is nice and galloping of hooves when horses charges, but generally that’s it. Clashing troops don’t sound too involved or dramatic. I know that in this time period there isn’t going to be explosions or machinery to make noise, but something that could really captivate the feeling of being there in Japan would be welcome. Overall though, the sounds get the job done adequately.

No Multiplayer?

I got friends. You have friends. We all have friends. It would have been nice to be able to play this with friends or opponents online. While I’m not sure how fast the game would be with the turn-based gameplay, but the real-time battles would be fun. I feel that the lack of a multiplayer aspect hurts Takeda 2 and could definitely help it if it had. It isn’t a severe issue to not go out and get Takeda 2 since some people don’t have the connection nor the patience to deal with others online.

Just Average

Overall Takeda 2 is just an average game using slightly less-than average graphics and sound. It will definitely remind a lot of people of Shogun: Total War from several years ago and could even turn people away from it. When there are games that are like Takeda 2 utilizing better graphics, more features and customization, it hurts more than just offering a different approach to the genre. If you are fond of the Shogun time period in Japan and are looking for a different title other than Shogun: Total War, then Takeda 2 is your cup of tea.