Tag Archives: Simulation

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Lord of Darkness Review

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Uh oh, it’s another strategy type game! Lord of Darkness takes thing further than the first game in regards to how realistic they are going with the simulation. You now have to worry about supplies and 7 different kinds of locations in addition to the battles. As a result there is far less gameplay than in the first one. The difficulty of the battles themselves appears to have been lessened but the game itself is just as difficult as always because of all the other factors you have to worry about. The more you have to keep track of everything, the more you will quickly find yourself being absolutely shut down. Ultimately, you’re doomed here.

The game has only 2 scenarios instead of 3 this time but maybe you unlock the third later on. The main goal of the game is really to go in and conquer all of the world. Along the way you will have to fight or ally with other team leaders. Of course the whole quest feels virtually endless with how the other armies keep popping up like whack a moles. Defeat one of them and another 3 come in to take their place. Trust me, it’s not ideal when you like to see your progress going up. I felt the same way for De Blob 2 and Paper Mario: Color Splash. I never like the idea of enemies recapturing different locations that I already got.

The only exception I can think of is Dynasty Warriors since it’s all happening in real time and it’s on the same level. So it doesn’t feel as bad when I lose a piece of land compared to other games where it means a whole lot of back tracking. I would argue that it is a completely different circumstance to be honest. Then this game is also just very complex with how the supplies are handled. You can give orders once a month so you have to be very complete with them. Try addressing as many areas as possible because the wait to the next month will be absolutely brutal. Of course on the other hand this also means that each month will be really time consuming.

The enemies seem to be a lot more relaxed this time around though so I made it through many seasons without being attacked. That also means that the game gets downright boring though. You’ve also got a lot of RNG elements here like floods that come washing in and illnesses that take chunks out of the general populace. Why add RNG to a heavy strategy game like this? The answer might be that it tests your strategic skills in an ever changing environment but it just makes you less invested since your well thought out plans can be done in an instant.

The graphics are okay at best but it’s clear that they were not a big priority here. There’s also not much of a soundtrack at all. I can say that they did put a lot of effort into the gameplay so I’ll give them some props there. It just wasn’t any fun and ultimately that is the most important part of any game. Who is going to play a video game that they don’t think is an absolute blast? It just wouldn’t make sense and so this one just forgot to be super fun. I’m sure strategy fans may get a kick out of this one but it definitely does not have the kind of widespread appeal that you would like to see here.

In terms of quality of life features, the game could definitely stand to label the units. They’re all very easy to mix up. The difference comes down to their weapons and flags. If you really pay attention then you will know what they all represent but having a basic map on screen would be nice. In a more modern adventure you wouldn’t need that since the game would have way more details but in this case it is an absolute necessity. It’s certainly an instance where the game’s technical limitations really came back to bite it.

There’s not a whole lot more to get into with this game. You can activate multiplayer which can make things a little more fun but the sheer chunk of time that it would take up would probably end up hurting quite a bit. With two players that is basically double the amount of time that it would take to clear each game and that’s assuming that one of the other 25 computers doesn’t win. So if you’re going to do a multiplayer battle this is probably not the title to use.

Overall, I would say to avoid this game. Even though it’s free, there just isn’t much fun to be had here. The menus are way too extensive and the gameplay is too limited. I would probably rather read a book about the warring states than play through this one. I can’t say that I find the period too engaging even on a good day but there are ways to make it interesting. Perhaps a modern PS5 remake would prove to be different but in the meantime this is definitely a full on skip.

Overall 2/10

Nobunaga’s Ambition Review

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It’s time to get into the old time strategy games on the SNES. Nobunaga’s Ambition is definitely a game that everybody has heard of but I’m sorry to say that it has not aged well in practice. The gameplay takes too long to get to and there is too much RNG. Hardcore strategy fans will have a kick with this but it is lacking the quality of life features that would make this a winner. You end up watching more than actually participating which is not a good idea. Maybe one of the sequels will do the trick but I have my doubts.

The game starts off very ambitiously as you decide how many players will be participating between 0 and 8. Yes, 0 is an option as you can then watch the war going on. I tried that mode once and watched for about 10 years of in game time but the war just never ends. The world is too large so when one faction gets a lot of land, the others end up capturing some eventually. It’s an eternal war you can say. When you are actually playing the game with 8 people you can prevent that but of course it will still take a while. Playing as one person? Well you’re going to get crushed.

I do appreciate the game allowing you to choose if you want to watch the computer’s turns or not though. I made sure to say no because the game would absolutely take forever if you did that. Each match is a very long experience because of the amount of details put into it and watching all of the 28 countries duke it out would really take forever. When it’s your turn, you can choose to attack a neighboring country, make a deal with them, or flat out bribe their citizens to join your country. I suspect these options don’t really begin working until you have a lot of money and prestige though because I tried on several accounts and it just didn’t work. Even with rewind so I know the chance was 0% there.

As for fighting, well that’s something you can win but without rewind I imagine you would be dying a lot. When the match starts, you position where you will put your men. The kicker? You don’t actually know where the opponent will put their men until the match has actually started. So worst case your king will be immediately surrounded. If that happens then you are really cooked because it’s not just a loss if your king is defeated, it’s an instant game over! It’s quite the harsh punishment.

You also keep all injuries and deaths from the previous rounds. So lets say you start with 100 men and lose about 30 in the first fight. Well, now you will have 70 fighters left for round 2 and that number will only continue to be reduced in each ensuing battle. That’s I guess where the bartering would come in. You can try to buy and sell rice and even order more men but it’ll cost you gold. So in addition to the fights you have to really take all of that into account as well. You’re also surrounded by 2-4 enemies no matter who you pick to play as so you have to hope that they don’t all attack you back to back. If they do then you’re really in trouble.

Sites list the game as 50+ hours and I can definitely see why. I imagine that eventually you will beat enough opponents to really make a name for yourself and improve your reputation but it’s definitely not going to be easy and is going to be a long time. You will have to suffer some losses to give your other forces time to marshal their defenses. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Where some modern quality of life features could have helped would be with the speed of combat and the little cutscenes here and there. If you remove those then everything probably gets to be a whole lot easier.

As far as the graphics go, the game looks quite old. None of the character models are all that descriptive and the game also just throws you right into the fire. If you want a tutorial then you’d best look for that online because you won’t be seeing anything here. No as far as this game goes, you just need to try your best. There’s not much of a soundtrack but I wasn’t really expecting that anyway. This is an old time war game so it’s meant to be very somber.

To me there just isn’t a lot of incentive to playing this. If you want to try and take over the world, I imagine it would be much more fun irl in a dungeons and dragons kind of setup. One of those real rpg games where you play with everyone and just enjoy the game itself. That’s the way to do this kind of game rather than in a video game. Still, this game got enough sequels where it makes sense that a lot of people do have a good time with it. I will also say, it is still better than Harvest Moon for what it’s worth although I can’t see myself playing either game for very long.

Overall, Nobunaga’s Ambition just makes you want to play some Dynasty Warriors. I think that series spoiled me a bit because uniting the world through combat just makes way more sense than this strategy title. If you’re gong to do strategy, then do it in a straight forward way like in Fire Emblem. You keep the strategy fights while also not having to worry about the smaller stuff like supplies, grain, etc. Just focus all the way on the combat. Hey it’s free on the Switch if you have the online though so maybe you ought to give it a shot.

Overall 3/10

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Review

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I had quite a few issues with the first Final Fantasy Tactics game. I thought the whole laws system was pretty bad because it really disrupted the flow of the game and the penalty for breaking the law was too steep. You had to reset the game a whole lot. This game was evidently keeping the laws in so I was a bit concerned but fortunately it’s all been overhauled. My issues from the first game have all been greatly reduced. I won’t say the game is without issues but when you improve the gameplay, it stands to reason that the game itself will almost always be better.

The game starts with the main guy being pulled into the world of Final Fantasy. Now he has to try and find a way out but in the meantime he’ll meet some friends and try to stop some villains. It’s a classic save the world story where at the end you figure the kid will go back to Earth. Yes, this is virtually thee same exact plot as last time. I was surprised that there wasn’t a different angle here. If anything the main character has less character than last time so I would actually say that the plot is a bit weaker. Considering that you usually play RPGs for the plot as much as the gameplay, that was a bit of a heavy blow.

I wouldn’t say the story ever really gets to be all that engaging. There are a lot of sub plots thrown in like a treasure thief who is always rather crafty so you don’t know if you can trust her. Then you’ve got the mature right hand man who seems to have a shady backstory where he may have worked with the villain group. Some interesting tales in there but nothing that really stands out. It doesn’t help that the game uses a day system with tons of optional missions so after a wile it feels like most of the game is filler. There are 300 missions in the game but I believe less than 30 of them are actually the story ones.

The majority of these missions are dispatch types which you send out your minions to go and complete. As a result there is no story to be had in those. Some are hybrid missions where you could dispatch or beat in person. If you go in person I’m sure there would be some bits of story in there but why do that when you can send your minions off? It’s a lot quicker to do it as a dispatch and just walk back and forth to have the days go by so the mission is auto completed. Tactics gameplay is always long by definition so dodging battles this way is what you will want to do.

So lets talk about the gameplay. If you’re unfamiliar with tactical gameplay, the idea is to move all of your characters across the gameboard so they can either make it to the goal at the end or attack opposing players. Everyone has a set number of tiles that they can move across and then you either attack or use an item. You win when everyone is bumped off. When the level starts you can activate a bonus like extra power but a law will then appear and you must follow it. If you break the law then the bonus will go away for the rest of the match. This is a big improvement over how it used to be. In the first game if you broke the law then your character was sent to jail and you have to break them free which took multiple fights. You had to actually fight people in order to free the captive which was no good. It was such a big waste of time whenever that happened and it’s why you would ultimately just reset the game instead of going through all of that work.

So here the law system can actually be ignored entirely because losing the bonus isn’t a big deal. It’s also one less thing to worry about because the gameplay is super detailed as it is. For example, there is a class system here outside of the level ups and you can unlock new classes by fulfilling requirements. This is really difficult and I barely unlocked any by the end. It’s definitely not for the casual players but at the same time, you will then come to a real hurdle by the end of the game because the difficulty level just spikes up. I was barely able to beat the final boss and that’s mainly because I found a cheese strategy.

Basically the boss can’t see you if you’re far enough so you have to get just close enough to hit her with arrows. She will gain full health infinitely whenever she gets too low so the trick was to get her down to about 30% health and then rush her after her turn. This way you beat her before she fully heals. Otherwise I couldn’t find a way to get around that move. Also, aside from getting full health each time she would also put a lot of curses on your characters which really made things tough. Then there’s a second phase which was also intense. I’m not confident I could win again if I had to do a rematch since it came down to the wire.

Tactics gameplay feels very satisfying to win but also very annoying to lose because of how long each round is. I put many hours into the game as a result of how long it was. I definitely advise you to do as many dispatch missions as possible to level up your crew. Whatever you can do to get stronger for the final bosses is well worth it. You need to be strong if you want to clear it.

The graphics are okay, I wouldn’t say they really take advantage of the newer gen portable consoles though. This doesn’t look much different from the GBA game and there are no cutscenes here. You’d think that this game should have some nice looking cinematics by now but it wasn’t to be. The soundtrack is also more on the bland side. I couldn’t really recall any specific tune from the game because it’s all just standard fare. The kind of music you would have heard many times before but without a nice twist.

The game does have a ton of content to get through though so no matter what price you got the game for, it will be a fairly good deal here. Outside of the main plot there are a lot of side content missions and such to complete which will further extend the timer as well. There’s no way to really speedblitz through this game on your first shot so just enjoy the full experience and have fun. It is a game that was made with a lot of effort, that’s for sure. While the story may not be all that exciting, I appreciated that the game fixed a lot of my issues with the first title through quality of life features.

Overall, Tactics 2 is a big improvement over the first one. It’s still not ready to take on the mainline games or rivals like Pokemon, but I would be up for playing a third installment some day. Lets just get a different story in one of these days. This game was on my backlog for a super long time so it feels good to finally have this one completed. Now I’m one step closer to being fully caught up with the whole franchise.

Overall 7/10