Shogun: Total War Demo

Shogun: Total War represents the beginning of the Total War saga, one of the most appreciated and complex strategy series out there, even today. Because it tried something new and managed to blend a few genres together quite successfully, the original game gained a lot of well-deserved popularity, which helped the developers keep on improving it over the years.

In case it wasn't fairly obvious, the game revolves around the great wars between the Japanese clans, somewhere between the 15th and the 17th century. Namely, it depicts the ascension of samurais and their leaders, who wanted to secure the shogun title and become the most powerful men on the entire continent. Naturally, this requires a lot of planning and a talent for war, since none of the other clans would just step aside and give up the title.

The game allows you to choose one of these clans and lead them to victory, using every trick in the book to do so, as well as clever tactics and ruthless military operations. In essence, it combines turn-based strategy with RTS mechanics, by adopting the former in between the battles and the latter when it is time to put the steel to the test. Naturally, both of them need to be handled with care in order to come out on top at the end.

Another thing that distinguishes the game from other titles is the fact that the battles usually involve a lot of soldiers at the same time, ranging from a few hundred, to over a thousand. Thus, it becomes much more important to properly control your troops, since it is no longer feasible to just select everything and order the soldiers to attack the opposite side of the map.

Every type of unit has specific strengths and weaknesses, which makes them either strong or weak against other types. At the beginning of each fight, you are allowed to manually position your troops as you see fit, in order to avoid having to do this in real-time. Once the combat begins, you can adjust the army in real-time, although it can be a bit more difficult to do so in a decent time frame.

In the end, Shogun: Total War comes with a great bag of interesting gimmicks that helped the genre advance and made the series very popular among strategy fans. Hence, although the graphics may be a bit outdated for current times, the title is still worth a playthrough, if only to see where it all started.