Nobunigga's Ambition Awakening - Grorious dispray myrord!

[Silva]

Here we go...

 

[Silva]

There's this detailed review of Shinsei (this game's japanese title) on youtube and it makes it sound like the game is another disappointment. The so called "living officers" are more a hindrance than something interesting to play with, and the game is a mess in various aspects from the UI to gameplay to music. Let's hope the PUK improves on those things.

 

[Silva]

Looks fairly interesting. As someone tired of micromanagement these days, a more hands-off / "super grand strategic" approach where you just set overarching policies and orders to AI officers to exectue would be very welcome. Assuming the AI is half decent, that is.

 

[Silva]

OST is not bad. EDIT: damn, the track at 21:16

 

[Silva]

downwardspiral , how was the reception of this entry in Asia? Is this considered good? How does it compare with SoI and Taishi?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I've lost any hope that any new Nobunaga Ambition or ROTK game from Koei Tecmo is going to be good. At this point they are just milking the fans after like the past decade of underwhelming release

 

[Hace El Oso]

I’ve never played this series. What’s the best one?

 

[Silva]

I’ve never played this series. What’s the best one?

None.

Recent entries are pretty average (some say mediocre). Sphere of Influence (NA14) was better received than Taishi (NA15) for having better domestics and being more "feature complete", while Taishi had better tactical battles and diplo. Both are at best casual map painters though. Think HoI or EU without the diplomacy or intrincate domestics. A big appeal of these games is the aesthetics and the thousand historical officers to manage. These factors give the series a certain personality that's distinct from western games and raises it's value in the eyes of fans. Older entries were supposedly better games but I never played them.

The one I really fell in love was "Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8" where you could play a single person living in the world. It's like CK3 and it's pretty good. But then it's not actually from NA series but it's sister one, Romance of Three Kingdoms. I'm hoping this new NA Awakening become the first good entry in a long time. It seems to be an amalgam of ideas from the last two games plus a "living officers" feature, where you just allocate officers to counties and armies and set overarching policies for them to execute. As someone tired of micromanagement these days, it sounds interesting to me. And maybe third time is the charm?

 

[JarlFrank]

Think HoI or EU without the diplomacy or intrincate domestics.

How do the battles compare to Total War? I'm very much interested in grand strategy games with a good tactical layer.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I’ve never played this series. What’s the best one?

For ROTK, 12 with PUK (you can find english patch somewhere online) is the best for "grand strategy" title. 10 with PUK is arguably the best for the "RPG" one.

That being said I played from 6 - 12 and all of them are nice and entertaining enough. Anything post 12 is garbage

 

[Silva]

Think HoI or EU without the diplomacy or intrincate domestics.

How do the battles compare to Total War? I'm very much interested in grand strategy games with a good tactical layer.

Badly. Both games have super shallow tactical layers, with Taishi/NA15 being the mildly better one in this department. I managed to finish a playthrough of Taishi because of it, while I never managed to finish Sphere of Influence because of the tedium it becomes midway.

But again, these games (at least the recent ones) live and die by it's aesthetics and historical depictions. If you don't get a boner by looking at those cool portraits of Date Masamune or reliving events like Honnoji or the rivalries of Takeda vs Kenshin etc, chances are you'll find them average at best.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Think HoI or EU without the diplomacy or intrincate domestics.

How do the battles compare to Total War? I'm very much interested in grand strategy games with a good tactical layer.

Depends on which game. Some of them TB some of them RT for one.

Quality wise it is ranging from pretty simplistic to pretty be a tactical RPG of its own. ROTK 10 in particular is pretty fun when battle is massive. Each unit can do stragrem and so on and so forth.

The real time one in general are worse than TW.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, my posts were about the Nobunaga Ambition series. As InD_ImaginE says above, it's sister series Romance of the Three Kingdoms seem to be better from a pure game design POV. So if you're not into japanese history, looking into the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series may be a better move.

 

[laclongquan]

This thing is kinda niche, that is you need to have some interest in Japanese history and not allergic to pronounce some Jap names~ Otherwise I doubt you have enough interest to progress far.

 

[Thorakitai]

There's this detailed review of Shinsei (this game's japanese title) on youtube and it makes it sound like the game is another disappointment. The so called "living officers" are more a hindrance than something interesting to play with, and the game is a mess in various aspects from the UI to gameplay to music. Let's hope the PUK improves on those things.

According to the it's Atwiki page. It's ranked as mediocre (having no rating) unlike Taishi being considered terrible and being heavily compared to the mobile game that is Rotk 12.

Translated from Deepl

General Comments

This title was made more realistic to the historical period of warfare with the creation of a new unit called a county. Instead, the game became more cramped with less freedom for the daimyo and more restrictions on what they could and could not do. Play time also increased.
On the other hand, the balance of battles and internal politics, and the intelligence of the AI are good, making it a playable game if you can stand playing for long periods of time.

 

[Silva]

Hey Thorakitai , since you're playing Genghis Khan, you could as well compare the new games to it. How does it fare against Souzou and Taishi? Have you played these?

Btw, call me old but these days I'm skeptical of the intense "farm work" that Souzou/Sphere of Influence fans advocate, which in my experience only results in tedious micromanagement down the road. I prefer leaner systems that feed into interesting ( = challenging and replayable) play loops myself. That's why I still appreciate Shogun 2 but can't stand the Civ formula anymore.

 

[Raghar]

There's this detailed review of Shinsei (this game's japanese title) on youtube and it makes it sound like the game is another disappointment. The so called "living officers" are more a hindrance than something interesting to play with, and the game is a mess in various aspects from the UI to gameplay to music. Let's hope the PUK improves on those things.

What species is that reviewer?

 

[Thorakitai]

Hey Thorakitai , since you're playing Genghis Khan, you could as well compare the new games to it. How does it fare against Souzou and Taishi? Have you played these?

Given how you've displayed your dislikes, you're not going to like Genghis Khan IV due to how it's even more of a Civ game comparable to Civ II and IV where you make officers into units to perform tasks and you have to manage every aspect of your cities with a slightly older UI although unlike those civ games, it does have auto commands where you can order your cities and units to perform specific tasks to lighten the heavy tedium of micromanagement.

Due to it's worldwide scope, it has fewer historical officers and events to keep your interest when compared to SoI and Taishi.

 

[Silva]

Gameplay vid of the game. Can give an idea of the gameplay loop, specially on x1.25 or higher speeds.



JarlFrank , take a look.

 

[Silva]

It seems the western version will be released with english dub voices only. Shamefur dispray and I'll probably turn the voices off then. Edit: according to a recent interview though, the director said they could release the japanese voices later if there's enough interest.

And a playthrough in japanese of the final, PK version..

 

[Silva]

Title says review but it's more of an overview at this point, as I doubt the guy explored much of the game nuances.

 

[Silva]

My early ~10 hours impression: we have somethings special here. So far the best NA game I've ever played (not much considering recent titles were crap), and possibly a true contender for the best western strat games out there. My only complaint is the UI, which is terrible and was clearly designed for consoles.


P.S: the devs heard the weeboo fans and are releasing a japanese voice pack soon.

Spoiler

 

[7h30n]

My early ~10 hours impression: we have somethings special here. So far the best NA game I've ever played (not much considering recent titles were crap), and possibly a true contender for the best western strat games out there. My only complaint is the UI, which is terrible and was clearly designed for consoles.


P.S: the devs heard the weeboo fans and are releasing a japanese voice pack soon.

Spoiler

Care to elaborate why this is the best NA you played?

I completely missed the boat on NA series, but I always wanted to get into it (as I'm interested in the historical period). Is this the one for me to start with?

 

[Rean]

What species is that reviewer?

Probably Thai.

 

[Axioms]

Can someone detail the most innovative or at least unique strategy mechanics? How does this compare to a Paradox or Slitherine title?