Samurai battles commence in the classic SNES strategy game, Nobunagas Ambition.
If you hate Tokugawa as much as we do, then you'll want to unite Japan yourself in Nobunaga's Ambition, a classic SNES strategy game that came out this week for the Wii Virtual Console.
Infinite Choices
Most turn-based strategy games will give you a choice of maybe about ten countries to fight as. Like in Empire: Total War, you can't play as any of the Italian states, or the Iroquois, or even Hamburg! Okay, maybe I was the only one who cared, but conquering the thirteen colonies as the Iroquois would be pretty awesome. Anyway, in Nobunaga's Ambition you have about fifty daimyos (samurai leaders) to choose from, all with an almost equal possibility of uniting Japan. There are four scenarios at different times in Japan's Warring States period (when all the samurai fought one another) with the first one having a slightly more focused map, zoomed in on east Japan. You can conquer everybody, or be diplomatic, or... well, probably just conquer everybody.Samurai Battles!
When you fight someone, you get a grid-based map with infantry, cavalry, and riflemen (yup, Japan had rifles already at this point in history). The defenders get a huge bonus in the form of their castle, which allows them to absolutely destroy the attacking units who come at them. The battles are surprisingly fun and interesting for how simple they are, but obviously not up to the scale of, well, the Total War series.
A Bit Slow
The game doesn't exactly have stellar graphics. You'll have a somewhat tough time even telling your riflemen apart from your infantry. Also, the game is kind of slow, you have to give it some time to build on you to get interested. If you aren't a fan of strategy games, this will likely appear very boring. I don't see it that way, but I'm sure many do. Also, you might have to take your own time to figure things out. The Wii's operations manual is not very helpful, and there aren't really any walkthroughs/FAQs online (for now ;) ) and so you kind of need to figure out what unit beats what unit on your own. Still, this is a classic game for strategy fans.
Rating:
Price: $8 (800 Wii Points)
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
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