TAKEDA 2

Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Publisher: Magitech Corporation
Developer: Magitech
Release Date: Available NOW

Takeda 2 is a turn-based strategy game set in Japan during the time of shoguns. The main goal of the game is to unite all of Japan under your rule through diplomacy, sabotage, and fighting – mostly just fighting. At the beginning, you can select from three clans: Oda, Takeda, and Nagao. These clans are basically indistinguishable from each other in terms of gameplay and unit makeup, and the only real difference is in their respective starting positions.

Most of the player's time is spent fighting and building armies, and beyond that, there is really very little. Alliances can be strengthened with marriages, which seemed to be offered at random, and they can help you out a bit. Actually, random is a word that can be used to describe many things in this game. Some factions that you have never lifted a finger against will declare war on you out of the blue, and the acquisition of gunpowder units is also a costly development that can come at any time.

Building an army is relatively simple. Each province has a certain number of generals, which can be assigned to five different unit types (swordsmen, archers, cavalry, spearmen, and the gun-toting teppo). It is wise to spread out different unit types, as the game is based on a rock-paper-scissors style of checks and balances (i.e., spearmen decimate cavalry, archers decimate spearmen). Creating your armies uses up supplies, which are gained from taking over provinces. There is no construction aspect to this title, and getting larger armies is only available through conquest.

Each of the generals has his own dossier, which gives a bio and shows how well he commands each unit type. Once you select your army, you have to designate one of the generals as the leader, and then you can commence pillaging. One frustrating thing is that the farther away the army is, the more supplies it uses; if your generals take severe losses, then they return to the city in which the supplies were built, which can make it extremely difficult to take out a weak enemy. When your generals do return to the home city, it takes several turns before they can be put into action again.

Another thing your generals can do is acquire special items that are uncovered by certain events, such as entering a province for the first time. This equipment can give certain bonuses to your generals in combat, like better bravery (similar to an experience score that is gained through battles). The addition of these items would be nice if the advantages weren't so miniscule. I found that most of the time, an experienced general was only marginally better than a new one.

Combat in Takeda 2 is fairly straightforward. You move the armies around the map and click near an enemy to engage them. Once you have initiated combat, the battle screen loads up, and you can pick from a list of pre-selected tactical formations. These formations appear on the screen, and you can drag your generals to various positions on the battle field. So far, so good, but this is where the disappointment begins to set in. The A.I. is horrendous; it will send units en masse, no matter what. If you counter properly and they are slaughtered, they will always leave a fairly large group at their headquarters, which makes victory even easier. Speaking of the HQ, these are the spots on the battlefield that can be captured to end the battle. Capturing them consists of sending your units to cut down the enemy's flagpoles. The lackluster battle system might tempt some people to auto-calculate the battles, but, as with a lot of the features in the game, it is very random. At one point, I outnumbered the enemy by at least 600 strength and had very experienced generals, but they slaughtered me by a high margin when I auto-calculated the battle.

Capturing a town is just like regular battles, only you need to move next to the city instead of an enemy unit. Sometimes, you have to break down the wall (or multiple ones) before the fighting can commence. When defending a city, you are only allowed one formation, but there are a large number of different positions within the village to post your men. The battle is over when they have captured your HQ or defeated your entire army.

Along with your army, you have ninjas who can sabotage, spy, and assassinate, but these actions take gold. The only way to generate gold is to have settlements, much like supplies. Gold is also used for technology, such as when your people figure out how to produce firearms (which is rather random). You can also use gold to visit the emperor, but it is costly. The whole goal in meeting with the emperor is to get him to name you the supreme shogun, which makes anyone who attacks you an enemy of all of Japan.

Diplomacy is another route to increasing your stature in Takeda 2, but it is a very shallow system. Marriages are the main way to solidify relationships. Sometimes, your generals will defect to an enemy, and even whole towns can do the same. This is the single most irritating part of the title, as there are no indicators of which towns are about to turn on you. Taking over faraway enemy lands is when this situation hurts the most. The best way to make sure this doesn't happen too often is to put an experienced general as mayor of the province. Any city can be issued a mayor, and you can tell how qualified they are by reading their dossier.

The graphics in this game are quite substandard. On the battle map, your units are rendered using sprites, which is laughable compared to the looks of more current games. Takeda 2 resembles Shogun: Total War in many ways, and in some cases, the graphics in the latter were better. The only instance of good graphics is on the game board, where clouds float lazily before your eyes and the sprawling green grass of the provinces can be seen.

Sounds fare a bit better than graphics, and they fit the theme very well. The sounds of battle are chaotic, and the music played during the game is a nice, epic eastern piece. One bit of sound work I especially liked was on the main menu screen, where every click makes a drum beat.

Overall, I would have to say that Takeda 2 is a mediocre strategy title at best, especially when compared to the likes of Rome: Total War or Civilization IV. The randomness of much of the game can bring to ruin even the best-laid plans, and having a longtime ally stab you in the back while your army is on the other side of the map is, to say the least, frustrating. Additionally, the game's lack of depth, with no buildings and a weak diplomacy system, severely hinders the gameplay. I would not recommend this unless you simply cannot get enough of feudal Japan, or if you can't find Shogun: Total War in the bargain bin.

Score: 4.5/10