Total War Battles: Shogun

For the uninitiated, the series is all about waging war in feudal Japan, combining turn- based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. Total War Battles: Shogun is no different, but the iOS version is a standalone story picking up after a warlord and his clan are attacked, triggering a tale of revenge as the warlord’s son is left to pick up the pieces and wage war in dramatic fashion.

Rather than a simple port, Battles streamlines the Total War experience to mobile devices without losing too much of what made the series so good in the first place. Here you will experience authentic real-time strategies, build bases, create new troops, attack, defend and develop tactics. The real time strategy is clearly tightened for more of a level by level progression, but this game comes with a hefty price for a reason, and that’s because it’s packed with as much of the desktop version as iOS allows, meaning you lose very little.

The numerous missions are a challenge, with each containing their own objectives, like killing a certain number of enemy units or a specific unit. But it’s made even more difficult it’s the fact that building a base becomes very puzzle-like as certain buildings need to be linked to previous structures with a specific area size. Some buildings can’t be built next to others neither, so just laying out a base is a challenge in itself. Aside from this, there are bonus missions requiring you to build specific structures to earn extra experience points. All of this combines to create a difficult yet challenging experience.

This is compounded by the fact that units cannot move backwards and are ordered by the hand pointer buttons at the bottom of the screen instead of selecting a grid space, tapping it and sending them to that area. Units won’t always respond immediately either, so you need to plan your moves; especially given that Melee units can attack any enemy in a connected forward space while ranged units can only shoot straight ahead.

These units are made up of a range of support units, archers, spearmen, riflemen, swordsman, cavalry, and more specialized units. It’s a test to deploy them in the right areas at the right times, but the journey of discovery in what combinations work the best and how best to use them is indeed a fun one. Although there are no difficult settings, this trial and error soon brings casual garners up to speed as they learn more about the units and tactics needed to beat each level.

Total War Battles: Shogun is a beautiful game with distinct and gorgeous landscapes overlaid with a hexagonal grid marking out the “gameboard”. Buildings look great and this combined with smooth animation as the units react to attacks and play out their orders in a variety of ways, makes this game one of the best looking titles on iOS thus far. The only issue it has is the visual cues making it tough to judge how much health a unit has left or the surrounding borders when placing new buildings.

Although there is no online multiplayer (there is a l v1 local multiplayer that doesn’t quite work), you suspect this may come in a future update. This is the sort of game that is perfect for online play, so it’s hard to believe that it has been left out altogether. That said, the single player campaign is a great one and the excellent visuals, terrific soundtrack, creative gameplay and high polish of this title make Total War Battles: Shogun one of the most engaging strategy games iOS has ever seen.

Compatible with: iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
Requires: iOS 4.2 or later
Price: $6.99
Category: Games
Released: Apr 19, 2012
Version: 1.1
Size: 266 MB
Language: English
Seller: Sega America

Total War Battles: Shogun – Game Review

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