Overall 7.7 Graphics 5 Sound 5 Addictive 5 Story 6 Depth 7 Difficulty 9
5
Pacific Theater of Review Fireproof
I played this game once from start to finish and I must say that I was disappointed in the quality of the game. The game was missing a lot of things all the way around and it's not normal for me to rank a strategy game so low considering that I love to play strategy based war games. This game is lacking in all aspects, graphics, sound and even addictiveness. I can't see how many people would even bother with playing this game too much because of it's overall poor quality. There's nothing that even stands out in it that could compete with KOEI's other games. This is possibly the least liked strategy game I've ever played.
Graphics: 5I could understand that some games just aren't going to be all that great, however, this game just has no graphics. At most there are a few small animations that might look cool at first. After awhile it just gets boring. Nothing stands out and nothing really appeals to me after the one time I played through it. There's nothing special about the graphics, they're plain, boring and barely 2 dimensional. Other games of this genre offered so much more to the eye but this just looks bad. I would like to see a game like this in the modern day because maybe then it could actually be a good game with proper graphics and proper animations.
For being a game of the SNES it was just a huge let down. Genghis Khan 2 and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3 or 4 offered much more appealing graphics that would maintain some visual appeal. Even Civilization was more eye catching than this game and that game was written with DOS. Graphics and animations are just all around lacking so this aspect of the game only gets a 5 out of 10.
Sound: 5 I can't say much for the sound either. There's not much in this that appeals to the eyes in the same way that the graphics don't appeal to the eyes. I have to turn all the sounds off because it just gets on my nerves. Sound just does not help the cause to playing this game and it really just takes away from playing the game. To me, each part of the game really helps make the overall quality greater but it needs to be great to make it better and this is just another disappointment especially for KOEI's standards.
Addictiveness: 5 I can't see how anyone would get addicted to this game. Yes, it's a strategy game which means you can come back and play it so many different ways but even if you were it doesn't change the game's overall appeal. It's just a very poor level of appeal that, to me, would prevent people from playing it. On top of that, the game isn't even fun. It lacks so much that there's just no reason to play it. This game might be even worse than playing Mario Preschool as a 22 year old adult. I did play the game from start to finish but I was hoping that there would be more to it but even after I've played it just doesn't do any good. The most fun aspect might be to try and convince the other staff in a conference to adopt your budget concepts for the month. Even that you might not even be able to control your own budget which adds to the difficulty of the game some.
Story: 6The game takes place during World War 2 where you're either battling Japan as the Allies or the Japanese battling the Allies. This story takes place during a semi-realistic time line in which technology and weapons or ships are created as the years progress. What you do from the start of the 2nd World War creates the rest of the story. Unfortunately, there isn't much to it and without it being historical it wouldn't even have a story.
Depth: 7Although the game doesn't have a very good quality to it, it does have some depth in it but more importantly it's very complex. First off, it's a VERY LONG GAME. I mean you can literally micro-manage most aspects and even so, each turn is half a day. You can even plan night assaults and more. Considering that you start out in the year 1941 I think you're going to have thousands of turns to reach 1945 considering you have both day and night. Honestly, that's just too excessive for me. This just drags the game out and makes it very boring in the long run.
The most important aspect of the game is the fighting. This provides too many different ships, submarines and aircraft to count for both the Allies and for the Japanese. You can also build many of the different ships or planes but they will take months to complete and you don't have much of a budget if any at all. On top of that you have Marines and Army that participate in playing the land warfare aspect of the game and take away from your budget. The fighting aspect will drag on for days and moves so slow that if I didn't play with the fast forward feature on VIzzed I would have never made it to the end of the game. I would have given up 50 turns in. The fighting just drags out too long.
Another, this time, kind of cool aspect of the game is the conference. In the conference you will compete against the other members of staff to discuss how to split up your budget. You can invest in Marines, Army, Ships, Aircraft, Foreign Affairs, Construction of Base buildings, Technology and so much more. You are playing a card game during the heated discussion to see if you can get enough people to side with your plan and if you can't get them to side with your plan and are forced into siding with someone else, you may find your Budget is spent in ways that you don't need. This adds a level of difficulty unlike anything I ever seen. I was glad to have the save state feature for that,
I'm also going to add in that the Ore and Oil also makes the game somewhat more complex. Oil is needed to fuel your ships and vehicles while Ore provides your nation with a budget. This can alter the game play drastically especially if you've cut off your enemy's routes to these precious resources. Without them your nation will cripple until you've lost everything you had. The foreign aspect might also play a role in this with increasing the amount of Ore and Oil you produce but I'm not entirely sure if they do.
The last in depth aspect of the game is the number of bases found throughout the game. Most bases provide Oil or Ore which help supply your nation with the resources they need to create a budget and fuel ships. This is probably where you will be focusing on the most because you will need the key locations to increase your strength. It just sucks that the game moves in such a slow pace that you are feeling so bored by the end of just the first month.
Difficulty: 9Most games aren't too difficult and honestly this game isn't too difficult either. What makes this game more difficult is just how complex it is. First off, you have absolutely no power over the army. The Army moves on their own and attacks when they want to and only if you own a base that connects via land to another enemy base. This makes strategizing somewhat difficult unless you transport them yourself.
You're also not able to control some of the budget if you play the game legitimately. It's impossible to have full control over how much you spend in each aspect. If you have 20 extra army on top of the 20 army already stationed in bases then you can't have anymore out. The Staff of Army will always include room for 2 or 3 more army units to be added. This can hurt because you might need the money for that to be spent elsewhere on much more dire things.
Difficulty continues to persist on to the battlefield. In a battle you will need to fire onto the enemy's fortifications or enemy's ships. Most of the time attacks seem to miss and some attacks will do no damage if they hit. To add to that, it seems like the enemy can easily damage your ships and at times it might cause you to need to head to base and repair your damaged ships. If your ships are damaged they might even lose most of their ability to fire back or lose speed or radar. Even so you still have weather effects that alter the outcome of battle a lot too.
Overall: 5This game sucks. I didn't understand how anyone would think that this game would be worthy of reaching the gaming market. I was disappointed that this game was called a strategy game but couldn't even keep players on it to play for very long. That's probably one of the most frustrating things about this game. I thought that the game needed a lot more work and it does for the graphics and sound. Even the overall game play needs to be reworked and structured in a more fun and exciting manner. There's very few times that I say that a game needs graphics... but this game does need graphics and sound. This is not worth playing and I feel like I wasted my time playing it.
Graphics 5 Sound 5 Addictive 5 Story 6 Depth 7 Difficulty 9
Review Rating: 3.5/5
Submitted: 07-09-13
Updated: 07-09-13
Review Replies: 3
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