Expeditions: Samurai

First experience as of playing the game until it crashed (at 0,7 hours). Thus far it is inconclusive and feel free to view my thumbs down as "informative" review. I will update it from time to time. Previous games have been a "to a degree believable historical fiction" but insofar the game (judging purely by the companion characters and the crew of the ship game begins on) is in the "low fantasy in this and that setting" (like AC:Shadows) which is a minus compared to the previous games. Characters speak in a way which feels way too modern and in every single dialogue choice MC can do at least one (and often more) snarky remarks - closest example of that style is books by Abercrombie or Borderlands for an example from videogames which is in stark contrast to every other game in the series. 2D art in the traditional style in the main menu indeed looks very pretty and impressive. 3d models - not so much. I don't understand the reasoning of the cartoony style - Rome had perfect degree of realism and stylization in my opinion and static 3d models doing this or that face seems kind of pointless if the VA work is good enough. A lot of buttons have "hold to perform the action" interactions - a feature obviously intended for gamepads and not for KB+M

For now I cannot recommend this game. I love Expeditions: Rome and other games that respect historical settings. This game, from what I have played so far, is failing to meet that standard from the first interactions. As others have noted there are unfortunate signs of DEI-slop, diversity for diversity's sake, but even worse is snarky millennial girl-boss dialogue. So far, the dialogue options for the MC are mostly un-serious, jokey, modern-sounding and dripping with sarcastic millennial "humor" that sets a tone of poor writing and immediately prevents the player from being immersed in the setting. Complaints about writing aside, I actually like the art style and don't mind the change from what was done in Expeditions: Rome. The problem I have with the art style is that if you're going to pair it with bad writing it makes the entire game feel cartoonish. This art style, in my opinion, is perfectly fine for a serious game like we expect from an Expeditions title but the story has to be there as well. I am also not recommending this game because an early-access release for a single-player RPG is a dangerous thing to do. Baldur's Gate 3, this game is not and will not be. If the story was fleshed out enough to play maybe it could be justified, but this never should have released in early access and the team just waited for the storyline to be done and release it like games used to, as a full experience. That said, I will keep the game and continue playing through early access. If the right choices are made by the developers and they listen to actual fans, fix the writing and other complaints, then I will change my review gladly. Until then, do not buy this game unless you are a diehard fan of the previous game and want to have your voice heard.

It's... fine? The UI is terrible, though the devs have been upfront that it's wip. The story and characters seem fine, but not super engaging. I think the art style is fine, but a lot of the actual implementation... leaves something to be desired. Foremost, I'd rather they just went back to portraits. Overall, I enjoyed it but it felt weaker than either Viking or Rome. As far as the "woke" culture war nonsense goes, Rome allowing a woman to become legate was 1000x more "woke" than anything I've seen in this game, so that feels like a pretty weak criticism to me. There are definitely better criticisms that can (and should) be made of the game. I'd say I'm fairly neutral on the game, but since steam doesn't have an option for that I'll just go with a weak recommend.

I am a fan of Expedition, Jagged Alliance, and games like that. This I think is right down that ally. The graphics/fonts when you first load the game I think are very unusual ("odd") to me at least, but if you feel that way take a breath and give it a chance. The gameplay is great, quick to learn, characters interesting (and yes all are not white-males), entertaining, etc. So I think off to a good start and hopefully they continue to do role out more of the game, make some tweaks here and there, etc. But off to a great start for a game, even more so for Early Access! (And what is all the negative reviews because there are a couple non-white, non-male characters in the game? For those who do not know, Asians, Women, Black people, etc. have existed for centuries! Shocking I know. lol I think some bot must be reviewing games these days mindlessly posting this game is "DEI" if there is like one character who is not a white-male in a game)

Worse than previous titles. Stealth and suprise attacking feels bad. Butchered asian women faces. Story is not great but not bad. Gameplay is unbalanced but it might change during developement. Very underwhelming.

这玩意居然是在罗马四年以后出的，难以想象，看到倒数第二张图的建模吧，游戏就是崩成这样的。丑得无与伦比的建模。和其他几代不能说是一摸一样，只能说是毫无关系了。别等中文了，我的建议是别搞了，太令人绝望了。我不明白，就是拿着罗马的引擎都不至于做成这样。但凡他敢把主角团的脸放在封面我都敬他是个汉子，你搞个AI模型做封面，游戏里完全却没有这种建模，你也知道你做的有多烂是不是，还一定要搞这种诈骗？

As someone who is a fan of the Expeditions series I was excited to have a Sengoku-era Japan setting. The character creator has much to be desired and I much preferred the creator for Expeditions: Rome. I was initially disappointed that you play a foreigner as the main character, however I can see the angle they were going for as much of the conflict you face is against Portuguese/Jesuits in the early game. I am satisfied with the combat, but it is admittedly not as good as Expeditions: Rome's combat was. I will additionally add that yes there is some non-historical elements that may turn off some players who prefer a more immersive historically believable set of characters and setting. In terms of clunk, it has been minimal, but I have noticed some issues with characters glitching through some buildings when moving them, and additionally sometimes when leaving merchant trading screens the game will seemingly freeze. but this is fixed when I simply window out and back into the game. I will say as someone who games on Linux (Bazzite) I am happy that the game works relatively well without having to play around with settings. From the first four hours of early game play I have had with it I wish I could give a neutral rating because I am enjoying playing it, but it is a noticeable downgrade from Expeditions: Rome, and if you really did expect a similar experience, you will likely be disappointed. But if you are able to tolerate some of the critiques and differences it has, I would recommend at least trying it, and if you don't enjoy it from what you can within the first two hours, then refund it.