NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence

I purchased this game when it came out but never was able to get around to playing it. I have played Nobunaga's Ambition since the original on NES. I thought one reviewer was joking when they said they failed the tutorial and it kicked them back to the main menu. I failed the combat portion of the tutorial and it told me I was bad at it, the advisor would not help me anymore and I was indeed kicked back to the main screen. Wow. Game has a slow start and can be overly complicated. The UI is not the greatest but it is fun.

I really, really wish i could recommend this game. Because it's clear a lot of love went into making it and into historical authenticity and gameplay. Two things keep me from truly loving this game: 1. The combat 2. Snowballing The combat is unfortunately very much a numbers game. You have some tactical wiggle room, like defeat in detail and warrior skills. But its very barebones... Every army is composed of a combination of Men, horses, and guns. on paper, its a pure numbers game. Generals come into play to turn the tide in this aspect. However, it remains pretty much a beatstick game. You'll have a hard time losing battles in which you're numerically superior. Other than some stat modifiers, terrain don't make much of an impact tactically speaking. You'll still run at the enemy like you would anywhere. I would have loved combat to be like a modern version of Total war Shogun 2! The other issue is snowballing. Once you're past a certain point, you pretty much roll the rest of the game. And it becomes just a slog of trying to smash your bigger army into the front that unites against you over, and over, and over. With no real threat to your gameplan. The solution would be to pick smaller daimyo to challenge yourself, and it does get more difficult that way, but the fact remains that most of the fun is packed into the first few hours of the save. After that, you'll find yourself getting tired of the gameplay loop and overwhelmed with the amount of territory you have to manage. You delegate everything to your generals and watch them do all the work for you. Its no fun. Unlike Shogun 2 where absolutely dog walking a major castle held by a significant defending force with your army, you get no such satisfaction by watching from top down your indistinguishable pixels run over other much smaller indistinguishable pixels. And i think therein lies the big problem with this game. Historically it's on point- i just wish more thought went into the combat.