Lofty Ambitions
Nobunaga's Ambition finally returns to the States, but was the wait worth it?
Published: March 16, 2008
There's also another sticking point to the game in that eventually you'll have to hop out of endless menus and delegations of your generals and take up arms to conquer territories. Though KOEI tried valiantly to corral the smattering of different troop types and the need for a carefully planned set of real-time skirmishes that make up a larger battle, the actual execution -- particularly early on -- leaves plenty to be desired, mainly because you have to almost constantly babysit troops to make sure they're doing the right thing.
Scattered around each of the different battlefields are any number of bases that can be retreated to or captured (this also boosts morale, which in turn allows you to use special moves for the officers that have them) to help restore some numbers of troops, and in many cases, it's absolutely crucial. Though you can group officers into hotkey-like configurations to order them around in packs, you'll still have to keep an eye on how things go, and when you tag-team territories with allies, it can get even crazier.
The game allows you to pause and issue orders, but it's still a headache most of the time, and there are some battles (particularly if you're attacked while your troop reserves are low) where flicking on the auto-resolve option more or less guarantees instant death. Babysitting can be minimized by massing huge troop numbers and just overwhelming enemies, but then much of the strategy feels lost.
Luckily, the battles are but a sliver of the overall experience and once you've built up a big enough army, it's possible (though not always recommended) to play the whole game through static menus. You'll miss out on the sounds of combat (which, like the rest of the audio are rather subdued, but rather than pulling you out of the game, they help maintain a more stoic feeling), but given that the bulk of the game is spent in the planning stages while orchestral scores swell and contract in the background, you're not missing a whole lot.
Ditto on the visuals, since the battles take place from such a far away camera that you're not really missing the few bits of visual detail that the game offers beyond what's found in the menus and around developing territories. The graphics really are simple, far more of a throwback to the older games than even something like Romance XI, but then again, this isn't [game=394]Kessen (though there are moves called Kessens in the game, allowing you to wager your entire amassed assets in a massive gamble to take down other rivals). The static portraits and overall visuals are clean, though hardly wow-worthy.
Maybe that's the best way to describe the whole game; decent, certainly capable of hooking those taken with all things militaristic and diplomatic, but very few will be smitten with the overall presentation. Is Rise to Power a showpiece for the PS2? No, but is it a great strategy game? Absolutely. The series has been away for far too long, and even in KOEI's own admittedly crowded slice of console strategy, the series absolutely hits a sweet spot between the glorified Risk mini-games found in some of the Dynasty Warriors Empires games and the absolute mind-boggling detail of the Romance series. Let's just hope that when the game inevitably moves to next-gen that we see a little more detail and interest in the battles.