Recent reviews by Hudson Savage

Steam asked me; Would you recommend this game to other players?
After some thought on the matter, I would have to say yes.

Early impression (7 hours at the time of writing)

I have never played a Koei strategy game before to this was all new to me, but I followed the fun (if long) tutorial through to the end and started an easy campaign as the Oda on the "Birth of Nobunaga" scenario, I then proceeded to play faaaaaaar longer than intended this afternoon.

I had a blast. Coming from a Shogun 2 total war fanatic standpoint, this provides a very different experience, that somehow sits between a Paradox game like CK2 (or Sengoku) and something a bit lighter like the total war series.

Battles are automatically fought out as the month progresses and you can dip in and try to turn them in your favour if you want to. There are some great positioning based mechanics at work here that make positioning your forces or paramount importance to victory, attacking from different directions and defending or bypassing choke points, are both important things to understand, and provide a lot of enjoyment.

Management of your "Officers" is a huge part of the game and I'd say this makes it more like the aforementioned Paradox titles, land management is also important, and takes up much of your time.
There is a fun internal and external political system to maneuver and this allows you to do some very fun things like forming coalitions against powerful enemies and calling friends to fight for you, you can even mediate peace between two antagonists!

Ahh! so much I could write, but to save you reading a truly monumental wall of text, I'll say this:

If you:

Like Paradox grand Strategy: This could be fun for you, a little less fiddly, a little less in depth and Byzantine, but still plenty to do and the war management system is superbly good even without zooming in for the battles.

Like Total War: If you really only play for the tactical battles this may not be your cup of tea, it is undoubtedly a lot simpler and very strategy heavy by comparison. For people who like the strategy side of it or are balanced in their interest, this is well worth a look, go check out a lets play or two.

Sengoku Jidai\Japanese history fans: This stuff is catnip for me and I loved following the historic quests, learning new things about the events and personalities of the era and loved many of the realistic touches. Simply superb!

Graphics- not bad, pretty at times
Sound- great soundtrack and other ambient\Ui sounds
Strategy gameplay- Deep with lots do do and lots to think about
Tactical gameplay- Simple but fun diversion with good impact on play if you opt in to it
Performance- Ran flawlessly for me, minimal loading times
AI Performance: I really couldn't say. Easy is just that, I hear its competent on higher difficulties
Localisation- Pretty good though not without a few easily overlooked errors
Multiplayer-None, so don't buy it if you want that
Controls and UI- not too bad, takes a little getting used to and vassal management takes a while (might be missing something)

Overall: Great game I will be playing for a long time to come if my first impressions hold true- Ay Ay Ooooohhhhhh!/10