Recent reviews by Supernoob 500

It’s what Dark Souls 2 should have been

A damm good game and world - it's honestly really intruiging. It doesn't hold its punches on difficultyy, which is sometimes good but sometimes really grating when you encounter a fight that can only be won with cheese (like when you encounter an ambush that one-shots your entire party)

So, CA has recently chosen to increase the price of the DLC with the Shadow of Change pack - which adds 3 new lords to existing factions, one which has a rehashed mechanic from an existing lord.

They released a statement, which you can see on Twitter/X and reposted by others on social media. Effectively, the statement says that price has increased due to 'costs' and they say it's 'necessary' to continue supporting future warhammer releases. That's it - apart from an ad for the DLC itself, and a warning about rare to non-existent 'attacks' on staff (seriously though, don't do that).

Frankly, the DLC price is just not worth what's being charged and inflation isn't as bad as the price increase suggests. CA is trying to say that this DLC, which is £20 at full price, is worth about 40% of the original game, which is £50 at full price. Does this DLC offer 40% of the content of the full game? No it doesn't, not even close, so the price increase is just not worth it.

It also smacks of lies when the Company's public records show that it made hefty profits last year and receives a fair bit of support from the UK government through a subsidy. Does the company really have such massive increases in costs in the past year that they need to increase the price so much after a good financial year? No. Will any change in profits be passed on to the hard-pressed and, probably, overworked developers? Of course not

People are getting exhausted with companies increasing prices without an increase in quality - it's not a good look when you're doubling down on corporate greed and 'greedflation' when other developers like Larian and FromSoftware have consumer-friendly practices and make content worth the price. Are you seriously trying to tell me that this DLC at 40% the cost of Baldur's Gate 3 has even close to 40% or even 20% of the content or quality?

If CA were genuinely investing the increased price in the developers and producing top-quality content, rather than protecting profits cause Pharaoh didn't pre-sell well (curious how the price increase comes now, rather than when costs actually increased), then *maybe* people wouldn't have reacted the way they did?


I've played Total War since Rome 1, in fact Rome 1 was my first ever PC game - I've had every game since, apart from Troy and Napoleon. I must have thousands of hours including the time before Steam was even a thing. This has to be it for me - I can't make any more Total War purchases with the way CA is

It's been a good one Total War, thanks for the memories

It's pretty fun, but compared to other games its very slow at times, even boring in segments.

It's how i remember playing the first one. It's just as good, if not better than the original.

Big Bonk vs Stabby Stab vs Pew Pew Magic Pew

Feels like a cheap knock-off of the others - not that good

The game is so blatantly devoid of content without DLC, which costs over £1000 full price £555(gbp) at the minute. Feels like a mobile game compared to Sims 3.

Seems to have some fun aspects though - CAS and Build modes are much better and more varied, if with slightly less customisation.

I can't recommend the game due to lack of content and simply because my preference is Sims 3. You might enjoy it if you're less focused on the actual gameplay and want to build/create sims. It's also nice to have some quality of life updates that aren't in sims 3, like scaled UI and generally the game feels cleaner. But, like I said, it's obvious even from the get-go that there is hardly any content.

I'd recommend Sims 3, even without mods or custom content.

Brilliant game, plays amazingly - will recommend any time

Only issue is that the game is suffering with a memory leak - seems pretty common online. After various times based on system and multiple different settings, the game starts to stutter and performance degrades. Only restarting the game reverts it back to normal performance.

A Wonderful Game, but One That Shows its Age


So, for context, I'm starting this game after an extended play through of Rome 2, so that may affect how I write about the game (TL;DR at bottom)


Rome 1 was probably the first PC game I sunk a lot of time into and I've always returned to it (and Medieval 2) every now and then throughout the years. Naturally, I was excited to pick this up

For the most part, this game hits the nostalgia button pretty hard. RTWR feels like how I *remember* Rome 1 was. It's refreshing, for example, to be able to split up your troops without the need for a general as is the case with the newer games. I also loved how the music and battle speeches were retained, just to name one feature, Everything else, other than changes to the UI etc, largely feels the same as the original. If you're looking solely for an updated version of the original, then this should hit the spot, particularly if you're not a fan of Warscape TW games. Not really much else I can say, other than - If you played the original, you'll get a game that feels mostly like that.

That said, there are a few issues I've noticed in the 3 hours I've played (at the time of the review).
Firstly, there seems to be an intermittent issue with the game freezing, just for a split second whenever you select something on either the campaign or battle map. Don't know if this is an issue with the game or my system, but I'm on an RTX 3080 for reference, so I have doubts it's system side.

The AI pathing is, frankly, awful. But, then again, it wasn't stellar in the original 2004 release either. It does seem to be worse in this version, just from memory. For example, I'm on Ultra unit size (so, 160 men per Hastati unit) and I was playing the Segesta battle. The units followed the most random paths to attack the centre/town square. As in, they would run all the way to the bottom of the hill, just to run up a path they were stood next to when already at the top. I wasn't expecting much, especially using Ultra, but it was still quite jarring.

As well, when using Hastati, the unit delayed for something like 10 seconds before throwing the Pila before the charge. This meant that, in the battles I have done so far, they end up being charged by enemy units, being killed and never throwing the Pilum. Other issues have occurred like Units not responding to orders, missile units running into enemies before firing and a few other small issues. The Ai definitely has some jankyness which, although may have been a part of the original, would have been nice not to have this time around; you can keep the game 'original' without maintaining some of the issues.

I would also say that the game will feel quite jarring to those who never played it (or medieval 2), or those who haven't returned to it for a while. If you're used to, say, Rome 2 onwards, then this game will feel less 'advanced' as well as other things, like battles playing out much quicker and much more frantically. It's possible some people are clouded by nostalgia and remember the game as different to how it actually played, or perhaps never even played it in the first place. Remember; you're not getting a reskin of Rome 2 in the style of Rome 1, you're getting Rome 1 with a face-lift. If you understand what you're getting, you should be okay with this game.


In general, the game is a decent face-lift of the original; it looks better while still retaining the feel of Rome 1. That said, I do wish they could have done more than *just* a face-lift. Sure, they have added new things like the UI and some ease-of-use features, but they haven't addressed some of the bugs in the original, like AI and pathfinding. I feel like the systems beneath the surface could also do with a 'remaster' of sorts. No, I'm not saying they should have made a Rome 1-style, modern TW. What I'm saying is that they could have resolved many of the issues present within the original and still have it feel like the original game. If you're going to chuck in 4k textures and a new UI, at least try and so something with the AI. Hopefully these sorts of issues will be resolved in further patches, as there seems to be many noticing such things. We'll see.

For now, I can recommend the game to those that have reasonable expectations of it. If you're expecting what is, essentially, Rome 3 - you will be disappointed.


TL;DR
+ feels like how I remember
+ Rebirth of good features, like army-splitting with no general and population mechanics
+ Customisable options; you can switch between original and remastered systems

- Shows its age; will feel dated to those used to newer Total War titles on the Warscape Engine
- Bugs and Jankiness of the original remain in the game. The remaster is largely cosmetic, save for things like ease of use and UI.
- Units have issues with orders and pathfinding needs work, even compared to the original