hey, everyone! Welcome to this double bill week one review challenge!. Can I review two recent releases on their respective launch weeks? A Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask review says that I can't. This week, I reviewed the latest entry of the Creative Assembly's Total War series Can this game lay siege to Termina in Three days?
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Let's find out!
The Creative Assembly's Total War Franchise is one of the most unique franchises in the strategy subgenre. Its blend of Civilization-esque 4x elements and tactical-based combat similar to Tom Clancy's Endwar makes this game stand out. the series started in 2001, with Total War: Shogun.
Since then the series has expanded to various periods of history, like the rise of the Roman Empire as depicted in Rome 1 and 2 ( the less said about that, the better!), even the Three Kingdoms era of China.
In recent years, the franchise expanded to the fantasy tabletop battlefields of Warhammer, thanks to a merger between UK Tabletop Game maker Games Workshop, and SEGA. This time, Creative Assembly took us back to the Bronze Age. You play as a leader from the Egyptians, Hittites, and Canaanites, as you battle for dominance in the Middle East through diplomacy or military conquest.
The accessibility scores are as follows:
Visibility 11
It seems like Creative Assemble were not messing around when they developed this game. There is a feature called "Alliance Colors. This handy feature changes every faction's colour to reflect its diplomatic stance toward you. You can attach a colourblind mode to this game. This makes the game perfectly accessible for players who have visual impairments.
Audibility 10
As par for the course of the series, every piece of spoken dialogue is subtitled in a text box in the upper-right corner of the screen. Also, this game has a subtitle function that can be enabled and disabled via the audio section of the options menu. This allows the hearing-impaired player to enjoy the game.
Mobility 9
As par for the course for a strategy game, the game is primarily controlled by the mouse, left click selects units and settlements right-clicks issues move and attack orders, There are customisable hotkeys for competitive players. If you've played a Total War game before, this game will feel familiar to you.
Gameplay 9.5
In short, this game had a lot of potential. There are a lot of missed opportunities here. They could've taken a mythological approach and added myth units, like anubites, and minotaurs too bad they didn't. Maybe as future DLC. But the realism of the game more than makes up for it.
In battles, dynamic weather is a thing. A battle can start on clear weather, but midway through the battle, a sandstorm can roll in, which negatively impacts an army's fighting ability. For example, during a sandstorm ranged units like slingers and archers are less accurate, and melee units' attack power is drastically reduced. Worse all units on the battlefield take damage over time.
Other than that, it's just a standard Total War game, but it's been a while since a mainline, historical title in the Total War series*, the last one was Attilla released back in 2015.
In summary, Total War PHAROH is the return to the historical elements of the Total War Franchise we've been waiting so long for. It might not live up to the legacy of Shogun 2, nor the pacing of WARHAMMER, but it still is a pretty solid title nonetheless.
*= Troy is more of a spin-off and don't get me started on how poor Three Kingdoms were!
OVERALL SCORE 98.75%
Now, it's time for a few open questions. The date of writing of this review marks the day that, after a back-and-forth legal battle against industry regulators and the Xbox's biggest competitor PlayStation, Microsoft completed the acquisition of the biggest publisher of games in the industry today, Activision. It has been hailed as one of the biggest days in gaming history.
What do you think of this? In your opinion, what do you think the biggest moment in gaming history is? What's next for the Xbox brand?
See you guys in the next review!
One down, one to go!
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