Use my code THESHOGUNATE10 and link: bit.ly/theshogunateBKFeb22 to get 10% off (save up to $47!) your own authentic Japanese subscription from Bokksu! Don't miss out on this amazing snack-journey through Japan!
If anyone needs a slow start, perhaps to test self-made chars or learn the basics: Okinawa (northern-most island) is rarely invaded in early scenarios (before 1580), as supply-lines make it hard to reach. If you want to test your self-made Daimyo casually, such can help to understand the game. 🤔 `Otherwise: Submit (diplomacy) and play a vassal to learn´
For me, the rpg elements of Ascension are really what keeps me playing Nobunaga's Ambition, the way you can build up the province sector you get given to as a lower-ranked officer always fills me with joy. the way you can defect, betray or go independent gives a number of ways to develop my character, relationships etc. It's why the ROTK games like 8, ten and 13 are my favourites, as they are the ones that keep me coming back again and again. Personally, I wish Koei would find a way to combine the RPG side with the strategy side to create the best experience for players who like either more.
From that last sentence of your comment, I wish that was so as well. They should just allow you to do both in a game. Whether its just taking control of one officer or a bunch of officers or the whole faction. It can't be too hard to implement.
I have always liked to play this game as a custom Oda officer starting at 1570. I remember when Nobunaga first commended me for a job well done I was like "I... I... I am deeply honored, my lord". On one playthrough I ended up having all of Echigo province to my name, conquered from the Uesugi. Another time I conquered Tosa and Iyo, and yet another time I got the Takeda home province of Kai. In the latest playthrough I now rule the Kantō region in Nobunaga's name. I even once took Odawara castle, and oh man was it satisfying. So yeah, I've had a good time with this game.
I’ve had this game since the day it came out and I love it. Got it for both console and PC. Love making my own characters and giving them their own bios.
Koei for a while was on a massive roll but they’ve gotten too bogged down by Dynasty Warriors. Like you I love Sphere of Influence with all my heart and sadly Ascension and Taishi gather dust. Sadly also their latest RTK games have left me feeling unfulfilled after RTK IX. Someday I dream of Koei going back to their height of the 90s. I would love to see newer versions of some of there classics. Games like: Bandit Kings of Ancient China - there’s a huge market for this Rise of the Phoenix - a updated Chu Han contention would be amazing Genghis Khan- seriously why hasn’t this happened. The possibilities of making a world stage game based in actual history! We need this.
9:18 There is an indicator that tells you when your next ability is ready for use, it appears as the green bar next to TACT underneath the character portrait. When the green bar reaches all the way, you can use the ability, and it resets.
I would like to point out a detail about the franchise and the officer focus of ascension. When it comes to its sister series, ROTK each game in the series will alternate between faction focused ones (which are more like 4x or grand strategy) and officer focused ones, which are closer to roleplaying games or the crusader kings series (with its larger focus on individual characters and personal events) Nobunaga's ambition, however, does it differently (at the least in modern times) were the main releases will always be grand strategy/faction focused, with expansions adding a officer and role playing focus as well (taishi is infamous for getting one such expansion, that is generally considered to make it one of the best koei strategy games and officer role playing games... but it was never released in the west) Officer focused games are generally built less for the strategy elements and more so you can role play as your favorite characters or even your own original characters. If you want a better introduction to the kind of feel officer focused expansions, check out rotk 13 and specially its expansion; It puts a lot of focus on interpersonal relationships and the personal goals of character, making for a great historical role playing experience and a wonderful introduction to the subgenre as a whole.
It can be slow but I absolutely love rotk13. Play as an officer under my man Cao Cao all the time. Sometimes I’ll play under the equally respectable Sun Ce or Sun Jian.
I've played ascension a couple of years back and i agree it's a much more complicated game than the base SOI. But as a avid fan of nobunaga's ambition series. I must recommend you to play the original nobunaga's ambition: iron triangle. It's ps 2 game so you can only play it through emulation, but it is such a great game. It's doesn't have the excitement like the mass battles of the newer titles. But it makes up in the base building and tech research mechanics that the newer title lacks (i think, i already forgot the SOI in game mechanics lol). Like if you advance your gun tech enough you can field dragoon units (which is a mounted gun unit). Some clans also have unique tech that they can get like takeda's furinkazan and oda's triple lining. And also there are no cap to how much soldier you can station in one castle (my favorite thing from this game), you can draft as much as you want and it's sooo satisfying seeing your 250.000 troops trying to siege ishiyama/odawara. But also you can't draft all year round, and if you draft too much, your popularity in the region will decrease and might lead to more rebellion. There are not a lot of story event in the game and sometimes they're very hard to trigger, but it's rewarding for people who tried to play the game historically. I really can't recommend you enough about this game. Nobunaga's ambition iron triangle is the game that made me fall in love with the series and i keep coming back to it 16 years after it's release. This game really push your strategical thinking to another level. I got defeated like 10 times before my first successful unification
Could not agree more, dang Iron Triangle was my childhood, I remember spending my entire weekend playing. Mori was my favorite, they special tech that allow them to 1 hit other naval ships xD
@@KookieMonster99 i always played as oda since they have the most historical event but they're a pain to trigger. But bro are you indonesian?? Keren juga lu kalo main iron triangle wkwkwk
I love these games in general, but I'm always anxious trying to live through the history of it. Like I end up fretting about "I can make like nine castles at this point but I don't wanna negate the next event!"
I always loved Koei's strategy games and i really hope they focus on them more then the Musou series. ROTK or Nobunaga's ambition are fun games and you'll find many playing styles there either as a true historical run or a total fictional sandbox. As for sphere of influence in general, i really liked the detailed historical event system.
Great video, most informative as always. Definitely going to add Nobunaga's Ambition base game to my wish list to get for my long summer break. Also going to check out Bokksu.
Ascension was the first game I tried for this genre. I really had fun going thru historical events, by your review I got more interested to try SOI for its game play
@@TheShogunate that would be great since especially since I have been trying to get to these games for ages and I cant a good guide for a beginner like my self so thank you Bakufu
Watching your video now, you are definitely, DEFINITELY, going to love Taikou Risshiden V DX when it comes out on Switch/PC, if you have never played it. It feels like the roots of Nobunaga14, but with many more roles you can play to immerse yourself in the world (ninja clans, swordsmasters, merchant, tea master, etc), a really addictive character collecting element, great charm to the art style and music that makes you feel like you spend your daily life there. I grew up with that game and that was what got me into Japanese history in the first place (and a part of what brought me to Japan), and I really hope you will enjoy it and do a review on it!
I was introduced to the series through Iron Triangle on PS2, got to play Rise to Power and was so happy when Sphere of Influence came out on PS3. With my new PC and the recent sale, I decided to try Ascension after watching your review and although it took some getting used to I now find myself having a harder time playing as a Daimyo in both versions of the game in comparison. Its really nice, and the added portraits is also lovely. So thank you.
I 100% agree with this review. This was my first Nobunaga's Ambition game I played, and I was so confused at how to play the game, I nearly quit after the first few days. However after coming back to it I learned the mechanics and it became one of the best I've played, and then probably sunk 100's of hours into it. I love progressing from a retainer, to eventually a daimyo. You can feel yourself getting more and more powerful each passing month. A lot of features may not work as intended, but enough does to create an immersive experience. For anyone who is confused about this game or has questions, they should check out the NobunagasAmbition subreddit. It's probably the most active community where your questions can be answered along with guides and stuff.
This game definitely adds quite a lot just recently I discovered that playing as masamune in osaka gives you a hypothetical story optional path with masamune giving one more try to conquer japan recruiting yukimura into it Also playing as motoharu kikkawa sometime spawn the shikanosuke yamanaka trying to restore the amago event I’ve been trying a bunch of officers usually lord or daimyo that gonna have these custom or hypothetical events in different start dates and I am surprised with the custom hidden events Also have been meddling with the randomize positions to keep the game fresh too
Regarding Tactical Skills, the only way to somewhat measure whenever they became available was looking on the right side at the tiny box/bar near 'Tact'
I've put in tons of hours into NA: SOI - Ascension. I personally think it's the best and most user friendly NA game in the entire series. I hope the new NA game plays and feel more like ascension than Taishi because, I felt that Taishi was more of stepback than forward.
I liked this game version as it allow you to play minor lords like Tachibana Muneshige. Also it has a nice DLC campaign for Sanada Nobushige and show a bit more lore about him
I'm gonna check out sphere of influence again I wasn't aware it had a different feel, I basically jumped in at ascension I did play sphere but only briefly.
my favorite playtrough is the only kitabatake guy alive in sekigahara scenario, he's in the north somewhere. very challenging. officer start dying of old age and not enough men to delegate castle,
Respect, they're both amazing games my favorite start is "stronger than an alliance" as a custom character to the hongonji and try to see them through the age or revive them in my new clan if they fall, I build only temples essentially to theme the entire faction which honestly might be the best build definitely my favorite, I think ascension's biggest weakness is the sheer level of micromanagement nearing the late middle to early end game. It's greatest strengths become then tiresome. Still it's perfect for making custom characters and rising from obscurity to unification.
The only downsides to ascencion are the changes they did to the coalition system and the massive battles. In the base game leading a coalition allowed you to force other members to attack wether they liked it or not which was really impactful. And defeating the enemy commander in a massive battle meant that the rest of the enemy army was automatically defeated. Now you have to defeat all the units. Aside from that is a great game.
I think ascension is worth it if you want to stick with officer play. Great review as always, but you forgot to mention that you can request additional officers and land from your lord. I did this as the sanada clan and ended up with Mitsunari Ishida and a couple of others joining my ranks.
i played just the base one and it was really good, its not the best because IMO the best still the iron triangle because of the crazy unit sizes and aptitudes/strategies you can get, but i will absolutely try this on when i got the chance!!
This is what I want in a more in depth Shogun 2 lol Cuz holy F**k would it take a very long time to complete a single campaign if you helped a clan, then made your own from literally 1 person with custom banner ect.
An interesting micro-management filled featured version of SoI. Its a neat novelty for a time but that micro-y nature can get old real fast. I also find it difficult to turn it into a dynasty simulator since getting married as a low ranking officer is kind of impossible.
I don’t find ascension convoluted at all but then again I’m used to strategy games. I actually thought the original sphere of influence was harder to learn than ascension.
Personally Ascension is the best Nobunaga's ambition's game ever! I can constantly replay it with many custom events and role-play value. Sure the mass fighting systems took a bit of a drop, but the overall game gives way more depth to the play through. Koei should've just expanded more from the SOI & SOIA titles by giving them "the taishi's battle systems" imo! 🤷🏾♂️
Im new to this game slowly learning, im curious thought can we get married to famous character like Naotora or any other Female character in game with random Character we use or even Our own character creation?
Ascension os more about role playing your samurai I feel Closer to.the personal elements of Crusader kings than the grand, faction focused, strategy games loke europa universalis or the like.
Answer: BETTER THAN SOI, in my opinion. Being able to play as individual officer is a good callback to games like ROTK X However, i cannot stand the AI for being kinda dumb, like refusing to create a new clan branch or improving their domains. I play as an officer of Hojo and 30 in-game years later Hojo only have like 5-6 clan branches like Tsunashige Hojo, Narita, Matsuda, etc. Anyone know how to fix the AI?
Even though this is consider one of the worst in franchise it is still my favorite. I love the history of this era with so many interesting characters that I hate I am forced to play as certain damiyo to get access to certain characters. Never liked Hideyoshi but he has a lot of cool officers that love to play as.
I gotta say that I really want to get into the game as I'm very interested in the period, but the style is very... typical. It feels very chaotic and all over the place stylistically, musically etc. The UI is also difficult to read IMO. I really wish the UI and music was more like Shogun 2 Total War or Sengoku by Paradox for that matter. It seems I'm the only one who thinks this?
@@TheShogunate but are we talking about the art style or gameplay? Because although I certainly see the depth in gameplay of Nobunaga's Ambition (especially compared to Shogun 2 Total War which is rather flat IMO) which is what attracts me, but in contrast its UI, art style and music have nothing medieval Japan in it, compared to Sengoku and Shogun 2.
Nobunaga sounds like a strong leader, but recently, people say that Japan has never produced any strong leader. Rather, it was with the people uniting and working together that they fended off enemies, and developed their living standards. Do you think that's true?
Even Nobunaga only got so far thanks to a considerable amount of great minds working for the Oda. I don't see many people talking about the civil, economical and commercial aspects that allowed the victory in Nagashino.
