Takeda 2

Takeda 2 is the sequel to a mostly obscure 2001 game that had the misfortune to be released in the wake of Shogun: Total War. The market wasn’t quite ready for a smaller-budget Total War doppelgänger, so Takeda came and Takeda went.
The sequel is actually a remake. Set once again in the pre-Tokugawa civil wars, Takeda 2 gives you the choice of playing one of three clans trying to unite the Land of the Rising Sun under one daimyo. Success requires a deft hand at diplomacy, attention to troop levels, and a lot of luck. You start small enough to be wiped out in your first war. There’s no fog of war, either, so getting humiliated is especially embarrassing.
The interface can make it pretty difficult to figure out exactly what is going on at any given time. Even with video tutorials and a passable manual, the strategic level learning curve is steep, especially when you consider how little is actually happening on the map. You can marry daughters off to improve your foreign relations and send ninjas to remove hassles.
On the battlefield, control is achieved exclusively through a combination of buttons and mouse movement, but there are no drag-select or mouse-only orders. The wide range of formations and the ability to change these on the fly yield a wide variety of ways in which the struggles can develop, but the outcome almost always goes to the superior force, no matter how marginal. There is little evidence of the importance of command, experience, or even troop types beyond the normal spearman/cavalry/swordsmen circle.
Takeda 2 isn’t terrible, but it has a hard drive footprint bigger than both Civilization IV and Silent Hunter III, and it’s not clear what that size is being used for. The maps are simple, the battlefields are all green, and the soldiers aren’t exactly full of detail. Add the fact that you can’t Alt-Tab out of the boredom without crashing, and the battles aren’t especially compelling.
Pass.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #186