Jeeze that IAP is almost a deal breaker. At 7$ you shouldn't have to be forced into spending even more money. Oh well. For those of you who've purchased and played it; is it still worth the price despite this insidious IAP?
I was really looking forward to this, now im not so sure... I was fine with shelling out $7 until the IAP info... Maybe I'll wait for some reviews and see how all this plays out. Thats a pretty steep entry price if I gotta hand over more money to get access to higher tier upgrades *edit: Of course, unless it is part of the game balancing to limit maxing out everything, and the IAP is more of a bonus... Im fine with that...
Imo, the IAP is NOT the deal breaker for me. The cringe worthy voice-over is. Mission briefings (and the story) are voice acted by some voice actor with a Japanese accent. It's hilariously bad and forced, with funny accentuation and pronunciation. ------------------------ Back to IAP discussion: As the unit upgrades are only effective for the first 1-3 units produced, it's hard to think they will provide a lasting advantage in a battle (especially a protracted one). The lack of a retreat option for units mean units with special abilities must die (or finish the battle if able). Imo, unit upgrades imo will provide either be effective in an early game rush (in hopes of victory) or provide early game economic benefits because they're stronger and allow less units to be produced early game. It's hard to argue that unit upgrades provide any mid-long game benefit. Resource production upgrades are relatively miniscule and discountable even with all the resource bonus upgrades. 15% increased production rate, + a few units of bonus resource per 'tick' by placing a building next to an environmental object is quite insubstantial, considering the low base resource income rate of buildings to begin with. The latter must be considered as a fringe benefit, because this game uses a puzzle like building placement system, where all buildings have different tile shapes and buildings rules (must be placed next to x, sometimes must not be next to y) which increases the difficulty of obtaining the environmental benefits. (personally, I don't care about this) I'm quite early in the campaign but all the missions I've played gives a large pool of starting resources. It takes a LONG time to gather the same amount of resources by production so I take that this game is not reliant on resource production. I apologize for the wall of text but I do think long and detailed explanations are necessary to persuade people into making a $7 purchase.
I'm a little confused when people talk about the game being 7 dollars. My Canadian App store shows it as $9.99
Not in this case. Canada has the same list price as the USA store. Availability can differ though. Also, I'm seeing Total War Battles for the appropriate $6.99 in the Canadian app store.
Game Impressions Awesome and unique game...really fun! It's an injustice that there is no skirmish mode Hopefully it will be added ....online multiplayer would be kick ass!
Thanks Gunxsword! No worries about the wall of text, it was exactly the kind of info i was looking for. I decided to pony up the $6.99 (canadian app store by the way), just to hear the voice acting! Lol.
Instant Buy when I get my iPad3 on Monday! Goodbye iPad1 by then! Huge fan of the Shogun Total War game back in PC. Question: Is the campaign more of just a fixed campaign with different objectives across different scenarios? Or is there some sort of an open campaign where you just have to occupy all the spaces of the map similar to the PC game, where all the other clans are also doing the same? I would love that!
The description says 10+ hours so that sounds pretty good to me. And they mentioned updates which I think would most likely either be more missions or skirmish. I'll be playing this in an hour or so, then I'll put my impressions
Game Impressions Well I'm glad I got it, it seems like it will have a fair amount of depth. The building placement has a puzzle element to it that I like so far. Animations are incredible, what you would expect for a total war title, and best i've seen for a strategy game on iOS so far. This really does seem like it would appeal to both the more hardcore gamer and casual alike. The campaign looks huge, and so far seem to be well planned out, introducing game elements very organically, in such a way that you don't feel overwhelmed by having everything thrown at you at once. It looks so far like you will get the chance to really get a firm grasp on the gameplay before you are thrown to the wolves, so to speak. The IAP actually looks like it will be a more optional thing than a necessity. More like a cheat/fasttrack than anything else. I'll save my reservations about the lack of a skirmish mode until I get further along in the campaign. In the options menu there is a greyed out option called "Sendai Code", that according to the info popup, unlocks the Sendai Faction when you complete the campaign. Conclusion: i think this will be $7 well spent. Pretty deep, fresh gameplay, highly polished, and well thought out it seems. (and the voice acting isnt THAT bad, I can think of a dozen or so popular iOS games with much, much worse dialogue from actors who's native language was english!) If you're on the fence, jump down and pay the fee, i think you'll be pleased.
awesome i had no knowledge this title even existed until now. ill get it but will is usurp hunters 2?
Well, since Hunters 2 is, in my opinion, far, far behind Final Fantasy Tactics and Ravenmark among iOS turn-based tactical games, and probably not quite up to the level of Time of Heroes and Wasted Lands as well, it is rather easily usurped. If it ever sat on the throne, it was a precarious perch, constantly tottering on the verge of plummeting Not that Total War Battles nourishes any ambitions of replacing Hunters 2 in any way, given that this is a real-time game, and therefore not in the same genre
Okay, I just finished the 4 or so tutorial levels and I'm loving it. The gameplay is simple and fun but the best thing as others have said is the animations. Watching each unit fight it out in a squad is amazing and quite detailed. You can watch units parry attacks and see awesome killing blows (a spearman will stab a general in the chest and the you can watch him slowly fall over). I gotta say, watching this stuff on an ipod touch is crazy!
