Recent reviews by ☧☧Kealand☧☧

One of, if not the, best TW.

This game is thoroughly mid. It is very fun, but there are some drawbacks which make me rank it middling among the historical total war titles. I love most of the campaign map features (though, other than resources, diplomacy still feels dumbed down in some ways; why can I not ask for map information? Sure, there is an informant, but why can't I recruit agents then?) Art style is also not my favorite (colors on the campaign mini map do not have enough contrast), graphics frankly have not improved since Rome II (though optimization has!), and the battles have continued the modern trend of dumbed own arcade BS from warhammer where every unit feels like wet noodles. RTW the original, while arcadey, still involved more maneuvering, tactics, and the units had 'heft.' In other words, my complaints apply to basically all post-Warhammer total wars, historical and fantasy. BUT this is probably my favorite TW since Atilla, and if battles did not last 6 seconds, it would have a lot going for it. I also wish the newer games were less character focused and more faction focused. Assyria being multiple factions with no coherent diplomatic unity is kinda ridiculous, for example.

Overall, I do recommend it, though I wanted to list some downsides first. I love the resource system since Troy. I mentioned marriage/family tree, too. I want to positively comment on optimization and performance. I am not a huge bronze age fan, but for those who are, I think the setting is good. I would personally rank this 7/10: it is not a masterpiece. It is no Rome II, RTW, M2, Atilla, or ETW, but it is the first historical title I have enjoyed in a while.

Rome II with DEI mod is probably my favorite Total War period.

Basically just an improvement on the original. In some ways it holds it back, but the original was a masterpiece and, frankly, trying to veer away probably would have been too ambitious and ended up flopping. If you liked Warband, this is objectively just better.

One of the best games ever. The be gone thot mod for fus ro dah is essential

wtf this is one of the best games ever created 10/10 it is ruining my life

This game is really fun in single player and I will keep playing it, but whoever made the multiplayer side of things should be arrested.

>crashes non stop every time friends try to join server
>finally gets it to work
>game crashes the moment I unpause

Amazing experience. So while I do recommend this game in a sense, the multiplayer sucks, and if you're charging $20 for DLCs, you clearly have enough money to wipe the dorito dust off your fingers and pizza grease off your man boobs and make a workable multiplayer product.

I have only played it for an hour and a half in both MP and SP. Thus far:

* Zero crashes
* Great performance @ 1440p
* No major bugs noticed
* Graphics are vastly superior to the original; people complaining it doesn't have the same graphics fidelity as the new games are brain dead. This game came out in 2004, and have you seen the original? Surprised they even got it to this level.
* Overall, the game is faithful to the original. The toggles for the features are excellent - it allows people to avoid the new features if they so wish. That should be the standard across remakes; this sets the bar high.
* Battle AI is still bad, but the AI is bad in every TW. Further, anyone expecting major improvement here was just fooling themselves. Again, this engine is ancient - there is only so much you can do!
* UI is a little odd, but I am getting used to it. It is overall better than the original's UI on an objective level.
* Faction cap increased to 31 (original was 21). This makes the modding potential huge.

In the end, this is a remaster, NOT a remake. All of the wrinkles of the old game will remain present... but also all of the gems. RTW remains the standard to which I compare all TW games, and the remaster does exactly what it set out to do: improve the game in small ways, especially in the graphics dept (and make it much more optimized for modern PCs compared to the original), and STAY FAITHFUL to the original product. It accomplished that. 9/10