Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi (2017)

As a turn-based strategy game that should have offered more depth with the amount of time that you spend on it, Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi is disappointingly shallow and fails to carry on the long legacy for a series that is known for its incredibly complex and deep strategical implementation of ancient Japan.

Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi is a turn-based grand strategy role-playing simulation video game which comes out in the 35th anniversary of this series. Maybe this could be one of the reasons why it (pitifully) maintained most of its main features, including many faults that could have been removed or improved.

Considering this is the fifteenth in the franchise, Koei Tecmo took a big risk by trying to attract an all new audience and it failed spectacularly. Understanding where Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi came from can help to explain it. It was released not just for PC originally, but for tablet also, hence the big changes and simplified features. In this bold move, Koei Tecmo managed to not only drive away its loyal fan-base but also fail to bring in any new fans to the series. Ultimately, the final product is just dull, too simple to appeal to the hardcore, and too dense to appeal to the casual. It's hard to see who could enjoy this outside of hardcore J-History buffs and, even then, a textbook would be more entertaining.

Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi is a game that feels like a more approachable version of what's come before, both for returning players and new ones alike.

I really hate tearing down games because nobody sets out to purposefully make a bad game and people put passion and effort into Nobunaga's Ambition: Taishi, but not only does this game fail on its own merits, the fact that this is the 15th entry in an acclaimed series makes it even more disappointing. The way it tries to hide its lack of depth is almost insulting, and not even a decent character system can save it.