Review: Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening (2024)

Nobunaga's Ambition is one of the longest-running franchises in gaming. The first game in the series launched in 1983, making this year the 40th anniversary. To celebrate such a momentous milestone, the sixteenth game in the series, Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening, is getting released in the west. Like some other games Koei Tecmo is known for, each game under the Nobunaga's Ambitionumbrella follows the same general story and gameplay concept, but changes things just enough where it doesn't feel like the exact same game every time even if it does maintain a general sense of familiarity.

The objective of this game is to fulfill Nobunaga's ambition which is to unify Japan. Set during the Sengoku period of Japan, the player manages their territory while attempting to improve and expand on it. Warfare is involved, both in regards to conquering enemy controlled territories and defending against attacks from them, but so much is involved. For any civilization to thrive there needs to be growth in the mundane areas of life as well. Commerce, farming and other such staples of society need to be addressed if the player is to become a leader worth following. And keeping the key ranking officers happy lest they defect is another task that needs to be handled.

The first order of business is selecting which historical scenario in which to play and choosing a clan. Certain clans have an easier time than others, but regardless of choice all clans start on the smaller side. In order to get things going the player will need to start building up different facilities whether they pertain to warfare, commerce or agriculture. After actions are chosen things play out in real time, though hitting the space bar can speed things up a bit. As the months progress representatives of other clans and the player's own retainers start making requests which the player can choose to fulfill provided they have the requisite amount of gold and labor resources.

Managing territories under the player's control is the most important part ofNobunaga's Ambition.The best way to expand territory is to take over an enemy castle which would give the player control of all the counties associated with the castle. Castles are taken over through battle, and we'll get to the that in just a second, but everything leads to circular growth. Soldiers are needed to take over castles, and in order to do this need provisions to stay in fighting shape and money funds all aspects of the kingdom, whether it be outfitting and training soldiers, growing crops for provisions or reinvesting to earn more money. After the player takes over a castle they also get the farms and other facilities in the counties that can be put into getting more provisions, money and soldiers to continue conquering the land held by rival daimyo. On paper it can be oversimplified as conquer land, use the resources to increase the army and then conquer some more land and repeat. In a nutshell that's not too far removed from the truth, but the practice of that is much more complicated.

The battle system is an integral partNobunaga's Ambition and requires just as much attention as the other areas. The player does control their army units as the battles unfold in real time, but they aren't the most exciting things to watch. The player can direct their units as they see fit to custom tailor their strategy, like prioritize the targeting of more devastating enemy units. Having a hands on role in directing the flow of battle does help make the player feel like a military strategist. The battles being based on actual historical battles from the Warring States period is a nice touch, but people who enjoy action may be a little disappointed. Occasionally there are brief cutscenes that show the troops on the battlefield, but watching the fight actually unfold amounts to little more than icons moving on a grid with numbers popping up during the conflict. Most of the game consists of looking at menus with static portraits to augment the story text.

Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakeningcan be challenging with the sheer amount of responsibilities the player is tasked with, but is also challenging for a bad reason regardless of what customizable the difficulty settings are on. That reason is the UI isn't intuitive and the screen is cluttered with data. There's a tutorial that explains how things work in the abstract, but how this applies to actual gameplay is best figured out through playing game. The UI isn't always clear on whether or not the tasks the player has delegated to their officials are progressing or not, so it can take some time playing the game before things eventually click. For a strategy game complexity is a good thing; the more thought put into overcoming a challenge improves the feeling of accomplishment. The mental energy spent on said strategy, however, is best used toward figuring out which decisions of kingdom management are going to lead to the most efficient path to unification of the land and not trying to navigate the menus to accomplish what should be simple tasks.

Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening does have a learning curve that's not helped by its slow pacing. Playing through the first hours feels like most of the learning is geared toward figuring out the menu system than actually developing strategy for kingdom expansion. The first few hours are a laborious slog, but once everything clicks it does become an enjoyable strategy game. Once the player gets the hang of things there's a lot of freedom to develop their kingdom how they want. A nice element is while the game is based on the historical events, the player can follow the historically correct paths or deviate and shape their own alternate history. It does require attention as the player does need to continuously keep track of their subordinate officers while tending to the regular affairs of their kingdom, but that's what these type of games are about. The proposal feature helps in managing things where the officers will tell the players what they believe to be the best course of action. RTS veterans will likely be able to jump right in and catch on quickly, but casual RTS fans or people new to the genre might be overwhelmed with the amount of tasks to keep track of combined with suboptimal UI and tutorials.

Closing Comments:

Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakeningis a worthy entry in the forty-year-old franchise. The unintuitive user interface and vague explanation of game mechanics give it a steeper learning curve than it should have, but once the player has invested a few hours into it, the journey to unify Japan can be a rewarding one. Because of this it's difficult to recommend this title to someone new to Nobunaga's Ambitionor RTS games in general. Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening isn't casual friendly, but like most endeavors can be a worthwhile game for those willing to invest the time.