My history with the KOEI’s Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise is a long and storied one. I first picked up the game on the original NES, back when I was in high school. There weren’t many games like it on the seminal Nintendo console, and as a huge fan of world domination boardgames like Axis & Allies, Shogun, and Risk, I found the game right to my liking. While my friends were playing more action-oriented games Metroid and Super Mario Bros. and Ninja Gaiden, I was negotiating trade routes, forging alliances, and plotting my takeover and unification of feudal Japan. And I loved it. Now, the 15th game in the series, Koei Tecmo’s Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi, is here, and while the graphics and controls are a far cry from the 8-bit glory of the NES, it sure is nice to get back into this world of historical simulations — arguably the best of the genre.
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi is not a game for everybody. Players spend the majority of their time handling day-to-day affairs in chunks of months of a calendar year. Dealing with farmers and deciding which crops to cultivate and harvest, managing personnel, opening trade routes with other regions of the country, forging alliances with trade or even marriage, and yes, even going to war is what makes this game so unique. Taishi is broken down into months, and each month, the player will make myriad decisions that will have ramifications for the future.
Once all of the actions are done, you advance the time and see the fruits of your decisions bloom countrywide. Every three months, a council is held where advisors offer advice on where to focus your attention, whether it be in trade, commerce, agriculture, or warfare. The player has so much say over all aspects of running the province that it feels tedious at times, but once you get over that tutorial hump and the game starts truly running as it should, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi becomes an addictive exercise in feudal Japanese history.
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi offers six historical scenarios to choose from, with more coming via DLC, each ranging in difficulty. At first, even the easy scenarios will be difficult, but once you grasp the flow of the game, it all becomes clear a few in-game years in. Each scenario also has its own living, breathing ecosystem, and warlords will be fighting each other for control all around you, so paying attention to what neighbors are doing is paramount to having any success in this game. If you turn your attention to one enemy, another could use this opportunity of distraction to invade you on another front, causing you irreparable harm in the long run. Sadly, I say this from experience.
Each scenario offers a huge number of clan leaders to choose from, up to over 80, so finding a clan’s outright motivation, like clan longevity, expansion, armed unification, or outright conquest to match your play style is easy. And there are over 2,000 captains in the game, and some can even be player-edited. Each clan runs differently, having tried out quite a few, and the geographical advantages or disadvantages play a huge role in how you develop, grow, and ultimately play the game to its completion, good or bad. Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi does this better than any console game, and has for over 30 years now.
In terms of graphics, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi is mostly presented in an overhead world map setting, but the player can zoom in and out using the R2/R1 buttons to see some incredible detail, including the flora and fauna of each region. Keeping the map zoomed out is best for a greater understanding of the clans around you and what they are doing each month.
The music and voice acting are both really well done, with the sweeping orchestral score really creating a peaceful mood when handling the day-to-day stuff, and then changing to upbeat pounding notes when we go to war. The voice acting gives voice to prominent historical figures, and hearing them in either English or native Japanese matters not, as the character writing is that strong.
When combat occurs, the map changes drastically to a battlefield (with a named battle, historical or otherwise). Players then go from clan managers to field generals, dictating placement, troop movements, and the activation of special skills and attacks. The combat is turn-based and is handled by the AI, so the player only has to worry about managing the units and putting them in the best position to win the day. It’s stunning how many individual units you can see on the battlefield during a skirmish. It’s a far cry from the days playing on the NES, that’s for sure.
Even with now decades of experience playing Nobunaga’s Ambition, it still took me a few tries to grasp the combat, but once I finally “got it,” I could command a battlefield like the greatest generals in history. And that is what makes Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi such a beloved game world-wide. It’s difficult to pick up, but if you take the time to learn the ins and outs of the gameplay and the flow, you can build a clan that could very easily unite all of Japan under one flag, much like Nobunaga Oda did in the 16th century.
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi is a wonderful return to this game series that I’ve loved for a good portion of my life. One that was incredibly influential to me, not only as a 15-year-old kid, but later as an adult. Because of this series, I went on to get my degree in history, with a concentration on Asian studies. Because of my time playing the game as a teen, I was well ahead of my class on historical figures and major battles, and even my professors were impressed at my knowledge of Feudal Japanese history. And I got all of that from a video game. I’m not sure I can give a more glowing endorsement of the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise than that. This game series changed my life. And if you love Japanese history, it could change yours too. And I guarantee you will have fun doing it.
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi is available now for the PlayStation 4 and PC. This review is based off the PS4 version and a review code provided by the publisher.
