Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence (PS4)

10/31/2015 - 11:10 PM - GMT+8

By: Seth Legaspi

After waiting for an English release for some years, I have finally reached my ambition of gaining a copy of this game last month. KOEI brings us this history themed strategy game that will really consume a lot of our time for the sake of fun, comparable even to that of the "Civilization" franchise. To be fair however, this game has some features that makes the time required lower than needed.

As stated above, this game is a strategy game, and it is totally different from KOEI's well known, "Dynasty Warriors" series. Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence is mostly known about the way it handles 'Strategy' on the Console.

The game's main objective is well, unifying the entirety of Japan with one's chosen clan.Hey, that sort of rhymed. Yes, unifying can be done through certain ways, one does not need to conquer the entirety of Japan to win the game.

The strategy is done through a system of months, where a player can decide on what they want to do with their province in a council. They can develop their economy, maybe rearrange some officers, set a new Policy, or maybe even send out some marriage alliances... (Yes, one can make Original Characters in this game and have the option to have their character participate in certain historical scenarios or not)

These policies will make us stronger... Or not... Hmm...

Once a month starts... Well, this is where I believe the game shines. It becomes a real-time strategy game once a player reaches this part. You can do anything related to war, except maybe development, during this segment.I. am on a roll. You can easily lose a fortress, or even an entire territory if you're not careful at this part, it especially gets even harder to keep careful once your territory gets bigger, since everyone else starts to become hostile of you due to your growing influence. Like, literally Hostile.

Look at those clans that are so far away, yet already Hostile...

Added to these features, is how you can directly affect how a battle can be decided. 

How a battle would usually look like

By selecting one of your armies in one of these battles, you can directly enter it, and literally turn the tide against an enemy with greater numbers, or maybe even minimize casualties. In addition to this, battles won this way will ensure that an enemy army will be completely wiped out, or routed (army will disappear from map, and their commander will either be taken prisoner, killed, or sent back to their town), instead of being given the chance to run away when not in this mode.

If you've noticed above, there's one certain feature there that I believe is one of those features that makes the game not too lengthy, and even brain-friendlier with its use.

Treating you like a real human, the game will force you to delegate chunks of your territory to your most trusted subordinates. The human mind can only take so much after all, and you can only directly control a limited number of fortresses, cities, and towns. Heck, real leaders must learn how to delegate, and this game takes that to the level where you will have to trust your regents to develop their provinces, hold off your enemies, and even take new territory in your name. Of course, you can give them directives, as to what they should focus on developing, or who to mainly direct their attacks on.

This game is also well-known for being history-based, and this really helps in immersing the player in the setting. Of course, it's not required to follow through on what happened in history, and anyone is given the freedom to change what's going to happen, though unfortunately, when one diverts from history, the main quests stop showing up. These diversions are not limited to player-related actions; the AI may initiate these changes themselves since they might be able to take some fortress that is historically important to be in another clan's care.

There's also the fact that guns will only appear after a certain date, and the power balance can really shift with the musket's firepower, especially when mixed in with some policies, and later on with the arrival of Christianity... Its tie to history will really affect how a player plays the game.

To end, this game is a Strategy game, through and through. Choices must be taken into account when doing things, such as attacking another clan, since that clan may be allied to another clan that is stronger than you, or it might even be allied to multiple clans that may outnumber you. 

The game has that skill to take up your time without you noticing, it's like you can take another in-game month, since you are almost finished conquering another territory, but after a few moments, it took around 8 in-game months, and you have already used up more time than you intended. 

My Rating:
(9/10)

Good Stuffs:

• Voice Acting, there were both Japanese and English voices
• Gives the player lots of freedom in playing a scenario, they can choose to not have the characters die historically
• Battles are really cool, especially when muskets arrive.
• The sound of you taking over a much more superior enemy's fortress is satisfying
• "Alliances"
• Conquest.

Not so good stuffs:

• May get quite repetitive after a while, I haven't reached that point yet, but I can feel it.
• Graphics could be better.

Boats look cooler in the Opening