Recent reviews by Junko

Kicked my butt in ways i didnt know where possible, ripped me new holes and left me beaten, bruised, used and abused, 10/10 would recommend, onward to ng+7

Thoroughly kicked my ass, would recommend.

This game has come a long way since its initial release date, and I have to say it is almost a completely different game from what it was when it first came out. Im just going to go over a few pros and cons about this game and try to elaborate on each one a little, so here goes nothing (This is in no particular order, just the order that came to mind first).
PRO- AI actually tries to win now: one of the biggest complaints about Rome II when it came out was how ridiculous the AI was, they would constantly charge forward, then run back to where they were, or just sit there and let you win the battle. Now most total war games, anywhere from the very first ones to warhammer II, the AI isnt the most strategic fighter, but they would atleast have a setpeice format that would be rather difficult to break through on hard or legendary diffuculties.
CON- This game was sold in peices: I get that people try to make money nowadays but consider this. THE GAME ORIGINALLY CAME OUT WITH ONLY NINE FACTIONS YOU COULD PLAY AS. Now to be fair they added more free factions over time, and ended up with fifteen factions to play as. But also consider this. YOU HAD TO PAY TO USE THE OTHER 18 FACTIONS THAT WERE ALREADY PROGRAMED INTO THE GAME. Here ill even add it up for you. To play as Boii, Galatia, or Nervii, you needed the Caesar in Gaul campaign pack- $14.99. to play as the Arevaci, Lusitani, and Syracuse you needed the Hannibal at the Gates campaign pack- $14.99. now this one is stupid because two of these should have been in the vannila game, no argument, but to play as Sparta, Athens, or Epirus, you needed The Greek States culture pack- $7.99. Remember how fun it was to play Scythia in rome 1? Sorry that'll be $7.99 for the Nomadic tribes pack, also gives you access to the Massagetae and Roxolani. Thrace is also badass, but SORRY, you need the Pirates and Raiders pack for another $7.99, also for ardiaei and Tylis. Do you want to play some badass african tribes? HELLO $8.99 for Nabatea, Kush, Saba and Masaeyli. And last but definately least, You need the Black Sea Colonies pack to play as Cimmeria, Colchis and Pergamon for $7.99. Do the math and it adds up to $70.93.... Just imagine spending sixty dollars on a game only to spend seventy more to UNLOCK content that was already in the game. now of course, two of the dlcs i mentioned actually add a new campaign to the game but that really doesnt make up for it at all. This game is not worth it unless the game is on sale for $15.00 period. None of the dlc is worth it unless its on 75% off or more.
PRO- The game is very well optimized: this game runs surprisingly well for how much chaos is going on during the battles. The game is smooth and it also looks very nice, one of my favorite things to do is replay battles and watch them in cinematic mode because its just so smooth and looks great, whether up close in the fight, or from a bird eye's view.
CON- Blood and Gore DLC: Now some might say its unfair to make a con based on one little 3 dollar dlc but this is actually the most ridiculous dlc that a company took seriously, that I have seen, hands down. $2.99 for a dlc that adds TERRIBLE blood effects? Come on, even if the effects actually looked nice i wouldnt buy it, much less this joke of a DLC. instead of spending $3.00 on this, go get twelve gumballs and that will be more worth it than the Blood and Gore DLC.
PRO AND CON- Multiplayer campaign: now before you go screaming "BUT NAPOLEON AND SHOGUN 2 HAD CO-OP CAMPAIGN" listen here. Napoleon was garbage end of discussion. and yes shogun 2 had co-op campaign and i find nothing wrong with it. My point is, ever since Rome 1 people have been trying to mod and do whatever they can to make it co-op because its nice to have an actual challenge with friends instead of just dominating everything in your path, and rome 2 offered this, and it works surprisingly well nowadays, where as before there was constant lag and desyncing. I have pretty terrible internet and i barely experience lag on co-op campaign on this and that is definately a plus. now for the con. The fact that there is only support for 2 player campaign and no more is such a let down. I get the argument that "people who play online dont want to wait for 4 other players to make their turn" but that doesnt mean it shouldnt be an option. Me and my pals always wanted to play a rome 2 campaign with four players just to make it more interesting, and the game already has support for three on three battles, so why cant there be more players in the campaign?
CON- no three or more-way battles. I still dont understand why this is a thing to this day. If rome 1 (i havent played medieval or shogun 1 so i dont know if they have this so im using rome 1 as an example) has three, four, five, six, seven and, EIGHT way battles, why doesnt rome 2? a sequel to a game should be improved, not worse.
PRO- Customizing armies is actually a thing: in previous games, the only improvement you could have to and army was experience, that's about it, but in rome 2, you can actually specialize your armies, for example, if you want to make an army that is great at skirmishing, you can actually pick upgrades as your army gets experience, that makes you more adept with ranged units, such as archers or slingers, or even make a cavalry specialized army. this also goes for generals, you can make a general that when is in a certian city, your public order skyrockets, or your tax income skyrockets, however you want to design him. bonus points for updating the skill tree and actually being able to see what later upgrades do. (yes beleive it or not that wasn't always a thing).
PRO- Unit limits on multiplayer battles: the most annoying thing in rome 1 was when people picked an army of only elephants or any other broken unit and it was nearly impossible to beat it. in rome 2 they actually include a limit on units depending on how powerful that unit is, for example you cant just pick an army of 20 of the same unit, you actually have to design a balanced army, not just 20 souped up spartan hoplites, which really adds to the historic effect to this game.
CON- Army limits on campaign: this is just simply stupid in my opinion. yea i get that it stops AI from just making a ♥♥♥♥ load of size 5 armies, but the limitations this puts on your ability to play the campaign effectivly is just dumb. instead of being able to just leave some extra archers in your capital to help protect it, you have to hire a general and take up an entire army slot just for a little bonus defence. your only option to increase defence in a city now is to upgrade a garrison building, creating much more upkeep when all you wanted was 3 more archers units on your walls.
I know I skipped alot of points here, but these are the most important things to me, and as a person who spent full price on the game and put about 540 hours into it (340 on this account and just under 200 on my steam-shared account), I think that this review holds alot of weight. The final verdict is; the game is not bad, I'd give it a 7/10 as it is on this day, if i were to score it as it was on release? 2/10. Do I recommend the game? Yes I do, if its on sale for $20-40, i say get it. Is it worth $59.99? of course not that is ridiculous. Only get this game on sale, only get the DLC on sale, and never get the blood and gore mod. Thanks for reading this review and happy conquering.

i rate 9 lennys out of 10