I've played Rome Total War, Medieval 2 Total War, Empire Total War and Total War Rome 2 apart from this game. And although this game has some problems, overall is a very enjoyable game that is right up there with the best Total War games like Rome and Medieval 2.
What I liked: The way the game looks is gorgeous. It looks absolutely stunning and the requirements aren't actually that high. I was able to run it at low settings even with a laptop with intel celeron 1,8 Ghz dual core processor, 4 GB RAM and an integrated graphic card. On my PC I was almost able to run it at max settings with a decent number of fps from 25 to 30. So as far as optimization goes, this one is one of the best Total Wars. As to campaign, it is a very good one, not the best in terms of diversity (almost all the clans are the same apart from the units distribution between early game period and late game period) but as pure fun with it is very enjoyable. There are agents with whom you can operate and do different fun things. You can develop generals in some patterns that are already made, you still have diversity but it's not like in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 where you could make countless types of generals based on their traits and command and other stuff like that. Oh, and the development is divided between culture and war, which I have found to be ok, not time related development but ok nonethelsess. There is even christianity coming in late game that has implications on religion and public order. Another thing i liked was how the diplomacy worked like you could see why other would accept or deny certain accords with you. The battles were awesome and very much in the old spirit of total war like Rome and Meedieval 2. The soldiers and generals' voices were in full japanese which was fine but to be honest I would have liked them to be also in english with that certain japanese accent. As for challenging this game is actually quite challenging and to some extend rewards clever playing. About DLC or other multiplayer things I can't say anything becuase I never tried them. I found it also nice that they introduced the city guard as in troups that you would have in a settlement withouth having them actually there and paying for them. They would just appear during siege battles. They were bigger as the city developed itself and as it grew bigger. And by the huge cities you could basically defend only with the guard. Last but not least I really liked what they did with the revolt system. It was probably the best system in the Total War saga. Every time you had public order problems after 2 or 3 turns of problems an army appeared in the region where the sttlement was and attacked it in order to free it from your opression. Through this thing were sometimes clans reborn having rebels taking back their settlements. That was really nice done. The soundtrack also was fantastic with superb cues from the great Jeff van Dyck who also did Rome 1 and Medieval 2 Total War.
What I didn't like: The city defense was extremly easy. And that was due to the fact that the city resumed only to a fort that was a little higher than the ground so that the troups from outside would have to climb and you could take them out easily one by one when they would reach your soldiers. That was dumb. Where was the whole city? This started from Empire and it really took me out of the spirit of that time. The cities in Japan were beautiful with the castle in the middle that looked just stunning, but in the game there was only a small castle in the middle of that "sort-of-like" fort you were in with your army. And sometimes in smaller settlements you didn't even had place enough for a full stack army. As you grew your settlement the city became larger but never large enough like a real japanes city. Population was removed making the control over cities a little bit dumber. The only things that mattered were factors that had effects on population happines. You could evolve your cities when you had either researched a tehnique or you had enough food. That thing with the food was just patethic. Like, you could in reality have surplus in food but not enough people to be in the need of building a bigger city. The naval battles were not so great as they were in Empire which was the first game with naval battles, but still they were fun enough. Diplomacy was made harder only because of the fact that at the harder difficulties most clans would hate you. However there were no diplomats anymore. You had acces to every known clan to initiate diplomatic relationships which took again my enjoyment out of the game. In Medieval 2 you needed diplomats in order to reach other nations to initiate diplomatic relationships and the difficulty was in reaching in time. Here the only difficulty is in trying to make diplomatic relationships which just takes the realism out out of the game in my opinion.
I feel like as a whole this is a very good Total War game. Not the greatest though but very enjoyable. Too bad I couldn't upgrade my PC further to try other new Total War games but this one was for me the last good Total War game before the abomination that was Total War: Rome 2. And from what I've heard there hasn't been any good Total War game afterwards either, except for maybe Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2.
What I liked: The way the game looks is gorgeous. It looks absolutely stunning and the requirements aren't actually that high. I was able to run it at low settings even with a laptop with intel celeron 1,8 Ghz dual core processor, 4 GB RAM and an integrated graphic card. On my PC I was almost able to run it at max settings with a decent number of fps from 25 to 30. So as far as optimization goes, this one is one of the best Total Wars. As to campaign, it is a very good one, not the best in terms of diversity (almost all the clans are the same apart from the units distribution between early game period and late game period) but as pure fun with it is very enjoyable. There are agents with whom you can operate and do different fun things. You can develop generals in some patterns that are already made, you still have diversity but it's not like in Rome 1 and Medieval 2 where you could make countless types of generals based on their traits and command and other stuff like that. Oh, and the development is divided between culture and war, which I have found to be ok, not time related development but ok nonethelsess. There is even christianity coming in late game that has implications on religion and public order. Another thing i liked was how the diplomacy worked like you could see why other would accept or deny certain accords with you. The battles were awesome and very much in the old spirit of total war like Rome and Meedieval 2. The soldiers and generals' voices were in full japanese which was fine but to be honest I would have liked them to be also in english with that certain japanese accent. As for challenging this game is actually quite challenging and to some extend rewards clever playing. About DLC or other multiplayer things I can't say anything becuase I never tried them. I found it also nice that they introduced the city guard as in troups that you would have in a settlement withouth having them actually there and paying for them. They would just appear during siege battles. They were bigger as the city developed itself and as it grew bigger. And by the huge cities you could basically defend only with the guard. Last but not least I really liked what they did with the revolt system. It was probably the best system in the Total War saga. Every time you had public order problems after 2 or 3 turns of problems an army appeared in the region where the sttlement was and attacked it in order to free it from your opression. Through this thing were sometimes clans reborn having rebels taking back their settlements. That was really nice done. The soundtrack also was fantastic with superb cues from the great Jeff van Dyck who also did Rome 1 and Medieval 2 Total War.
What I didn't like: The city defense was extremly easy. And that was due to the fact that the city resumed only to a fort that was a little higher than the ground so that the troups from outside would have to climb and you could take them out easily one by one when they would reach your soldiers. That was dumb. Where was the whole city? This started from Empire and it really took me out of the spirit of that time. The cities in Japan were beautiful with the castle in the middle that looked just stunning, but in the game there was only a small castle in the middle of that "sort-of-like" fort you were in with your army. And sometimes in smaller settlements you didn't even had place enough for a full stack army. As you grew your settlement the city became larger but never large enough like a real japanes city. Population was removed making the control over cities a little bit dumber. The only things that mattered were factors that had effects on population happines. You could evolve your cities when you had either researched a tehnique or you had enough food. That thing with the food was just patethic. Like, you could in reality have surplus in food but not enough people to be in the need of building a bigger city. The naval battles were not so great as they were in Empire which was the first game with naval battles, but still they were fun enough. Diplomacy was made harder only because of the fact that at the harder difficulties most clans would hate you. However there were no diplomats anymore. You had acces to every known clan to initiate diplomatic relationships which took again my enjoyment out of the game. In Medieval 2 you needed diplomats in order to reach other nations to initiate diplomatic relationships and the difficulty was in reaching in time. Here the only difficulty is in trying to make diplomatic relationships which just takes the realism out out of the game in my opinion.
I feel like as a whole this is a very good Total War game. Not the greatest though but very enjoyable. Too bad I couldn't upgrade my PC further to try other new Total War games but this one was for me the last good Total War game before the abomination that was Total War: Rome 2. And from what I've heard there hasn't been any good Total War game afterwards either, except for maybe Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2.