I hate weeaboos. If you are fortunate enough to not know who they are, allow me to darken your day by telling you. A weeaboo is a white person who thinks Japan is folded over 9000 times and thus better than anywhere else on Earth. They are a strange breed, Clayton Bigsby for the white race compared to the…er…mildly brown (one must be very careful with these terms). They have a nasty habit of ruining any sensible discussion of anything Japanese with inane drivel about the superiority of a race they know little about other than what they learn from cartoons. The problem is mutual; I met a Japanese man once who thought Metropolis and Gotham City were real places and that superheroes routinely assisted the US police force. Well, not really, but only because I have not met enough Japanese neckbeards to find the equivalent. Most frustratingly, they butcher the Japanese language and scatter the remnants in their English, with some even being recorded saying the word “desu” with emphasis on the “u”, something which is deeply frustraTING.

What does this have to do with bad history? A lot, because, if there are 2 things weeaboos love almost as much as cartoons, they are video games and bullshit history. Total War: Shogun 2 manages to combine both, and thus had the weeaboos hosing their body pillows with semen. The game, made in the UK, is by and for weeaboos, and my did they lap it up like they would Kojima Hideo's fetid testicular discharge if he promised them another loosely war-themed wiggling women's bums simulator. This review, which intends to annihilate the game like the Japanese fleet at Myeongnyang, is thus going against the slavering horde, and that makes it all the more fun.

The problem with dismembering this steaming pile of shit is that so much is wrong it is hard to know where to start. This video gives a good starting point, because it shows most, though not all, of the key flaws of this game. “Flaws” is probably the wrong word; it is harder to find things this game does right than wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kS77XHyuZQ

You know things are bad when the VIDEO TITLE is bullshit. “Katana hero”? Who? I cannot recall any Sengoku period army sending entire units into battle armed only with swords, much less heroes, though I am far from an expert on the period and I cannot say for certain that it never happened. Generally, though, the sword was a sidearm on the battlefield, secondary to the spear, bow, or musket. These men are going into battle underequipped, and, boy, they need all the equipment they can get. Nothing short of automatic rifles is going to let 30 men defeat 1350 spearmen if those spearmen are actually capable of holding a formation. The spearmen will just surround them and beat them down from all sides, and, with a reach disadvantage as well, the defeat will be even more crushing. Technically there may be problems with the “yari ashigaru” unit, since ashigaru and samurai were usually mixed in formation in this period, but that is a minor nitpick compared to the crap that follows.

The units advance towards each other and clash, and, my, does that clash look dumb. The spearmen are in fairly loose formation and do not brace for the impact, but that may be just a poor decision on their part. The swordsmen slam into the middle of their ranks, and...the men on the flanks stop running, stand still, and lower their spears. Why? What are they doing? Their momentum would carry them a bit further forwards at least, and if they had functional brains they would wrap around the flanks of the tiny enemy force. Unless this unit is composed entirely of exceptionally stupid people, the men on the flanks would not just stand there idly while their comrades get cut down in droves due to having no idea how to make a good spear formation. Wait, what am I saying, people liked this game. Of course there are loads of people dumb enough to fight like this.

Eventually, after several seconds, the spearmen finally realise that attacking from all sides is a good idea and surround the swordsmen. Well, this is game over swordsmen...except no, because these spearmen are so thick that, had they been alive today, they may have actually seen no problems with this game. I can hardly believe my eyes at these men – how are they even able to dress themselves and not pour soup down their fronts at meals? They cast down their spears, which seem to just disappear, draw swords, and engage in honourable sword duels folded over 10¹⁰⁰ times with the heroes, who cut them down one by one while their comrades stand and politely clap before stepping in line for the butcher. I mean, this is Austin Powers level crap, come on. Do people really believe this? These are not even samurai; they would not have subscribed to any honour codes the samurai had, not that it would have been much of a problem if they were, either...

Now for the blow which will shed so many weeaboo tears. You know that honourable samurai bushido, folded over 10¹⁰³⁴ times? The word bushido was first recorded in Japanese literature in the book Kōyō Gunkan, dating from 1616, 1 year AFTER the siege of Osaka castle, the last major military action in Japan until the 19th century. The so called “way of the warrior” was codified after samurai warriors ceased to actually have to fight anyone. Bushido? More like bullshido. Tokugawa Ieyasu unified Japan, and he did so partly by betrayal, something explicitly forbidden by bushido. It is fortunate for him, then, that bushido did not actually exist at the time.

As I build a raft to float on the weeaboo fanboy tears, I continue to marvel at the utter stupidity of the battle unfolding before me. Eventually the spearmen have enough of politely dying and flee the field, giving victory to the swordsmen in a battle which only helps to reinforce the worst of the worst of weeabooism. See the noble behaviour of the Japanese warriors, folded over Graham's number times. See the sacred katana cut through a stone by weight alone because it was put on it blade down. If only we white subhumans could be like they are and been slaughtered by a Korean fleet a fraction of the size of ours! Notably, there is no Imjin war campaign in this game, since the cascade of weeaboo tears at the historical outcome would have created a flooding risk and it was thus considered a public health hazard. Also, fitting the weeaboo fantasy of noble warriors, the samurai practice of headhunting is omitted; despite the game officially being bloody, the gore is extremely minimal, with no wounded men writhing around screaming after the battle has ended or men stopping to collect the heads of fallen foes. For a supposedly 18 rated game, it is all a bit tame and just not metal enough.

I could go on and attack the rest of this crap, but I think that is not needed. 5 minutes of video alone is enough to show everyone the problems with this game, and the root cause of these problems, which is the game engine itself. The Warscape engine, used for all Total War games after Medieval 2 (which was much better than anything which came after it), has all close combat handled as one on one duels with set “kill move” animations. This was not so noticeable in the musket-based Napoleon, but here, in a close combat based game, the emperor has no clothes; indeed, not only does he have no clothes, he is running all around town proclaiming the fact. Ridiculous outcomes like this happen because of the forced one on one combat. The worst thing about this whole fiasco is that, because it is an engine problem, mods cannot fix it, so the game is beyond repair, only good for weeaboos. It is fortunate for CA, and unfortunate for the rest of us, that they are such a big market.

There is so much more I have to say about this, but I think my blood pressure is rising to perilous levels, so I shall put on some Tigran Hamasyan and relax. I may come back to this later and do the rest of it if I have time for more masochism, but I think this should be enough to persuade anyone here not to buy the game, or uninstall it if already bought.

Sources: Common sense, Wikipedia. If I have made any errors, please inform me.