Among the many videogame genres that in the course of these long decades have seen their monopoly within the industry disappear, the strategic ones are in particular. There are countless franchises that have inexorably disappeared over the years, forced to deal with a fragmented public and no longer sufficient to support the high development costs required today. The arrival of the independent market, however, has partly allowed the genre to make a comeback among fans, with countless products with a low budget flanked by some great IPs that still manage to pursue their own path with their heads held high. Among these titans, there is in particular the Total War series, a saga that has remained on the crest of the wave thanks to a playful structure that is always captivating and capable of meeting both newbies and veterans. From feudal Japan to ancient Rome, the SEGA franchise has gone through countless historical eras, in some cases even coming to be joined by the purest fantasy through the Warhammer parenthesis. With A Total War Saga: Troy, however, we wanted to look at a middle way, between history and myth, narrating the tragic events of the imposing Trojan War that led to the end of a great empire, all within a playful structure that is certainly well known but at the same time characterized by some outline element designed to be able to give greater charisma to the entire production. After a long wait, we at Resources4Gaming were finally able to touch the new strategic epic Creative Assembly, and now we are finally ready to give you our final judgment on it.
Will the gods be kind?
As mentioned above, in A Total War Saga: Troy we will relive the events that led the whole of Greece to collide with the mighty Troy. Paris, son of the king of Troy, has in fact kidnapped the wife of the king of Sparta, Helen, an action that as a consequence led to a violent war that would have lasted for ten years. This narrative incipit represents in all respects the only true backbone of the experience, with the player who, depending on the chosen faction, will find himself to necessarily have to conquer Troy or to have to protect it from impending danger. In-game there are a total of eight different selectable factions, each of which will have a different main hero - linked to a very specific epic mission - that we can use during our game. From a purely playful point of view, the experience continues to follow in the footsteps of all its predecessors, with a structure divided into two distinct phases. On the one hand we will in fact have a component from turn-based strategy in which, moving around the game world map, we will have to manage our empire by moving armies and building cities, while on the other side we will find ourselves with countless phases from tactical in real time, when our armies will have to clash with their adversaries.
As is now the practice for the series, during the strategic phases it will be extremely important to manage your settlements with the utmost care, so as to avoid a shortage of resources or city revolts. Speaking precisely of resources, in the game we will have to manage the collection of food, stone, wood, bronze and gold, with each city contributing to the production in some specific field, depending on the territorial conformation. Thus, a settlement located in the countryside and equipped with the right buildings will produce large quantities of food while, on the other hand, a village near a mountain range could offer rich deposits of stone. Being able to manage the various resources with the right prudence will be of fundamental importance to achieve victory, given that any shortage in them will lead to violent attrition among their ranks. In this sense, it will be essential to make a decision on diplomacy to get out of a situation that could otherwise end in tragedy. Furthermore, during your game it will be possible to exploit your vassal states to obtain periodic tributes that are potentially very useful in times of famine, but be careful not to overdo the requests ... the line that distinguishes a precious ally from a bitter enemy is more subtle than as much as you can imagine.
One of the first sore points that can be highlighted from the first moments in-game can be summarized in an artificial intelligence that is sometimes embarrassing when looking at the tactical map. Often and willingly you will be bombarded with senseless requests and on several occasions you will find yourself with empires on the verge of falling that, despite everything, will continue to treat you as if your seventeen ready-to-fight armies did not even exist. Worse still, the return of the agents on the field has brought to light a whole series of difficulties that in A Total War Saga: Troy will become predominant as you play. The idea of shaping special units capable of causing unrest among the opposing ranks is an idea that on paper could lead to numerous opportunities, but all the high hopes are collapsing ruinously when one realizes that on the world map there are more agents you practice. Especially in the more advanced stages of the adventure it becomes a nightmare just to wait for the opponent's turn to finish, who will have practically sent four different agents for every single city in your possession.
After a few hours you will thus find yourself in front of a real invasion of notifications on your screen, a condition that violently slows down the gameplay, making every single completed round exhausting. Fortunately, the situation improves significantly when you go to see the battles on the field - all can be faced directly or resolved automatically, depending on your preferences -, with opponents much more aware of the situation in which they will find themselves from time to time. Encirclings, furtive attacks and violent charges at the right moment will be your daily bread, all within impressive and exciting battles where often and willingly the victory will be contended until the last man. Obviously it happens occasionally to witness at least rambling tactics and capable of offering an advantage, but in most cases you will have to deal with enemies always able to respond to your every move.
Sharpening your wits
Speaking more deeply about real-time battles, these do not differ much from what was seen in the previous episodes of the series. Fans of the saga will soon find themselves at home thanks to an interface that has generally remained unchanged, flanked by an equally classic structure of the clashes; first, in fact, you will have to deploy your troops and then you can charge. The right positioning of the army flanked by a careful evaluation of the situations that you will gradually face will be of essential importance to achieve victory. Hence, encircling the enemy will prove rewarding to demoralize him, with the latter that could thus end up totally retreating despite the minimum losses, while the use of archers placed in raised areas will allow to massacre the enemy even before the real fight actually begins. In short, once again it will be the player's reasoning and foresight to define the fate of a battle, moving all his men against a single unit will never be a good move and being able to anticipate the opponent, perhaps by exploiting some weaknesses, will be the key to gaining the upper hand even in situations that at first glance might seem desperate. But unfortunately, playing there is a certain lack of variety in the types of units present, a poverty of content clearly linked to the very nature of the game - which in fact is part of the Total War Saga spin-offs -, but which in the long run makes the clashes lose their bite, which always end up being faced by very similar to each other, even more so considering that with this chapter the mounted troops have been almost completely eliminated.
As usual, the situation will certainly improve with the arrival of DLCs and add-ons, but for the moment the shortage of sufficiently differentiated troops appears at least mortifying and it takes relatively few hours to see everything that A Total War Saga: Troy has to to offer. The usable heroes also deserve a small parenthesis, which if on the game world map will be practically essential, on the battlefield they lose much of their usefulness, limiting itself to representing more than anything else a boost to the morale of the troops. The distinctive element of this new chapter of the brand is instead represented by the presence of divinities, an addition designed to link the historical context to the more purely mythological one. This merger is already present for the wise use of some terminologies and descriptions of their units, for example with the soldiers armed with chariots who are defined as the centaurs, but it is the deities who represent the point of contact between material and immaterial. In-game, in fact, it will be our task to build temples and make sacrifices for the various deities present, all in order to obtain useful bonuses in the management of cities and armies.
Being able to actually please the gods will be a far from simple task, but in the end your efforts will be rewarded through very useful passive bonuses that will allow you on several occasions to get out of critical situations. Furthermore, to add that extra bit of concreteness that never hurts, the various natural disasters, the great victories or moments of great prosperity will often be traced back to the favor or the disadvantage that the gods will feel towards you, a detail certainly not necessary. and that in practice nothing changes in the experience, but which at the same time strengthens all the work put into the historical-mythological reconstruction of the work. From a purely technical point of view, A Total War Saga: Troy keeps practically unchanged the standards already seen with the previous chapters. Watching huge armies colliding as arrows and spears fly everywhere is always a great sight, but when you go to look more closely it's easy to notice seven woody animations and an attention to detail not always at the top. The map of the game world has also proved to be of good quality, well structured and characterized by some nice gems, like a starry sky that seems to have come directly from a Greek ceramic. The sound sector is also of good quality, with well-chosen music flanked by a quality dubbing, just a pity that not everything has been entirely translated into our language - like the introductory video, inexplicably left in English -, a senseless choice that has left us at least confused.
