Total War: Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai Critic Reviews

Fall of the Samurai, like the original Shogun 2, is good enough that I heartily recommend it to everyone who owns a PC regardless of their experience with or opinion of the grand strategy genre. If you're coming into the series for the first time there is a lot to learn, but you'll be amply rewarded with hundreds of hours of top-notch entertainment should you make the investment.

Railroads, black powder weapons, no more food shortages, but more turns: much is new in Fall of the Samurai. It takes a close look at the fall of the noble, traditional warrior caste, allowing players to change history. More extensive naval battles make things more exciting and the many new options let the game shine anew.

It's great that we got such a wonderful game to kill time with while waiting for a real revolution in the Total War series.

Fall of the Samurai is one of the best expansion packs that we've seen in a long time. The huge amount of new troops, technologies en agents make sure that you'll never get bored with the campaign. There are a lot of new strategic options to discover in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

A standalone expansion taking the original that's been already excellent and setting out completely different rules you need to adapt to. For lovers of the series this is the must-have expansion. The reason behind it is its special setting, built upon the Shogun 2 time-tested structure, you've never seen before. Once again great fun for tens of hours.

The Fall of the Samurai is definitely a must-have expansion pack for RTS lovers. Both for those who already own Shogun 2 and those who didn't play the previous chapter.

It's upgraded, it's addictive, it's beautiful and polished as every other release in this series. Even though it's not as big as "Napoleon", fans of the Total War franchise will be more than pleased with Fall of the Samurai.

In any case, Fall of the Samurai demonstrates what releasing a good add-on truly means. They could have gone down the cheaper "a little more of everything" road. But instead, Creative Assembly invested their hearts, brains and their uncompromising attention to detail into this, to give this expansion its very own charm and character.

A great expansion pack transmits Shogun 2 in the modern history of Japan and offers dozens of hours of good entertainment with catchy campaign, new units and historic battles.

An excellent expansion that focuses on a fascinating period in history, and helps to make the perfect toe-dipping experience for strategy newcomers.

A magnificient expansion that not only includes more content, but adds noteworthy new features to refresh the experience and make the game feel new and different, despite retaining the gameplay base of the original title.

Like any good expansion – even standalone expansion – it doesn't just add things to the original, it changes them. You'll get an experience much more like a Civil War-era wargame with Fall of the Samurai, as opposed to a medieval wargame with the original Shogun 2, and that, in itself, is worth the cost of admission, let alone all the new units, locations, abilities, factions, and bells/whistles.

A masterful rendition to the franchise.

After a decade of development, and thousands of years of bloodshed and territorial domination, it seems the Total War series has come full circle. Fall of the Samurai is the resounding conclusion, a well-thought out, well-crafted game that puts comparable expansions to shame.

Another fantastic slice of battles and city building from Creative Assembly.

Fall of the Samurai isn't just a new Shogun experience, it's a new Total War experience, and one that every fan of the series should check out.

Still unique, still unmissable - and wielding knockout visuals too.

Shogun 2: FotS carries its legacy with honor and is an extremely robust title. Given that it's a stand-alone product, if there were more initial clans in the beginning of the campaign, it could easily pass as a unique sequel. It's a title worth investing in, as it offers many hours of entertainment.

A glorious scramble for power elevated by some fantastic new units. Shame about those boring boat battles.

Fall of the Samurai is a great stand alone expansion pack: there are no big gameplay innovations but loads of new content and the same amazing visual experience of Shogun 2.