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»Real Time Conflict: Shogun Empires
"We'll have to wait and see how the DS's first RTS turns out."
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Anticipation:
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Portable Review was fortunate enough to sit in
on a conference call with Mr. Mark Brown, the producer of the first
real-time strategy (RTS) game upcoming for the Nintendo DS called Real Time Conflict: Shogun Empires.
Shogun
Empires takes place in fictional locales during the feudal Japan era.
It stars two brothers who are set to inherit their father’s empire, but
they have completely different views on what they want the empire to
become. Each brother has their own campaign mode, so you could easily
believe you’re getting two games in one, assuming that there are
gameplay differences between the brothers; no two generals command the
same, right?
Shogun Empires is the first RTS for a system that
many believe will be perfect for the genre. Mark Brown stated that it
was difficult to make the transition to a portable console when
everyone is expecting a PC RTS game. It’s obvious that it’s not going
to be as expansive as a PC game, but it should still satisfy DS owner’s
RTS needs.
The basics of the game stem from the traditional RTS
style. You select your troops by dragging the stylus, making a box
around the troops, then point them where to go or who to attack. The
strategy element in this game is slightly similar to that of Fire
Emblem, having a type of “battle pyramid” with three main types of
troops: archers, who shoot long distances but are awful at close
combat; Spearmen, who are extremely strong up front but are very slow
moving; Knights; who are the fastest troop but aren’t as strong as
spearmen. There is also a very special character: the Warlord, who is
extremely strong, but if he dies, you lose. So if you use your Warlord,
you really have to be careful. Not too unlike your queen in chess.
The
maps are separated into “Provinces” and each Province holds a mission.
The missions range from capturing a fort to completely annihilating
your enemy. There are also a few mini-games, but how they actually
integrate into the game wasn’t made quite clear. However, Mr. Brown did
make it clear that you can hire a ninja to assassinate an enemy, which
has a mini-game attached. (We sure hope these assassinations are
animated so we can all revel in ninja goodness.) There is also a
mini-game for battles at sea.
One essential element common to
most RTS games is resource management. Instead of mining gold or
manually acquiring other natural resources, the creators decided to
simplify this area and just award points. What you’ll be able to spend
or use these points for is still uncertain, though, bonus material is
our first guess.
To make Shogun Empires accessible to all, the
developers have added a left-handed mode; you know, for left-handed
people. On top of that, almost all of the action uses the touch-screen
while the mini-games use the face buttons. Hopefully this will make
some lefties happy, appeasing their complaints with Metroid Prime
Hunters and its decidedly right-handed control.
Certainly the
most impressive thing about Shogun Empires is the fact it uses 3-D on
both screens. It’s even more impressive that they’ve managed to get
15-20 people on each screen at one time. It certainly looks good on the
screenshots, but we’ll have to wait to see if it’s as smooth as it
looks and doesn’t produce any slow down.
Furthering the
fun-factor, there is a multiplayer mode which pits you against one of
your friends. Basically, you’ll play as one brother and your friend
will play as the other, but on the same console. When asked why
Nintendo’s Wi-Fi or Game sharing abilities were not utilized, Mark
Brown reported that due to the amount data that would have to be
transferred between the DS’, it was near impossible for Game Sharing.
As for Nintendo Wi-Fi, it was too late in the development process to
use this online feature. Rest assured that they are, however, looking
into it for the future.
On a whole, we’re definitely looking
forward to trying the DS’s first RTS game. It feels like the developers
are taking real care with this title to create the best experience
possible. In retrospect, the discussions hinted that the developers are
limited in what they could do because of the DS hardware, but they
promise at least 6-8 hours to complete each brother’s campaign. Since
it is a portable game, and, though, that limits some things the
developers would like to do with the game, at least they made it so you
can save at anytime. For those expecting a portable Starcraft, you
probably shouldn’t. But Real Time Conflict: Shogun Warriors will
definitely be a great start in the genre for the DS.
Article by: Knives
Posted on: Nov. 11th, 2005 |
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Preview Recap |
| Anticipation |
| We’re really looking forward to seeing how an RTS translates onto the DS. It seems to be a very impressive game, but what is worrisome is the amount and depth of gameplay it will offer, perhaps oversimplifying it to fit on the DS. |
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