Nobunaga's Ambition: Rise to Power review

Battle graphics are also pretty lackluster; this is hardly a genre known for its stunning visuals, but Nobunaga's Ambition came out in Japan four years ago, and it shows. However, the music is fantastic, with beautiful orchestral scores flowing and changing over the course of fights and adding a great deal to the atmosphere. Dialogue is also a lot of fun, with the various personalities on the battlefield gleefully taunting and gloating over each other as they gain and lose ground. The battles really are the highlight of the game, and when you see all of your careful planning come together in a spectacular victory for you and your allies, it feels immensely satisfying.

There's really no middle ground when it games to games like Nobunaga, either you love this sort of thing or you don't. While it's certainly not bad, it's got a very limited appeal outside of a certain core audience. But, at the very least, it fills a niche that the PS2 has been severely lacking in for almost its entire lifespan - and pretty well, at that.

Feb 29, 2008