The original Takeda was released on the PC a few years back, and did offer some originality to the strategy genre. Unfortunately, it was severely bogged down by serious technical issues, and was a largely unfinished and very flawed game. Takeda 2 does things a little better, presenting more polish when compared to its predecessor. However, Takeda 2 is a day late and a buck short, as most of the original concepts presented by the original Takeda have since been done successfully. By most standards, Takeda 2 is a tired game that tries to improve upon the first game but feels woefully stagnant and strictly average.

Takeda 2 starts out by having you choose from between three warring factions, Takeda, Oda and Nagao. These are merely for placement purposes, as each of the three is basically the same, with no real strengths or weaknesses between them. Your territory is then set out for you, and you can begin your conquest of feudal Japan.

While combat is certainly the largest aspect of the gameplay, there is some territory management that you must do in order to keep your people happy and cooperative. You can forge alliances with other territories through different means, like marriage and so on. While these aspects are available to your territory, most of the game is still focused around combat.

Building up your troops is a system of checks and balances where you must have a decent amount of each type of soldier, or else your units will fall in battle.

In controlling your troops around the area, you must take terrain into account, as well as range when positioning your units across the landscape. Your soldiers occupy tiles on the game board, and you can move them depending on the terrain that you are currently in.

One thing that struck me as odd was the complete omission of any kind of multiplayer. While online play would be a little arduous given that the game is a turn-based strategy, it has still been done in the past and could’ve been done.

Graphically, Takeda 2 doesn’t give you a whole lot to look at. The game is composed entirely of 2D sprites, and not terribly good ones at that. They don’t really hold up compared to other titles in the genre, even 2D ones, and look very blurry at higher resolutions.

The sound department fares a little better, but not much. The music gets the job done, but the soundtrack is composed of only a couple songs. The sound effects are also quite plain and barebones, with stock, generic sounds and voice effects everywhere.

Takeda 2 is an improvement over the original game in terms of technical merits, but the gameplay hasn’t changed much in the past few years. Several years ago, this game would’ve been par for the course. However, with stronger titles having been out for the past few years, Takeda 2 just can’t keep up. 

Gameplay: 6.0
While Takeda 2 the game does sport quite a bit more polish than its predecessor, the gameplay simply average by today's standards, as it basically plays out much like the original.

Graphics: 5.5                                                                                                                                        
The graphics are composed of blurry sprites that won’t tax your video card by any means.

Sound: 6.5
Not a whole lot to enjoy here; the sound presentation is very slim, with only a couple of songs and some simply adequate battle sounds.

Difficulty:  Medium
 

Concept: 6.0 
Takeda 2 is not as technically flawed as the original, but the gameplay is tired compared to newer titles in the turn-based strategy genre.

Overall: 6.0                                                                                                                                       
Takeda 2’s ho-hum approach to the genre (both aesthetically and in terms of gameplay) make it a title that is hard to recommend given that there are much stronger games out there.