Total War: Medieval 2 review of the strategic classic for iOS and Android

The fourth installment in a series that has won millions of strategy fans on PC over the years, Total War: Medieval 2 is now also available on iOS and Android at a signed discount. Wild InteractiveIt can be purchased for 14.99 € from the App Store or Google Play Store.

An original project of the British team, to put it mildly, that takes on the characteristics of a real challenge: How to adapt such a rich and complex interface to a touch control system? And above all, for what type of user?

Questions we will try to answer Total War: Medieval 2 review.

The game

Sixteen years ago in her Medieval II: Total War review, Simone Tagliaferri described the experience developed by Creative Assembly as “a real drug.” The best part of Total War until then and overall an outstanding product. A long time has passed and the SEGA series has clearly evolved, but the value of this production is still felt today.

You can choose to try your luck from the start screen. Great CampaignThe choice for the core of the experience or the tutorial, the special warfare, the quick war or the historical war, the latter, a scenario mode that brings specific situations to the screen, determines the goals that must be achieved in order to achieve victory.

These are the same options as in the original version, and we will be able to choose from them, as in the original version. five factions initials (Spanish, French, Moors, Holy Roman Empire, and Venetians) followed by a few others unlocked upon completion of the expedition, so after conquering a variable number of regions depending on the difficulty we’ll set.

During the shift we will have the opportunity manage cities We have it in our hands to automate the economy in various ways or by exploiting special units like traders, diplomats and spies to expand our influence, sign treaties and alliances, and ultimately discover the real military power available in neighboring kingdoms that we desire. to conquer.

Once we have produced enough troops, we can move them by land or sea. mapIncluding a small part of Africa and Asia as well as medieval Europe as a whole, and coming into conflict with nomadic armies or settlements, in the latter case it will lead to more or less prolonged sieges, depending on their defensive capabilities. rival.

This real time battles they can be automated, but that would be a shame: moving parts of the army within the scenario and specifying specific targets for attack with the possibility of highly effective special performance is one of the most interesting aspects of the experience. Perhaps maneuvers that could reverse the fate of a war that sees us at a serious disadvantage on paper.

mobile version

You can use Total War: Medieval 2 on iPhone 12 Pro and second generation iPad Pro with touch controls or mouse and keyboardis powered by the game to give an experience as close as possible to the original PC experience. There are no graphics settings: the system chooses the quality presets according to the power of the device we are using.

Well, the answer is pretty obvious: on smartphone Even without some simplifications introduced by Feral Interactive, solving the interface is really complex and the battle stages prove to be absolutely unplayable: units, especially enemy units, are too small and touch controls immediately seem vague and confusing, completely unsuitable for interpreting quick inputs and changes.

The condition improves markedly on tablet, although in this particular case a not-so-young iPad Pro’s hardware will only force 30fps, a lower graphics definition, and longer loads between one shift and the next. The larger screen at least allows for compromises with the controls, and the situation can be handled quite well, although the frustrating clutter remains.

The best solution, inevitably, is to place the device on a surface and play using a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, thanks to a smart cover, so you get a largely identical experience to the original; however, this also makes us think about it. such a sense of transformation and why it’s worth spending €14.99 to play Total War: Medieval 2 just like we play on a PC.

graphics and sound

Small tweaks to try to at least slightly simplify the complex system of icons, commands and options, graphic Total War: Medieval 2 seems inevitably dated. We’re talking about the rest of a game that was released in 2006, which at the time was surprising with the amount of simultaneously on-screen characters during battles, but is still pretty heavy today and totally stands out more for the interface than anything else. Not suitable for an experience. mobile, old polygon models, completely empty scripts, woody animations and few issues with flow shaders.

A very similar speech can be made for sound. italian dubbing It was done at a time when very little was done and we relied a little on improvised interpreters. So while most of the entries actually belong to alien locators, in theory they should still be (but we didn’t catch them, dammit) some famous tapes that include mistakes and flawsinexplicably ended up in the final version of the game.