Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening Reviews
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a worthy entry in the forty-year-old franchise.
Despite the graphical issues and the most bare-bones of tutorials you'll find in a historical simulation sandbox, Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening offers plenty of great moments. We loved the historical vignettes that played out as events unfolded and certain conditions were unlocked. Even on Easy mode, the game will make you surrender and start over multiple times before you can achieve Nobunaga's dream of a united Japan. The Switch version is far from perfect, but if you're willing to work with it, there's a rich, deep, addictive strategy sim to get lost in here.
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening streamlines the many complex systems and mechanics that have built up over the series' 40-year history, refining the strategic experience that is more approachable and all the better for it. While UI elements and precise control issues can frustrate at times, Awakening is a wonderful sandbox for samurai enthusiasts to play in.
Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening is perhaps the most concrete effort of the Japanese software house for 40 years to expand its audience. The innovations in terms of accessibility related to the decision-making freedom of their subordinates are certainly spot on, because they spare the player some of the most tedious management tasks.
Review in Italian | Read full review
For those familiar with this long-time simulation/strategy series, Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening may feel like a warm welcome home. But as a newcomer, I found the game a confusing mess, and the Switch version frustrated my every attempt to enjoy playing it.
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a unique take on the strategy genre that chooses to focus more on the administration aspects of war rather than the battles. Coupled with in-depth mechanics for managing your economy, as well as a surprisingly deep political system where you have to pay attention to how well your officers are doing, you get a unique management-styled strategy game that is absolutely worth your time.
Nobunaga's Ambition Awakening is a interesting way to live the Feudal Japan era, but the various and rich gameplay leaves room for a lot of confusion during the battles.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The latest game in the Nobunaga's Ambition series, Awakening puts a fresh coat of paint onto the Warring States Period of Japanese history and again asks you to quell the chaos and unify the nation. Though some of the changes may be as divisive as Nobunaga's own ideology at the time, this is a game well worth checking out for strategy fans and enjoyers of Japanese history.
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a fun game to sink a day, week, or lifetime into, but suffers from slightly confusing menus, odd AI, and "helpful" advisors. Regardless, the game kept me coming back time after time, trying to find my own Awakening.
With any 4X strategy title, there’s a learning curve, and Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is no different in that regard. There’s so much depth to the strategies, stats, and nation management that it will take some hours to learn your way around. However, an efficient interface and an excellent approach to the historical storytelling make this the most accessible Nobunaga’s Ambition we’ve seen in the series’ 40-year history. What’s more, it’s a genuinely excellent alternative to a textbook for anyone that wants to learn something about a period of warfare every bit as fascinating as the Napoleonic Wars, the Three Kingdoms era of China, the civil war in America, the Roman campaigns or the Mongol conquests.
Even though it demands a lot from the player right from the start and it doesn't have the nicest interface, especially for console players, Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a legitimate representative of the genre. The title appropriates everything that has done best in the past decades, rewarding the dedicated and studious with fascinating stories, complex management systems and great options for achieving glory.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a fun, challenging strategy game, but it feels bloated at times, and playing on a controller is a hassle.
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is a great game from a lesser-known franchise in the West, but one that certainly deserves recognition from strategist enthusiasts. There are some problems executing commands in the console version and its learning barrier is a little more demanding, but those who persist for three or four games will be rewarded with an extremely complex game, full of different strategies to win and completely addictive. Its replayability potential is incredible with so many clan options to control and surely hundreds of hours can be enjoyed in it.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening fulfills with excellence the mission of honoring the series' 40 birthday, presenting countless strategic possibilities within all its systems. For lovers of the genre, there's enough content here to enjoy for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours. As for the novices, it is necessary to be aware that many attempts may be necessary to master the mechanics; however, once understood, it will be difficult to stop playing.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If it weren’t for some of its issues with a less than satisfactory tutorial and cumbersome UI, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening would be an eyes-closed recommendation for just about every type of player looking for this sort of gaming to crunch away hours and hours. As it is, though, if you are the sort of player that can muscle your way past issues like the ones that this game suffers from, you will find that there’s a lot of entertaining content to sink your teeth into in this latest entry of this long-running and successful franchise.
I personally wouldn’t return to this game in the future, even if they do manage to bring over the Japanese audio so it doesn’t sound like a 70s martial arts dub. The amount of detail is intense, the campaigns are especially long, and the exceptional animated sequences are few and far between from simply staring at a small map and even smaller menus to do a multitude of tasks. This game is definitely for someone, and, if you’re even remotely interested in Japanese history, this is an incredible feat of a title. But it’s too big of an ask for too little of a reward.
Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is a well-rounded RTS game that brings players into the Sengoku period to lead clans into victory. The game's rewarding management system and compelling mechanics are very enjoyable, but the controller button layout and menus may feel obtuse to some players.
"Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening" opens a portal to feudal Japan that strategy fans and history enthusiasts will want to dive into head first.