I’m writing my review before the katana update, but I doubt the major issues will be fixed even after it.Blocker issue: In multiplayer, the host experiences only minor lag, but anyone who joins the host has to deal with massive lag, stuttering, and frequent freezes. When certain work timers expire, the game can freeze on a single frame for up to 10 seconds because it struggles so much to move on. I was the host, and even I had plenty of random **** the game is basically unplayable in **** top of that, the management system is complicated and poorly designed, and the missions feel lifeless and unfinished. If you teleport, everyone else drops to 2 FPS for about 5 seconds. It’s a huge disappointment, and based on the roadmap, it looks like they’ll never fix these issues.A complete waste of money for co‑op.

I'm giving this game some love because despite its shortcomings, it immerses you in a beautiful, open world and gives you tremendous freedom to create stunning villages, while scratching the itch for both survival and management. I started it on normal and restarted it after I understood most of the mechanics. Although a lot of the progression is based on fairly grindy region liberations, it's perfectly possible to skip several stages and carve your own path to greatness. Unfortunately, interactions with NPCs are mostly limited to expositions about the state of Japan at the time. Medieval dynasty was already fairly shallow in the dialogues/quest area, but Sengoku dynasty basically did away with that aspect completely. Character progression/skills are also nothing special, so not much RPG going on. Fighting is rather rudimentary, but you can tune it to make it as challenging as you like. It can get tedious, especially when clearing outposts. By far the best aspects are the exploration of the beautifully crafted world, and the unexpected richness of building options. I typically go the utilitarian route with all management games, never wasting resources on aesthetics. This game got me repositioning light sources to make my village look like a magical place at dusk. It just looks and feels so awesome, I know I will do replays with creative fast.uild options turned on, just to make more dreamy medieval Japanese villages. What a relaxing way to spend your time!

Another "okay" game raised to good by the fact that you can customize your experience dramatically by turning on or off the mechanics you don't want to have to deal with. If you don't want to have deal with bandit attacks, or want to be invincible in combat with infinite carrying capacity, they let you make that choice which really elevates the experience.