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Good game but falls short for a longtime PTO fan | | Miltiadis from Chicago IL USA says (15/Feb/2003): | I have played all the previous PTOs. I think PTO IV is teetring on the edge of perfection, but it is not there. It is extremelly close to being an unbelievably excellent on the calibre of FFX for strategy gamers but it falls short. Why KOEI didnt continue to develop it more and actually finish after all the work they did with the excellent 3D fleet battles (they look like a movie they are fin awesome truly lol), music, weather effects, and all the other armamment informations and graphics is beyond me it coulda been a gold mine.
PTO IV is broken into a strategy and tactics phase similar to PTO II. In the strategy phase you move fleets, design ships, do diplomacy and spying etc. One problem is that the strategy map has been broken into regions and thus there are far less places you can send your ships and you cant just simply navigate the pacifc anymore. It works rather well actually and would be ok if the tactical phase was a bit more complex. But the big bad part is it makes the game very small as most of the bases are missing.
The tacticals battles are very exciting and fun to stage. KOEI has the basics for it down superbly, but it is flawed. Aircraft cannot operate at all at night, so if you just send your fleets at night you can easily capture any region you want with no losses. Also, submarines are extremelly unbalanced and ruin the game. With Japan and one 12-16 ship submarine fleet based in Midway, I destroyed over 100 US ships. A submarine fleet can routinely enter a region and wipe out all the stacked 16 ship fleets there without taking any losses, which is very unbalanced and ruins the game.
Missing from PTO II, for those that have played PTO II, is all aspects of the land battle and also regions only have one structure -airfields- and nothing else. No factories, shore batteries, etc.
The end of month meeting are also extremelly dumbed down. The one in PTO II is excellent they should have followed that model. The commander awards and promotions are nice, and managing and using commanders is much better done.
The submarine trade disruption is a good idea, but it fails because the subs dont do much disrupting either your enemies or your own, and resources build so quickly they just stockpile and it doesnt matter much anyway. Plus like I said above u can destroy the entire enemy navy with 1 submarine fleet, so....
To go away from the seemingly doom and gloom areas, the game is fundamentally extremelly good. It is very fun to play, massive fleet battles with carriers vs carriers etc are awesome and exciting to stage and watch.
The technology aspect of the game is much improved, except u cant design nuclear ships which is kinda a bumer that was cool ;) However the ship designing is pretty good. I really would recommend for you to buy it, you will have fun it is a good game, just a bit disapointing for previous PTO fans.
The game plays well and is extremelly fun.
Unfortunately the AI isnt too bright and subs are greatly unbalanced, combined with relatively small regions and limited region defenses, the game is too easy. KOEI should have at least put shore batteries in regions that fire at night, that would have improved the game a lot. Also anti-sub airplanes would have been nice.
Well this is getting long but I will wrap up now. Basically, the game is good and very great fun and I would still recommend it to all ww2 and strategy game lovers. However, I get the feel with the game that is could have been SOOOO much more, but it is so VERY VERY close but it is just not there. I hope truly I do that KOEI can improve on their new PS2 PTO version and they can come out with a PTO V that will rock ppls worlds ;) But for now, I tell you buy PTO still really it is a good game just slightly flawed and a bit disappointed for us old school PTO people ;)
BUY it and tell KOEI to get working on part V, because they have somethiung on the verge of unimaginable awesomeness on their hands ;)
| Great Game But Lacks Reality | | A gamer from St. Charles, USA says (30/Jan/2005): | I think the Game is great but it lacks real-ness, it said in the game that over like one thousand Gato class subs were made but in total of all ships you can only make three hundred somethi'n ships. i think you should make as many fleets and ships as you like and be able to send ships to blockade supply ships and subs. I think you should be able to send in like more than just three fleets in a battle like send five fleets and be able to send more than just four carriers a fleet. But over all i think this game is great, tense. one thing i got from this game is patience and alot of it. it would be awesome if you could land forces: marines, infantry or battle tankers-with battleships but all in all I think it's a great game, hard to play but great, but one last thing i think they hould have is like more regions and make the european region fight a bit less because it gets annoying to see a battle where britain probly won every time you press start but this game is awesome other wise
| Good. | | Robert Carmody from Sacramento CA USA says (26/Mar/2004): | Wish they could have kept Europe out of it and concentrated on more and exciting areas in the Pacific. Would have been better to have a fleet that relys on tankers and supplys from bases. A week long battle that involved entering in an amphibious fleet to take the islands after destruction of airfields and allow the enemy to attack with additional fleets would have made game better. Could have been allowed to go after the transports with attacking fleets entering an area. Gee, there certainly are a lot of could haves to this game. I like this game a lot but what is missing is more pondering than what is there. If there is another PTO I hope they will consider including some more junior grade officers at least on the American side. I would have given the game a 9 except for the submarine issue and would have given it a ten if Marines could have been deployed on coast lines.
| not bad it plays alot faster than the first in the series | | A gamer from seattle says (11/Feb/2003): | i wasnt sure what to expect when i fired up this game for the first time would it be as in depth as the first?would it be as slow?well..no in fact the real time battle scenes are pretty cool although it seems like your battleships get sunk alot faster than they would in real life.also when tou send planes to your bases they automatically appear.no more waiting for the supply ships.also theres no back door attacking bases anymore cuz its all set up on a linear line base to base.i think this game is alot simpler, alot more player friendly and i think geared toward your 14 or 15year old kid.great animation in the battles. iwould take the graphics and put them on the original snes version(still hooked up in my bedroom).also no more landing crews!
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