Thanks for covering this. My brothers and I all played it a few times through, but my dad was the real MVP. He played it almost straight for about 20 years, and he beat every scenario on every difficulty, multiple times. I would say to anyone even wanting to attempt this in this day and age, you better understand that patience is a virtue and yours will be tested! There is a great game underneath. Thanks for the memories SNES Drunk. RIP Dad, miss you lots.
This is such a "dad" game. I'd be playing Final Fantasy 4 and F Zero with my brothers, my dad would be playing this and we would watch and have absolutely no idea what was going on, but were totally enthralled. He'd ask us what we should do next and we'd always say attack, but then he'd explain why that wasn't a good idea. This directly led me to get into Civilization, Alpha Centauri, etc. I'm now 42 and I have a 7 year old little boy, and we are continuing that tradition by him on his tablet "helping" me with a FAQ for Final Fantasy 6 while he sits next to me and I play. Good times!
My dad and I used to play Warcraft and Lords of the Realm 2 in his PC room of 3 computers in the mid 90s. I remember how hot that room always was that he got a window A/C. He worked as general manager of a 250 person call center he built for an entrepreneur he'd been doing whatever job he needed since he was a teen. And these were 3 "extra" computers haha. We still say "righto" "yes my lord" "sire!" as references to those games.
I played PTO2 extensively as a kid. My grandpa was in the navy during ww2 and he told lots of stories. It made this game all the more special to me. I was hoping you would cover it and was so happy when this video dropped today! 😊
Dude lol. As a PC kid in the 90s.. who stayed with MOO when it was new.. - YES. so much Yes to what you said they're, lol! I LOVEd proper strategy games and games were mostly made for kids back then so PTO was so rewarding for me since school refused to teach me Astrophysics and chemistry in 5th grade simply cuz I can't write cursive
CONGRATULATIONS ON 300K SUBSCRIBERS!!! Just yesterday I was (re)watching a video and still was on 299k.This is my favorite SNES/Retro gaming channel, so here's hoping it gets an even larger fanbase.
Great review! This game was the traditional "winter break" game that I always played with my older brother. We'd start a game the Friday we got out of school, and it would always last at least a week or two, sometimes longer. I remember turns sometimes taking hours, so we would have to go do something else while the other person played their turn. It was a very slow game, but that worked fine for us - we just viewed it as a really long-form board game I guess. Anyway, thanks for bringing back the memories. :)
It is so difficult to manage alignment and reputation in that game. It is easy if you play it like a typical game of just wiping out everything til the end but you cannot get a lot of characters and get a bad ending.
It took me until my 20s to finally understand how to play Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms & I bought that game (ROTK4) when I was like 12 years old. These games are damn fun once you understand what you're actually doing. When I was a kid, I just tried to go full Genghis Khan & conquer everybody, only to get a bad ending every single time. Koei even made the game Genghis Khan which is much more simpler than ROTK.
@Fluoride_Jones Probably 11 or 12 when I first played it. So mid 90s I was a kid? Just realized I read that wrong, haha, but yes I did play it as a kid. Best I can say is that it all made sense to me.
@@HighlyFlammableMan You were obviously much more patient as a kid than I was! When I was 11-12 years old (I'm a bit older than you, so that was 1990-1991), I was playing games like _Super Mario Bros. 3,_ _Mega Man 3,_ and _Battletoads._ I remember getting an SNES for Christmas 1991 (when I was 12 years old), and the additional game I received was _Populous._ I had NO idea what the heck to do! 😆
Same for me! I saw an add for the game in Nintendo Power, asked for it for Christmas, and got a copy. I played that game for a solid 2 or 3 years through middle school and into high school. Ah, the memories.
Growing up I loved PTO2 and went down the Koei rabbit hole hard growing up - but I also loved Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4!
These games were certainly a niche, but credit to Koei for taking the time to release them. I like strategy games myself, but you have to be in the right mood for them. Congratulations on 300k subscribers, well deserved!
They made them in the good old days when you could make a game with a team of like 10 months, with a team of 5-15 people, and for like $300k. As long as it sold enough to keep the lights on long enough for the next project to finish it was a success.
I love the first PTO. The level of detail in what is sort of a proto-RTS covering the entire Pacific War is amazing. It is incredibly KOEI though, this is a game that starts by asking you: 'Your budget is 5000. How much INFO do you want? 10? 78? 400? OK, how much INDUST?' without ever telling you what any of it does.
This game and the series is known as Teitoku no Ketsudan in Japan, and this game had 3 sequels - although Teitoku no Ketsudan 3, released for PC, PS1 and Sega Saturn, was released only in Japan.
One of my favorite SNES memories of playing this game all the time. My favorite strategy was having all air units train every day until they maxed out at 60 points experience before they went into combat. Then, after they began their combat tour they would gain even more experience. They were pretty unstoppable. I still have the PTO II poster to this day since I laminated it the day I bought the game
Two of my absolute favorite games of all time. I'd spend so much free time playing these games, especially on PTO II. These two games helped generate in me a great interest in the Pacific War as well. Thanks, for reviewing this phenomenal game.
A friend's grandpa found this at a garage sale. He played for about 20 minutes before shutting it off. His review: "Holy hell, the actual war wasn't this complicated." Yes, he was there. He was a fun dude.
PTO II is more vibrant, but it's also even more broken than the original PTO, i say this as someone who knows both games through and through. The funnier thing is, the PC version of PTO II is broken in different ways, it feels almost like a beta for the SNES version in the way SNES has features the PC doesn't. It's got some intriguing mechanics though but the way fleets do business and how land units teleport, etc is just, weird. To put it into perspective, for example, taking Iwo Jima as the allies is insanely hard because the Japanese can just pull divisions straight out of their reserve and teleport them from tokyo to Iwo in one day, so the challenge isn't the defenders (in fact island garrisons are quite vulnerable to just getting blown up by battleships without much ado) but the endless land units teleporting in, so you have to try to engineer a situation where you weaken them all at the same time and then kill them all in one turn so it becomes hostile and teleportation no longer works. The conferences are cool as hell but the mechanics needed some work to be something other than 'hella random'.
They don't teleport, there are supply lines 4:57 where you can raise divisions and move them along the line by one space if you have 1 transport or truck. Kure and Tokyo are next to each other, so they can field new units and move them to Philippine bases in about 4-5 turns, then move those to the outposts to make more room. I would move them along China and go to Manila. You are right about about wearing defenders down bit. The next turn they have 6 avenues of sending troops, not counting your own ships dropping them off.
As a Xenial growing up in an age before the Hearts of Iron, EU, or Total War games, this game, along with PTO II, Operation Europe, Liberty or Death, and others were the lifeblood of my digital "tabletop" existence. It was that leap forward from the likes of the Avalon Hill-style games, or Axis&Allies/Shogun Gamemaster games, but obv wasn't quite as refined as our modern historical sims. So yeah, none of those old Koei games really hold up now (though I still love Aerobiz), but damn they were fun, and important, in their time.
I never played this just because of the incredible depth PTO gets into, but my brother did. He always had a head for numbers and stuff like that. Even now, every year or so he'll bring out this game and play it for a few days, grinding through both sides' campaign. Not for me, but for those who like it, a solid game.
I was in junior high when PTO II came out. It's easily in my top 5 of favorite SNES games, and I cannot help but lament the state of (Tecmo)KOEI today. Even in the modern indie market there aren't too many developers making games like these anymore.
I’m big into grand strategy these days, and these old Koei games don’t get enough credit for innovation and depth. Way ahead of their time. PTO2 looks like HOI4 with fewer things on the map and not shits given about graphics. (The GPU requirements for that game are dumb. I want an option for a flat map, because I just don’t care) They have been putting out sequels to the Nobinaga and Three Kingdoms games for decades and the differences are just… “more things on the map” and “more graphics”. Sadly, no fan translations of any of those exist, so it’s official releases or nothing, and that’s console ports for this computer.
I think my favorite memory of P.T.O. was able to sink most of the Allied ships, make good on conquering the Pacific save for Pearl, Midway, San Fran, and L.A. Thinking I judged the RIGHT amount of time it would take the Allies to recover. Then just as I'm about to start that offensive get hit with the brick wall of three fleets of either just subs and an army of light/heavy carriers. HOW DID THEY DO IT?! Still was amazing the massive battle that took place.
I gotta say I LOVE when I discovered that you could create a "mega" ship with modern tech (jets and rockets). I loved using whatever ships got sunk and remaking them into that. Save the Yamato which I decided would just get a rocket upgrade and max the hell out of it's strengths. Did so with my carriers too (at least the flight capacity). That was my little "cheat" to make sure I could have total air superiority.
I absolutely loved playing this game growing up and still play it today! It actually was an inspiration on me and gave me the mindset on how to manage multiple business segments in large companies. It is really great and draws you in! Absolutely love it, and PTO II was also good although this one you influence a whole lot more. Oh, and the NCV and NBB class warship is total badass!! I would always raise up the technology level as much as I could early on to get new weapons and tech.
I came for another KOEI game, but finding "the most KOEI game" in P.T.O. 2 was a welcomed surprise 😅 Thanks for the video, SDrunk ✌🏼 Also, don't tease in-depth review or prog rock breakdowns, I bet many of us would be completely on board 😂
I got PTO at Christmas 1993.. I was a huge pacific theatre WW2 buff when I was a young teen so this game was fantastic. I also remember it being super expensive for a SNES title at the time, I think it was over $100cdn when it was released!
I played the second game religiously when I was 14. The computer AI thought it would be a great idea to suck their entire fleet (JPN) into the Guadalcanal invasion piece by piece as I spanked them hard in one of the most one-sided battles of attrition that I've ever experienced in a strategy game. Not complaining; I had a blast! Koei really had a great ability to present their menu-driven games with an immersive quality that stands the test of time. That all said, I was not a fan of the fourth P.T.O. game, feeling like something was missing...also that Koei could never design a real-time battle system to save their lives.
It may be a meeting filled with a bunch of elderly, but that meeting music makes it more than bearable to go through even if it loops quite frequently. It really makes it feel like you’re an important person making life-altering decisions. Heck, a lot of the tracks in these games are pretty good especially the sea battle in the first one.
Believe it or not, I played P.T.O II when I was about 15 years old and it was my favorite game as a kid. It made me a lifelong fan of Koei! Based on everyone's comments here, I must've had the gaming tastes of an old man lol.
I remember renting this game when I was a kid and playing it all Saturday night. When I went to church in the morning all I could see was the sea and red screen telling me where I could and couldn’t move haha oh the memories
This game would've eaten my time in the 90s. I was the rare kid who loved strategy games and would get way too excited when I saw some new game with that Koei logo on the box at the video store.
If someone, dressed in all silvery metallic garb, energized into my room last night and told me, “I’m a time traveler from the future….tomorrow morning, you will see the archipelagos of ‘Palau’ and ‘Yap’ listed in an insanely obscure video game from the 90s…”, I wouldn’t have believed them. Shoot to my Micronesian brothers and sisters! And then, to complete my silly time travel fantasy, the traveler would say, “also, you’ll step in some dog vomiting at 2 in the morning, so beware………”. Then POOF. They are gone. Thanks to anyone who read this far, don’t let roll your eyes too hard at me. But a special SNES drunk for finding these obscure games over the years. I had no idea these existed!
I loved this game back in the day! Lots of studying and failing, but once you got the hang of it, the game allowed you to get really creative with discovering new ways to win the war. This game and "Destiny of an Emperor" were my favorites.
I had so much fun with this game. One run lasted so long that I was able to reach the end of the technology trees. Having destroyers and carriers with maximum armor and anti-aircraft capabilities and cruisers with rockets that would outclass battleships was amazing
After reading just how toxic the comments were on AVGN's Sim City episode the other day, the SNES Drunk community is so nice and refreshing. Seeing that this game reminded some people of their dad 😊 I didn't play this type of game with my dad but without going into any detail just reading that put a huge smile on my face and warmed my heart a little bit. I'm being soft I know but it cheered me up in a way I wasn't expecting today 🙂
I used to play PTO on SNES, never knew there was a second until I started playing around with emulators. Still haven't tried it and doubt I ever will lol
Thank you so much for this video! When I was a kid I traded Kirby's Dreamland (GB) to my nemesis' brother for PTO for Sega Genesis and I absolutely loved it. It was my first strategy game of any kind and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to play, and was the one game that got me interested in strategy games. I always wanted to try Romance of the Three Kingdoms but never did. I never found PTO 2 or PTO 3, but I happened to spot PTO 4 for PS2 in GameStop back in the day and bought that, and was deeply disappointed that it was more like an action board game than a strategy game like the original. I loved the original so much that when I found the SNES version at a flea market a few years ago, I grabbed it. The SNES version seems like a newer version than the Genesis one, as it adds extra music and features that aren't in the Genesis game. As far as early 90s strategy games go, PTO is a lot easier to learn than it looks, and even if you don't want to bother with all of the "boring" stuff like the conferences or supplying bases, you can still just fuel up your #1 fleet and conquer all the bases you want without having to follow that flowchart. The game wants you to go back to your home port after completing your three objectives in order to choose three more, but you don't have to do that, and if you're the US you have a lot of sailing to do to go back to Hawaii. One thing I should point out: in PTO you can actually watch your planes attack ships and your ships attack other ships, as in PTO 2. The problem is that it's very time consuming. I discovered as a kid that if you don't know how to find submarines in a battle (option is SNR), then you're going to see the depth charge animation over and over again. It's just faster to not show the animations and the CPU fleet battles. Also: you can mix fighters and bombers on the same aircraft carrier to create a third air unit, which can function as both types. I'm still not sure what the benefit is, though.
Yes. Yes it is still worth playing. It has always been worth playing. I've had it for just about thirty years and still play it. Played through it most recently last year. I have all four of the games, including two copies of PTO 2.
Coming as someone who has Koei games that he loves, and Koei games that he hates, I really want to recommend Gemfire as to the drunk. I feel it is probably the most approachable of the strategy conquest games, and somewhat beginner friendly. Especially compared to PTO/Liberty or Death/Nobunaga/etc. One of my all-time favorite SNES games.
When it comes to historical Koei Tecmo games, I just want to play as General MacArthur and mow down waves of cannon fodder with a comically large sword.
Oh man this was one of my favorite games ever!! I was a kid when I rented it from blockbuster and became addicted to it! They made sequels as well. Still chasing the dragon for a game like this.
I loved the 16-bit version of this game but it is a lot to take in. But when PTO2 came out on the Saturn, I snatched that up and loved it even more. Playing as Japan was Hard Mode. With the resources and industrial capacity of the US, that one was a lot easier. It took a long time to build ships. The larger, the longer it took to make them. Japan's limited industry meant losses were crippling: It was too hard and it took too long to replace losses. Meanwhile the US starts with a number of ships already in the build queues and you can tack on more. I still recall on PTO2 getting into a significant surface battle playing as the Japanese in 1942. The Pearl Harbor attack actually went poorly in 1941 (I screwed it up). I had Yamamoto leading while aboard Battleship Yamato. Ships in the game had a Luck stat. I wasn't sure what that meant in the game. But during that big battle, one of the old American Battleships fired a salvo that slammed into and smashed Yamato's bridge, killing Yamamoto. Yamato had one of the lowest Luck stats in the game. Basically with KOEI, if a ship had historically sunk in WWII, it had a low Luck stat. Most of the IJN ships had a low Luck stat.
Loved all these KOEI historical games. Romance of the Three Kingdoms III for SNES was my favorite back then and is still in my top 10 fav games today that I replay occasionally :)
I'm glad you contrasted with the second game, I didn't realize it had a Saturn version, it looks like there was a Japan-only P.T.O III there, as well as a power up kit expansion release there the follow year. I'll check that out!
this game was amazing back in the 90s i spent months trying to get my snes away from my father so i could play zelda and all he would do is play this, as i got older i came to appreciate the depth of this game
I loved these Koei games back in the 8 bit and 16 bit eras before I bought my first pc. They're great if you're not comparing them to contemporary offerings on the pc, and a couple hold up on their own. They do all start to become pretty much the same game after a while though. I dug them because they were so incredibly different from anything else I'd ever played. Half the fun for me in regards to gaming is exploring genres and systems I'd never seen before, so by the time I got a SNES most games were just "Oh it's just like that other game but with better graphics and a tiny amount of depth added."
Does this mean Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is coming next? It’s hands down my favorite sub-series of the Historical Simulation Series and the Genesis version of the third game is one of my favorite games overall
I know that KOEI always was really good with their games but holy tuna, this is literally Battleship with a ton of realistic details. This is really impressive even if you're not into this genre (which probably is still very very niche even nowadays).
If SNES Drunk is now delving into the strategy realm, I am definitely all for that coverage. Whether he loves them or hates them matters not, he always gives an "objective" opinion mentioning the good, bad and the ugly -- depending on the individual, those 3 could be quite different. Let's be honest; he's 100% right when he says they're not for everyone. Teenager Scott would have hated this game mostly stuck in the realm of RPGs. I hadn't even hit any of the Tactics style of games yet all because I was on team NES/SNES and refused to give Sega a chance. I was missing out but nowadays, I love this stuff in all the available formats to play them!
![Is Operation Europe: Path to Victory [SNES] Worth Playing Today? - SNESdrunk](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bQy4lK0uEV4/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for covering this. My brothers and I all played it a few times through, but my dad was the real MVP. He played it almost straight for about 20 years, and he beat every scenario on every difficulty, multiple times.
I would say to anyone even wanting to attempt this in this day and age, you better understand that patience is a virtue and yours will be tested! There is a great game underneath.
Thanks for the memories SNES Drunk. RIP Dad, miss you lots.
This is such a "dad" game. I'd be playing Final Fantasy 4 and F Zero with my brothers, my dad would be playing this and we would watch and have absolutely no idea what was going on, but were totally enthralled. He'd ask us what we should do next and we'd always say attack, but then he'd explain why that wasn't a good idea. This directly led me to get into Civilization, Alpha Centauri, etc.
I'm now 42 and I have a 7 year old little boy, and we are continuing that tradition by him on his tablet "helping" me with a FAQ for Final Fantasy 6 while he sits next to me and I play. Good times!
"Ok, dad! Be sure to attack the Whelk while it's in its shell!"
-Your son, havin a laugh
Lucky son, good father
My dad and I used to play Warcraft and Lords of the Realm 2 in his PC room of 3 computers in the mid 90s. I remember how hot that room always was that he got a window A/C. He worked as general manager of a 250 person call center he built for an entrepreneur he'd been doing whatever job he needed since he was a teen. And these were 3 "extra" computers haha. We still say "righto" "yes my lord" "sire!" as references to those games.
"real life" advance wars with more menus than cheesecake factory
I played PTO2 extensively as a kid. My grandpa was in the navy during ww2 and he told lots of stories. It made this game all the more special to me. I was hoping you would cover it and was so happy when this video dropped today! 😊
My Dad played this alot on the SNES he was really good at it.He always played to the high difficulty.
That's such a dad game so I guess it fits
Yup! I'd watch him play this if I was having trouble sleeping.
(That damn menu music is burned into my brain)
I would play Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 with my dad. Koei was king of the dad game
My dad never played on my Nintendo 😂
Im sure he'd love world of tanks. Maybe don't introduce that, or he might blow his pension on the game...
I like the way SNES Drunk's "THANK YOU FOR WATCHING" coincided with the Japanese Prime Minister's "THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING" on screen.
"The most Koei game." It takes a while to even understand the horrifying implications of that statement.
Dude lol. As a PC kid in the 90s.. who stayed with MOO when it was new.. - YES. so much Yes to what you said they're, lol! I LOVEd proper strategy games and games were mostly made for kids back then so PTO was so rewarding for me since school refused to teach me Astrophysics and chemistry in 5th grade simply cuz I can't write cursive
To me, it could mean one of two things: insanely detailed menus on top of menus, or mindless hack and slash. Both have wasted many of my hours.
CONGRATULATIONS ON 300K SUBSCRIBERS!!!
Just yesterday I was (re)watching a video and still was on 299k.This is my favorite SNES/Retro gaming channel, so here's hoping it gets an even larger fanbase.
Great review! This game was the traditional "winter break" game that I always played with my older brother. We'd start a game the Friday we got out of school, and it would always last at least a week or two, sometimes longer. I remember turns sometimes taking hours, so we would have to go do something else while the other person played their turn. It was a very slow game, but that worked fine for us - we just viewed it as a really long-form board game I guess. Anyway, thanks for bringing back the memories. :)
I grew up on this game. My dad and I used to see who could win a scenario faster discussing strategy over dinner much to my mother and sisters chagrin
Did it have 2 player mode? Did you play against each other?
Beeline to Tokyo.
I just realized that SNES Drunk never gave Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen a review.
And now I know what to bug him about.
That is one amazingly unique game. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it and it did not disappoint.
This!
I love the album that inspired the game.
@@Joker22593 Queen II was their best album imo
It is so difficult to manage alignment and reputation in that game. It is easy if you play it like a typical game of just wiping out everything til the end but you cannot get a lot of characters and get a bad ending.
2 hours just to figure it out? I'll have to use my PTO in order to play PTO
...I see what you did there
It took me until my 20s to finally understand how to play Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms & I bought that game (ROTK4) when I was like 12 years old. These games are damn fun once you understand what you're actually doing. When I was a kid, I just tried to go full Genghis Khan & conquer everybody, only to get a bad ending every single time. Koei even made the game Genghis Khan which is much more simpler than ROTK.
It's that game I mentioned the last time! That P.T.O. II music unlocked years from my childhood. I still own my cart of it!
You played this? When you were a *kid?!*
@Fluoride_Jones Probably 11 or 12 when I first played it. So mid 90s I was a kid? Just realized I read that wrong, haha, but yes I did play it as a kid. Best I can say is that it all made sense to me.
@@HighlyFlammableMan You were obviously much more patient as a kid than I was! When I was 11-12 years old (I'm a bit older than you, so that was 1990-1991), I was playing games like _Super Mario Bros. 3,_ _Mega Man 3,_ and _Battletoads._
I remember getting an SNES for Christmas 1991 (when I was 12 years old), and the additional game I received was _Populous._ I had NO idea what the heck to do! 😆
Same for me! I saw an add for the game in Nintendo Power, asked for it for Christmas, and got a copy. I played that game for a solid 2 or 3 years through middle school and into high school. Ah, the memories.
Growing up I loved PTO2 and went down the Koei rabbit hole hard growing up - but I also loved Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4!
OB: MotBQ is amazing. One of my favorites! But it's not nearly on the same league as the Koei games when it comes to nitty gritty details.
These games were certainly a niche, but credit to Koei for taking the time to release them. I like strategy games myself, but you have to be in the right mood for them. Congratulations on 300k subscribers, well deserved!
They made them in the good old days when you could make a game with a team of like 10 months, with a team of 5-15 people, and for like $300k. As long as it sold enough to keep the lights on long enough for the next project to finish it was a success.
I love the first PTO. The level of detail in what is sort of a proto-RTS covering the entire Pacific War is amazing. It is incredibly KOEI though, this is a game that starts by asking you: 'Your budget is 5000. How much INFO do you want? 10? 78? 400? OK, how much INDUST?' without ever telling you what any of it does.
You were expected to read the manual first. The game isn't intended to teach you how to play it.
Yep was a challenge when the only copy you could find for sale back in the day was he same used copy from the rental store... with no manual.
CONGRATULATIONS ON 300K SUBS!!!!
this channel deserves a million
This game and the series is known as Teitoku no Ketsudan in Japan, and this game had 3 sequels - although Teitoku no Ketsudan 3, released for PC, PS1 and Sega Saturn, was released only in Japan.
You have one of the best channels on RUclips, regardless of subject matter. Every single one of your videos is worth watching!
One of my favorite SNES memories of playing this game all the time. My favorite strategy was having all air units train every day until they maxed out at 60 points experience before they went into combat. Then, after they began their combat tour they would gain even more experience. They were pretty unstoppable. I still have the PTO II poster to this day since I laminated it the day I bought the game
Two of my absolute favorite games of all time. I'd spend so much free time playing these games, especially on PTO II. These two games helped generate in me a great interest in the Pacific War as well.
Thanks, for reviewing this phenomenal game.
A friend's grandpa found this at a garage sale. He played for about 20 minutes before shutting it off. His review:
"Holy hell, the actual war wasn't this complicated."
Yes, he was there. He was a fun dude.
😂😂😂
I mean, it wasn't. In this game you're a five star general, army general, admiral, colonel... All at once.
@shinosarna So you’re playing as the President.
@@jcollins1305 Presidents (sane ones, at least) don't make military decisions, fortunately.
@@jcollins1305 Roosevelt didn't decide tactics of individual battles.
Love all the intros. The harmony and style variations are super satisfying.
PTO II is more vibrant, but it's also even more broken than the original PTO, i say this as someone who knows both games through and through. The funnier thing is, the PC version of PTO II is broken in different ways, it feels almost like a beta for the SNES version in the way SNES has features the PC doesn't. It's got some intriguing mechanics though but the way fleets do business and how land units teleport, etc is just, weird.
To put it into perspective, for example, taking Iwo Jima as the allies is insanely hard because the Japanese can just pull divisions straight out of their reserve and teleport them from tokyo to Iwo in one day, so the challenge isn't the defenders (in fact island garrisons are quite vulnerable to just getting blown up by battleships without much ado) but the endless land units teleporting in, so you have to try to engineer a situation where you weaken them all at the same time and then kill them all in one turn so it becomes hostile and teleportation no longer works.
The conferences are cool as hell but the mechanics needed some work to be something other than 'hella random'.
They don't teleport, there are supply lines 4:57 where you can raise divisions and move them along the line by one space if you have 1 transport or truck. Kure and Tokyo are next to each other, so they can field new units and move them to Philippine bases in about 4-5 turns, then move those to the outposts to make more room. I would move them along China and go to Manila.
You are right about about wearing defenders down bit. The next turn they have 6 avenues of sending troops, not counting your own ships dropping them off.
I always find these old PC ports to classic Nintendo/SEGA consoles pretty fascinating.
I'm really happy you're giving these strategy games a look. Many of them were 'hits' on computers yet hardly documented.
As a Xenial growing up in an age before the Hearts of Iron, EU, or Total War games, this game, along with PTO II, Operation Europe, Liberty or Death, and others were the lifeblood of my digital "tabletop" existence. It was that leap forward from the likes of the Avalon Hill-style games, or Axis&Allies/Shogun Gamemaster games, but obv wasn't quite as refined as our modern historical sims. So yeah, none of those old Koei games really hold up now (though I still love Aerobiz), but damn they were fun, and important, in their time.
I never played this just because of the incredible depth PTO gets into, but my brother did. He always had a head for numbers and stuff like that. Even now, every year or so he'll bring out this game and play it for a few days, grinding through both sides' campaign. Not for me, but for those who like it, a solid game.
Koei: the Prog Rock of games 😂
lol that’s awesome.
I laughed at that comment too. My dad listened to Genesis and Rush; I drive around with my 7 year old boy listening to Genesis and Dream Theater.
@ronpopeil6346 i have a secret to tell you, your dad LOVES yes, pre-"yes" aka cinema
@ObsoleteVodkaYThell no prog is badass...
I was in junior high when PTO II came out. It's easily in my top 5 of favorite SNES games, and I cannot help but lament the state of (Tecmo)KOEI today. Even in the modern indie market there aren't too many developers making games like these anymore.
I’m big into grand strategy these days, and these old Koei games don’t get enough credit for innovation and depth.
Way ahead of their time. PTO2 looks like HOI4 with fewer things on the map and not shits given about graphics. (The GPU requirements for that game are dumb. I want an option for a flat map, because I just don’t care)
They have been putting out sequels to the Nobinaga and Three Kingdoms games for decades and the differences are just… “more things on the map” and “more graphics”. Sadly, no fan translations of any of those exist, so it’s official releases or nothing, and that’s console ports for this computer.
I think my favorite memory of P.T.O. was able to sink most of the Allied ships, make good on conquering the Pacific save for Pearl, Midway, San Fran, and L.A. Thinking I judged the RIGHT amount of time it would take the Allies to recover. Then just as I'm about to start that offensive get hit with the brick wall of three fleets of either just subs and an army of light/heavy carriers. HOW DID THEY DO IT?! Still was amazing the massive battle that took place.
I gotta say I LOVE when I discovered that you could create a "mega" ship with modern tech (jets and rockets). I loved using whatever ships got sunk and remaking them into that. Save the Yamato which I decided would just get a rocket upgrade and max the hell out of it's strengths. Did so with my carriers too (at least the flight capacity). That was my little "cheat" to make sure I could have total air superiority.
I absolutely loved playing this game growing up and still play it today! It actually was an inspiration on me and gave me the mindset on how to manage multiple business segments in large companies. It is really great and draws you in! Absolutely love it, and PTO II was also good although this one you influence a whole lot more. Oh, and the NCV and NBB class warship is total badass!! I would always raise up the technology level as much as I could early on to get new weapons and tech.
My bro and I used to 2-player this one 30 years ago. Slow as shit but I learned a lot playing this game as a kid. Always dug the Hawaii music
I have great memories of playing PTO 2 on the PS2. It was incredible, naming ships and the battles incorporating air and sea.
Grats on the 300k subs! Definitely deserved!
I know you already did the Uncharted Waters games but I feel like the second game deserves a new video! It's one of the most underrated SNES games IMO
I came for another KOEI game, but finding "the most KOEI game" in P.T.O. 2 was a welcomed surprise 😅 Thanks for the video, SDrunk ✌🏼 Also, don't tease in-depth review or prog rock breakdowns, I bet many of us would be completely on board 😂
300 K my friend! Congratulations! I am pretty happy for you!
The SNES Ghengis Khan game was so much damn fun.
@snesdrunk I love that you try and take the time to understand these games instead of writing them off as too convoluted and not worth figuring out.
The track that plays when you’re commanding the 1st fleet at sea has to be one of the longest on the SNES. 8 minutes and 59 seconds.
I got PTO at Christmas 1993.. I was a huge pacific theatre WW2 buff when I was a young teen so this game was fantastic. I also remember it being super expensive for a SNES title at the time, I think it was over $100cdn when it was released!
Personal Time Off has way more ships and battles than I expected
Haha!! Every time I play this game, that’s what I think of!
I played the second game religiously when I was 14. The computer AI thought it would be a great idea to suck their entire fleet (JPN) into the Guadalcanal invasion piece by piece as I spanked them hard in one of the most one-sided battles of attrition that I've ever experienced in a strategy game. Not complaining; I had a blast! Koei really had a great ability to present their menu-driven games with an immersive quality that stands the test of time. That all said, I was not a fan of the fourth P.T.O. game, feeling like something was missing...also that Koei could never design a real-time battle system to save their lives.
It may be a meeting filled with a bunch of elderly, but that meeting music makes it more than bearable to go through even if it loops quite frequently. It really makes it feel like you’re an important person making life-altering decisions.
Heck, a lot of the tracks in these games are pretty good especially the sea battle in the first one.
Believe it or not, I played P.T.O II when I was about 15 years old and it was my favorite game as a kid. It made me a lifelong fan of Koei! Based on everyone's comments here, I must've had the gaming tastes of an old man lol.
So, what you're saying is that if you LOVE 16-bit historical themed logistics games, this is a must.
I remember renting this game when I was a kid and playing it all Saturday night. When I went to church in the morning all I could see was the sea and red screen telling me where I could and couldn’t move haha oh the memories
This game would've eaten my time in the 90s. I was the rare kid who loved strategy games and would get way too excited when I saw some new game with that Koei logo on the box at the video store.
This has some of the most hilarious observations out of all your reviews.
If someone, dressed in all silvery metallic garb, energized into my room last night and told me, “I’m a time traveler from the future….tomorrow morning, you will see the archipelagos of ‘Palau’ and ‘Yap’ listed in an insanely obscure video game from the 90s…”, I wouldn’t have believed them. Shoot to my Micronesian brothers and sisters!
And then, to complete my silly time travel fantasy, the traveler would say, “also, you’ll step in some dog vomiting at 2 in the morning, so beware………”. Then POOF. They are gone.
Thanks to anyone who read this far, don’t let roll your eyes too hard at me. But a special SNES drunk for finding these obscure games over the years. I had no idea these existed!
Nah man, that was a cool comment to read haha. Rock on!
I loved this game back in the day! Lots of studying and failing, but once you got the hang of it, the game allowed you to get really creative with discovering new ways to win the war. This game and "Destiny of an Emperor" were my favorites.
I had so much fun with this game. One run lasted so long that I was able to reach the end of the technology trees. Having destroyers and carriers with maximum armor and anti-aircraft capabilities and cruisers with rockets that would outclass battleships was amazing
After reading just how toxic the comments were on AVGN's Sim City episode the other day, the SNES Drunk community is so nice and refreshing. Seeing that this game reminded some people of their dad 😊 I didn't play this type of game with my dad but without going into any detail just reading that put a huge smile on my face and warmed my heart a little bit. I'm being soft I know but it cheered me up in a way I wasn't expecting today 🙂
Well, what a nice surprise to get this push notification! I’m always strategizing how to use my PTO 😆
Cool review! Sounds less complicated than trying to schedule my PTO.
I used to play PTO on SNES, never knew there was a second until I started playing around with emulators. Still haven't tried it and doubt I ever will lol
Thank you so much for this video! When I was a kid I traded Kirby's Dreamland (GB) to my nemesis' brother for PTO for Sega Genesis and I absolutely loved it. It was my first strategy game of any kind and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to play, and was the one game that got me interested in strategy games. I always wanted to try Romance of the Three Kingdoms but never did.
I never found PTO 2 or PTO 3, but I happened to spot PTO 4 for PS2 in GameStop back in the day and bought that, and was deeply disappointed that it was more like an action board game than a strategy game like the original. I loved the original so much that when I found the SNES version at a flea market a few years ago, I grabbed it. The SNES version seems like a newer version than the Genesis one, as it adds extra music and features that aren't in the Genesis game.
As far as early 90s strategy games go, PTO is a lot easier to learn than it looks, and even if you don't want to bother with all of the "boring" stuff like the conferences or supplying bases, you can still just fuel up your #1 fleet and conquer all the bases you want without having to follow that flowchart. The game wants you to go back to your home port after completing your three objectives in order to choose three more, but you don't have to do that, and if you're the US you have a lot of sailing to do to go back to Hawaii.
One thing I should point out: in PTO you can actually watch your planes attack ships and your ships attack other ships, as in PTO 2. The problem is that it's very time consuming. I discovered as a kid that if you don't know how to find submarines in a battle (option is SNR), then you're going to see the depth charge animation over and over again. It's just faster to not show the animations and the CPU fleet battles.
Also: you can mix fighters and bombers on the same aircraft carrier to create a third air unit, which can function as both types. I'm still not sure what the benefit is, though.
Also I hope you have a great rest of your day! Thanks for all the awesome content man!!
Lol I was going to say, "PLAY THE SEQUEL!!!!"
But you got it. 🙂
Congrats on 300k!
I love this channel. Should be so many more views.
Congrats with 300.000 subscribers
Seriously love your videos. It's my daily dose of nostalgia!
congrats on 300k subs! long-time fan
Yes. Yes it is still worth playing. It has always been worth playing. I've had it for just about thirty years and still play it. Played through it most recently last year. I have all four of the games, including two copies of PTO 2.
Soooo happy for you for the 300K subscribers !!! 🎉
Coming as someone who has Koei games that he loves, and Koei games that he hates, I really want to recommend Gemfire as to the drunk. I feel it is probably the most approachable of the strategy conquest games, and somewhat beginner friendly. Especially compared to PTO/Liberty or Death/Nobunaga/etc. One of my all-time favorite SNES games.
Glad you're on a Koei kick! I tried playing PTO II, but couldn't figure it out.
When it comes to historical Koei Tecmo games, I just want to play as General MacArthur and mow down waves of cannon fodder with a comically large sword.
"MacArthur-sama! The Imperial Japanese Navy is staging an invasion of the Philippines!"
"NANIIIII?!"
I think you mean, comically large corncob pipe.
Oh man this was one of my favorite games ever!! I was a kid when I rented it from blockbuster and became addicted to it! They made sequels as well.
Still chasing the dragon for a game like this.
Congrats on the well-deserved 300k.
Love the KOEI kick, bring back such memories.
Please do Uncharted Waters New Horizons
I loved the 16-bit version of this game but it is a lot to take in. But when PTO2 came out on the Saturn, I snatched that up and loved it even more.
Playing as Japan was Hard Mode. With the resources and industrial capacity of the US, that one was a lot easier. It took a long time to build ships. The larger, the longer it took to make them. Japan's limited industry meant losses were crippling: It was too hard and it took too long to replace losses. Meanwhile the US starts with a number of ships already in the build queues and you can tack on more.
I still recall on PTO2 getting into a significant surface battle playing as the Japanese in 1942. The Pearl Harbor attack actually went poorly in 1941 (I screwed it up). I had Yamamoto leading while aboard Battleship Yamato. Ships in the game had a Luck stat. I wasn't sure what that meant in the game.
But during that big battle, one of the old American Battleships fired a salvo that slammed into and smashed Yamato's bridge, killing Yamamoto.
Yamato had one of the lowest Luck stats in the game. Basically with KOEI, if a ship had historically sunk in WWII, it had a low Luck stat. Most of the IJN ships had a low Luck stat.
Loved all these KOEI historical games. Romance of the Three Kingdoms III for SNES was my favorite back then and is still in my top 10 fav games today that I replay occasionally :)
I'm glad you contrasted with the second game, I didn't realize it had a Saturn version, it looks like there was a Japan-only P.T.O III there, as well as a power up kit expansion release there the follow year. I'll check that out!
Love your videos 👍
Koei's snes era was just banger after banger
I use to play both PTO 1-2 I would spend days glued to the TV on this game 😊 I loved organizing fleets and hunting my enemies with carriers. 😀
What's crazy is that from watching the RUclips channel Montemayor I actually recognize a lot of these ships and officer names.
this game was amazing back in the 90s i spent months trying to get my snes away from my father so i could play zelda and all he would do is play this, as i got older i came to appreciate the depth of this game
I got this game as a birthday gift as a kid. Never knew how to play it. One of those few games i only played once then never again...
I loved these Koei games back in the 8 bit and 16 bit eras before I bought my first pc. They're great if you're not comparing them to contemporary offerings on the pc, and a couple hold up on their own. They do all start to become pretty much the same game after a while though. I dug them because they were so incredibly different from anything else I'd ever played. Half the fun for me in regards to gaming is exploring genres and systems I'd never seen before, so by the time I got a SNES most games were just "Oh it's just like that other game but with better graphics and a tiny amount of depth added."
I didn't play the game but the music in PTO 2 was awesome, especially the track when you're defending land from a naval attack and losing.
I still play this game regularly. Loved it as a kid, love it now. You can see planes drop bombs in PTO as well, - view battle animations setting.
Thanks for covering KOEI games when no one else is doing it
Thanks for covering this. If you played the battles it gets easier than just simulate them
Now I want a Koei simulation game based on Supper's Ready by Genesis
Does this mean Romance Of The Three Kingdoms is coming next? It’s hands down my favorite sub-series of the Historical Simulation Series and the Genesis version of the third game is one of my favorite games overall
I know that KOEI always was really good with their games but holy tuna, this is literally Battleship with a ton of realistic details. This is really impressive even if you're not into this genre (which probably is still very very niche even nowadays).
You've encouraged me to give it another shot. I love so many koei games
Thank you for your sacrifice on this one.
At first I was like "woah, never seen that game, must be like a flying simulator kinda thing"
Then I saw the boxart and it all made sense
Congrats to 300K!
This and pto2 was my father's favorite snes games
I love you,Drunk.
I'm overwhelmed by the explanation alone
If SNES Drunk is now delving into the strategy realm, I am definitely all for that coverage. Whether he loves them or hates them matters not, he always gives an "objective" opinion mentioning the good, bad and the ugly -- depending on the individual, those 3 could be quite different. Let's be honest; he's 100% right when he says they're not for everyone. Teenager Scott would have hated this game mostly stuck in the realm of RPGs. I hadn't even hit any of the Tactics style of games yet all because I was on team NES/SNES and refused to give Sega a chance. I was missing out but nowadays, I love this stuff in all the available formats to play them!
This was dad's favorite game to play, he spent probably about 2000 hours on this game at the least over the years