Dan Gril returns to continue his inevitably doomed attempts to restore traditionalism to an increasingly modernised Japan in Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of The Samurai. Here’s part 1 in case you missed it.

It’s misty out there. A thick old pea souper soaking into the old Japanese wood. Did you know that a Japanese wood called Aokigahara is the world’s second worst suicide hotspot (after the Golden Gate Bridge)? Apparently, the police have a yearly trawl of the forest for any bodies they’ve missed. It’s got so bad that they’ve stopped publishing the numbers, for fear of encouraging people.

Anyway, knowing that makes me feel much worse. Somewhere in the fug of this digital wood is a huge rebel army, comprising about 1500 gunners and 200 sabre-toting horsemen, all after my blood.(more…)