DAISENRYAKU PERFECT 4.0

This game is fun if you take time to read the manual with the game and understated that the game is six years old now.
the game it self is turn based combat like that of panzer general or other hex based combat games. were this game is different is it has weapon packs that you can equip to air craft and have a weapon rating system. if you have not wach some you tube video on the game play i recommend you do. also the graphics some people do not like as it is kinda a old school look to it and not clean cut like other game of this type. I would recommend people buy it but know what you are getting first.

pro if you love daisenryaku you will like this game
big list of car/trucks/tanks types and aircraft
navy units are good too and show a wide range of units
battle seances are fun to watch

cons list
no modding so no ability to add old ww2 or ww1 units to the game :(
big learning curve to the game but defiantly need to read the manual before playing
music get old quick but can be stoped and playing back round music online.
infantry units all feel the same and don't have that wow factor in the game.
no online multi player.

i would still recommend this game to people but have them read and watch game play first.
would love to see some updates to the game modding support and multi player.
thank you developers for a fun game.

Absolute mistake of a game.

Interface is so clunky it hurts, no clear direction what you as the commander are meant to do, over-all an abject failure of a game.

It was a mistake to buy this game, but I'm glad I bought it on sale so I didn't give this company 60 dollars for something that an Indie game company could probably do better.

I can live with many things, but the sprites are so pixelated they are hard to identify which units are which. I'l stick to playing daisenryaku exceed 7 and 7 2 on ps2 and ps3 emulators. Its a shame as this game just needed a little bit of polish to be a fun DS experience.

There are some massive quirks that will probably be turnoffs to some, but this game might tickle the fancy of a certain type of person with an obsession with lots and lots of military hardware and strategy games, such as myself.

First, I completely recommend everyone turn off battle animations. I have a ton of hours in DS VII: Perfect on the PlayStation 2, and while they clearly were attempting to recreate that feel, the animation quality is very bad, and also appears to be quite glitchy in that the perspective changes very fast and somewhat nonsensically between two units engaging each other. Basically, turn them off to both save your eyes and your time.

Additionally, I think it’s also important to get it out that the presentation of this game is really bad. I got this game in late 2021, after the language update. While the game is mostly in English, there are a few maps with units still displaying Japanese names. The map isn’t that pretty to look at either, given it’s a pretty basic hex grid. I would also advise turning down or off the music, and maybe the sound as well. Most of the music is short loops that get quite old fast.

DS Perfect 4.0's main mode is called Neo Master Combat mode. It's basically a structured scenario mode that lets you build a custom army of 50 different units. Every unit can level up in battle, and 10 of them can even get special upgrades which are unlocked by progressing through maps.

There are 60 maps in Neo Master Combat mode, and honestly most of them proved to be multi hour affairs. The challenge often varies a bit between each, and I don't think the difficulty stars that were assigned to each map really matched up that well. I wish there were some maps that were a little harder, such as battles involving tougher enemy air defense capabilities (you can run over a lot of the your Neo Combat Master opponents with a well-tailored air force), and fewer maps facing opponents with mid-Cold War hardware against my top of the line force. But in the end, I found myself making up little storylines for my army's units, and you might start to feel an affinity for ones that survive tough battles. There are some genuine challenges, some of which will force you to be a bit creative, like one where I was forced to utilize hovercraft to evacuate civilians from a superior enemy.

When selecting a free play map, you have a choice of quite a few countries. While America is still king, there are a lot of other capable countries like Russia, Japan, China, India. There are even factions for North Korea and some rebel groups though, if you're trying to really challenge yourself in free play or if you're trying to set up a specific scenario.

I can not overstate just how many units this game has. Yes, at the end of the day they are all just a bunch of numbers and PNGs on a screen, but the representation of almost every unit fits quite well into the overall game balance. There are units from the past such as T-34s or first generation MiG's, Cold War classics such as the F-14 Tomcat, and cutting edge stuff like the Armata vehicle program, K2 Black Panther, Ashahi destroyer, or the Su-57 Felon. Even niche prototypes like the Black Eagle tank, YF-22, and the entirety of the Future Combat System lineup are available.

Some units aren’t available with the default countries, but there are options to make custom armies. There is also a unit editor, which works well as far as letting you make new units. Hypothetically, you could add units over time to keep your game up to date with the latest military hardware released.

The key to winning in DS Perfect 4.0 is to either eliminate all of your opponents’ units or to capture their capital. However, some maps have specific criteria requiring specific objectives to be fulfilled like capturing specific building tiles or protecting friendly units.

In many cases, you have multiple ways to win, by virtue of your unit types. Infantry may be the only units that can capture, but you have a variety of transport units, whether it’s cargo planes, assault helicopters, or tracked infantry fighting vehicles. The best strategies fielded though match up pretty well with how we see modern conflict in 2022: an emphasis on intelligence/recon capabilities, long range artillery, airstrikes, and enough armor to blitz your opponents and provide support for your capture units.

On every map, there is a degree of resource management. There are funds, which in addition to being used for purchasing units can also repair damaged ones. Every unit has an individual ammunition and fuel count. You will want to have some supply units, given they refill both. There also is a fatigue feature which I wasn’t a fan of initially, but warmed up to in later play sessions. Fatigue means if a unit is in many turns of combat, it will have a cooldown period where they can’t attack. This can be very useful in dealing with enemy units that have high ammunition counts, such as guided missile destroyers. The fatigue feature can be turned off in free play.


One thing that can make strategy very interesting in this game is the interception feature available on most anti-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, fighter aircraft, and some warship units. This allows one to create zones in which the opponent will not be able to enter with certain unit types, and creates a challenge for one to overcome.

On each map, your AI enemy opponent will typically aim to capture your capital or eliminate all of your forces. The AI in free play can be customized to play either balanced, aggressive, or defensive. This usually boils down to the types of units they produce.

The AI is reasonably challenging, but once you play enough you definitely start to notice some patterns that can be exploited. For example, the AI struggles a bit with the fog of war, and by eliminating their recon units can easily be surprised or led into traps. In modes where there is a production cap on how many units can be produced for the entire session or scenarios with no production, this can make things a lot easier with some smart positioning.

Additionally, MLRS (rocket launchers/ballistic missiles) units have a hex attack that cover 6 tiles; I never felt like the AI accounted for that even after getting hit by multiple barrages. This allows you to cheese the AI a bit (which can save you time on maps with high army caps) by wiping out groupings of enemy units (you can stack up to 3 ground units on one tile), but I also feel like certain countries without MLRS are a bit of a pain because of how much time it takes to wear down your opponent with just artillery (looking at you Australia).

When choosing from the huge list of maps, I found myself gravitating towards maps featuring naval combat. Naval units by and large are glass cannons, so it often feels like a very tricky affair to properly utilize them and not lose them.

The map maker is not very intuitive, but again allows for a lot of in-depth scenario making once you understand how to do things. You can basically recreate conflicts right down to the same hardware used by all factions, whether available by default or by the in-game editor. There is also an option to make campaigns, which are series of maps in succession; allowing you to create a series of battles in a conflict for example.

Overall, I haven't found a series that allows both the depth and customization of Dai Senryaku. While there’s certainly a lot of things that Dai Senryaku Perfect 4.0 could do better for a more polished experience, the core gameplay and experience at its heart is very fun.

You can sort of pull off local multiplayer with this game, but it's a shame there isn't any online option. Although considering the sheer number of units you might field in a single match, it might've been hard to pull off, but has that ever stopped us strategy gamers?

This is a blast from the past. A lot of fun to play alone, with friends, or relatives if they have the patience for this kind of game. The cool thing is you can change the values of certain units to really customize them and make your own maps. They really do give you a lot of tools for replay-ability which is nice in the dlc age.

I think a lot of people are expecting Daisenryaku 7: Modern Military tactics and are disappointed. I've been playing multiplayer online with my brother using parsec. It would be nice if they had online multiplayer, they offered it before in Japan only titles like Daisenryaku WIN Ⅲ NET BATTLE.

The last patch they added fixed a lot of bugs including one that wasn't listed, when having aircraft rearm at an airport it would crash, but it's fixed now. I hope they stay in business.

I was expecting something similar if not better than the PS2 game they made. this is not even in 3D and the combat animations/ sprites are a downgrade from the PS2 game. glad i got it on a sale. it isnt even worth the 30$ i payed

Basically this game is not the best title in the series. The graphical performance is terrible. For example, I am getting sub 30 fps with a 9700k @ 5ghz and a 3080ti. It has no graphical options such as resolution and fullscreen. I believe most likely because it was a cheap port from the Nintendo Switch.

If you are looking for a good experience play Daisenryaku VII for the PS2 or Xbox. There are two versions. One is Xbox and the other is on PS2 that has some added features and a campaign mode. I play the PS2 version, VII: Exceed, all the time because it is so good. It uses 3D units, maps, and is overall just a massively superior game. Only downside is that it is from 2006 so the units are slightly dated.

I purchased this game to support the developers knowing that this was a bad port. By purchasing this game I'm supporting the series hoping they will create another 3D title. This series has so much potential and I want to see it get better.

Daisenryaku Perfect 4 is not perfect , but it is much better game than you would be led to believe from these reviews. There are a few things that you need to understand at the outset though. First, this is not Daisenryaku VII. The Daisenryaku series originated in 1985 and since that time has splintered into a number of similar but quite different products. The Perfect series is 2D, and in many ways is a direct descendent of the original game. (which only ran on NEC PC-98 computers - well before Windows took over the world). If you are expecting Daisenryaku VII, this is not it. I personally prefer the Perfect series myself, but some might not. Chocolate and vanilla.

The second thing to be aware of is that the game has been translated from Japanese to English, and there are still a few remnants of Japanese messages that appear from time to time, although none that seriously affect game play as far as I can tell. It would have been nice if they had had a native English speaker go over the translations, but you can generally work out what they mean. The most annoying one for me is when an attack goes off target and you are presented with an "error" message. Of course, they mean a targetting error , not a game error. The main problem with the English translation is that it makes all the tables very wonky. In the Japanese games the headings are all 1 or 2 characters, which makes for nice compact tables, but in English the headings can be 10 or 15 characters. It makes for messy screen layouts, with some messages superimposed on others sometimes. But, it's not hard to get used to once you realise what's going on. It's not perfect, but it is certainly not a show-stopper.

And the UI? It is unintuitive and inefficient - much like a lot of Japan TBH (and just to be clear - I love Japan). You can learn to live with it though, and before long it becomes a non-issue.

On the other side of the coin, the English manual is actually very good - and often uses better English headings than are used in the game itself. You can't fully appreciate the colour English manual until you have read the Japanese manuals for this series of games - they are horrible. The manual for Daisenryaku Perfect 3.0 was a tiny manual (about one third the size of a normal sheet of paper), all in black and white. It was literally impossible to read many of the screenshots. The English manual does a good job of explaining most things, and many of the questions I have seen in the discussion forums are answered in the manual.

So, the bottom line is that you should give this game a chance. The regular price is way too high, but is in line with what it sells for in Japan. If you can get it on sale, then it is definitely worth trying out.

This game is very buggy/glitchy. After you reach your unit max cap, the game informs you that it will automatically skip your production phase. The problem is that after you have already lost units and are now below the unit max cap, the game continues to skip your production phase. In addition, for those who have played Daisenryaku for the PS2, the supply trucks do not appear to supply your units and your units do not receive ammo and fuel replenishment in captured cities at the cost of your income as it did in the PS2 version. Furthermore, engineer trucks/bulldozers do not replenish their road and bridge building supplies when sitting in a city that it is stationed at to continue repairs from destructive attacks.
The game play in general is decent, but needs to have the same style of combat scenes as the PS2 version. Soldiers and other units do not appear to have the weapon set customization as in the PS2 version.

I was going to write a convincing review but I suddenly 'lost my thought' after getting crushed because production limit. So I will add thoughtless bullet points you probably have seen at the end of this paragraph, maybe I will rewrite this later but I'm sure think you'll have fun if you like Advance Wars, Fire Emblems (no maybe not) and the likes. (the negative reviews don't seems to do this game much justice, it's like they're comparing this to closed combat, panzer corps and those stuff...lol, I mean, there's a map with anime face on it, why would you think this is historical?)

+ Tons of maps and units
(Each maps can have specific default rules you have to play by, this can be customized. The sheer number of units can be intimidating the first time you play but you'll get used to it soon enough)

+ Integrated Weapon Editor, Map Editor, Production Type Editor,Custom Rule Sets Editor
(You can rebalance the game yourself with weapon editors. Production types editor basically let you make custom unit sets to build in-game. Rule sets are custom rules you can use for specific game, which can alter the way you play entirely)

+ Strong Conservative AI, similar to Battle for Wesnoth
(Can't really verify whether they cheat or not, but you'll finally have the AI that 'do what they should be doing' in TBS.. Your offensive campaign will come to a halt if you didn't careful about the logistic of your troops since the map is rather large, without scouting you won't be able to react instantly. UPDATE: AI usually group their units and fight as a division. Troops naval transportation is more random rather than purposefully build it, and defending AI often quick at disposing them, making Island AI basically useless without strong air support. The competency of the AI can be influenced by the unit sets you let them build and the unit type ratio you set for them at the start of the game to suit their starting location, which arranged as follow -> air, ground, naval. They have a good sense of making advantageous attack, but more often than not dedicate a good portion of their armies to patrol territories rather than launching all-out assault. As a result, you can't catch them by surprise, but their offense won't be as overwhelming as they can be. Combine it with some geographical advantages, they will still pose a good challenge since most, if not all maps are unbalanced)
[I might do more experiment on it, but this is as far as I can tell]

+ You can toggle AI on-off in middle of the game.
(In case you think you're losing, you can let AI accelerate your demise for you. Definitely a plus)

- Hard to navigate big maps.
(There are 3 ways you can navigate, arrow buttons on your keyboard, right-click-drag, and the 'overflow-x-y' scrollbars. It also has 3 zoom levels, but you will probably use default zoom most of the time. Zoom-in is too close, Zoom-out make things too small to look at. You can't click on minimap)

- Some unit names are left untranslated.
(But you can still recognize them by their shorthand names)

- Glitch and Crashes.
(Have to make sure to save often in Map Editor)

- Relatively high price..
(Well, you can have your relative value. But have you ever heard of 'relative satisfactory'? I had my enjoyment worth more than 3 AAA games at 1/3 of this -50% price, and I can imagine pouring many more hours in it.)

- If you ever programming, the graphic look just like your first VB .NET software or HTML5 games
(But then you should also remember how proud were you of your crapware nobody care. It'll requires the effort on your part to understand the heart and soul of the product. Personally, I prefer it more than average 'everyday engines'. Can you imagine how worse off this game will be if it uses unity engine instead? Ah, horrific)

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As someone who have never heard of this series, this game is probably the only one I found to be a successor of 'Advanced Wars'. Increased functionalities and gameplay-wise complexity with big hexagon maps. Many turn-based games have been disappointing me so far, but this one however, proven to be satisfactory. Except for the game BGM which are absolute mood-destroyer, so I listen to SuperPower2 BGM as a substitution. UPDATE: The BGM aren't that bad actually, there are over 50 BGMs and a good chunk of them fit the game perfectly.

PS. Somehow I find lack of guide to be an intriguing discovery process. You get to observe how AI use those units, learning their behaviors bit by bit before deploying them yourself. Pretty cool. (or maybe there's guide, but f that)

PS2. There's no online multiplayer, but it can be played hotseat.

I would gladly recommend the Sega Genesis WW2 themed version of this game. For a 21st century release, the gameplay graphics are poor and are not equal to that forementioned WW2 game. Even the Sega Saturn Iron Storm game leaves this in the dust. This game is a bad redition of the long running series and I tried to like this thing. No story to follow just random maps with no ability to switch armies or follow a division through a campaign. Not worth its discounted price and I'm very dismayed.

Daisenryaku Perfect 4.0 is an operational-level turn-based military strategy game from an old and venerable Japanese strategy game series, older even than Advance Wars, but rarely seen in West. We are very fortunate to have this game released on Steam, and in English no less (albeit with a bad localization).

To most people in the West, Daisenryaku is a name that calls back to Daisenryaku VII Exceed, one of the only Daisenryaku games released in the West, back in the days of the Xbox and the PS2. Exceed was an excellent turn-based strategy games, with simple but efficient 3D graphics and lot of content.
But what most people can't know without doing more research than would be justified, is that Exceed was a spinoff of the "main" Daisenryaku series: the "Perfect" series.

And this game is, obviously, part of the "Perfect" series.
The game is played one turn after the other, with each turn divided into several phases. Units are selected then told where to go or what to do in just a few clicks. The gameplay flows naturally and quite fast for a game of that genre. Units are produced directly on the field via specialized buildings and are sent to fight against enemy units produced in the same way; the game ends when all enemy HQs have been captured.
This is a game that will most likely please fans of Advance Wars. It has basically the same gameplay, but with more features (like supplies, unit altitude or unit stacking), and more customization.

All in all, Daisenryaku Perfect 4.0 is not that much different from Exceed, except that the graphics, like other games in the Perfect series, are 2D. Which can throw a lot of people off balance when they were expecting something more akin to Exceed. People who don't like 2D graphics or who want to play strategy games in 3D will be disappointed in that department. Nevertheless, the 2D graphics make the game quite readable and completely eliminate camera management from the equation.

One of the main strengths of the game is the amount of content it offers. It has dozens of maps of various size and terrains, thousands of different units buildable by dozens of different factions, and customization in spades (mainly through a map editor, a unit editor, and a faction editor).
If you're a military expert, you'll be pleased with the huge amount of different units and unit types present in the game: airplanes, warships, infantry units, armor, recon vehicles, radar vehicles, ballistic missiles, etc.

Now, one of the main point of contention about this game, apart from the 2D graphics, is the English localization. The manual, fortunately, is well translated, but the game itself is a mess in that regard. Unintuitive names, unit names written in Japanese in some campaign maps, text spilling out of textboxes... A lot of small but irratating quirks like those are disseminated across the user interface. It won't make the game unplayable, but it will raise some eyebrows.
However, text in this game is not that important, and for all its flaws, the localization does the job. After a few hours of getting used to the game, it's not noticeable anymore.

In fine, Daisenryaku Perfect is a game with a fast and approachable tactical gameplay, with a rather soft learning curve, that offers dozens if not hundreds of hours of play to any player willing to look past the 2D graphics and the messy English localization.

Recommended for those who like soft military strategy games, and those who yearn for more games like Advance Wars or Wargroove.

Despite the negative reviews, this really is a great game. But I prefix this with "For players of previous DaiSenryaku titles or other turn-based tactics games such as Advance Wars or Nectaris/Military Madness ”.

This game has two main problems, so let me get those out of the way before we get into what’s good and why you should play this if you like any of the 3 above mentioned titles :
- Incomplete translation : It’s clear this game was rushed out the door about 6 months before it was ready. This unfortunately includes some of the text in the game. In-game the units have the actual unit type which has been translated and the unit name which *sometimes* has, sometimes hasn’t. They’re often the same but the game sadly uses the name when you click on units to see their type, which means they’re often just a bunch of kanji.

For the player you can go to the unit list and use the “Name” button to rename them. If you do this as soon as the level starts for each unit, you can then save the game and have a means to start the game already translated if you ever decide to play it again. The issue is 1. The player of the game shouldn’t have to do this and 2. You can only do it for *your* units, which means the enemy units will still display in kanji.

You can click on the icon for the unit to get complete information and there you’ll obviously see the unit type in English and there will be no confusion as to what they are. It’s just sometimes an extra step which is somewhat annoying.

There’s other portions of the game with untranslated text also. You can usually deduce what they are or supposed to be, but, again, the player should not have to do this.

- The other issue is various display issues with buttons and text that weren’t properly formatted and display over each other. This ends up just looking unfinished and unprofessional, but you can work around it. It’s clear that the game was set up for kanji and, when the English was added, no efforts were added to make sure it looked proper with it.

~

So, why do I recommend this game in spite of these issues? Because for turn-based tactics, there’s really nothing better. There was the fully-translated DaiSenryaku 7 for Xbox and PS2, but, outside that, there’s nothing with the sheer amount of “range” in unit possibilities.

Advance Wars and Nectaris players who are looking for greater depth and realism that can overlook the 2 above issues will have a field day. There’s supposedly 1500+ units, which isn’t an exaggeration, although this does include all the variants/weapon packs for each unit. Still… There’s an absolute ton and the units range up to some not yet in service like the Chinese J-31 (F-35 ripoff) and the Russian Su-57.

Units also have a large range of stats and capabilities to attack, defend, and see units on different height levels, of which this game uses 6. Advance Wars and Nectaris use 1. This opens up a much greater range of tactical possibility.

The gameplay is also extremely solid. There’s nothing wrong with the tactical component of the game. This is one of those games you can play over the course of hours on a lazy weekend, taking turns on the game, and walking away for stretches to do other things. It’s a slow-paced game and arguably tedious in some ways (you can have the computer automate actions of units at the player’s discretion), but, for tactical gameplay, I can’t find anything better or with more possibility for replay.

The game includes full editors to add new maps, units, weapons, etc. If you wanted to add Godzilla or units from Steve Jackson’s Ogre, you could easily do so. Which basically means that you can get hundreds of hours of gameplay out of it.

The game does have a learning curve and you’d be wise to go look up the hotkeys on the forum here. The game also includes a 120-page fully translated manual which serious players should at least skim through.

The game does include a tutorial as the first 9 levels of the Free Play mode. They aren’t labeled as such, but that’s basically what they are, though it’s not a tutorial in the traditional sense. You aren’t walked through what to do, just told to focus on some aspect of the game and get a victory by meeting a condition. Players able to deduce game systems from this (it’s not hard) will end up with a good working knowledge of the game systems.

So, to recap, there’s 4 groups that I could see this game appealing to :
- Previous DaiSenryaku players : Recommended for them. It should be noted for players of DaiSenryaku 7 that this game is purely 2D, departing from the rotatable/zoomable 3D view there. While this would seem like the game walking the graphics backward a bit, & it sort of is, it's made up for by adding a lot of other mechanics to the game (outlined in the manual). The Perfect subseries has always been 2D & the tactics do not suffer from not having to micromanage the unit's facing or height level (handled automatically in the game depending on the unit type. Fighter jets for instance *only* fly at the highest level). You do get 3 zoom levels, which you can toggle with the aforementioned hotkeys.
- Previous Advance Wars/Nectaris players : Recommended if they want more depth and can push past the issues mentioned.
- War-gamers or players who’ve played chit-based board games such as those by Avalon Hill and IDW : Recommended as per above.
- Players looking to get into this sort of turn-based tactics game who’ve never played any of the above : Not recommended unless you’re really determined to overlook the flaws mentioned. I'd play Advance Wars/Nectaris/DaiSenryaku 7 first to see if this is your cup of tea. If you don't like those games, then you wouldn't like this. This is really all those games on steroids.

Personally, I think it’s great, but I’m not going to white-wash the flaws present. They are there. But there is also a high-quality core of tactical gameplay that I haven’t found in anything else. It’s really unmatched in this department. Nothing comes close.

Ever since I heard about the series I always wished we had it. I am so happy seeing this but I am kinda sad because it has issues that I will be outlining in a bit. However, every cloud has a silver lining and if you are really really really dedicated to playing the game, this is the easiest legitimate way to play it in English rather than struggling with the Japanese version.

Problems:

- Poor Translation: Some words could have used better terms but it doesn't stop you from totally knowing what it is. A tweak here and there to their choice of words could fix it. (example: indirect fire can misfire which means another adjacent unit was hit and not your actual target. You get a message saying "(insert unit name) Error occured" and this could be fixed by rewording.) The game is still playable as long as you keep the manual handy (which is easy to do) though it can hamper your full enjoyment of the game should you want to tweak the options even more.

- Some words are still in Japanese. Devs if you are reading this, please have a look at the following:

Unit name is in Japanese on the information panel at the side of the screen. Can be renamed in the unit list panel or you can open the full unit info by clicking it and see the actual name in english

Warning on some screens like the production screen are printed in Japanese. I would assume the warning is for when you want to build something but you already have over the limit.

- Words overflowing from interface. Since the game is originally in Japanese, the letters and numbers would overflow since their choice of english words are too long and not abbreviated. For example, when picking a unit on the map that is on a stack, you can have a pop-up where you can see what units you can pick from that hex. Beside the names are the words (have made a move/have not made a move) which indicates if a unit have already moved. An easy fix for this is using abbreviations instead of the full phrases. Charts with figures and numbers can also get fixed by using abbreviations

- Lack of Resolution and Zoom options. The resolution option for the game is non-existent and the zoom options are too limited.

Above are some of the issues that truly hinder me from loving the game though I will plan to compile all my issues and write a forum post when I can in the hopes that the devs would read this and see the problems. Now on to Why I like the game.

- Scratches the Advance Wars itch. It is as accessible as advance wars and as deep as some hardcore wargames but not too deep. It is a good transition point from Advance Wars to Advanced Tactics Gold or to some extent Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa

- Huge number of units that claim to represent their real life counterparts. Each unit has a different weapon that could be picked depending on the encounter (i.e an infantry can pick machine guns vs other infantry, RPGs vs Armour, or Mortars to fire indirectly).

- Deep combat mechanics. Artillery can misfire, units can ambush your opponents , you can use weapons like missiles to hit multiple hexes, let troops destroy/build roads and bridge, the list goes on.

- Can be as simple as advance wars or as complex as war in the east with the flick of some buttons. If you managed to figure out what the option means from their choice of ambiguous english words, you can set scenarios and games to use simple or advance rules and tweak it to be as simple or complex as you can.

-Panzer Corps/General-like campaign mode where you get X resources and X number of units and you can use those in maps and they gain experience and can be carried over in the next battle.

All in all if you can handle the issues I mentioned and love strategy games then you will surely like this game. The price is really unreasonable for the overall polish of the package but there is a lot of content waiting for you to discover and enjoy in this game. I am hoping the devs would patch this or bring out future games from the series because this is the ultimate next step to scratch that advance wars itch that all of us advance wars fans have been longing for.

I am a huge fan of the Daisenryaku Perfect series and so far this game seems to be on par with others in the series. To me, it appears to be an update. This game will only appeal to a certain kind of strategy gamer. For me, I think the thrill is that I love deploying/facing a weapon I've never heard of and then learning about it on wikipedia. There aren't many other games like this. WinSPWW2/winSPMBT come to mind, but these have even cruder 90's graphics and some significant display bugs. Panzer Tactics is the most polished of this genre, but I want to play with modern units.

This game is a blank canvas. You might attack by land, by sea, by amphibious assault, by air, by ballistic missile, by sub... The variety of units is absurd. You can design any map/battle or new unit you want. If this game is enjoyable to you, you will get years of play out of it.

Some general notes:

• This game runs fine on a modern computer unlike Perfect 3.0 (which is slow unless in a virtual machine). For the few of us that play the older games in this series, that alone is worth the purchase.
• This game appears to have only local multiplayer, which is a disappointment. Asynchronous online multiplayer would make this game more competitive with modern games.
• This game has some major translation issues, but is much better than the fan translation of 3.0.
• This game lets you stack units on the same tile. I don't believe this was possible in any previous "Perfect series" game.
• Any player who enjoys long games like this will turn battle animations off after a few days. To me, the animations don't really matter because I'm going to turn them off soon.
• I found the manual excellent. It is worth reading if you like this series and don't buy the game. It will help you understand the earlier Japanese games. The in-game instruction is weak. You will need to read the manual to learn what you can do in each type of base/tile and to understand the basic rules. I'm old school, so I don't mind a thick manual.
• There are some keyboard shortcuts for this game. Better documentation of these would help.
• There is a map editor and a unit editor. You can create a missing unit, or build any scenario you want with these tools.
• You don't manage altitude for flying craft in this game like you did on the xbox/PS2 game. Craft operate a a set altitude unless they have landed.
• In Windows, set your zoom level to 100% or the game will look terrible.


A few tips for new players:

• Unload units by clicking on the arrow on the right of the name of the unit carrying the troops.
• The bulldozer unit is one of the most important in the game. It can build pillboxes, bridges across rivers, and most importantly (for movement or supply lines) roads
• You grow and level up units as you play. If you find that a weak unit is kicking your tank's butt, it may be leveled up, or your tank may be fatigued. There are options where surrounding units add to the effectiveness of an attack, so this may be a factor.
• This note is super important: This game has several phases each turn. You can only move units in the action phase. You can only produce units in the production phase. Here are the possible phases: "Missile", "Income", "Supply", "Replenishment", "Action", and "Production".
• Weapons can miss their target completely and hit another hex like in real combat.
• Some units need to be "transformed" from driving mode to firing mode before they can attack (at the cost of a turn). In Perfect 3.0, I remember driving this expensive stupid long truck around thinking it was worthless until discovering that it "transformed" into a ballistic missile launcher capable of megahex damage (damages many hexes in one shot).
• In this game, each unit is actually a battalion (or at least many units) so it makes sense that the game doesn't calculate side/front armor and stuff like that. Who knows which way each of the units are facing.

I'm going to offer a counterpoint to all the bad press here about DSP 4.0. While individually, valid criticisms are made by reviewers, collectively the overall picture being painted is of a very poor game. While the Daisenryaku franchise may not be to everyone's taste, and clearly from the comments here it is not, this game is a representative sample. Not the best, but by no means the worst.

I'll admit my bias. I've been a fan of this series since Daisenryaku VII for the original XBOX some 15 years ago. Since then I have played many of the games for all varieties of platforms, mostly on emulators, almost invariably the Japanese version. That's why getting this title, and in English, is a milestone of sorts. The tricky bit to playing in Japanese is not fighting the battles, it's just getting there. So to those who complain this is a poor localization, I say 95% of the work has been done for you. Yes, some of the translations are a little wonky and not all the unit names are properly translated. But understanding the menus is what you need to play effectively and most here would have a lot of difficulty navigating the game interface and editors in Japanese text. And the manual, so far as it goes, is clear and comprehensible.

Yes, System Soft Alpha has been essentially making the same game since the late 80's. A tweak here, and incremental improvement (or regression) there, the overall style has been consistent be it WW2, the Cold War or modern era. For better or worse they have stuck to their knitting with what has worked in the past. Indeed the style is very old school, but once you get the system, the games have an immersive appeal in which to let your campaign roll on in deliberative style. And DSP 4.0 has a ton of playable countries, units and maps with which to do so. And with saved core units and armies, customizable rules and editors to tailor scenarios to suit your fancy.

The graphics ? Yeah, dated. I too would have liked better, both on the map and in the battle animations. And the UI can be irritating, such as having to view detail for your units from bringing up the roster and worse, having to consult the encyclopedia to find the enemy's. Or having to bring up Map Switching from the options menu instead of just zooming with the mouse wheel. It's hard to see how features we took for granted in previous games didn't make the cut in this one, but there you have it.

The universal objection seems to be the price. I agree this should have come out at $25 - $30, and as the development and translation is a sunk cost, the shortfall could have been made up on volume. Not to mention mitigating a landslide of thumbs down reviews which can only deter fence-sitters from making a purchase. But, I don't regret this purchase for a minute. You can see I've already put a lot of hours into it and plan to play a lot more. There's plenty of replay value without getting lured into paying for additional DLC, which is better than I can say about some other wargame series. But it makes sense to await a heavier discount if you're undecided.

When a game released in 2003 completely outshines your latest product, something has gone terribly wrong in the creation process.

Sadly, that is exactly the case here, because Dai Senryaku VII: Modern Military Tactics is objectively better than this sequel. Its 3D graphics were nothing to swoon at, even for its era on the original XBox, but they were clean and did the job of giving players a clear view of the battlefield, allowed players to smoothly zoom in and out, and even had simple 3D unit models. Gameplay was superior in some ways too – for instance, directional facing for units mattered, meaning that attacking the rear of a tank was guaranteed to give better hit rolls than if attacked from the front.

But here, in Perfect 4.0? Not only is the game stuck in 2D again for some reason, but the texture work on almost everything is extremely basic, the menus are obtuse and confusing (Which is made even worse by poor translation efforts… more on that in a moment), and the game isn’t even optimized despite a total lack of fancy graphical features or processor-heavy tasks. The unit and national roster, while indeed containing over 1000 units from almost every country around the world, largely doesn’t matter since many of them are just the same type of vehicle with different stat percentages. No tutorial exists either, meaning you’ll have no choice but to learn everything via the Free Play mode purely by trial-and-error.

Then there’s the translation effort, or lack of it. It’s bad enough to the point that several menu notifications are still displaying in Japanese, and many of the menu tooltips are unhelpful due to being vague or just plain wrong. I couldn’t figure out how to even begin the Neo Conquest mode as a result.

There’s no multiplayer functionality from what I’m seeing, except for human vs AI matchups. And given that this is probably the final release version of the game, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a multiplayer patch in the distant future.
Finally, that price tag of $42.72 is currently a DISCOUNT of what is only going to revert back to $60 USD in a few days – unacceptable, especially when other TBS games here on Steam with far, far more polish have released for much less. One gets the feeling that the execs at SystemSoft either think the foreign audience are rich idiots or cared so little about their product they just decided to post it online and presume the typical $60 price tag thinking “aww screw it, if it fails, it fails”.


TL;DR? Don't buy this, ever. Unless the publisher has a massive change of heart, I doubt this title is going to drastically improve in any way.

As most people who are interested in this game are probably fans of DAISENRYAKU or people who want to try it.
So I will put my reviews in two parts.
>>>>>For player who never play any of DAISENRYAKU before

The system is very abstract and arcade, if you are expecting something like steel panthers, CMANO combat missions.
No you are not going to get it in this game. since the game doesn't even have a solid concept of distance or range.
1 tile = direct combat
anything over 1 tile = indirect combat
You can treat the combat mechanic in this game like fire emblem.
You won't find any detail on front armour hull armour , types of shells distance of engagement, line of sight. None of them are in this game.

If you are expecting some grand operational strategy games with high abstraction of details, where you command and plan the operation on army corps level , no you are not going to get it here. since you need to choose what weapon to use for your units each time you attack like your typical JPRG or JSLG.

DAISENRYAKU is it's own genre, a type of wargame mainly made for weapon nerd who don't want too much details but also don't want to give up details on things like what type of guns it has.

If you are new to DAISENRYAKU. Panzer Corps is much better alternative and polished DAISENRYAKU than this game despite panzer general get their game idea from early DAISENRYAKU series.
The only pro this game has over Panzer Corps is it has modern weaponry instead of world war 2.
However they also release WW2 DLC on console version of this game, so you might as well just get Panzer Corps.
If you think Panzer corps are too abstract and unrealistic, then skip this game, as it is exactly the same type of game but with much worse implementation.






>>> For old players who have play 3.0 before
I want to love this game I really do.
but this is just TOO BAD.

I can stand their primitive low resolution 2D sprite as it is better than the 3D models they made in the past
You probably will turn off all the animation most of the time, so graphics really isn't the issue.
But it is just awful. The word awful can't describe how bad this game is.
It still have the exact issue I had with their previous title 3.0 which is made a decade ago.

Interface and control wise it is as bad as 3.0.
You can't even zoom in and zoom out the map easily.
It still use the same interface for mounting and dismounting infantry or fighter.
Which demand you to move your mouse all over the place to just dismount an infantry.
And believe me, you will need to dismount infantry a lot in this game, unless you completely give up on any kind of immersion and just do infantry rush.
Making IFV to support infantry ? nah I am just going to order all those infantries march on foot and zerg rush because my finger is hurt...

I can accept this kind of control interface in 1990s to early 2000s but in 2018 ? hell no.
Even many of unpolished games from Matrix Games have better controls.
And their games are usually deeper to justify why their control interface is so bad.
but DAISENRYAKU? the game itself is just too simple to not have a simple and easy to use interface.
They should learn from their competitor KOEI, which usually make good interface.

Game mechanic wise, it still have the exact problem as previous title.
For example, with supply line system turn on, you need to use road to connect to city and factory to make them usable.
But many maps in games didn't design with supply line in mind.
The good thing about perfect series is it let you customize the game rules but the downside is, many of the maps play better with certain type of rules on or off.
Thus the game feels very inconsistent. As it did in 3.0
If you already played 3.0, you know exactly what you are getting.
Decide yourself , if you want exactly the same thing but with a slightly updated weaponry list in 2018 or skip it.

almost same system as old 3.0 version.
bad ui and text , eye-hurt map icon
even the price in Taiwan is about 25 usd , still not worth to buy it

TL:DR
just buy other games...

I really wanted to like this game as I am a big wargaming fan but this game is very amateurish for a product that is charging over £45 pounds here in the UK. The graphics are rubbish but that is to be expected from a stratgey game but what really let's this game down is it's gameplay which is what matters to me the most.

First of all this game has not been properly translated. Many if not all of the unit names are still in Japanese and even some of the pop ups that happen during gameplay (like mortars missing their target) are still in Japanese. The menus while translated leave a lot of be desired as many of the options are obviously machine translated. Not what I was looking for in a full price stratgey game.

Then there is the UI and manual. According to the Steam store page this game has an "Easy to understand tutoural". Well I did not find one in this game, unless they where refering to some maps in free mode (yep they are not even properly labeled as tutoural maps either) that give the player no direction on what to do or why they are doing it. Teaching a player how to play your complex stratgey game is a must if you plan on having them actually get any fun out of it. Also customising the games is also a nightmare because the UI for doing so is poorly translated and barely makes any sense.

Then there is the UI. Nothing in this game is user friendly in that to gain information on how to effectively play the game you first have to read a poorly written manual that does the bare minimum to explain what the diffrent options do during gameplay. Most of your time will be spent looking through databases on the unit screen compairing stats but even then the player is mostly in the dark about the effectiveness of their units thanks to the cryptic UI. An example.

I have a armoured unit, it has a a few guns on it and it's main cannon has a firepower rating of 4. OK cool, er 4 out of what? is 4 "good". I get accuracy is measured out of 100 but why do most infintry units outgun armoured tanks, both our units are in the open so you would assume a tank would be able to fire it's cannon's at the men from a range they can't attack from? Nothing really makes sense to me in this game. And when the units do get to fighting the game incoherently flicks between the two barely animated units firing at each other without any explanation on why things are happening the way that they are, it's a fustrating experence to say the least.

Anyway I hope they continue to work on this game because in it's current state it's a bad purchase and not worth your time when there are plenty of cheaper, better playing games with actual tutorals out there on steam.