izigame.me

When TW: Pharaoh was first announced, I feel like I was one of a small minority of individuals who were ecstatic to see the New Kingdom of Egypt and the Sea Peoples finally hit my computer screen in high definition and with a grand depiction, rather than being confined to esoteric games of DBA 3.0 on the tabletop or grid-based campaigns in Field of Glory. When the game released to poor reviews and comparisons to Total War: Troy (which I did not especially enjoy, despite my excitement for a Bronze Age Total War at that time as well) I chose not to buy it. Recently, however, with the price drop having just hit the game, I chose to pick it up and am quite glad that I did. If you are also on the fence about the game, please permit me to present my (subjective, of course) reasoning and see if that helps you decide.
TL;DR: If you are actually interested in the Late Bronze Age, particularly the approach to the Bronze Age Collapse, TW: Pharaoh is loaded with atmosphere, cultural and religious tidbits, and aesthetic representations of a period that is otherwise fairly neglected in gaming. If it is not an area of interest for you, then there is probably a different Total War game for you that does not have as much jargon to learn.
Pros:
I love studying the Late Bronze Age, and this game offers an aesthetic, cultural, and religious snapshot that (while gameified, of course, as one would expect from a Total War game) feels well-researched and authentic enough to deeply immerse me. From the inclusion of various cults appropriate to the era, to court intrigue and even a period-authentic seasonal calendar (tracking the levels of the river Nile - though I do doubt whether it's appropriate to measure the Hittite faction by that same calendar) you are faced with reminders that this is *not* the post-iron age world we are used to gaming in, and I love it.
The smaller scope of the game (focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean and river Nile) is also a great advantage in my opinion. I am always more interested in more historically-focused games with a tighter scope rather than sprawling map-painting exercises - in Total War terms, for instance, I would rate Shogun II, Napoleon, Rome I: Alexander, and Britannia above, say, Empire Total War, Medieval II, or Rome II. By keeping things tightly focused on a particular historical period and the realities of a faction's aspirations and capabilities within their local sphere of influence, I find myself more immersed in the goings-on during the game. In this case, this small scope allows the game to "zoom in" and provide a great deal of character to the three factions that are currently present, offering many interesting choices from the reconstitution of the cult of Aten to the unification of Hatti under a Canaanite invader.
The introduction of shifting weather during a battle (the characteristics of which depend on the geography of the area being contested) is very interesting, and helps bring the battles into the "wargame-esque" context of condensing a day-long ancient battle into a 20 minute game in an elegant manner.
Having multiple resources to manage is complex but, in my opinion, adds a great deal of depth when deciding what regions to annex or what allies to seek. You can filter your neighbours by the resources they produce/require, allowing you to form economically beneficial arrangements to support your armies, and you will need to structure your armies around their supply of food and bronze while you seek to expand into provinces that offer the resources you lack.
Cons:
I cannot fathom why they chose to *invent* quotes from the main characters to display on loading screens. That is pure disinformation and honestly incredibly silly.
Combat is, as usual with modern Total War games, rather unimpressive without any sign of blood or fatigue on your units. Locking away a simple feedback feature that lets you know at a glance whether your projectiles are doing damage behind a DLC that comes months after release is among the worst decisions to haunt Total War games in many years.
Apparently people have been encountering bugs throughout the game. As of right now, I haven't played much, but I haven't encountered anything serious. Your mileage may, of course, vary, though this situation is pretty typical of any modern Total War game.
Maybe a Con?
There is a lot of jargon in the game, from the measuring of dates according to the flooding of the Nile (culminating in Shemsu Hor, the procession of Horus, where all of your court intrigues come to a head) to the various demonyms and place names that are unfamiliar to most modern readers. While it is easy for most individuals to remember the identities of France, England, Rome, Gaul, and other factions in more recent Total War games, this game feels a bit like being dropped in the deep end of a New Kingdom 101 lesson. It's not insurmountable, but previous familiarity with the period or a deep desire to read wikipedia and the in-game encyclopedia are necessary to come to grips with everything that is going on. Again, if you are already interested in this period or genuinely interested in reading up on it, this is not going to be a pitfall - however, for players looking to pick up the game and immerse themselves in the world without every having read up on the period, I imagine this may be discouraging to run into unaware.
The unit roster and technology tree is also, at first glance, relatively simple compared to some more sprawling Total War games. This is, in my opinion, a logical takeaway from a period that was defined less by rapid technological advancement and more by a war of culture and survival in the face of hostile ecological factors and a collapse of civilization as they knew it. A great deal of the technology in the game revolves around shoring up your economy to prepare for the inevitable Collapse, while unit rosters remain fairly static as far as I can tell around the technologies of the time (spears, bows, and the occasional chariot), forcing you to work within the cultural and technological limitations of the region you are fighting in. These are not downsides to me, but someone looking for the immense unit rosters of Warhammer or Medieval II rather than a more regionally-specific roster (such as in Britannia or Shogun II) may be disappointed.
I hope this review helps you decide whether Total War: Pharaoh is for you or not. In my opinion, comparisons to Troy are reductive and unhelpful (I personally did not find Troy to be as historically authentic or immersive as Pharaoh) but I do think that this game may have been better suited to a Total War: Saga or other sideline title, rather than being presented as a mainline Total War game for the simple reason that its limited scope and relatively unknown historical context do not seem appealing to many of the people who were hoping for another world-sweeping epic game.