Faces don't look nearly as flat and dead, though the overall quality level is still below Rome 2 or Shogun 2. Weapons and armor, especially, look much shinier and more realistic. Optional UpgradeThough it wasn't made available for this review, Total War: Rome Remastered offers a free, Enhanced Graphics Pack that includes greatly enhanced textures – and it does go a long way toward bringing the look of the units up to a level of quality more like what you'd expect in a modern Total War game.

The whole soundtrack is energetic, distinct, and evocative.

Barbarian Victory is still one of my favorite tracks from any strategy game. Oh, and the music? It still totally slaps. You can also play as any faction right from the jump, whereas the original required you to beat each one while playing as Rome to unlock them – unless you want to do it the old-fashioned way. This made the trade-off for lower resolution fighty guys seem more acceptable, as I was able to orchestrate some truly titanic, ancient clashes. For one, there's a new 'experimental' unit size that allows for even larger battles, in terms of the total number of troops, than even modern Total War games have without mods. There are a couple places where Rome: Remastered has added totally new features, and they're kinda neat. And it seems like Feral Interactive has gone out of their way to keep the look and feel of a 2004 UI when I would have rather they shined and polished it up a bit more. Getting more detail on how a specific building or unit ability works might be a pain or just impossible.

But Rome: Remastered still doesn't offer up information as easily as its descendants. That's usually the part of older strategy games that drives me up a wall the fastest, since modern games have gotten so much better at it. “The UI is definitely much improved, especially in terms of readability.

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