The GOAT were the stategic ones (Empire Series) for PS2 and XBOX 360. Campaign maps with a very advanced custom character creator even by today's standards, i would make custom officers for campaigns, for example i liked dota so i would make my character after myself and have 2 officers called Sange (blue aesthethics) and Yasha ( red aesthethics) start with them and make it the mission to conquer lands collecting all the other created officers, managed to make Lion, Lina, Axe, etc., they had a good dose of realism and dificulty, the later games became lamer and lamer and lamer, wayyyyy to many flashing lights, uniforms design went from cool ancient warriors to gay bars with purple neon signs, the difficult also was all over the place in later games, with footsoldiers becoming basicaly braindead and almost never atacking you. Warriors orochi 2 especialy had a very nice aesthethic with a more "dark fantasy" undertone, with monster armies and whatnot.

I'am mostly a PC masteracer today, but i do admit i miss games like the musou series, the ones on PC just feel weird and are wildly overpriced compared to back then. I also liked many of the variants including those from other companies.

Kingdom Under Fire
Sengoku Basara (especialy 2)
Bladestorm
Ninety-Nine Nights 1 & 2( I LOVED these one).

One of my most vivid memories is when i got RROD'd by my 360 when i was on the last stage of pic related.