"A lesson on Japanese history... with magic robots."

Sengoku Basara has a strange history in the states. This first game technically made it here, but in a bastardized form known as Devil Kings that was far removed from its original Japanese identity. The sequel didn’t make it here in any form. Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes is actually the third game in the series, but the first real version to make it to North America with its identity intact.

The game is exactly what its title advertises it to be with “Sengoku” being the warring states period of Japanese history in which the game takes place, and “Basara” roughly translating to “stylish” or “over the top”. And let me tell you, they aren’t messing around when they use the word, “Basara”.

While it may take place in feudal Japan using the names of real historical figures, it has all the characteristics of an insane fantasy anime. Each character is vibrantly colored and sports a fancy, often intentionally absurd costume that sets their appearance apart from the rest. If you’re looking to see Ieyasu Tokugawa ride into the sky atop a flying robot version of Tadakatsu Honda, you’ve found the right game.

The genre is easy enough to pin down. Sengoku Basara is a Hack and Slash through and through. In each of the game’s stages, you’ll fight your way through hundreds of enemies. The swarms of soldiers you’ll encounter are huge in number, but not in variety or difficulty. When confronting standard enemies, you’ll feel like a god among men, with little to stand in your way. Enemy soldiers feel more like toys than threats. But like toys, they can be fun to play with.

Ridiculous combos are the goal while fighting enemy swarms. After 100 hits, money starts to pour out of your victims. For each additional 100, the multiplier increases for how much money you get. On average, I found myself getting around 2,500 hit combos when doing well, but at one point I had as high as a 7,500 hit combo.

These high combos are achievable thanks to a brilliant sense of flow from your attacks. Each character has a decent number of them to play with. Much like a fighting game, the key to success is discovering which move is comboable into which in order to create longer chains. And these combos aren’t stiff either. You can actually adjust your movement reasonably well while attacking.

But there’s more to it than fighting wave after wave of enemies (though that is admittedly a huge part of it). Maps are divided into sections of control. In sections your opponent owns, enemy soldiers continually spawn. In your sections, ally soldiers spawn, though they are as effective as the enemies (read: not very). To seize control of an area, you must kill the general who will then inexplicably (but awesomely) explode, wreaking havoc on the surrounding enemies before giving your troops a new spawning location.

Most missions are pretty formulaic, having you take over each area before fighting a boss. However, they do add a few variances from time to time. One involved a boss who pursued me and could only be hurt after I took control of the next area. Another had me attacking alongside a boat, taking over specific bases to open gates throughout the river and prevent attacks to the boat.

Between missions, you’ll level up, gain new abilities, and obtain new allies (characters who fight alongside you when you have no co-op partner). Your individual abilities also level up as do your various weapons and allies. The process is all very streamlined and quick, automatically selling any duplicate weapons you acquire. The character progression adds a much needed incentive to continue that the story simply does not.

The stories aren’t without their amusing moments, but overall they just aren’t particularly interesting. Told through a combination of cutscenes and lengthy voiceovers, they can often drag. Fortunately, all of them are skippable if you feel so inclined.

Each character has their own campaign with branching paths. The paths usually consist of somewhere between 7 and 10 missions. With my first few playthroughs using different characters, I had very different missions. But since all the campaigns are really just a combination of missions pulled from a giant pool, they became increasingly similar. The more campaigns I played, the more repeat missions I encountered until seeing one I had never played before became a rarity.

Although each character’s campaign doesn’t feel that different, their play styles do. With 16 playable characters, I am amazed at how unique each one feels to use. The controls are always the same, but the functions of these attacks can be quite different, especially between the melee-based and ranged characters.

I started the game with Yukimura Sanada, or “Two Lances Jackson” as I called him, who has a fairly predictable melee style. But even as I used other melee characters I could immediately spot the differences. Kanbe Kuroda fights with a giant boulder that appropriately feels like flinging around a giant weight. Kotaro Fuma uses his ninja speed to constantly disappear and reappear mid-combo. Keiji Maeda has a button whose purpose is dedicated to “cancels” that changes functions depending on the context in which it is pressed.

And then there’s the ranged characters. Magoichi Saica is especially notable. Her normal attack simply fires a gun, but what makes her so interesting is that performing different special attacks will switch which gun she uses. Depending on what the last special attack you performed was, her normal attack button will fire either a pistol, a shotgun, or a machine gun. Then there are characters like Oichi that combine ranged and melee attacks allowing you to deal with up close enemies while simultaneously sending out creepy shadow hands to slam distant enemies around.

The soundtrack is a surprising gem. You’ll hear traditional Japanese instrumentation combined with a variety of styles including Rock, Jazz, Electronica, and Flamenco to make some really interesting hybrids. Kow Otani (Shadow of the Colossus), Rei Kondoh (Okami), and a handful of others did a great job of making a score that’s fun to listen to.

Let me just take a moment to share some especially “Basara” moments. Tsuruhime’s super attack damages enemies with the power of figure skating. Masamune Date uses 6 katanas held like Wolverine’s claws, but can get tri-bladed katanas, essentially causing him to use 18 katanas simultaneously. Magoichi Saica can lay on the ground and juggle an entire cloud of enemies with a machine gun (not to mention she has a rocket launcher). There is a boss that spins around on the ground using a giant wok on his back. I could go on.

Even with all that stylish absurdity, it is still a Hack and Slash at heart. The only real challenge comes from the boss fights, and even most of them aren’t particularly challenging. There’s never much depth to the enemy AI. It is mindless fun that’s best when played only a few missions at a time. It’s definitely one of the better Hack and Slash titles out there with its great combo system and character variety, but still doesn’t avoid the feeling of repetition that plagues the genre during extended play sessions.

This review is based on a copy of the Playstation 3 version of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes provided to us by Capcom.

Tags: capcom, Devil Kings, Hack and Slash, ps3, Sengoku Basara, Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, Wii

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.