By Stephen Swan aka N1ntendo
Editor in Chief
Sengoku Basara, known previously to western gamers as Devil Kings, has returned to consoles in Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes and has brought slapstick in tow with it. Sengoku Basara borrows heavily from the Dynasty Warriors franchise in terms of gameplay and basic setup from battle planning to full scale battles in-game, but takes a different approach and style all its own which we will get into here in this review.
Sengoku Basara features a story mode for all 15 of their characters as well as a battle mode for those who just like to jump in to the action. At first glance it looks like the characters will be utilizing weapons from their historical era. Then you notice one character has wolverine claws, made out of SWORDS! And are those dual pistols? A giant spear with an anchor on the end of it?!? For the sake of not just “hack and slash”-ing my way through the game, I pick Magoichi Soira, the female mercenary with the guns.
Playing through the first few battles, I realize this is the first time in a while that the action doesn’t seem tedious or boring to me at all. Usually I am hunting down generals to weaken the main boss of the stage in order to conquer their province and move on to conquering over all. Not in this game. I have had to tear down food supplies in order to make the boss so hungry, that they no longer can fight against me. I have fought another enemy who controls nature and throws giant logs at me as well as can rise high in the air on a huge tree, forcing me to hack at it to bring it down to my height to knock the character off. And let me make sure not to leave out the trap-filled pirate ship I had to fight through to fight the captain piloting a huge steampunk-inspired pirate ship with legs and flamethrowers and explosives.
If you think my character is out of her league, think again. Starting the game, I began to battle with just the dual pistols. As I leveled up her skills through beating each stage, he reportoire of weapons expanded to my delight. Shotgun attacks, machine gun attacks (with moves that would make Devil May Cry jealous), and even heat-seeking, target locking BAZOOKA! I could in depth about the special attacks (known as Basara Arts) but I will just leave them to the player’s imagination and say that they are awesome and just as over-the-top as this entire game is. This game supports the classic controller as well as the Wii Remote & nunchuk combination, I feel that either mode suits the game properly and motion is only used to initate special attacks.
This game thankfully breaks the age old Dynasty Warriors mold of repetitive battles and samey boss fights and makes sure that you will enjoy this game from start to finish. I have played through this game 4 times as different characters and am itching to play more, especially with 2 player co-op. With branching paths included to change the storyline and ending for each character, players itching for a hack and slash with exciting visuals and even more intense (and insane!) boss battles, look no further than Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes.
