Sengoku Basara 2

[Sane]

I've been playing this for the last few days and it's great. It's basically Sengoku Basara 1 with more characters and stages and some tweaks in the fighting.

For those of you who never played Sengoku Basara 1, or the US version called Devil Kings, this game is Capcom's take on Dynasty Warriors. You play as a japanese warlord who takes down whole armies by his- or herself. You get backup by your own army but as usual in these type of games they don't really do much, at best they provide a distraction for the enemy. After you complete a stage and beat the boss you're awarded with new equipment, experience and gold, all of which serves to make your character stronger.

There's some really cool items and new moves to get so there's always an incentive to keep playing, this game really has that one more go thing going. Also, on the harder difficulties the game can be really challenging, and that's where the more advanced techniques as evading and parrying really come into play.

What's great about it is the large number of characters and how diverse they are. Having played part 1 in English I have to say having them speak japanese is a lot better, Devil Kings voices were beyond cheesy .

So if you like 1000 hit combos and men with big swords this game is for you . The only downsides for me are that there's no co-op mode (atleast I haven't found it) and no progressive scan option. The menu's are all in japanese, but it's not really an issue, also I found a list which says what all the items do, I'll post it if anyone's interested.

[eastyy]

I remember the hype for the original game which was billed as devil may cry meets dynasty warriors

And i bought it because of that turned out to be wrong as it just played far to similar to dynasty warriors

[Sane]

Yeah there's not much DMC in there, but it's great for what it is: A Dynasty Warriors ripoff, only done better. The only reason for the DMC comments is that some of the characters have guns, it plays nothing like DMC though.

[eastyy]

Think i shall wait for the english version of this game

I did have the japanese version of the original and while japanese was not necassary to understand to play through i think i would have enjoyed it far more if i understood everything


Is there much new stuff in the sequel?

[toy_brain]

Any technical improvements over the first game? (like onscreen enemy count, or draw distance). Also, do the stages still play out much like the first game with verly linear progression to the final boss, or are there more back-and-forth mission objectives like in the Samurai Warriors game?

Like eastyy I'll be waiting for the English version of the game. I can't speak a word of Japanese and besides, the English localisation was so entertaining and deleriously over-the-top that I couldnt help but fall in love with it.

[Sane]

There's not many technical differences with the first game, overall it looks a little better but no shocking improvements. The onscreen enemy count can be very high in places and I've not detected any slowdown at all yet, not sure if there's a lot more than in the first game though.

Progression through the stages is still the same, it's pretty linear, though in some stages you can take multiple paths to the boss I always end up killing every enemy anyway. There's also diversions in some stages, for instance you will have to kill the leader of an enemy group near a cannon that's bombing your troops to take control of it so it will bomb the enemies instead. Also, the horseriding is back .

The localisation of the first game did have it's charm, but they changed so much of the game it's nice to see it like it was 'intended' for a change.And you know, warcries just sound better in japanese for some reason .

[eastyy]

This might have just been me but when i saw the english version of the devil kings

It seemed to look better then the japanese version were there some improvements made ?