Kessen 3 and samurai games

[castlevania fan]

Hi Guys

I'm thinking of getting kessen 3 along with my jap playstation 2 has anyone heard anything about this game?, like is it any good and is there tons of japanese text and speech?. Also can u guys recommend any good samurai games aswell thanks?.

[Taurine]

I recently played the US version of Kessen 1. That games has lots of text for the storyline, and the whole game is menu-driven (plus moving a pointer over the battlefield as an alternative way to select units). Like an RPG the menus are going to grow as the game progresses with new units bringing in different special abilities. You will spend a lot of time looking at translation guides if you play it and can't read Japanese.

BTW do you have any impressions of what is new in Kessen 3 against the first in the series? Spankier graphics I guess? Kessen was kind of a tech-demo of a launch title, compared to some of the other launch titles was a real jaw-dropper. I think a lot of people bought it for the graphics and found they couldn't get their head around the gameplay. My used copy was very cheap

[Zanza]

I have alwyas quite liked the Kessen games, especialy the first one as it was one of the few games I enjoyed playing when I got my PS2!

Kessen 3 has added quite a bit to the kessen system. The planning stage is much the same, you pick your battalions, support battalions, place them on the map, choose their targets, weapons, etc, then move to the combat stage. When you go into combat, instead of watching the combat take place and making the battlefield decisions using a menu driven system, you actualy control the combat directly. The way it works could be slightlycompared to Dyansty Warriors, but instead of controlling the actions of a single warrior, you controll the actions of the entire battalion. Moving the analogue stick moves your battalion around the game area, square makes your battalion do a standard attack, triangle does a charging attack, and circle allows you to execute a command on your battalion, or an enemies. When you engage in combat with an enemy battalion you can execute a command to control just your commanding leader, which then throws the gameplay into something very similar to Dynasty Warriors, controlling a singleperson and fighting with other single warriors, and the other battalions leader. When you complete a level ,depending on how well you have done your warriors level up, and you recive special items such as new armour and weapons.

Its a good game, and im really enjoying it, however if your looking for a decent strategy game with a similar setting/style I would recommend checking out 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' its an excellent strategy game series.

[Meng De]

From what I've seen of the demos Kessen 3 features the much improved Dynasty Warriors 5 engine, the graphics do look very good. I'm looking forward to picking this up soon as the us verison is out now, and the pal version sometime in May/June.

As for Samurai based games, my first suggestion would be the Way Of The Samurai 1 and 2, both by the makers of the orginal Tenchu series and both quite fun. 1 is a little more cinematic than 2, but both can be purchased quite cheaply now. On a side note a 3rd title in this series called Samurai Western has recently been picked up by Atlus US for translation later in the year.

Samurai Warriors is an excellent game, and like Kessen 1 and 3 focuses on Nobunaga and the warring states period (it's also going cheap at playasia this week, Jpn version only) If you get this, you can use the save state and unlock a bonus charachter in Kessen 3.

Apart from this if you haven't tried the Onimusha series yet, I would reccomend it as well.

There are a few other samurai-themed games I've not looked into, so maybe someone could shed some light on the Kengo series? It's got up to 3 or 4 in Japan now and the latest one looked quite good in preview. There seems to be some Shinsengumi titles out too, the latest one being by Sega. I'll add some links to the First Play threads about Way of the Samurai and Samurai warriors too (if only to pimp my own threads )

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=24337

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showthread.php?t=25788

[castlevania fan]

Thats great guys thanks for your replies it is greatly appreciated thanks. I got samurai western and i'm enjoying that so i'll see if i can pick up the previous games in the series and i'm thinking of picking up onimusha 3.

[Meng De]

Is Samurai Western any good? I was quite interested in the idea, and the play mechanics (the bullet deflection idea seemsed quite novel), but the characterisation seemed a bit too "comedy sterotype" for me. Is there much of this in the actual game? (the comedy that is)

I'm currently playing Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends, which is fun, but only really for fans of the first SW. I'll post more in the First Play thread when I've spent some more time with it.

Oh and I'll put in a mention for The Last Blade 1 & 2 (particually 2) as they are excellent Samurai themed fighting games, and are due to be re-released on the PS2 soon.

[castlevania fan]

Samurai western is good but it is hard and there are a few comedy moments like when u fight the french boss for the 2nd time and when u beat him he says"oh looks like im coming down with a cold". You can also change the samurais apperance u can even give him shades and an afro and most of the speech is in english with japanese subtitles.

Is Samurai Western any good? I was quite interested in the idea, and the play mechanics (the bullet deflection idea seemsed quite novel), but the characterisation seemed a bit too "comedy sterotype" for me. Is there much of this in the actual game? (the comedy that is)

I'm currently playing Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends, which is fun, but only really for fans of the first SW. I'll post more in the First Play thread when I've spent some more time with it.

Oh and I'll put in a mention for The Last Blade 1 & 2 (particually 2) as they are excellent Samurai themed fighting games, and are due to be re-released on the PS2 soon.