basara

old post that i forgot to publish, sorry! 

i got sengoku basara 3 for the ps3 a couple of days ago (now abt a month), but wanted to wait until i finished at least one route to write a review. so here it is! and for reference, the first route i went with was magoichi saika's.

i'm split on the character designs. i like some of them, dislike others. i love oichi's design and how it's clear she's the sister of nobunaga, for instance. motochika's a full-on rowdy pirate, and i can't help but love rowdy characters (see kat-tun)-- plus, his weapon is an anchor. i love what they did with mitsuhide also, and it's interesting how motonari is now a sly youngster rather than an old man. but i'm not into mitsunari's design... over what we've got in samurai warriors? noooooooo. yukimura also looks immature-- and while both of them are somewhat impulsive and hot-headed, basara's version of him is almost childish. kenshin uesugi also looks like a kid, which makes the uesugi-takeda rivalry ridiculous, but that's probably on purpose. and ieyasu looks like a high school boxer. 

not sure about tadakatsu honda's design. looking like a mecha is rightfully terrifying, but now he has no personality. and kanbei kuroda-- he's very different. instead of a haunted undead sorcerer, now he looks like a shoegaze band member. not a bad thing, but i was surprised.

in general, most folks are younger. and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it feels that because of their youthful designs, it might be hard to take them seriously or ground the story sometimes. sengoku basara is goofier than samurai warriors, and the designs reflect that. like. aside from what i mentioned above, why does masamune's horse have tailpipes??? and handlebars??? unserious behavior.

it's interesting, though. despite sengoku basara being less serious a good chunk of the time, the characters are a lot more flawed than in samurai warriors. mitsunari is more arrogant and demanding, prone to rage. kanbei is brooding and cynical, wallowing underground after being punished for attempting to betray hideyoshi. it's something that they actually state, while samurai warriors implies that kanbei left service out of grief for hanbei takenaka. mitsunari, yoshitsugu, oichi, hideyoshi, mitsuhide, and even motonari are much, much crueler, sometimes even sadistic. but ieyasu is a golden boy-- the only problem is that he's a coward who can't admit his own shortcomings. the maedas are also rather harmless, and a bit of a treat to watch, actually. the saika faction is also very cool.

i'm mostly into it, except for ieyasu. don't get me wrong, i can appreciate the fact that sengoku basara is willing to show these characters as crueler than their samurai warriors counterparts, but the fact that this isn't done for ieyasu as well doesn't sit right with me. he cannot look as virtuous or innocent as he does in this series, it's just not right in a time of war like this.

i really enjoy the battle structure. each enemy leader you face has a special quirk about their stage, which diversifies the gameplay. for instance, facing hideaki kobayakawa makes you disrupt his hotpot dinner, while haruhisa amago has to be tracked through stormy desert land, and you have to deal with collapsing ceilings and boulders in kanbei kuroda's mines. it's true that musou games can be a bit of a slog sometimes, but the different gimmicks prevent that from happening as often. 

the fighting / weaponry system was interesting to me. i liked the idea of adding accessories to your weapon to upgrade it in ways that are closer to your personal play style / strengths. but i'm not sure how to feel about the actual movesets. it could just be me (or my old controller that has... something broken and shaking around inside), but they feel weirdly slow and clunky. for magoichi saika, some moves make her change weapon. but it's not guaranteed to work all the time, and so i'm mostly button-mashing until something changes either by accident. sometimes that's good, sometimes that's not. but again, it's probably just me and i need to get used to it.

the story structure is a bit boring, though. so far, after playing as magoichi saika and motochika chosokabe for a time, i see that battles often repeat in other characters' stories. it might prove repetitive later on, but i'll have to play through all the characters and see if such really makes a big difference, or if it's just coincidence. but as everything revolves around the events leading up to sekigahara, i'm a bit cautious. story progression is mostly conversation between characters over a map of japan, and the rendered cutscenes are a good break in between the regular stuff. 

overall, i enjoyed it. i think i ultimately still prefer samurai warriors, but i understand why a lot of folks prefer this series more.

sotd: takanaru by fujita maiko