Sengoku BASARA is a game made by Capcom, and produced by Mr. Hiroyuki Kobayashi, the same producer of Capcom's famous Devil May Cry series. Its gameplay is similar to KOEI's Shin Sangoku Musou (Dynasty Warriors) and Sengoku Musou (Samurai Warriors): a Hack'n'Slash game. It also shares the same timeline as Sengoku Musou, the Sengoku Jidai occured in Japan during 16th century. However, what distinguishes Sengoku BASARA from KOEI's games is the stylish aspect. The moves in this game are made as stylish as the ones you can see in DMC; and Mr. Makoto Tsuchibayashi who drew Dante is the one who makes all the characters' eccentric designs.
The first game was released on July 21st 2005, and received quite a favorable response from the Japanese gamers. However for some reason, Capcom decided to scrap the historical aspect of the game when they were trying to bring it overseas. They tweaked Sengoku BASARA into Devil Kings for the Western market.
One year after SB1 was released in Japan, Capcom launched the sequel, Sengoku BASARA 2, which was released on July 27th 2006. This new game has much more volume and replayabilty than its prequel.
Modes
Sengoku BASARA 2 has three times the replayability of its prequel. Two new modes and 48 stages are available on this game.
Aside from the Unification Mode and Free Battle Mode, there are now Story Mode and Arena Mode. Story Mode is the equivalent of DW&SW's Musou Mode, where you follow your character's story by going through 5 to 6 stages. Arena Mode (named Daibutoukai) is a 100-stage survival mode that Shin Onimusha players may find it similar to the Dark Realm.
Characters and Enemies
There is a total of 30 unique characters in this game. All 21 unique characters -PCs and NPCs- from the prequel are making a return. But first of all, the two popular NPCs from SB1, Chousokabe Motochika and Mouri Motonari, are now playable. There were also issues of clone characters which were Kenshin-Matsu and Sasuke-Kasuga.. Not anymore. Matsu now holds a naginata and can summon animals, while Kasuga now carries kunais. Kenshin and Sasuke still have their old weapons.
There are 4 brand-new playables. The first one is Maeda Keiji, the kabukimono all of you should have known by now. Then there's Toyotomi Hideyoshi, accompanied by his strategist, Takenaka Hanbei. Last but not least, Miyamoto Musashi is also in this game, although he just serves as an extra character to please you Musashi-philes. (He does not have a story nor element, and he only has two skills at all)
There are 5 new NPCs. Other than Katakura Kojuurou, Masamune's retainer, there are Azai Nagamasa, O-Ichi, Fuuma Kotarou and Honganji Kennyo.
There are also new kinds of enemies, such as fire ninjas, ice ninjas, oni soldiers, dragon tanks, and perhaps the most famous of them all is the Gohonyari, a squad of five spearmen that may remind you of Power Rangers.
Gameplay
The gameplay is still similar to the prequel, however there are now some new features, including Battle Drive, a hyper-mode-activation system similar to DW5's Musou Awakening and Basara Fever, a combo hit ranker taken from Devil Kings and will give you coins for each hits after every 500 hits.
Coins? Yes, there is now money in this game, and you can use them to shop in the Basara Shop which sells things like stat-increasing foods, weapons and armors, as well as special items. Speaking of items, they're still generated randomly from treasure boxes. However in this sequel, the boxes are now divided into two categories: Item Box and Equipment Box. Also, useless boxes will be automatically converted into money or experience points.
And speaking about EXP, the maximum level your character can get now is 100.
Others
The music is, once again, varied. You can hear many genres of music from this game's BGMs; from rock, techno, to even jazz. Some of the music from SB1 are returning. But sadly, some other favorite themes such as Thunderbolt aren't.
This game only has one minus point for me, which is the lack of art from its prequel. Unlike in SB1, now you can only see the 3D rendition of the characters in all places; the only place you can see the artful 2D drawings is in the Character Introduction movie accessible from the Gallery.
And last but not least, although this game only has a few historical accuracies compared to Sengoku Musou, some of the stories and dialogues are humorous, such as when one of Zabii's followers says "No Zabii, No Life!" So in the end, if you want to play a stylish and fun hack'n'slash game, go get this game.
