Kessen III greatly improves on the action-strategy hybrid that the series is known for while telling an excellent story.

User Rating: 9.1 | Kessen III PS2
Kessen III is the latest game in the PS2 action-strategy series that Koei began at the beginning of the system's life in 2000. Combining basic tactics with hands-on troop control and action, players guide and control battalions of troops in battles across sixteenth century Japan. The game's plot revolves around Nobunaga Oda, one of the era's most powerful and successful warlords, as it chronicles the major events of his military career in brilliantly conceived historical fiction.

Although real-time strategy games have historically been problematic in console form, Kessen III's action-oriented approach is a marriage between genres that works well. At the start of each battle, the player is given the primary objective, a map of the battlefield, and the opportunity to set out units and assign orders. The objectives required for victory are fairly diverse, ranging from the traditional "kill all enemy units" missions to escorts and escapes. The types of units at the player's disposal depend on the officers placed on the battlefield and the troop types assigned to them. The process of preparing for battles is well executed, and the simplicity in preparation allows for the fighting to begin that much faster.

On the battlefield, things get crazy. The player is always in direct control of a single officer's unit, but this control can be switched at any time with the press of a couple of buttons. Units controlled by the AI are competent for the most part, but the pathing isn't always the most brilliant. If a unit is moving towards its destination and hits the corner of a barracade, the soldiers will stop and smash their way through, taking up what could be valuable time when going around the barrier would be much faster. Also, allied units never attempt to retreat from a losing battle, and the player must often take control when it looks like a friendly unit is in danger of being overrun. Despite these flaws, however, combat is typically very smooth and fast-paced, and in many cases, knowing when to take control of specific units can mean all the difference. Each officer also has access to special techniques, such as special attacks, support abilities such as healing, and ninjutsu, or powerful magic attacks that can decimate the enemy.

Between battles, shops can be visited to spend money on new unit types, as well as upgraded weapons and armor that affect both an officer's and his or her assigned unit's stats. The amount of customization that the game affords is very open-ended, as any officer can command any unit type, and the different types of armor, weapons, and accessories all play to the strengths and weaknesses of each officer. Another nice touch is that altering an officer's equipment also alter's his or her appearance on the battlefield.

Speaking of graphics, this is another area in which the game excels. The game can support large numbers of units on screen at once with little slowdown, although this is helped by the fact that battles are typically viewed from a high angle that doesn't require great detail. More detail is seen when a player's officer enters a "rampage", or a beat'em up-style mini-mode in which the player attempts to defeat as many soldiers in a given enemy unit as possible before time runs out, and the game never slows down no matter how many enemies are swarming the player. Where the graphics truly shine, however, are in the game's numerous cinematics used to further the story.

Anyone familiar with games such as Onimusha or Samurai Warriors, not to mention numerous other fictional sources such as various anime, have presented Nobunaga in a very evil light. In this respect, Kessen III's story plays very differently, as this version of the warlord is portrayed in a more positive, but ultimately tragic light. The game's opening cut scene actually depicts an elaborate, romanticized and fantastic battle at Honnoji, Nobunaga's home base in Kyoto that ends with the Oda clan leader being shot within the burning remnants of the temple, and then flashes back to his earlier years to begin the game proper. His youthful, idealistic desire to end the fighting and save the people is a very welcome change from his numerous purely villainous portrayals, and the game makes frequent use of detailed cut scenes to tell the tale.

Adding to the atmosphere is a rousing musical score that adds a modern orchestral flavor to the warring states era that's pleasing to the ear. The game's soundtrack can also be accessed in the game's auditorium, with new songs being added whenever they're heard in the game for the first time. For that extra bit of authenticity, the game also includes the Japanese voice track with English subtitles, although some minor bits of mid-battle dialogue are presented without translation. Other extras include a movie gallery, biographies on characters encountered in the game, the ability to replay story battles for higher scores, archives that record the various weapons and items collected during play, and the ability to import bonus characters from Samurai Warriors and its Xtreme Legends expansion.

The package all adds up to a fun strategy game that's easy to pick up and entertaining enough to play all the way to the end. The game even encourages multiple replays with unlockable difficulty levels, and at least two playthroughs are required to experience every battle tha tthe game has to offer. For the amount of quality content that the game provides and the accessable strategy system that doesn't require players to be Sun Tzu in order to master, Kessen III is one of the best strategy titles on consoles.