Kessen feels like watching a History Channel special, offering you a great cinematic experience like no other.
Kessen is basically all strategy simulation. And as you would know in a strategy game, there are two or more opposing sides. In this game you have Tokugawa's East forces (blue), versus Ishida's Western forces (red). Both factions have their base set of officers, including its supreme commander, each with their own army to command on the battlefield. As the supreme commander, you basically give the orders to your officers. These orders range from moving to a specific location, hold position, or pick a certain enemy officer for them to target. Easy enough, right? Of course, these options can change once your officers engage in battle with the enemy. Mostly, you either have them retreat or keep up the attack when they have the upper hand or not. You can even have them perform special maneuvers.
Special maneuvers are basically an army's 'special attacks.' The officer of an army can execute a barrage, in which infantry fire weapons at the enemy, raise another ally officer's morale, or perform a cannonade, in which obviously, an army fires a rain of cannonballs at the enemy, dealing massive losses to the opposing side. Other special maneuvers are either defensive or offensive, but they all play a significant role in turning the tides in battle to your favor, or come back to bite you in the backside. But some of these moves can turn into a double-edged sword as well.
Generally, special maneuvers deal a decent amount of damage on the enemy's forces, but doing so can lower an army's zeal or morale. You can't really win if your troops are unmotivated or tired, am I right? Of course, the enemy can perform special maneuvers of their own too, so dealing with them can be irritating sometimes. Kessen's difficulty can turn out to be a cakewalk, or a disaster. This isn't a no-brainer strategy game; you have to know at least a minimal amount to always be steps ahead of your opponent each time. It isn't just charging them head-on all the time, so please keep that in mind.
Just because you can use cool special maneuvers doesn't mean you can use them infinitely. Zeal is basically an officer's motivation to act on the battlefield. To put it simply, having 100% zeal means the officer is actually "in the mood" to hit the enemy with a special maneuver. Then you would know already, that having low zeal means he just isn't up to the task, which is quite annoying, really. As I mentioned before, using certain abilities can lower an army's zeal, but there are special ones that actually raise these statistics temporarily in battle. Other than that, zeal can be accumulated over time, or when your officers are winning in a battle.
Morale also plays a crucial role in gaining the upper hand. The lower the morale means your soldiers are tired, or feel like they're losing ground. The flag right next to an army's menu also lets the player know how the army is doing. If the flag is standing upright, that means the soldiers are ready for action. As the flag drops, the more your troops are fatigued, and it would be advised to retreat and let them get some rest before attacking again. It also takes some common sense to win. For example, you have an army of 10,000 but their morale is down, and you have them face off against an enemy army of 5,000 troops with high morale, it's highly likely that you will lose troops faster than the enemy. Just a suggestion; hope that helps.
You can also organize every officer's army setup in preparation for upcoming battles. Each officer has a default army of lancers, cavalry, and much more. Modifying their troops affects how much you can use special maneuvers for that particular army, either more or less times than usual. Personally, I'm a bit disappointed that you can't really set up the armies just the way you would want them to be. It's a huge bummer that I can't add more cavalry to an officer's arsenal so that he can perform Charge 20 times in battle. It's already preset for you, so trying to set them up yourself feels pretty pointless to say the least. War councils are the next phase of preparation. Sometimes before a major battle, you are given the option to set up army positions on the battlefield. Players can either change their positions, objectives, what have you. Pick a rendezvous point for them, a specific enemy to engage, or have a certain officer set up an ambush point to surprise the enemy. You can also bribe enemy officers to either bide or defect to your cause. It all depends on how conflicted they are about the East and West forces. Taking advantage of these situations can prove essential and increases your chances of winning many battles.
Cinematic cut scenes are everywhere in this game, but Kessen just never lets up. Character expressions and movements don't exactly have the magic touch, but they seem believable enough to appreciate. Activating the special maneuvers is one of my favorite things to do in this game; watching many foot soldiers fly in the air just never gets old. Sometimes I would just use the Cannonade over and over again just to admire Kessen's amazing display of cinematic prowess. Backgrounds during cut scenes and real-time events, as well as weapons and armor are well-detailed, but anything outside of that looks kind of bland. Other than that, cannon blasts, fire, and various animations were colorful and impressive, constantly keeping my visual enjoyment in very high levels.
So Kessen is very much like a historical, dramatic war game. Therefore, the music should be dramatic in and of itself. Thankfully, that is definitely the case. You can absolutely feel how epic the battle themes are during play, keeping you pumped up as you pit massive armies against each other. On top of that, Kessen's sound effects are done remarkably, as they are absolutely believable in every way possible. Voice acting is pretty good, but could have used some more work in some parts. Other than that, everything you will hear in Kessen, especially the narrator's excellent ability to dictate the history behind the game, are very pleasant to the ear.
To me, Kessen feels like a History Channel special that is pretty epic in its own right. You'll admire the game's brilliant cinematic display, dramatic musical themes, and game play appreciable by many strategy fans out there. Kessen has its share of problems, like its brief campaign, but everything else the game presents should keep you entertained for a while. If you've got a love for Japanese history, this game will offer you a great cinematic experience that should not be overlooked.