Sengoku Basara itself isn't necessarily a bad game, but it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from Koei's games
How would I describe the game play? Let me put it this way. What do you get when you throw Samurai Warriors 2: Empires, Dynasty Warriors 4's musou mode and Capcom's flair when you combine them all into a blender? Well apparently you get this game because that's what it feels like. It borrows from DW4's musou mode by allowing players to pick which mission they would like to select, which I personally loved since it helped the story mode become not as repetitive as quickly. They also borrowed from Koei's "Warriors: Empires" games by applying forts to the battlefield, the only major difference being that instead of killing troops until the player take the fort over, they attack one guy in an elevated wooden overlook, and when he is smashed into oblivion, a massive explosion occurs which sadly doesn't do much damage to any surrounding units still alive, but it doesn't matter. This is Sengoku Basara, not Burger King, I can't have everything my way! But unfortunately at the game's core, it's the same as any other hack-and-slash game, you're still mashing on two or three buttons, you're still a one-person army destroyer, and you're still claiming a massive kill count when all logical sense would dictate that enemies would run like hell at the mere sight of your approaching shadow.
Touching back on the "mashing on two or three buttons" comment I made earlier, unfortunately that's true as the only attack buttons that are available are square, triangle, circle, R1 and R2 (when your character is leveled high enough.) While it doesn't differentiate from the standard hack-and-slash control scheme, one positive thing I can say is that it's certainly better than Dynasty Warriors 6's control scheme where you pounded on, and ONLY on the square button. Unfortunately it's not that much better due to the R2 button is reserved for a super move, and most of them are so ridiculously overpowered that players will seldom use anything else, and they'll mash on square and triangle until they get to the appropriate level. (It's 20 or 21, I haven't determined which specific level triggers learning the first super move.) However, the controls are really easy to pick up for new players, not only new to the series, but to the genre as well, but unfortunately they won't offer a challenge to genre veterans.
Finally, what I want to type about here isn't about what's in the game, but about what isn't. There are several features that fans of hack-n-slash games have been requesting for several years that unfortunately we don't have yet, such as online play and a combat system that doesn't feel repetitive after the first 30 minutes. But perhaps the biggest thing that's missing is a create-a-warrior mode. What makes this even worse is their main competition (Koei) offers it in their games (not in the core games mind you, they're normally in the expansions) but I find it difficult to grasp that creators of hack-n-slash games haven't been able to determine that players want to tear through battlefields with either themselves or a wacky character of their creation yet. It could be that they were running short on time or maybe they found that writing an original story mode was difficult but that's still no excuse for not putting this in, and when you have a limited roster like Sengoku Basara does (16 characters), the feature's absence makes it all the more apparent.
Graphically, it's difficult to determine. During the actual combat, they're not bad as you can have several soldiers on the screen at the same time without slowdown (something improved upon previous Dynasty Warriors games) and the enemies themselves aren't too bad looking either, of course there's the obvious "the drones all look the same" syndrome, but that's fine, players are killing several hundred of these guys per battle, how much detail do they need? When it comes to the cutscenes however, they could honestly be better. I'm not sure how to describe it but the feeling I got is that they lacked a certain polish, maybe it's because that they look like they're in a different resolution than the main gameplay, or maybe it's because half of the cutscenes were unnecessarily thrown in, but they could have looked better.
When it comes to rating the sound of this game, there are obviously pros and cons. On one hand, the music is really good at setting the mood of the battle at hand and is a good mix of Japanese culture with rock music. On the other hand, the voice work is just awful. Not awful in the sense of Dynasty Warriors where the characters constantly screw up pronunciation of the other character's names, but just by being overall annoying (Yukimura Sanada is particularly guilty of this) and by adding pointless sound clips where they really don't belong. For example, there's one stage where the battlefield is covered in fog, and tigers are constantly appearing to attack you. You hear the tiger's roar, and that's all right as it lets the player know that the new threat is somewhere in the near vicinity, but it also delivers a random soldier yelling something to the effect that the monster is scary, but it isn't as scary as that particular soldier's mother, which gets annoying at an alarming rate. Sadly, this isn't the only one I've come across, but trust me, the others are just as annoying and they're just as apparent.
Now describing the longevity of this may seem easy enough, but in my play experience something weird happened. On one hand, I couldn't bring myself to play it for longer than a week, but on the other hand, I found myself coming back to play it. It could've been because I longed for Samurai Warriors 3 and found that this game filled the gap from the disappointment that it turned into a Wii-exclusive, it could've been because I haven't played a new hack-n-slash game in quite a while. Or maybe, just maybe, I got tired of Gran Turismo 5 telling me that I suck at driving every five minutes, either way, don't expect to play this game for longer than a week at a time.
Now don't get me wrong here. Sengoku Basara by itself isn't necessarily a bad game, the music is really good, the "choose your own story path" was refreshing to see and it's nice to see Capcom step in and fill the void for PS3 gamers after Koei said that Samurai Warriors 3 wasn't coming. But I'm going to recommend that you rent it first, and allow me to explain why. My major issue with it is that while it isn't made by Koei, it doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from feeling like it was made by Koei. It still feels repetitive, it still feels the same way that Dynasty Warriors 2 did and it still lacks features that fans of Dynasty Warriors have been asking for from Koei for years, such as online play and Create-a-Warrior in a core game (yes Koei, we're tired of waiting for the expansion to put ourselves in the game.) If you do rent it and you do like it, it's perfectly fine to pick it up as it should be cheap, (I got it for $45 CDN on release day,) but if you do try it and don't like it, at least you gave it a shot.
Quick Review:
Pros:
+ Not a bug filled mess
+ Music is pretty good
+ "Pick your battle" story mode
Cons:
- Game play has been done to death, next to nothing new
- Voice work is terrible, more annoying than Dynasty Warriors
- Graphics are mediocre
- Limited character roster
- Overall, it's boring after a week