TGS 2008: Sengoku Basara: Battle Heroes Hands-On

Sony was showing off a whole bunch of PSP games at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, and a handful of those games featured Dynasty Warriors-esque samurai combat. One such game, Sengoku Basara: Battle Heroes, eschews massive battlefields for small arenas in which two teams duel to the death. We jumped into the fray with an AI teammate to get a taste for this take on feudal Japanese fighting.

The demo version featured one playable mode, though it did show a number of menu items that hinted at a wider variety (perhaps Battle Heroes doesn't leave big battles behind after all). Choosing the only path, we came to a character-select screen. There seemed to be a standard assortment of fighter archetypes, from nimble swordsmen to heavy spearmen. After selecting a sword-wielding hero, we were sent straight to a loading screen that displayed the combatants. We were matched up with one AI teammate and pitted against two computer opponents. Battle Heroes will feature wireless online play, so it's possible that all four fighters could be human-controlled, which would likely make for a more intense experience.

Once in the battleground, we experimented furiously to figure out our fighter's abilities before our opponents could pummel us. We found two standard attacks that we could chain together to make combos. Holding down the R button juiced these attacks up, making them slower but more powerful. The circle button toggled between our two targets, and we found that we could jump using the X button and block with the L button. This standard control setup worked well, and we were soon able to destroy one of our enemies. He respawned shortly afterward, but not without draining a quarter of his team's life bar. Once we offed our opponents a few more times, the life bar was fully depleted and victory was ours.

The arena-style combat was pretty standard action fare, but we could see how four human players would make it a lot more exciting. Though there's no North American release date announced yet, we'll be sure to keep you posted on the latest developments in Sengoku Basara: Battle Heroes.