![]() The lack of production values aside, Kessen III has a compelling combat system backing it and it still largely works as casual strategy game. It’s not charming, it’s not entertaining and I am so glad that Tecmo Koei later learned the value of making games with personality. Back in the PS2 era Tecmo Koei Warriors and historical games were dubbed (no Japanese voice track for people that prefer to play games the way the developers intended), and the English voice actors sounded more like random people off the street than anyone you would actually pay to do voice work. The visuals are primitive (to put it nicely), and as such the characters have very basic personalities they might have the same names as the later Samurai Warriors characters that people would love, but and the voice acting is truly woeful. The only real issue here is it’s difficult to really connect with what is going on in this game, and so it becomes a little hard to care about what’s going on after a while. Outside of battle you can tweak unit equipment and naturally building up the ideal mix of units becomes a key challenge in getting through the more difficult missions. Thankfully that direct combat side of the game is largely optional. Units die quickly and it’s important to be ready to react at the slightest change in battle conditions. That part of the game plays out like a poor mans Warriors game, and it’s a real low point in the game as an action strategy game it’s compelling and quite exciting. It’s even possible to take direct control of the hero and wade into the melee personally. Units will fight for themselves, or you can take greater control over their fate by taking control of the unit in combat and using the hero to issue beneficial rallying cries to boost unit performance. Within that basic framework are some of the typical trappings of the strategy genre: certain units have a decided advantage over others and there’s some benefits to being the one that initiates the attack or attacks from higher ground. Players only have direct control over one unit at a time, but they can direct the other units under their overall command to move independently – either to specific locations or to attack specific targets. Just don't touch it if you can't abide strategy.The basic idea of Kessen is to take a couple of units from feudal-era Japan (comprised of a few dozen soldiers and a single hero in each unit), and direct them around a battlefield to attack enemy heroes and capture key objectives. If you're an armchair general who likes thinking yourself mental and watching hundreds of tiny men batter each other to bits - or you always wanted to control the final battle from Lord of the Rings and felt swindled by The Third Age - Kessen III is the obvious choice. The plot's enthralling and the customisation potential is huge. You just need to be a certain type of person to appreciate it - some would say a meticulous thinker, others an anal stat-obsessed nutjob - and the action has a habit of repeating itself.īut that's only after a very enjoyable six hours or so. You can even unleash Dynasty Warriors-style 'musou' magic attacks, which all look fantastic.īut even if we do appreciate the scale and overall 'feel' of the game, that doesn't stop it from being a little limited and largely impenetrable to anyone but Koei fans. ![]() You can also go solo with one of your commanders, taking part in a Samurai Warriors-style minigame wherein your goal is to waste as many opponents as possible. ![]() ![]() It's very easy-going and brilliantly simple. ![]() You move across each level in realtime, commanding your team via an intuitive top-down map of the area, and attack by issuing special attacks and hitting the square button. You can plan, customise and fiddle with almost every aspect of your army and tactics, which should appeal to RPG fans (it's almost as detailed and flexible as something like Final Fantasy X), but if you can't be bothered, simply hit 'auto assign' and proceed to battle. It's like a halfway house between the bloated pomposity of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dynasty Warriors' relentless combat. Well, providing you can stomach cold, hard strategy - there's just as much pointing and clicking as there is hacking and slashing.īut it's all remarkably simple. Better yet, even if you don't give a fiddler's pluck about style or atmosphere, you'll still enjoy the game's hearty blend of thinking and fighting. ![]()
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