Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara 1

Capcom has made some of my favorite game franchises of all time and there was a time when I considered them the best company in all of gaming.  The Viewtiful Joe franchise is my favorite in both gaming and anime, Resident Evil is somewhere in the top 5, Devil May Cry is somewhere in the top 15 and I already did a long series all about both Capcom and SNK’s accomplishments in the arcades, but just below Resident Evil and above Devil May Cry in Capcom’s portfolio is the greatest crowd fighting beat-em-up franchise ever made and unfortunately one that Capcom has routinely squandered for anyone outside Japan.  That franchise is the historically questionable Sengoku Basara.

Sengoku Basara has an interesting history, mostly for the western world. What used to be a shining example of Capcom’s brilliance over a decade ago is now symbolic of why Capcom currently holds the distinction of being the worst company in gaming.  To understand how the franchise got to that point, you have to know where it came from.  Everyone who has ever held a controller who hasn’t already needs to play these games and to explain why, I am writing this retrospective.

For this retrospective, I will go over each main game in Sengoku Basara’s history; what makes them so great (or rather, what makes the sequels great) and what made/makes Capcom so bad or otherwise incompetent.  I have a lot to say about some of the spin-off media too, of which there is a lot.  I won’t go into the production history because 1: what matters to me most is the end result and the context of when they were released and 2: only one game has anything related to its production officially translated into English.

 

The crazy story of this Sengoku-era epic starts with the very first Sengoku Basara and its very first opening, performed by T.M. Revolution, who would come to establish themselves as THE rock band of Sengoku Basara.

TV Edits of the Viewtiful Joe Anime: Episode 17

In this episode, Joe and Alastor pose and Captain Blue and a made-up squid villain, respectively, in order to cheer up a little kid in the hospital voiced by Mona Marshall.  It's an episode that leans hard into the comedy aspect of this franchise so there isn't a lot that needed censoring.  When you don't need to cut for content, you cut for time.