Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara 2

The first Sengoku Basara wasn’t exactly a big hit in Japan, but it was received well enough so a sequel was inevitable.  The first game had a lot of room for improvement, to put it lightly, so this was another chance to do the formula it established better and boy did it ever.  Sengoku Basara 2 is where the franchise really starts.  It’s like the Street Fighter 2 or Metal Gear Solid of Sengoku Basara.  Like those franchises, the improvements are so drastic, and the story so unrelated, that the first game can be ignored.

No T.M. Revolution.  We’re off to a… bad start?

The opening to Sengoku Basara 2 is kind of anomalous.  Only 2 games in, T.M. Revolution (and the singer’s other band, Abingdon Boy’s School) hadn’t cemented themselves as the Sengoku Basara band just yet so at this point Capcom was allowing others.  As a result, this is the only opening in a Sengoku Basara game not done by them.  Instead it’s by High and Mighty Color, a band with comparable prestige and popularity.

Capcom would later patch this inconsistency by replacing their opening song with a T.M. Revolution one for the HD Collection re-release.  I like High and Mighty Color, and the original opening is fine, but I think the loud, almost screaming singing and heavy guitar chugging of T.M. Revolution fits the franchise’s hardcore action and frenetic energy better.

The plot of Sengoku Basara 2 is not very different from the first game.  It’s the Sengoku period and everyone is fighting each other, but this time with a major new force entering the fray: Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the second unifier of Japan, and his trusted comrade Hanbei Takenaka.  Nobunaga in the first game was treated as the most feared and powerful of the warlords, but now Hideyoshi is given a similar treatment alongside the demon king.

Sengoku Basara 2 also introduces Toshiie’s nephew Keiji Maeda and some non-playable characters to fight, like Masamune’s confidant Kojuro Katakura and Nobunaga’s sister Oichi, alongside her arranged husband Nagamasa Azai.

While the setup hasn’t departed from the initial concept, each character’s story is front and center.  There is now a dedicated story mode with a separate conquest mode that closer resembles the single player mode of the first game.

Each character has their own story mode that begins and ends with a beautiful CG cutscene in which the character goes on some kind of adventure fighting through territories and castles.  Adventures like Yukimura finding a rival in Masamune, Nouhime trying to get to Honno-Ji and stop Mitsuhide from killing Nobunaga or Itsuki punishing “naughty samurai.”  Each story is 5 to 6 stages long and does a good job establishing and expressing each of the characters, including ones that got very little in the first game.  There's usually at least two missions in each story that are there for the sake of making the story longer, but even then there are character interactions to keep things interesting so it feels less like padding.

Sadly, the Manglobe anime cutscenes from the first game do not return, probably because with the way the stories are more focused and diverse, they wouldn’t be able to re-use them for multiple characters.  Instead Capcom upped their in-engine cutscenes to go beyond just character introductions.  Characters now have much more motion capture applied to their models for some storytelling mid-stage.  The cinematography and body movements for the in-engine cutscenes are well-done, the faces are static.  On one hand, this was after 3 Devil May Cry games, where facial animation was done to great effect, and it’s very odd they didn’t apply it here.  On the other hand, the realistic body motion capturing combined with the unmoving head models give off the vibe of a live action stage show or tokusatsu, where everyone is in costumes, and there’s an undeniable charm to that, especially with one particular group of elites who do an outright Super Sentai entrance.

 
The more extensive storytelling and more numerous story scenes highlights the big difference between the first game and this one: it’s complete instead of a beta like I said the first game was.  If this post seems shorter than the others it’s because there’s nothing new to say about the game’s mechanics.  Apart from a new taunt button used to boost the basara gauge, Sengoku Basara 2 plays exactly like the first game.  What makes all the difference is how everything ELSE changed.
 
The draw distance is no longer a problem.  It has practically quintupled compared to the first game and with that extra rendering there are far far more enemies that can be onscreen, allowing for huge mobs to mow down with your attacks and keeping the action frantic at all times while you watch all around you to plan your next move.  Stages are designed around the bigger draw distance too so there are only a scant few places where things can appear to fade into existence.
 
The stages themselves are much more dynamic, varied and have more detail and differing terrain.  Nobunaga’s Honno-ji stage has the option of traveling along the rooftops.  Toshiie’s stage is a large Cliffside with meadows, bridges and a cave.  Hideyoshi’s stage has you traveling up to the top of an enormous battleship and Keiji’s stage takes place in a big lantern-lit festival where his soldiers dance to music before they try to kill you.  Certain stages have gimmicks and exclusive challenges to spice things up as well, like Nobunaga’s Nagashino stage, where you have to try and stop supply soldiers from reaching him or else in the final battle he’ll have an enormous firing squad to help him.  Those flat, barren stages from the first game are a thing of the past.
 
Attacking enemies is far more satisfying.  In the original game, enemies fell with the same one or two canned animations when defeated.  In Sengoku Basara 2 there’s more death animations and variety in the ways soldiers react to damage or go flying from attacks, an important quality for any crowd-fighting beat-em-up.  This is helped by the aforementioned increase in the number of enemies onscreen.

There are no longer obviously useless special attacks and the special attacks from the first game have been buffed or nerfed as needed.  For example, that flash bomb attack I mentioned before now makes Sasuke temporarily invisible, causing enemies to ignore him, which is useful if you want to get past a particularly threatening set of enemies.  Sure some skills are a little impractical or situational, but they all have at least some utility.  Basara attacks have also been rebalanced so the stupid powerful ones are toned down in damage and the weak ones are given a boost to be more useful.  Someone actually play tested this one.

The music now consistently kicks ass.  Sengoku Basara 2 kept all the best tracks from the first game and packed them in with new ones, including themes for every character, all of which are bangers and would be used moving forward.

There are now over 20 characters and none of them are moveset clones.  Kasuga now has a new fighting style utilizing kunai and Motochika’s moveset now has him swinging an anchor around.  This is also where Motonari got his iconic ring blade.

Characters level up at a much faster pace and many items are no longer randomly dropped, but are instead purchased at the Basara Mart with money earned in-game, along with various upgrades and weapons.

There is no lack of content.  There is nearly triple the number of stages from the first game and there are two extra modes to play as well: conquest mode, where you play stages to conquer territories like the first game, and a battle tournament, where you fight a gauntlet of enemies in an arena setting. These extra modes can be a fun side activity to boost a character’s level if another mode is getting frustrating and they can unlock the new character-specific armor equipment that changes both a character’s stats and appearance.

Everything that the first Sengoku Basara did wrong Sengoku Basara 2 does right, with the exception of the lack of Manglobe anime cutscenes.  I miss those.  It’s one of the finest, most polished beat-em-up games ever made.  There’s just one big problem with it: the language.

Sengoku Basara 2 set Japan on fire and was a massive success.  It was with this game Capcom started pumping out the merchandise and hype for all things Sengoku Basara.  From manga to stage shows to spin-off games to Sengoku Basara’s Masamune being used for a “get out and vote” campaign, Sengoku Basara hit it big in Japan.

I have one of Shingen, but unfortunately the seller didn't seem to notice the banner was Kasuga's.

In Japan.  Not America.  I think the reason why is as such:

In a quiet room, CEO Crappy Com rested with his face buried in an enormous pile of white powder covering his desk.  Suddenly his subordinate Captain Obvious burst into the room.

“Sengoku Basara 2 is a huge success!” Captain Obvious yelled as Crappy remained motionless.  “Now we just have to get this thing to America!”

At those words, Crappy Com jumped out of his seat, face still covered in the powder.

“NO”, he yelled.  “NO!  Fuck them!  They didn’t like Devil Kings!  Fuck them!  They don’t fuggin’ like… Uh… Devil Basara.”  He then wiped some of the powder off his face and inhaled it out of his palm

A bewildered Captain Obvious did what he did best.  “Sir, the first game wasn’t… All that special and then you made it worse.  We can just translate it correctly this time.”

“They didn’t like our game!  They didn’t!  No game for them!  No sequel!  They don’t get it!  No!  No!  They don’t shit talk our game and get away with it!  Fuck them!”  At this point Crappy was hopping around the office in a rage.

“The reception wasn’t THAT bad.  Besides, this one is really good.  The Americans would love it,” Captain Obvious said, but before he could go on he was politely told to leave.

Regardless of Capcom’s efforts, Sengoku Basara 2 was one of the biggest titles for people who imported Japanese games and I even remember it being mentioned in passing at the time.  Since it had so many American fans, there are translations online for Sengoku Basara 2 for both story and menus from among the people who were playing it back then, but just like with the first game, the fact that I have to do that, coupled with the awful speaking style all the Japanese actors use, seriously puts a damper on my enjoyment in what is otherwise one of the all-time greats I’ve sunk many hours into.  Because of that I can only give Sengoku Basara 2 a 7 out of 10 instead of the 8 out of 10 it deserves.

With the Sengoku Basara hype train on track in Japan, Capcom followed up this title in a way similar to how they often do with their hit games: an expansion pack.  More on that next time.