Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara 1

Capcom has made some of my favorite game franchises of all time and there was even 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 and Devil May Cry is somewhere in the top 15.  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 and unfortunately one that Capcom has routinely squandered for anyone outside Japan: Sengoku Basara.

Sengoku Basara has an interesting history, particularly 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 is now the worst company in gaming, but to understand how the franchise got to that point, you have to know where it came from up to where it is today.  Everyone who has ever held a controller who hasn’t already needs to play these games.

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), what made/makes Capcom so bad or otherwise incompetent, and I have a lot to say about some of the spin-off media too, of which there is much.  I won’t go too into the production history because what matters to me most is the end result and the context of when they were released.

The starting point of the whole franchise is of course the very first game 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.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Review (and Capcom vs. SNK bonus round)

With Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves happily promoting a well-known potential rapist and tax evader, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 was my most anticipated game of the year and a huge deal for fighting games on the whole.  Just think that in the old days, having one of the games on a console was worth 50 dollars each and now they’re all in one place for 40 dollars.  Those games on consoles have had varying degrees of inaccessibility over the years, with one in particular being virtually impossible to play until now.

This new collection also means that it’s time for another addendum in this blog’s documented battle between SNK and Capcom.  Until this collection I couldn’t take Plasma Sword, Project Justice, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper or the first Capcom vs. SNK into consideration, but now just like with the Marvel Collection, that will be amended and Capcom will have the chance to break the tie and be the king of arcades.  I will still be going over the games I’ve already looked at as well to judge any subtle differences between the versions featured in this collection and the ports I played before.

Me Playing Magic: The Gathering

TV Edits of the Viewtiful Joe Anime: Episode 16

Joe and Junior travel to a flower field where a mysterious girl with magic powers named Alisa protects a miracle flower that never blooms.  This flower is supposed to allow for fairies to come to the human world.  Inconveniently this is right before Charles goes after it for an ingredient in his potion.