When it comes to shonen manga, anime and games, there are few with as much knowledge and love as the Shonen Otaku. Join me as we look at all different varieties of action-packed media. Mostly games.
When Capcom makes a hit game, it’s almost a compulsion for
them to also make an updated version of it later.It’s a practice almost synonymous with Capcom and Sengoku Basara 2
follows that tradition with Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes, or at least it kind of
does.
That is one of the best openings ever and it made me buy Blade Chord on the itunes store.
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.
In this episode, Joe and Junior are in a futuristic city and one of the robot servants there washes the V-watch, causing Joe's mach speed to go out of control and function as a flux capacitor. I'm pretty sure the film they're in is Metropolis, which is supported by the city being named Mechatropolis. I can't imagine there's a lot that would need editing for this episode, but let's see.
In a well-lit office building on the top floor, an executive
of a major gaming company inhales a line of a white powdery substance through a
straw up his nose. We will call him
Crappy Com.
Shortly after, Crappy Com’s subordinate comes in.This subordinate knows a thing or two about
game design and what people like in a game.We will call him Captain Obvious.
“Sengoku Basara is a decent hit,” says Captain Obvious.“We should get it ready for America.”
Crappy twitches and stares at nothing in particular.“Yeah.Yeah.America.Yeah,” he says.“I have an idea though.What if we, like, do that, but make it NOT Japan?No Japan.Americans hate Japan.Yeah.”Crappy then sniffs a dribbling nose.
“That’s a terrible idea”, says Captain.“Being in Japan the entire premise.It’s where the title comes from.”
“Glad you like it.Let’s do it!”
And thus, Devil Kings was born.
No T.M. Revolution.We’re already off to a bad start.
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.
