by Temujin
Kessen III is a fairly recent release for the PS2. It's an action-strategy hybrid that works pretty well, with good voice actors, a large range of potential equipment and officers as well as battles that vary from very easy to quite difficult.
Sound 9/10
You can use either the English voice actors, who are excellent (Cam Clarke for example, who played Liquid Snake, is Mitsuhide Akechi) or the Japanese originals. There are some lines, rare though they are, that seem out of place, such as the main character's sister telling him "I can no longer overtake you" when she is being married off. The battle sound effects are perfect, with clashing spears and lightning strikes brought to life. The music can get a little repetitive, but fortunately it is almost without exception very good.
Graphics: 8.5/10
I was pleasantly surprised at the cutscene quality, which I was expecting to be adequate, but nothing special. They turned out to be veyr well done indeed, not up to FFX quality of course, but very watchable. The general backgrounds of the battlefields are equally good, although you can only 'see' a given distance, the background will not be blank but seem to stretch away with features (trees etc) loading up visibly sometimes.
Storyline 8/10
I'm not an expert on Japanese history, but from what I've gathered of the original 12 chapters (you get 13 on later playthroughs on hard or expert) up to about chapter 10 is historically accurate (more or less) but after that it's made up. There are some good moments, love, humour, betrayal etc, but after the 27th time Nobunaga Oda (the protaganist) lets off someone you know will betray you, you have to wonder how such a military genius could be such a poor judge of character.
Gameplay 9/10
Pretty impressive. Your generals can learn skills such as Strike which will hit enemy units with a bolt of lightning, your troop units have troop skills, such as a devastating cavalry charge and supporting units of archers, guns and (if you don't like victory) mattocks can lay down fire from a distance. Any general can learn any skill, but some will learn certain skills faster than others (Ninjas will learn Ninjutsu skills, the coolest of the bunch, faster than a Warrior will).
Here's the action bit. Every general can go on a Rampage, where he or she (oh yes, there are shes, including a sexy Dutch bird with an English accent) wade into the enemy ranks and kill up to 2-300 (if you're as good as me:p) enemy soldiers and also wounding the enemy commander. Either finishing off a unit this way, or beating up their commander will result in your officer's condition being improved.
Pre-battle you deploy your units in battalions (groups of 1-3 units that fight together), but in battle you can not only control any unit, you can order battalions elsewhere in the field to attack anyone or go anywhere you wish. Not only that, but you can switch between any given unit with a press of L2. Despite the large numbers of soldiers (a unit is typically represented by a score of individuals) on the screen there will almost never be any slowing down or suchlike. There have been a few exceptions, but I did have about 9 units onscreen together, which is rather excessive.
Your generals will be competent if left to their own devices (especially Nobunaga) but not as good as if you control them directly.
Extra stuff
You can gain new officers in various ways:
- Reaching a certain point in the story
- Getting a certain rank in a given battle (after each battle you get a grade from C, B, A to S which is the best)
- Finding them on a battlefield
- Completing the game once
- Loading up data from Samurai Warriors (a game by the same creators of this one)
There are also Scrolls available from the main menu. These are catalogues of all the items you've ever had (complete this to get some nifty armour), a battle list where you can replay old fights (and you can attain 3 special battles) and biographies of the characters in both the game and reality.