Kessen Strategy games are the thinking mans type of game just take a look at games such as Command and conquer, Theme Park and even the Final Fantasy series to say that. Command and conquer requires you to think what your next move will be each time moving closer to completing the mission, Theme Park is completely different and requires you to be careful with what you spend so you don�t become completely out of pocket gold, and finally the Final Fantasy series requires thinking to decide what to do with the characters turn. So I guess you get my drift now, all those mentioned games are strategy games, but all are in very different styles of play, Kessen is certainly different. Set in the era of the Azuchi-Momoya(1573-1603)period and the Edo period(1603-1867), this truly is an unbelievable epic storyline but yet very hard for most of us to understand, the manual and the in game cut scenes do help a little though, but it�s time to get those history books out, if you do wish to learn more about this war. I can tell you it is a historical Japanese war between too mighty clans known to us as the Tokugawa and Toyotomi clans. You play as the Tokugawa clan, but the good thing about this is you are the commander and in complete control of your entire clan. You are leyasu Tokugawa his only ambition is DOMINATION. All the characters in the Kessen world were actually real living and breathing people. Misunari Ishida is the commander of the opposing clan, and the guy who you want to kill, to be victorious. That�s the best I can do with the story, but lets face it who cares, I don�t think the appeal of Kessen was the storyline, but at the end of the day it has a fine cast of warriors, some with their own storylines and others who just gently get lifted in to the story. It has a extremely complicated story, but how about the gameplay? It has a very pleasing tutorial to help beginners through the attacks and gameplay. Ok it seems complicated at first but hang in there and in less then one hour, you�ll know almost everything the entire game has to offer. Let me explain a little about the games system, you are in charge of your entire army, which requires you to tell your other commanders in charge of the battle units, what to do with their units, it is a clever system and requires some thinking to gain domination. Special attacks come in the form of some heavy artillery such as cannons etc, others include spear walls and a load more, but the graphics are the main talking point of Kessen, and that is what we are about to talk about in the paragraph below. Kessen comes on a DVD disc because of the amount of times you will view the FMV, battle attacks can be shown in gorgeous and shiny FMV as for the story. Horses kick up dust from the grassy terrains, soldiers attack in Braveheart style with swords and spears etc. Particle effects from cannons etc, also must be mentioned. The graphics also have a map style where you view it from above, not the best of graphics the latter, but it does work, despite rubbish animation. Ok Kessen has its moments, but it does have its flaws. For a start the game does get repetitive after a few solid hours of play, because of the lack of variety in the gameplay. The next negative point is that after completion you wont want to play again, and finally the game is just far too short, ok the battles can last an age but with only four or five battles right through the game it isn�t worth full purchase, I suppose it is saved by the fact that you can play as the other clan after you have won the first war, which adds a little more worth to the lifespan. Kessen is a great game to play with the feeling of war, and warriors on the edge, but it does have major flaws which spoil it from being a classic or coming close to be a classic for that matter. Chris Wigham 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |