11/20/00

Kessen Review

Platform: PlayStation 2
Developer: KOEI
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Difficulty: Easy - Hard

What do you think of when you hear the word "Kessen?" A extremely difficult strategy based PC Game? The fourth installment of Romance Of The Three Kingdoms? Well you close, but you definitely don't get the cigar. Kessen is KOEI's latest Strategy based title. Coming along for the ride with the PS2 as a launch title along with it's sister game Dynasty Warriors 2. Kessen truly holds it's own. Showing DVD Capabilities, impressive sound, and jaw dropping graphics. Kessen is a must have for any of you Japanese history buffs. Of course not all of us are big on Japanese history. Kessen to us feels more like living history then actually playing a game who's main purpose (surprise!) is to take over the word...or I mean Japan. This tends to be a problem. Why is this a problem? Simple, in order to play the game you must know how the game is going to go.

The story is the biggest part of the game. This game will truly defeat the saying "Games don't teach you anything." After this game is done with you, you are going to be able to tell all your friends what happened in early Japan. Well Kessen is translated into "Decisive Battle." Now the game will refer back to this saying around your second battle into the game. What's the importance of it? you will see. Now lets hit the history books shall we. Back in early Japan around the late 1500's, this is the Azuchi-Momoyama era(1573-1603). Japan is under the rule of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the once considered most powerful man in all of Japan. Hideyoshi rose up from the slums of the largest Japanese cities into the leading spot on the team and became the big dog (Shogun). Hideyoshi is determined to make sure his power is not threatened, He wanted to do this in a way that would not cause a revolt, or make himself look bad. So he made the sword hunt, this made all the farmers and Samurai loose their precious swords and weapons. This made a large social class and increased his control over the people. When he died, he left not a member of the Toyotomi family, but Leyasu Tokugawa as his successor. The Toyotomi did not like Leyasu very much, and Leyasu didn't like the Toyotomi family very much. So Leyasu Tokugawa sent out to destroy the western army (Toyotomi family) in order to give peace to the land. Taking notes yet? Well you should, it gets pretty interesting after this. Over all the story line is pretty good mixing the basics of loyalty, hatred, love, and betrayal in it to make the final plot. However the process of skipping every 20 years got annoying. I lost generals that I loved and didn't know about it. Not to mention the fact that if the games battles skip every few years, why doesn't Tokugawa age?

The controls are possible the most irritating controls I have ever played with. The controls feel scattered in a way. You end up making to many mistakes due to the placement of the buttons! It's not the controllers fault, its the programmers fault. It feels weird learning the combinations and the different uses of each button. Luckily you can make the pad feel like your own, but I wouldn't make it any harder then it already is. you never really get to move your units using the direction pad in battle, you only get to point out the position they must go, then they screw up and you have to redo it all over again. Controls can be both important or well, not. You just need to be able to react fast which at some times can be a problem. Since you must react fast having oh say a few thousands troops, give or take a few under your command, reaction time is a must. I found that if you do not check every unit at least once every three minutes that unit could be completely wiped out in some battles and the opposing army can easily take over your main unit and change history forever. This isn't good, but it can happen. Kessen isn't just about battles though, you also have good ol' politics. Now politics to us is Al Gore and George bush down in the sunny state trying to gather some votes, but in Kessen it's much more interesting. In politics you must arrange and plan your battle. Here you select your generals and strategy. Every time though a plan is already made out, but as the leader, you can change it any way you would like. Then of course you have your generals and army units. What are you going to do with these? Well in Kessen your limited to how many you can take to battle but you are able to change the generals around as well. This means you can have all your big generals out in the opening sending cannon balls up in the air crashing down on a few hundred enemy soldiers. Also the net thing I found interesting was the fact that you can actually urge enemy generals to join you. Each general has a small meter under their name that states who they favor most. Now some of your enemies generals could like you more then their leader, or it can be the other way around. This means their big guys can join you and then attack against their leader. This method is a double edged sword, because it can also happen to you. A easy way to prevent this though is to appoint generals that ether hate the western army, or just have complete loyalty to you. You decide.

Graphics in this game are absolutely amazing! They seem real in a sense and KOEI didn't lie when they said they could fit a hundred men on the screen doing different things at once. I found no slow downs during game play, and the special attacks are something to remember. However the actual graphics are hard to determine. They have so many differences. Your over head views on the maps, the close up fighting, the duels, and even the barrages all get different ratings. The cut scenes though can get some attention, their mouths move! they actually have eyes that look like eyes, and they look life like in a sense, almost like you and me. One thing struck my mind when playing the game though, where's the blood? I just seen the guy get stabbed with a sword and what! no blood! This makes the game have no sense of realism. Now if I stabbed you would you stand their and fall down with green sparks coming out of your wound? I sure hope not! I thought for a battle game this was beyond stupid, possible ESRB got to KOEI before we did. Then there's the repetitive animations. Sure the first time is cool, I must admit I was stunned that the graphics were that good. However after the 19th time it must stop! I only wish they had a option to turn this off.

The sound and music in Kessen is amazing. The battle music can actually make you feel like battling. The sound effects made by the cannons, the guns, the men running to get their next victim, all sounds real! However the voice overs fall between bad and crap. it appears they didn't have enough voice overs in the game. I heard the same words, the same voice, come out of different generals. The expression "I shall Defeat the enemy" got old fast. Luckily the cut scenes give more then enough audio to please you.

Replay in the game is almost not needed. The game is very short and not to mention each battle is almost identical. This makes you feel as if your replaying the last one. It has a tendency to repeat itself several times and often this gets boring. The battle scenes and special attacks are the same in each battle and get very boring seeing the same attack over and over. The attacks the first time are interesting, the second time ok, but the third time is enough. This will be a problem if you plan on having variety in your games. After you beat the actual game, you have the option of playing as the Western army. This will not only add to the game itself, but gives you the chance to see the enemies point of view. Still, the attacks and battles are repetitive in this as well.

Graphics: 7: As I said before, some scenes deserve a 10, while others deserve a 5, so I averaged them all out and came up with 7.

Sound: 6: The battle music is very nice but the lack of voice overs killed the game. Hearing the same voice is not what I call fun.

Control: 4: I just can't take it! The control is so confusing that it makes you mad. Now after a while it isn't, but in the first three hours it's a hard ride.

Replay: 2: The game is a constant replay. Every level seems the same, and every battle seems like the one before it. There is no point in playing the game a second time.

Over All: 7: For a launch title Kessen wasn't half bad. Sure the controls and repetitive voice overs were terrible. But the animations and cut scenes were very nice and made up for that. Now why did I give it the difficulty of easy-hard. Well as I said it's a game that likes to repeat itself, so after a while battles get easier. Japanese buffs don't hold out, Kessen is the game for you, but if your just an average Joe looking for a quick game pick this game up. I would rent this game first before buying.

                                                          

                                         
-Jake

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