Sengoku Basara - Chronicle Heroes : not sure if it's worth it

So I'm a recent Sengoku Basara fan. Well, recent is subjective. I played SB2 a bit with a friend, then got SB3 on PS3 and loved it. I've seen both seasons of the the SB anime as well.I was hoping that this game would be up to par with the games. It seems it wasn't.

Let me start off by saying I wasn't looking forward to stunning graphics or infinite amounts of content, new or not. I know what the PSP is capable of. So after I got the game, I just started playing without giving it too much thought.

The opening theme is once again done by T.M. Revolution, and once again it's a really catchy song, and it was enough to get me hyped up and eager to go in battle.

Then came the main menu. It was nothing like the SB3 menu, which was simple and had only a few choices. This has a lot more. It features a story mode, a challenge mode, a conquest mode, multiplayer and more. Also, kanji, kanji everywhere -_-

So I went in and tried conquest mode. I was happy to find out that most of my favourite characters were there. No Magoichi though, I hope you can unlock her somehow.

So I picked Oichi, and hoped her playstyle was intact. You know, she just used shadows for her attacks, she had life drain, AoE attacks, so I just loved using her. Here however, I found the first flaw. Oichi has been reworked. She suddenly uses her spears, and only one of her attacks features a shadow hand coming out of the earth and crushing the opponent, draining some of it's life in the process. It's not bad, but it's definitely worse than the beast she was in SB3.

Then I picked Masamune. Another one of my favourites, and since he's one of the main characters in this, I was hoping he'd remain pretty much the same. Well, he was, thankfully, so I played a few more battles.

At this point I should mention some facts that disappointed me. The battles, and the maps as well, were pretty short.The battles consisted of some groups of enemies and, after they died, the boss came out, you killed him, and that was it. Yes, it is as quick as it sounds. Two minutes or something for each battle. The battlefield itself is pretty small too. It's just a circular stage where you get enemies spawn out of nowhere till you kill the stage's boss.

One other thing I don't really like is the art. It seems pretty old-fashioned, I'm sure they did it to cut on the game size and to present a more appropriate feeling of the characters, closer to the feeling of Sengoku era, however it makes the game look cheap and badly developed as well.

I still haven't played the other modes so it may get more interesting, however such quick battles tend to get boring after a while. At least the character roster seems vast as well, so it'll be fun experimenting with each and every one of them.




Quick FAQ :
Q1 : Will I like it?
A : Regardless of the fact that it was not as good as I might have wanted it to be, it still remains a nice SB game. Definitely for fans, and others might like it too, since the gameplay is addicting, though fast so you might not like having to battle for only some minutes and then go back to the briefing screen.
Q2 : Is there an english translation or will there be in the future?
A : No, and probably not. It's a PSP game, and PSP sells poorly in the West, so chances are slim. Plus with PSVita in the corner, it's even more unlikely for a PSP game to be localized. Just play it in Japanese if you can, it's not that hard since you play it mostly for battles and not for story.
Q3 : Why is there no download link?Where can I find it?
A : The obvious answer. I never post download links in my blog. The nature of my posts is mainly informative. If you want to illegally obtain this game, you can search places like HongFire, PSP*SO and other similar sites. Google around a bit, and you'll easily find what you want.

I hope you enjoy it, at least more than I do!