""You will fear my Tonbogiri!" - Tadakatsu Honda"

Kessen, a fascinating journey through the history of Japan. Kessen is a grand strategy game that takes place in ancient Japan and tells the story of Ieyasu Tokugawa's attempt to unify Japan. Kessen is more of an experience then a just a game, which is both a good and bad thing.

GRAPHICS - 10

It was simply to give the graphics a grade. This game leaves me breathless at almost everything it does. The amazing graphics are a great example of the PS2's capabilities, and this is only a first generation game. The opening FMV is reason enough to give this game a 10. The in game graphics are just as impressive as the opening. The character models are very detailed and very life-like, I have never seen such realistic looking people in video games. You can actually tell a character's emotion from the look on his face, anything from anger to fear. When in battle, the swings of swords and spears are very fluid with absolutely no clipping. Explosions, caused by cannons and gunfire, are equally as impressive. My only beef is that there is no blood. I don't want to seem like some violence-loving freak, but when you get in some up close battles with a spear and your stabbing people left and right you kind of expect at least a little blood, oh well. The out-map screen, were you move your units around, isn't all too impressive, but that matters little. Any graphic problems (which there are little of) are easily overlooked when you get to see a barrage of arrows flying through the sky and each individual troop try to avoid them, utterly amazing. If you want to see a very good example of PS2's power and potential either rent, borrow, or buy this game.

SOUND - 9

Amazing, emotionally driven, full orchestra music is what dominates the sound in this game. The background sounds resembles Braveheart with a slight mix of ancient Japan. The music also reminds me of Princess Mononoke (Great Anime). The background music does a great job of making the somewhat boring gameplay more intense and interesting and downright enjoyable at times. The music is a borderline work of art, I wish I could find the soundtrack for this game, thank god for Napster. The sound effects are also very impressive. The sound of cannon fire, sword clashes, horses galloping and the rest are all very well done. They do a good job of making you feel like your really there in the middle of the battle. You can hear all kinds of different sounds in the middle of a battle ranging from peoples screams to gunfire. Another great example of the amazing sound in this game is the great voice overs. It seems to be quite rare for a game to have even average voice overs, so for this game to have such great voice overs is incredible. Each general and main character (and there are a lot of them) has their own unique voice. Each general also has their own battle cries that they scream before and during each battle and some of them are hilarious. All-around the sound in this game is quite excellent.

GAMEPLAY - 6

This is sadly where the game gets a bit weak, and this is one of the most important parts. Like I said earlier at the beginning, this game feels more like a experience then a game. What I meant is that you really don't really control a whole lot. The game kind of feels like a interactive book, or something. All you really do in the game is format your troops before a battle and them tell where to go during one. Even though it requires strategy to pick and choose where to move your troops, it seems a bit weak when all you do is see your troops battle with little interactivity. You can issue special commands like ''retreat'' or ''charge'', but that isn't much. You can also command your troops to do special attacks like ''barrage'' or ''spear wall'', but you still feel a bit bored because at times your just sitting there doing nothing while watching your troops battle which gets boring real fast. The control of the game, like most strategy games, is mostly point and click. Actually that's about all the control, you point and click and the troops move. Between battles you do very little, you pretty much just watch the story progress and then pick which generals you wish to bring into the next battle. A some what creative feauture is that you have the ability to try to get a enemy general to defect to your side, which is kinda cool. The great music and graphic, but average gameplay, make this game more beautiful then fun.

STORY - 9

I love the fact that this game is based on actually Japanese history. You play as Lord Ieysyu Tokogawa, who is the Supreme Commander of the Eastern Forces and he wishes to unite Japan. Before he can unite Japan he must deal with the western forces Leader Hideyori Toyotomi who is married to Tokogawa daughter, great stuff. The game does a great job of presenting the story in a serious manner. At times you almost feel like your in a very fascinating history lesson, and I mean that in a good way. It can get kind of confusing at times when they are so many names of generals and locations that you try to remember. To fix this problem the game include a in-game biography that you can access at anytime and it gives detailed information on every general, and I mean EVERY general. There's al ot of detail to the story that you don't have to know to enjoy the game which is a good thing. This game has both a very memorable story and very memorable characters.

REPLAY - 7

The game also kind of suffers here too. The main problem is that the game is far too short. I believe there was only 6 or 7 battles and then you have beat the game, which is not right at all. I'll admit that most of the battles are pretty long and will take you more then one sitting to finish, but with still only about 6 battles means it will not take you very long to finish at all. Once you beat the game you can play as the first leader of western Japan, Mitsunari Ishida. This feature is kind of cool and adds a some replay, but there's a good chance that you won't really feel like playing the game all over again just with a different story. The fact that this game has a pretty good means you'll be playing it, but since it is very short you will beat it pretty quickly. There are actually different paths that can be taken in the game, but they are solely based on whether you win or lose a battle and it doesn't change things that much. The lack of strong replay really hurts this game from being a possible strategy classic.

CHALLENGE

The challenge is not all to strong. There are a couple battles that are somewhat difficult, but you can most likely beat them first try. The somewhat simple difficult of this game is not a good thing because the story changes depending on whether you win or lose a battle. I won every battle the first time through with little difficulty meaning that if you want to see the rest of the game you have to pretty much have to purposely lose a battle, which is sadly not as easy as it sounds. It's never good for a strategy game to be somewhat easy and in the end the game suffers because of it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kessen is a pretty fun game the first time through, due to the impressive graphics, sound, and story. But because of the somewhat weak gameplay and replay, it is unlikely you will through a second time. If you own the game already there is a good chance that it is collecting dust on your shelf unless you show it off by showing the beginning to your friends a lot (which I did). In the end, I would not really suggest spending $40-$50 on this game, but if you can find it used cheap or for rent and you are a strategy fan you might enjoy this game a bit more then I did.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

Ogre Battle (PSX/SNES)
Starcraft (PC)

I can't think of many games to recommend because this game kind of stands out on its own, sorry.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/20/01, Updated 01/20/01