Official Tumblr page of the Yeonchi Network. Main interests include Doctor Who, tokusatsu, the Yui Hirasawa Waifu Network, Sea Princesses and Koei Warriors games. I don't take naysayers lightly.
Last month, Alex Williamson was "indefinitely suspended" by his footy club after posting a "deeply offensive" video which (iirc) made fun of the fact that Jefferson Lewis was allowed near a child immediately after being released from prison, given his history of assault and domestic violence, resulting in Kumanjayi Little Baby going missing six days after. Yes, it may have been tasteless, but the reaction to it only served to prove his point... and showed that nobody calling him out for it watched the video.
This month, Lisa Jane Spencer was fired by her workplace, Peninsula Hot Springs, after people mobbed them online over a video she posted mocking indigenous community and identity. Pfft, consequences, more like overreaction, amirite? And yet they claim to be "inclusive" while the people supporting her firing have never lifted a finger for the communities in the outback whose issues were being called out.
What does it mean to have an impact on a franchise? For me, I’ve shared fanart, contributed to wikis and worked to make otherwise obscure media visible through transcription, translation and archival. My work may be underappreciated, but I still consider it important, particularly when it comes to obscure franchises in danger of becoming lost media. And when it comes to obscure and niche works that I happen to like, I take the opportunity to spotlight them and give them the mainstream (English) recognition they deserve.
Hello and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. Let’s get a bit more serious here because I’m going to be starting a new series. Welcome, my friends, to the Combo Rangers Retrospective, part of the Fabio Yabu Extravaganza.
In this series, I intend to transcribe, translate and review the entirety of the Combo Rangers series, which consists of the Flash webcomics (the ball phase, Zero and Revolution) and the print comics (the Revolution trilogy, JBC and Panini). The “We Are” Universe graphic novel trilogy was already translated and reviewed in 2022-23.
This is going to be a slow-burn project, so expect things to be released slowly over a longer period of time. The main reason for this is because I’m juggling between different projects, plus I haven’t had to put in as much effort into transcription and translation since the Sea Princesses book reviews in 2020, so I need some time to get back into the groove and figure out an optimal workflow.
There's already an English Wikipedia page and a TV Tropes page for the series, yet there are no English releases for the original webcomics and print comics. The reboot graphic novels (well, officially, two of them, anyway) are already in English, so it stands to reason that everything else deserves to be translated, particularly since they're literal throwbacks for fans of the original comics.
The Fabio Yabu Extravaganza is the unofficial name for an overarching set of reviews that also covers my reviews of Sea Princesses and the Combo Rangers graphic novel trilogy. Aside from all this, two more works from Fabio Yabu will be translated (as a warm-up), which are The Last Princess (A Última Princesa) and The Return of Juspion (O Regresso de Jaspion). These were the only (interesting) books I could get at this time; if other interesting books from Yabu become available later on then I might consider getting them to translate.
The Last Princess is a work I thought would be connected to Sea Princesses but it actually isn’t - as you’ll find out, it’s a part-fantastical part-historical story based on an exiled Brazilian princess whose story has been forgotten over the years. The Return of Juspion is the result of a collaboration between JBC, Sato Company and Toei, therefore it is an officially-sanctioned sequel work to the original 1985 series. Its original release in 2018 (before being delayed to 2020) was intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series being broadcast in Brazil and the 110th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil; this announcement of the translation comes 40 years after the series originally concluded in Japan.
So, about how to download the Combo Rangers raw materials… you know how I highlighted a site where all of the Flash animations and old comic issues could be downloaded through 4shared links? Recently, 4shared has been wanting users to create an account even if they log in through social media, which previously, was enough to be able to download anything. Now, some people may not want to create an account on 4shared for whatever reason, so I intend to host the files on my cloud drive folder. It doesn’t take up a lot of space, after all.
The Combo Rangers comics are straightforward enough (in terms of hosting), but the Flash webcomics are a little more complicated. See, when I acquired the Flash files, they were delivered in .exe format. Each of the .exe files include the original .swf file within a Flash projector, which means that you can just double-click the file and the Flash .swf will open without needing to install additional software. However, there is a concern that .exe files might contain viruses (even though these files don’t), and if your laptop was provided by your school or work, then they might have policies in place to prevent unknown .exe files from running, not to mention that they don’t work on phones or tablets.
Since the .exe files are already available on 4shared (via the linked site) and the Internet Archive, I’ve taken the liberty of extracting the .swf files from them and those are the files that I’ll be hosting. But how do you open them? I recommend using the Ruffle Flash emulator on all platforms, but if you have your own solution (or want to use the .exe files), then you may do so at your own risk.
Because the Flash animations were originally created for computers, it may be a bit hard to view them or navigate between pages on phone screens. You can connect a mouse to it to assist with navigation, but I recommend viewing the animations on a bigger screen, whether you connect your phone to a screen (if it has that capability) or use a tablet or computer. The animations upscale very easily on modern monitors because of how Flash files are rendered, but there are elements that go out of the frame border which I’ll attempt to detail in the transcripts.
The first three episodes of Revolution are fully animated and voiced, but they have also been adapted into a three-issue miniseries. I plan to release English (and Portuguese-transcribed) subtitles for them, so it might be a bit of a stumbling block in terms of progress because this series is best completed in order.
I did also have plans to do a screenshot/screencap release to make it easier for mobile users, but because of how Flash works I decided to just provide the .swf files instead. I’ll try to add descriptions for any moving scenes to the transcripts in case you’re not viewing them side-by-side with the animations.
All raws, transcripts and translations will be hosted in my cloud drive folder here. A separate document has also been created for me to document the time it takes to transcribe and translate everything. The reviews of the webcomics will be published in groups, then the reviews of the printed comics will be published individually, so follow me and the #combo rangers retrospective tag (on Tumblr or RSS) to see each post as they come out. Whether you've read them in the past or you'll be reading them for the first time, I hope you'll join me on my mission to bring the Combo Rangers (back) to the world.
Kisekae Insights #67: We Didn't Start the Time War
For this last filler instalment I’ve got something special for you. In 2013, I made a special parody of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire for the 50th Anniversary Series, summarising the events of my version of Doctor Who, classic and modern. Please enjoy.
We Didn’t Start the Time War
(First Doctor)
Gallifrey, Stone Age, Daleks, The Singing Sands,
Velvet Web, Sensorites, Oldlin Mezatai,
Yunfo, Invasion Earth, Chase chase, exterminate,
Touch screen, Loneliness, Exile on Earth.
Autons, Silurians, Mars, UNIT, Parallel Earth,
Airport to Hong Kong, Richard Yang is born,
Wedding day, Muchiki, Total China Mystery, Orient, Kyushu, Osaki goodbye!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Second Doctor)
Kimia, Cheng Xieyun, Yusha and Alex too,
Botanical, Southgate, shopping centre,
Paige R, Hannah S, Matthew J, Minnie Xia,
Brigadier again, "The Sound of Music",
Tiffany, James Nolan, Simon’s getting married,
Lyn Sheperd, Becky C, Lovelust, Hong Kong again,
Violence, Stranglement, Liam B, Elaine,
Threatening, Death knives, Simon’s getting divorced!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Second/War/Third Doctors)
Kookaburra, Blast guns, Dalek Dorks, Dinghai-Wuzi,
Natsuki, Sisters of Karn, “Doctor no more”
Colleen, Glenice Mac, Qigong, Clifton Hill
Jamie N takes his girl, Tiffany no more, Oh-oh-oh.
(Third Doctor)
Bad Wolf, Chibi falls, Fifi Forget-me-not,
Slitheen, Downing Street, Winter Wonderland,
Ferris Wheel, Rosebud, Modogawa, Shangkar,
Angelina Ballerina, Garfield and a Dalek!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Fourth Doctor)
Allons-y, New Earth, Torchwood Institute
Cybermen, TV, Daleks, Goodbye Fifi,
Kagami Hiiragi, Smith and Izumi,
Sonic and Tails, Grand Lord Specter,
Gensokyo, Tsukasa, Antoni’s killing us,
JDC and the Master, what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Fifth Doctor)
Ricchan, Ironsides, Weeping Angels back again,
Van Gogh, Yuzuru, Kanade, Kongming,
Pony Doctor, Doctor Whooves, Silence, Kikuchi,
Daleks in Equestria, Simon’s found Yukari,
Wen Tao Gardens, Salacia War, Takumi and Kumiko,
Snowmen, Sombra, Clara, Squiddie, Takeru,
Sontarans in Tokyo, Alliance got Hideko,
Going to Koshi Castle, I can't take it anymore!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on…
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it...
“But what about Next Gen and Moushouden?” I got you covered, fam. Last year in preparation for Decade Legend Fighters, I made a new version of We Didn't Start the Time War focused on those series. It was based on Fall Out Boy’s 2023 cover of the song and because they cut out a verse and made the song a little shorter, you would have to rewind the song towards the end then go back to the end after my extra verse (which is indicated in the lyrics).
We Didn’t Start the Time War 2025
(Series 8)
Strawberry Ichigo, Doctor Who is back again,
CNY Specials, Project Next Gen Series
Christmas Carol, Echizen, Mortein, Kamelion,
Sea Devils, Gravis, the Master and the Daleks
(Series 9)
Satoyuki, Momoka, Dashie Dasher in the TARDIS,
Angelina Ballerina back into the fold,
Yokohama, Odawara, Nagashino, Popei One,
Sekigahara, Ōsaka, Honnōji goodbye!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Series 10-12)
Sendai VCE panic, Clara four years later,
Rusty, Listen, Skovox, Architect
Boneless, Missy, Antoni, Ashildr, Bonnie, Osgood,
Danny Pink, Santa Claus, Fisher King, ghosts
Sleep No More, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent,
River, Nardole, Bill Potts, Monks, Mars, Cybermen,
Harold Saxon comes back, original Doctor too,
I let you go, Believe in Me, we’re taking you another way!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Gokaiger/Decade)
Gokai Change, Kamen Ride, Sentai Ranger, Rider Time,
Girl Power, Dai-Shocker, a massive Zangyack fleet is here,
Elwood City, Sodor, Auckland, Wales, Salacia,
Space Squad, Age of Riders, a passing-through Kamen Rider
(Three Kingdoms)
Samukawa, Xiangyang, revolutions everywhere,
Flowertots, race cars, the Special Unit rules,
Unifying the land, conquering everything,
JIMPS, flips, cousin wars, birth of a wanderer!
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Soulbound)
Soulbound, Parallax, Ouka, Skaro, Normal World,
Shinbu, Mogoro, Eigen, Suirin, Densei,
Hayasaka, Enozaki, Gechorusa, RintaRyo,
Jeopardy, Metallic 5, TeruMino, SEPTAN,
Ultraman Ginga, Hikaru gets his life back,
Crestor C, Dimension Merge, what else do I have to say?
(you should be at 2:51 now, go back to 1:01 from this chorus)
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it.
(Zi-O)
Overlords, servant Woz, Time Jackers jacking time
Another Riders, Time Mazines, nexus point forever,
Future Riders, Zi-O II, Geiz Revive, Trinity
Woz Ginga, Ohma Zi-O, Tsukuyomi ABC
(Decade Legend Fighters)
Zeni Zeni, Legend, Zero-One and Saber,
Revi, Vice, Revice, Geats, Gotcha Gotcha Gotchard, Gavv,
Cross of Fire, Bites The Dust, memory blown away,
Decade fights Zeni Zi-O, I can’t take it anymore!
(now go back to 2:51 to finish the song)
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the Time War,
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on…
We didn't start the Time War,
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning.
And now for a bonus special track. After the crew produced a 500 Miles music video to wrap up production in 2012, Philip Zhou worked with a couple others on a remake of The Ballad of Russell and Julie before going on to work on the 50th Anniversary Series (when originally that song was made to commemorate the end of the RTD1 era).
The Ballad of Philip and Katie
Katie (Huang) and Philip (Zhou) sat one night.
Philip sparked up a Marlboro Light.
Katie’s eyes were all ablaze,
As Philip tried to shun her gaze.
He knew the look, he knew the score;
It seemed more manic than before.
Philip cringed in fear and dread
As Katie pulled him near and said:
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
I’ve had a really good idea.
We’ll re-vamp, make more camp
A sci-fi show from yester-year.
I’ve had banter with Tranter.
Your written word will be hailed in the ming mong mantra.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
But he said…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
You’re asking far too much of me.
I’m harassed, embarrassed;
I’ve watched the show since I was three.
Don’t choose me, don’t use me,
My mother sent a note to say you must excuse me.
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
So she said…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
Make a brand new Doctor Who.
We’ve got James back, all’s missing
Is a sidekick and an all-Welsh crew. (the 2012 RFC reboot actually started with a continuation of the Fourth Doctor era in 2011, the first few series were also actually produced in Tokyo)
It’s not silly to ask Rusty. (Russell T Davies)
We’ll film in every quarry from here to Caerphilly.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
Ooh, then he said…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
The pressure of the RFC.
I must e-mail some young male
To alleviate the stress on me.
I can’t block out, please lock out,
Images of Kagamine (Len) getting his cock out.
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
She replied…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
Phil okayed my offer to produce.
We’ll get Trac to take flack
When he lets his raging temper loose.
My decision to use your vision
Will make the show the best thing on the television.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
And he squawked…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
James is giving up his role.
No Time Lord? Oh good Lord,
How we’re gonna fill this role?
It’s too complex, we’re all wrecks.
My brain is overflowing with a bloody Dalek.
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
She excitedly said…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
We’ll get another Time Lord in.
Don’t sweat it, you can’t let it
Make you sad and maudlin.
It’s not over, and moreover,
We’ll get the lovely fellow in from Every Move You Make. (Philip Zhou played the main character Linus Yiu in this)
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
And he yelled…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
I really think that I can’t cope.
More re-writes, no respite-
I think I’ve given up all hope.
It’ll get canned, it’ll be panned.
Lou says there’s no costumes in the whole of Tokyo.
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
Then she proclaimed…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
Tenshi Tachi (Kanade Tachibana) is Emily Neves.
We’ll bring back Captain Jack
To fight against the Cybermen.
We’ll cast a great Master, (it was actually Zhuge Liang/Parker Zhou as Paul Lee lmao)
He can plunge the planet into global disaster.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
And he screamed…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
You’ve cast Ishinomaki’s pop princess. (the real-life inspiration for Akari Ichigo)
It’s madness, my sadness
Will make this episode a mess.
My panic is manic-
The uproar when I ship her with that handsome looking boy! (Hiroki Ichigo)
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
And she expelled…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
The Doctor needs a brand new mate.
Don’t linger, go ginger.
I’m gonna bring back Cassandra Lee.
I wanna, you’re gonna,
Reunite the Doctor with the fabulous Ricchan. (this was when Series 6 adapted BBC Series 7 Part 1)
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
He punctuated…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
I’ve got obsessed with Come Home Love.
Writer’s block. Please don’t mock,
It takes my mind off other things.
It’s so lame,
I must blame dirty thoughts I’m having about Clara Oswald.
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
Excitedly she said…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
To film abroad will get my vote.
I promise Ed Thomas can’t bring Saitama to Cardiff Bay.
It’s D-Day in Tokyo;
The comments will be buzzing on Nico Nico Douga.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
And he roared…
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it!
The studio in Wen Tao’s ablaze.
On fire, it’s dire-
How the hell are you not phased?
It’s mental. Be gentle.
They say the cause of fire was a Berkley Menthol. (I don’t remember exactly but I recall there was a small fire in a bin that we quickly put out, idk it was over 10 years ago lol)
I can’t do it!
I can’t do it tonight!
So she roared…
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
We’ve got kids back behind settees.
Our mission, ambition,
Was a show for all the families.
We should try as our goodbye
A hassle-free excursion to Canterlot, Equestria. (The Curse of the Crystal Empire)
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
Then he shouted…
Oh, let’s do it!
Let’s do it!
I feel like I’ve been set free.
I won’t sweat it, now (Brian) Minchin
Is taking up the reins from me.
I can’t wait, it’s just great-
I’ve got a cracking way for Hiroki to get married.
Let’s do it!
Let’s do it tonight!
Guess what?
They did it!
They did it!
They opened up the TARDIS door.
They’re terrific, prolific.
Made it better than it was before!
A ‘thank you’ from your crew.
We crown you both the King and Queen of Doctor Who.
You did it!
You did it tonight!
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 7: The Death of Sengoku Basara
Sengoku Basara had a good run in its decade-long heyday. It’s a series that has had its fans and while its appeal came from giving individuality to the characters and embracing its outlandishness over realism, it would never trump Koei Warriors games on various factors.
Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi was the last mainline/expansion game in the series released in 2015, followed by a spinoff Yukimura-den in 2016. Since then, while Capcom are continuing to peddle merchandise and pursue collaborations to keep reminding people that this series exists, no further games have been announced, and they’re also killing off some of their older games on the PSN Store even before the entire store closes for older platforms.
The ironic thing about Sengoku Basara was that it began life as a risky gambit by Capcom to stop them from going in the red for a third year in a row, and yet it wasn’t willing to take the risks necessary to keep the series going in the West, or whatever risks they took didn’t yield the results they were hoping to see.
In this conclusion to the Sengoku Basara Retrospective, we take a look at how the series died, why it’s not coming back and why the series only had two attempts at localisation.
Decline and Decay
Let’s take a look at what else happened in extended media after 2014.
Following the release of Sengoku Basara 4, the Judge End/End of Judgement anime premiered in July 2014. Although Takanori Nishikawa did not sing the opening theme for it, he did voice Tadatsugu Sakai. Later in October 2018, the Gakuen Basara anime premiered, adapting a comic anthology published since 2007 showing the characters in a modern-day school, the Basara Academy. Where the original anime series was produced by Production I.G, Judge End/End of Judgement was produced by Telecom Animation Film while Gakuen Basara was produced by Brains Base. For Gakuen Basara, Miyuki Sawashiro reprised her role as Itsuki from the mobile game (replacing her original seiyuu, Tomoko Kawakami) and Toshiki Masuda filled in for Ieyasu Tokugawa as his original seiyuu, Tōru Ōkawa, was on hiatus due to illness. This would also be the last appearance of Kōji Tsujitani, who voiced Nagamasa Azai, as he died of a stroke on 17 October 2018, early into the anime’s run.
In addition, Keiji Fujiwara, who voiced Hisahide Matsunaga, died of cancer on 12 April 2020 and most recently, Kōzō Shioya, who voiced Xavi and Yoshimoto Imagawa, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 20 January 2026.
Sengoku Basara’s stage shows would continue running twice a year (which it had on average since 2012) until 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic led the live performance to be cancelled. Apparently they sold the merchandise for the show online and later ended up recording the performance but I haven’t seen any DVD releases for it. No further performances have come from the series after that.
A new Sengoku Basara mobile game, Battle Party, was released on 24 June 2019. It was a 6-v-6 gacha game that featured the new characters from Yukimura-den along with two new characters, Kiyomasa Katō and Komatsu(hime, aka Ina in Samurai Warriors) and an NPC navigator, Okuni. Apparently it was a flop due to the large number of bugs and glitches and it only lasted for 18 months, terminating service on 21 December 2020.
On 21 July 2020, Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi was rereleased with a physical Anniversary Edition and a digital Anniversary Set, combining a digital version of the game with a pack of all DLC sold for it (albeit with extra consumables instead of the element-changing weapons released as bonuses). After that, Battle Heroes was removed from the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and PS Vita on 29 October 2025, then the same happened for the PS3 port of 4 Sumeragi on 13 February 2026.
But perhaps the final nail in the coffin is the departure of producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi from Capcom at the end of March 2022 after 27 years. He went to join Chinese game developer NetEase, and later that year, became the chairman of their new Japanese subsidiary studio, GPTRACK50. He also scouted out lead programmer Shinya Shigeyoshi to join GPTRACK50 and their first game, Stupid Never Dies, is set to release sometime in 2026.
Until recently I was unable to find what happened to director Makoto Yamamoto. Supposedly, he was never heard from again after the end of the series because he isn't known to be on social media, but thanks to me finding an interview with Yamamoto released in April 2026, we finally learn that he is now working at Binary Haze Interactive and that he was producer and director on their latest game, TOKYO SCRAMBLE, released this past February for the Nintendo Switch 2. Funnily enough, Binary Haze Interactive was founded in 2020 by a Hiroyuki Kobayashi 小林 宏至, not to be mistaken for the Basara Hiroyuki Kobayashi 小林 裕幸 who founded GPTRACK50. (Seriously, I looked up the former's Japanese name and the main results were for a Hiroshi Kobayashi, what the hell?)
Sengoku Basara is a Capcom IP and with how franchises created by employees belong to companies, the prospect of another Sengoku Basara game would be next to impossible.
To import or not to import
Sengoku Basara’s localisation decisions can be described as short-sighted and erratic.
When the decision was made to localise the first game, Kobayashi and the team thought that Westerners wouldn’t enjoy a game based on Japanese history and they decided to capitalise on Devil May Cry’s success by 4Kids-ing the localisation and framing it as a sort-of spinoff game to the series. They also changed the names of the difficulties (on top of adjusting the battle mechanics) to make the game feel harder than it seems, but they adjusted the rewards in the wrong direction, ie Easy difficulty is Japanese Normal difficulty but you earn 0.7 times the EXP, while Normal difficulty is Japanese Hard difficulty but the rewards are equivalent to Japanese Normal difficulty. Unsurprisingly, this game was a failure in the West in sales and reviews and the subsequent sequel and expansion were not localised.
However, things would change later on down the line. The new wave of popularity brought along by Sengoku Basara 2 and Heroes spawned numerous spinoff mediums, including an anime series that was also dubbed in the West. Amidst the growing demand for another localised game, Capcom decided to take another chance and localised Sengoku Basara 3 as Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes. They learnt their lessons from Devil Kings and left all the Japanese references and imagery intact, though they still adjusted the difficulty names to make the game seem harder than it appears while also adding an Easy difficulty since the lowest difficulty in Japanese is Normal difficulty.
Perhaps due to the lack of diversity in gameplay modes or a Japanese voice option, Samurai Heroes still didn't sell well despite it being released during a time when Koei Tecmo were being screwed over by Nintendo for Samurai Warriors 3. As a result, its expansion, Sengoku Basara 3 Utage, would not be released in the West.
There were attempts to appeal to Capcom for a localisation of Utage, filled with fans pointing out where Capcom went wrong, particularly the lack of marketing in the West. One of those attempts would be addressed by then-Senior Vice President Christian Svensson, aka Sven, who stated that Sengoku Basara, being a Japan-focused game, was meant only for that territory, implying that it would stay there. He would then go on to address fans trying to convince Capcom what they could have done like they knew better than the bureaucrats who did the math:
Guys, I understand your interest and passion for the title, but there's no way you're going to convince me that a significant enough number of people are going to buy a Basara title in North America at a reasonable price point. We've tried twice now across two generations.
We released the last Basara title in two SKUs at budget price points ($29.99 SRP). There's no way you're going to convert the last outting's [sic] performance, regardless of what shortcomings you perceive, into a 6X - 8X performance in revenue for future titles.
Not every title that's made needs to be released in the West if the game has a sustainable base in Japan.
Look, I always sympathise with the fanbase with things like this, because this is also something I’ve been through before with English dubbing in Koei Warriors games. There always seems to be a divide between business decisions and fan expectations; fans think that they know what’s best for the company, what they could do and what they should have done because they are the consumers and they can see what the company is giving and not giving them. However, businesses typically do not work that way; they make decisions based on what will turn a higher profit margin for their shareholders regardless of what their fans think. Put it this way - if a corporation were given the choice to earn $50,000 over 6 months or $300,000 over 3 years, of course corporations are going to pick the latter in a heartbeat, particularly when there’s no further context or any further prospects after the 6 months. By the time fans complain about their decisions, chances are that their minds are already made up and no amount of complaining will make them change their minds.
A couple of years later, Sven elaborated on the justification behind the decision not to localise Sengoku Basara:
We try lots of things... we tried the first Sengoku Basara games which were called "Devil Kings" in the West (just before my time here). Changed the name to be a bit more Western friendly and some of the trappings of the histories were also stripped down. It managed to sell about 30K copies here.
Ok, that didn't work... so let's let a Japanese game be Japanese... we tried it again with the PS3/Wii Sengoku Basara... Media wasn't thrilled, preorders were weak, word of mouth was weak which in turn drives the forecasts and resultant marketing budgets and it sold about the same at aggressive price points.
In short, it's unfortunate but sometimes there isn't enough of an audience interested in the title to justify the costs (both actual and opportunity) of bringing a title to the West. Sometimes games aimed at a certain market are only viable in that particular market.
There are games we've developed in the West that we haven't brought to Japan for the same reasons.
So yeah, people who say, “Well, Capcom barely advertised Sengoku Basara!” have neglected to consider that they already considered how much budget they were willing to put in for the games… and the popularity of the series could not warrant a wider marketing campaign. It’s an Ouroboros situation, much like English dubs in Koei Warriors games. Regardless, some credit has to be given to Sven for at least directly addressing the fanbase even if his responses were vague, because in my case, nobody within Koei Tecmo was ever able to give a straight answer about why they wouldn’t dub Warriors Orochi 3 (well, Chin kind of did but it took me a while to find it, so that doesn’t really count).
Raindrops and Daydreams made a post about how fans could convince Capcom to bring Sengoku Basara 4 to the West by sending them fan letters (which was the post I responded to), but as I said before, they wouldn’t have been much help because Capcom’s minds were already made up.
The Producer Factor
But of course, the biggest factor in getting a new Sengoku Basara game at all is of course, the production team, and sadly, the biggest figures, namely producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and director Makoto Yamamoto, have moved on from Capcom, not to mention that Sengoku Basara is a Capcom IP, so there’s no chance of seeing a new Basara game coming from GPTRACK50 or even Binary Haze Interactive. Arguably however, even if fans in the West were yearning for a new game in the series, there are some fans in Japan who might not want to see one. Discounting the fact that the series was on the road to decline after 3, the main reason is that Sengoku Basara’s producer, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, is a problematic figure.
The guy has dissed the Koei Warriors series every chance he gets, yet he rips off elements from it at the same time. He called Samurai Warriors 3Z a “wagon sale” (bargain bin) game, and while Warriors fans acknowledge that it was released to backtrack on SW3’s Wii exclusivity and claw back PlayStation fans (though only in Japan), Kobayashi could have just taken the W for not limiting Sengoku Basara 3 to one console, and he didn’t even know how to do that.
Character-wise, SW Kunoichi’s Musou Attack became Basara Sasuke’s Basara Attack, Basara Kojūrō looks like SW Sakon and Basara Motochika’s appearance and personality is similar to that of DW Gan Ning. Basara Motonari is shown as a ruthless and cruel character, but in 3, he suddenly starts talking about unity (百万一心) which was ripped off from SW3 Motonari for some reason.
There’s a whole website that compares elements of the Warriors and Basara games. Just as there are characters who were introduced in SW before Basara, the opposite also applies so there are grounds for Basara to call plagiarism on SW, but most of these accusations are bullshit anyways.
So, remember all those jabs I made about Oichi and her character theme in earlier instalments? Fans have wondered why Oichi seems to get special treatment in this series compared to other characters. Why did Oichi get a character theme but nobody else did? Why does Oichi’s Story Mode have a special ending made for her not just in one game, but also in two spinoff games? Why did Oichi return in Basara 3 but not Nagamasa? The reason for these is… Hiroyuki Kobayashi is a simp for her seiyuu, Mamiko Noto.
Oichi’s character was likely heavily inspired by the character Enma Ai from the anime Hell Girl. Coincidentally, as Profar points out in his video on 2 Heroes, Ai was also voiced by Mamiko Noto and the way Oichi speaks in the game is eerily similar to Ai. Does Kobayashi have a fetish for girls who he thinks “I can fix her”?
The guy is a fan of Noto’s and he makes it known through his actions. When I said that Kobayashi “invited” Noto to sing 眠れ緋の華 for 2 Heroes, it was more like “strongly recommended”, maybe even “forced” at a stretch. Admittedly, this wouldn’t be much of a problem if the song was just in 2 Heroes, but it was also used in the PSP spinoff games as well.
When Noto was a guest on Basara-related radio shows, anime commentary or promotional events, you can bet your sweet ass Kobayashi would be there while at the same time not helping other seiyuus (like Keiji’s seiyuu Masakazu Morita) with their radio shows and promotions, showing clear favouritism for Noto. In the anime commentaries, he’d constantly gush more than the other cast and crew about his love for Oichi and less about the content of the episode.
In June 2008, Noto and Kobayashi were in a live event in the leadup to the launch of Sengoku Basara X. The two of them were asked which warlord they would serve for a day, meaning which character was their favourite in the series. Here’s how it went in a nutshell:
Kobayashi: Well, I like Nobunaga but I wouldn’t want to serve under him, so I’ll go with Masamune.
Noto: Hmm… I’d go with… Ieyasu. I like how (his seiyuu, Tōru) Ōkawa voices him like a kid lol.
My plan was for the next line from Kobayashi to be “Oh, yeah nah, I like Ieyasu too,” but I found the source and it turns out that he never actually said it, at least not at that event. Regardless, when Sengoku Basara 3 was released in 2010, Ieyasu became the focus character for the game with a new older design, and Oichi also returned alongside Nobunaga despite the story taking place after the fall of the Oda (which means Nagamasa wasn't there because he was already dead by that point), and Kobayashi’s favourite character became Ieyasu. His Oichi favouritism got to the point that when the crew of the anime were celebrating his 38th birthday in 2010, the cake they got him had Oichi’s face alongside Kobayashi’s, the absolute fivehead.
With the Sengoku Basara games gaining a fanbase of female history buffs or rekijōs, Kobayashi has been reported to skew the focus of the series towards them in its marketing, resulting in the series attracting fujoshis (yaoi fangirls) and seiyuu otakus (the games’ easier difficulty, compared to Capcom’s other offerings, certainly helped things too). Normally there’s nothing wrong with wanting to appeal to a particular subset of an audience, but it starts to become a problem when you focus too much on that subset rather than trying to appeal to your audience in general. It’s even more of a problem when you focus on your female subset audience to flirt with them and they're like 20 years younger than you.
There are a lot of things to pick at with Kobayashi that I won’t go into here either because this post is getting long as it is or I don’t understand enough Japanese to fully dissect them. A lot of stuff has been pointed out on this r/dynastywarriors Reddit post looking at why Sengoku Basara is 100% dead and there’s a whole Japanese wiki calling out the bullshit of Kobayashi and Basara elitist fans. Their motto was to see Kobayashi leave Capcom, Sengoku Basara ending and Capcom going bankrupt. The third goal is a bit of a stretch, but on the other two, they were sure on the mark.
And so we’re here in 2026, over 20 years since Sengoku Basara was first released. At this point I think most of us can agree that Sengoku Basara is dead, and Capcom continuing to peddle merchandise and pursue collaborations is just beating a dead horse. The decline of Sengoku Basara is ironic when you consider that the series was originally created in a risky move to prevent Capcom from going further into decline. The production troubles that occurred in 4’s development led to them making a couple of risky moves with Sumeragi and Yukimura-den, but they clearly weren’t enough to justify another console game.
Perhaps the most important thing to consider is that Sengoku Basara isn’t one of Capcom’s best-selling franchises, nor are hack-and-slash games their bread and butter like Koei Tecmo with the Warriors games. Sengoku Basara only sold 4.1 million units (as of the end of 2025) compared to big hit titles like Resident Evil or Monster Hunter that sold over a hundred million units. Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and Mega Man may not be as popular as those two franchises, but they still sold more than Sengoku Basara did and games from the franchises I mentioned are still being developed and released to this day.
The Warriors games would also see a similar decline following the end of the classic era, eventually reaching rock bottom in 2018 when Dynasty Warriors 9 was released, however a lot of fan goodwill would be regained in 2025 with Dynasty Warriors Origins. While Capcom was never able to prove their use of their own patents during their lawsuit with Koei Tecmo (which they also won, by the way), it can be argued that Koei Tecmo's loss made them change their ways, particularly with them implementing season passes and expansion DLC instead of expansion discs with vanilla content locked behind an original-disc requirement for “import”/“remix”.
Putting aside its problematic producer or elitist fans, Sengoku Basara was a great series while it lasted. Although the series has made its mistakes over the years, they actually managed to seize their own peak at the start of the Warriors’ series spiral into decline, particularly during a period where they thought it would be good to make a mainline game exclusive to a console aimed at casual players.
Now that I’ve gotten a chance to get to know this series for myself, it’s incredible to see how this series became how it did and died when it did. I suppose as a fan of Koei Warriors games I should be privileged that that series continues on despite the many complaints fans (including myself) have had about the series. Capcom has had a better official response to the lack of localisations than Koei Tecmo ever attempted with the lack of English dubbing in their games. But now, in the midst of its games being taken down from the PSN, it has been a ride to experience the ups and downs of the Sengoku Basara series. Like the Warriors series before it, Sengoku Basara has been a beloved memory to its fans over the years. While things may come to an end, nothing ever really ends as long as people remember.
Sex and politics aside, I also hope you enjoyed the storyline saga that ran throughout this retrospective series, Deadset Tour Kiwami, named after Australian rapper Kerser's series of songs he made when he announced his tours. I came up with the idea for this story while on holiday a couple months back and I tried so hard to finish each chapter of the story in time for me to include it at the end of each instalment (I finished writing the retrospectives in advance). It was a cavalcade of mixed feelings, to put it simply, and I hope the story didn't detract from the retrospectives. (Then again, you could just not read it since it's only at the end of each instalment, and if you're concerned about who's reading this then Sengoku Basara is a series old enough for fans who followed the series to be of age anyway, or my best hope is that whatever censor at the National Security Department reading this doesn't give a shit enough to send a report to Tumblr or put a red flag on my record.) Anyway, please enjoy this conclusion to this storyline.
After leaving LOL-69 I went back to the Shadow Proclamation to drop off my luggage, then made my way back to that universe, the universe where it all started, and looked for the girl who started it all. I thought I'd killed her and her boyfriend some time ago, but after hearing rumours and seeing her in my nightmares, I learnt that somehow, that girl managed to survive.
Words couldn't express what I felt when I learnt the truth. Learning that she survived somehow felt like she was trying to spite me. I don't know how she survived and I don't care how, I'm going to stop her from plaguing my nightmares ever again.
Mission: Avenge the dream.
I confronted the girl at a park near where we fought last time. I took out my Zeztz Driver once again. Much to my surprise, she took out her sword, the Breakam Dawn.
CATASTROM!
PUNISH!
“It’s morphin time.”
PULVERIZE! RIDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ! CATASTROM!
DAWN, DAWN, DAWN! NIGHTMARE RIDER! PUNISH!
As the two of us fought, I began to realise something; this girl is my nightmare. My regret for not being able to even form a friendship with my old crush, my envy for my old friends getting married and starting families, my resentment for never being able to have sex in real life. All these feelings and more coalesced into my initial fight with that girl, and her defeat coupled with the death of her boyfriend led her to become the Nightmare Rider as a form of revenge, a form of punishment towards me.
And then I realised the downsides of what I was wishing for; marital conflicts, having to raise children, potentially having to control my family so they don't go astray. There were also circumstances with my current situation; I've got new projects in the pipeline and old projects that have been stagnant for some time. I have the resources and connections to live in reasonable comfort. Most of all, I have a whole universe I can go to with a bunch of sexfriends who are happy to welcome me with open arms (and legs).
And then the doubt began to set in. What am I fighting for?
Catastrom is one of Zeztz's most powerful forms, but a drawback is that it requires full determination to use it. Having any sliver of doubt causes its power to recoil and harm my body. All these doubts paralysed me, giving my enemy a wide opening.
PUNISH SHOOT! Dawn managed to kick through me, locking me in an iron maiden. THE END!
...
...
...
"I can't let it be the end. I won't let it be the end. Don't let this be the end."
"Actions, effects, consequences, I'll surpass them. I'll surpass them all!"
And then, the dial on the Dualmare Capsem turned and the iron maiden broke around me.
SCYTHE MODE! BREAKAM STREAM! I sent a wave of scythes flying to sweep them away. But Dawn's not the only one who can send soldiers flying. Just watch me.
Dawn sent those soldiers flying back at me, which I took down with my Inazuma Blaster. But despite this, Dawn didn't let up as she kept sending soldiers at me. This time, they resembled my new friends from universe LOL-69.
PLASMA ON! VOLTAGE 1! 2! 3! FULL MAX! "Even if they're old friends, new friends, or casual sexfriends, I'll surpass them all!" GREAT PLASMA SLASH! With a great blast of lightning, the soldiers were engulfed in an explosion before clearing away in specks of light.
I turned back to Dawn and faced her again. "Is that all your nightmares have to offer?" I asked. She responded by sending soldiers resembling her Girl Power comrades and her Teiro Army cousins. I took out my Triple Zeztzer and started blasting.
I loaded my Dualmare Capsem into the Triple Zeztzer. "Be destroyed with my broken dreams!" ULTIMATE OVER FINISH!
When I looked back, Dawn had disappeared. I deduced that she used the chaos to alter the nightmare and escape. But nothing was going to stop me from completing my mission. I countered the alteration and Dawn appeared right in front of me.
"You know, for a while my deepest wish was to make you cry. Not with tears of joy, but tears of anger and sorrow. In the Central Finite Curve, we were friends, lovers, soulmates, but in my universe I'm cursed to never experience that kind of happiness for myself. You hurt me more than you'll ever know and I may never be able to move on for as long as I live, but for now, it's time to end this nightmare. Prepare yourself, Fiona!"
ORDERM! I launched her into the sky through a dream construct tower I conjured, then prepared to unleash my final Rider Kick.
ORDERM ENDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ!
We both landed on the ground as the world around us disintegrated. Would I remember this encounter? Would I forget everything about her? Would things between us change after this? Those are questions that may never be answered, but for me, one thing was certain.
"Mission... complete."
...
...
...
I don't remember how or when, but I finally returned home for the first time in weeks, even months. I had a Sengoku Basara Retrospective to post and some instalments to finish Kisekae Insights, and throughout my absence I had ideas for what I would post next along with future projects.
For some reason, I felt more exhausted than usual and when I went inside, the first thing I wanted to do was sleep. As I pushed my luggage into my living room/studio I noticed something on the table. There was a whole stack of Combo Rangers comics and a CD, which I later found out had the Flash webcomics. (Seriously, a CD? I took out my DVD drive from my PC so I could use the SATA port for another hard drive.) At any rate, it was clear what I had to do next, for the good of the internet community and all the fans who once enjoyed this legendary series.
Your next mission: Bring the Combo Rangers to the world.
For this next filler instalment we’re going to look at some promos I’ve made for my personal project over the years. You will have seen some of them in previous instalments of Kisekae Insights, but here I want to share some other promos that I haven’t used.
I’ve taken the liberty of editing some of them, but there are those that I’m unable to share or even edit to protect the privacy of myself and my friends from way back when. I deleted the original PSD files for everything before the Moushouden Series because I didn’t know how important archiving was.
Man, PNG files and characters on white backgrounds were such a boon for me. Please enjoy this collection of unused promos with some commentary from me.
Doctor Who Series 3+4
The wallpaper image of Yuzuru and Kanade was originally used with a different image of the Doctor as a promo at the time of its premiere; this version was made later when I was assembling wallpapers for the download pack. Doctor Whooves, the Pony Doctor, Derpy and Jee Gun/Storm Dasher are there because this was the first series to fully incorporate My Little Pony as a spin-on.
Doctor Who Series 5 Premium version
This is the promo used for the Premium version of Series 5; the normal version’s promo was used as the thumbnail for #3. The normal version includes representatives from Natsuiro Kiseki, Chu-Bra!!, The World God Only Knows, Nyaruko and Cat Planet Cuties, while the Premium version additionally adds representatives from To Love-Ru, Little Busters, Haganai and Mirai Suenaga from Mirai Millenium.
Doctor Who Series 6 Part 2
Just a simple composite of Tsukasa and Squid Girl with the Doctor (post-Ponds) in the TARDIS, despite them only appearing in half of the episodes in that part of the series. Look at the proportions lmao.
Doctor Who Series 7 Part 1
Features the Doctor, Tsukasa and Squid Girl with Kyōko Sakura and Amu Hinamori in front of the Matarazzo Building in Sao Paulo. I used an aerial view of the nearby highway interchange for an old photo, and then I didn’t know where exactly it was because I never took down any notes. This was made during a time when I thought Salacia connected directly into Sao Paulo and not Santos, the nearest coastal city.
Doctor Who 2012 Christmas Special: Curse of the Crystal Empire
Features Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor with their then-companions, Rainbowshine and Merry May. For the Doctor, this takes place just before The Snowmen, and this was the last Doctor Who episode that featured the Pony Doctor in his old olive green design before it was retconned for the 50th Anniversary Series.
Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Series Blocks 1-3
Unfortunately this was the only promo from that series that I could use (with editing). Like with the promos for Series 3+4 and 7 Part 1, this promo was made post-series for the download pack. The old promo (which I posted at the time) was just the Doctor, Clara, Squid Girl and Takeru Aizawa on a simple background with the TARDIS and the tagline “Who’s squiddin’ ready?” The new promo is set on the Sky Arena at the entrance to the Tokyo Skytree.
“Who Is Returning” Teasers
I was inspired by this set of fan-made teasers from drsong on Tumblr to create my own set of “Who Is Returning” teasers, with the thumbnail of #31 being one of them (and wow has it been so many instalments since then). It mostly involved taking anime wallpapers and zooming them in to obscure their faces, but for the ponies and Guardian Characters I just pasted them on as is.
Doctor Who Series 8
When I first posted this promo at the start of March 2014, I put a glass filter over it and drew the letters DW so as to hide everything else other than the Doctor and Hiroki (represented here by Hanbei Takenaka from Samurai Warriors) before revealing the full promo two weeks after. Each element in this promo represents an element that would be seen in the series (jousting knights for The King’s Demons, a Silurian for Warriors of the Deep and a hatstand for Frontios). Having a bottle of chloroform in this promo feels so morbid in hindsight and without context.
Doctor Who Series 9
Astute followers may notice that this promo can also be seen as my cover pic when viewing this blog from the Tumblr dashboard. Unlike the episodic-focused format of Series 8’s promo, Series 9’s promo is more character-focused; not only does it feature 5 out of the 6 companions (if I included the sixth I probably wouldn’t be able to post this), but it also features other characters and enemies that would be shown throughout the series. There’s also a cupid on there possibly representing a two-parter that’s a throwback to a Series 4 story arc, and a kamikaze plane, which just so happens to be aimed at the TARDIS and is therefore, also morbid in hindsight without context.
Doctor Who Series 9 finale
Series 9 was marketed as the edgiest series I had ever done (for reasons relating to Hiroki and Akari) and its finale was going to be the finale to top all finales. Because they were extended episodes, I had to make special promos for them. This is a composite of two separate promos showing Sekigahara and Ōsaka Castle (yes, I know that’s actually Footscray Market, that’s where it would be under One Country Two Naming Systems) with the hashtag #TheEndisComing. I also did a separate promo for the final confrontation at Honnōji with the “our enemy is at Honnōji” line in Japanese for the tagline. Original art is by ほ on Pixiv.
Moushouden Concept Poster
Even while on hiatus during 2015-16 for high school exams, work on the Moushouden Series was already underway. This was the first promo I made for it, a concept poster that showed the (first) four series that would be produced, namely Doctor Who (series 10-12), Three Kingdoms, Gokaiger and Decade, but this is a later version made following numerous revisions; Bill and Nardole were originally Akari and Narutaki (who would later be moved to Decade’s section) and Pip (Fifi and the Flowertots) was originally in Alice’s place as GokaiGreen while Alice was originally in Marco Wong’s place as GokaiBlue.
Moushouden Series launch date promo
Once I had an idea for when each series would launch, I announced the production of the Moushouden Series at my Year 12 formal in mid-2016 (I won an award for “The Next Doctor Who” and got to make a little speech), then announced the launch timeframes a couple days after. This also acted as the first promos for Three Kingdoms, Gokaiger and Decade, and I would later separate each of them into individual promos, which you can see in previous Kisekae Insights instalments covering them.
Doctor Who/Ultraman The Equestria Chronicles promo
Yeah, just a simple one. When I made this in 2019, I was pretty sure what little talent I had in graphic design all but dried up and I was making less and less compositions. Hell, the poster for Soulbound Series 4 was just a montage of logos for the story document - I didn’t even post it on Facebook. This is the first time I used Doctor Whooves or the Pony Doctor since the 50th Anniversary Series, and the first time I used Storm Dasher’s new alicorn design.
The Asian Israelis that are the Japanese have been back at it again, siding with corporations on piracy and gatekeeping pirates and foreigners in general from their pop culture.
Over the past few years, the Japanese have shown their true colours when it comes to foreigners and their ways, whether it be tourism, immigration or piracy. I thought Japanese entertainment companies were out of touch with their Western fanbases, but it turns out that Japanese people in general (on the internet) are just as out of touch with the ways of overseas people, and frankly, the world needs to make them learn their place, like when I gave a dose of reality to Japanese artists who are against others reposting their fanarts.
I could make a post about how "piracy is not that bad, actually" but it probably won't move their conservative minds. I could talk about my experience with piracy in relation to that topic, but I have better things to do. But I will say this, however:
Hey assholes. You don't live in the Sakoku period anymore.
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 6: Sengoku Basara - Legend of Yukimura Sanada
Sengoku Basara Sanada Yukimura-den (戦国BASARA 真田幸村伝)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
Release date: 25 August 2016
2016 was the year of the Sanada, wasn’t it? Sanadamaru was the name of that year’s historical NHK Taiga Drama (celebrating 400 years since the Ōsaka Campaign), and Koei Tecmo assisted with the production of the 3D maps used in the drama while also releasing a tie-in game, Spirit of Sanada.
Sengoku Basara was dying in the water after releasing 4. Amidst the struggle to get Sumeragi green-lit, Capcom decided to make an additional attempt to bring the series back to life again, greenlighting this game alongside it at the end of 2014 (work on the pitch began in November). Development began in 2015, running alongside the development for Sumeragi, and in December that year, the game was announced to be released in summer 2016. Koei Tecmo only announced Spirit of Sanada in July 2016, meaning that yes, they managed to beat Koei Tecmo to the punch once again. Why not? Let the dying franchise win something for once.
The team wanted to create a game centred around a single main character, and given that the 2016 Taiga Drama would focus on Yukimura Sanada (series are announced around 18 months in advance), it was only right that the new game would focus on him as well. This would be a pilot to a new spinoff series called the Sengoku Basara Retsuden/Legends Series (烈伝シリーズ) that would unfortunately be short-lived. Let’s take a look at it.
Sengoku Basara - Legend of Yukimura Sanada
Unlike previous games in the series, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and director Makoto Yamamoto did not serve these roles for this game. Instead, Kobayashi nominated Daizō Nonaka to serve as the producer for this game while Toshihiro Tanaka and Gen Ishiyama (from Access Games, who also developed the PSP games) served as directors. Yamamoto was still involved in writing the game’s story and assisting here and there even as his workload on other games increased.
Two new characters were introduced in this game, namely Masayuki Sanada and Nobuyuki Sanada, who are Yukimura’s father and brother respectively. Masayuki apparently fights with a war fan with a dagger on the end, and he also has a magic hat that he disappears into. Nobuyuki wields a ladder-shaped spear, and you can make Yukimura wield two of them.
Yukimura and Masamune receive new Yukimura-den exclusive versions of their characters. Both of them can be played in their younger selves, known by their childhood names, Benmaru and Bontenmaru, and their older selves as the Phoenix and the White Cross. Each of these incarnations have new movesets that are distinct to their Sumeragi counterparts, making for a total of six new characters. Unlike the Sumeragi characters however, the new characters only have five Special Attacks (without the L1 + Square one) and one Super Attack, like Shingen and the un-NPC-ified characters in 3 Utage. However, Yukimura and Masamune’s new incarnations have attacks that allow you to stack long combos of at least a couple thousand hits each. It makes for mindless button-mashing.
The rest of the cast from Sumeragi are playable after clearing the game’s story mode, with a total of about 20 characters from this game appearing in its story. Ujimasa Hōjō reappears in this game as an NPC after being cut from 4.
The main theme song for this game is Committed RED by T.M.Revolution. This, combined with the game’s presentation, gives it a more serious tone than even 1 or 2. In fact, this whole game has a more serious vibe in its presentation which doesn’t fit the Sengoku Basara series overall. Sure, the gameplay retains the signature over-the-top action, but it’s a bit of a shift.
The main story mode for this game is titled The Life of Yukimura Sanada (真田幸村の生涯). It’s a ten-chapter story with fixed characters that change as the story goes on, but despite the shorter story, the battles are made longer to make up for it. An interesting thing I want to point out; the prologue chapter has you playing Yukimura at Ōsaka Castle as the narration plays, and the epilogue at the end of the last chapter returns to the exact same scene as the credits roll. Three of the chapters have their own minigames in them, which distracts from the action while you’re trying to fight enemies.
Each chapter has their own Six-Coin Challenges (六丸チャレンジ) where you complete goals for monsen coins. Clearing the whole set of front challenges unlocks the back challenges; clearing all front challenges unlocks the Sanzu River difficulty, a replacement for difficulties above Hard, and the ability to purchase personal Styles.
As you clear each chapter, battles in the Secret Stories (前談秘話) will be unlocked. They consist of side stories set between gaps in the main story and feature non-Sanada characters. They are harder in difficulty compared to the main chapters. The dialogues for these are also viewable in the gallery.
After clearing the main story, the Sanada Trials (真田の試練) will be unlocked. It’s a survival mode akin to the Tournament Mode of 2 Heroes where you attempt to clear 60 rounds by defeating all enemies before you die or time runs out. Each round has their own optional extra challenge that provides health, Basara and Bushin rewards. Clearing all 60 rounds with every character unlocks their (final) golden weapon. It’s a great way to farm for coins.
I won't cover the stories here, but Reddit user DirtyPetals has compiled the entire script for the game and translated it on a Google spreadsheet. English translations for other Sengoku Basara games are also available, but you'll have to do a bit of research for that.
The battle mechanics of this game are the same as 4 Sumeragi for the most part. Instead of levelling up your character or upgrading your weapon, you equip a battle Style that optimises your stats based on the Style’s type. Coins are used to purchase or upgrade Styles (to a maximum of level 30) and each of them have three skills that are activated at certain Bushin (武心) levels, which you gain by defeating enemies and gaining Bushin power. Bushin levels go up to a maximum of 6 and can drop when you take damage. Costumes and weapons can be changed, but in the case of weapons, it’s purely for aesthetics.
StyleMax Mode has been changed to Bushin Denshin (武心伝心), and is obtained through an orb. Once you obtain said orb, Bushin Denshin can be activated, and all defeated enemies will yield Bushin power. There’s no other special effects akin to similar modes in previous games, however.
Instead of KO counts, the game will show you how many monsen coins you’ve earned in battle, like in Devil Kings with EXP. However, you can find your current KO count in the pause menu.
Sometimes, the character you control will change depending on how the story progresses. Some stages implement the Sanada Blood system, which allow you to change characters by pressing L2. However, in the eighth chapter, that button is used to fire the cannons of the Sanada Ward, so it’s essentially a gimmick that’s only there when it’s convenient for the story. The game also doesn’t have two-player functionality like past games.
Rainbow Chance challenges are also available in-battle for bonus coins. Defeat one of the Rainbow Soldiers (七虹屋) on the battlefield and complete the challenge within the time limit to earn the bonus. Some challenges can be attempted again.
Enemy bosses can have multiple lives, with their Basara Gauge only appearing on their final life.
After clearing the story mode, stages can be played again with other characters in a pseudo-Free Mode, plus you can select a playlist of up to 3 BGMs that will be played in battle.
DLCs available for this game are just costumes for Sanada family and Masamune, the BGMs from past games including 4 and Sumeragi, the disco mixes of character BGMs, theme songs from Takanori Nishikawa and some selections from his T.M.Revolution 20th anniversary album. PSN avatars and themes were also made available, and the pre-order bonus was Yukimura with Masamune’s White Cross coat (before it turned red when it was blessed by Masayuki’s spirit).
Interestingly, this game also received a Chinese localisation. Also the only bonus you get for having 4 Sumeragi save data when first loading this game is 5,000 monsen coins. That’s it.
SWSB Comparison Spirit of Sanada
Sengoku Basara Yukimura-den adds 6 new characters for a total of 46 playable characters while reintroducing another character as an NPC for a total of 47. Samurai Warriors Spirit of Sanada takes the 56 characters from 4-II and adds 3 new characters and 2 upgraded generics for a total of 51. In SW, Yukimura is the only character who has varied movesets with his younger and older incarnations, while in Basara, Masamune is also given the same treatment.
Although both Yukimura-den and Spirit of Sanada focus on one singular Story Mode, Yukimura-den includes side stories and a Tournament Mode, while Spirit of Sanada gives you the opportunity to forage for materials and upgrade your weapons with them. Yukimura-den’s Story Mode has 10 chapters while Spirit of Sanada has 16, with 12 of them focusing on battle campaigns that also include a few side battles among them.
Yukimura’s main rival in Yukimura-den is Masamune Date, the main poster boy for the series, while his main rival in Spirit of Sanada is Nobuyuki Sanada, his brother who was introduced in SW4. Although Nobuyuki is featured in Yukimura-den, he is only playable in 3 out of the 10 chapters in the story. Spirit of Sanada’s longer Story Mode allows for more focus on the Sanada clan officers, including Masayuki and Nobuyuki.
Look, the result is obvious; Samurai Warriors always wins except for that time when they got screwed over by Nintendo or took the piss with their spinoffs.
Long and short of it is, this game is fine, but it kind of sucks. As I said, the action is on-par with the rest of the Sengoku Basara series, but the storytelling has become a bit too serious, not to mention that the battles have been padded out and the features are still lacking. There’s not much incentive to play as other characters or do any grinding except for monsen coins. This game is also fairly lightweight at 5.3 GB and Capcom had the audacity to sell this at full price.
Initially I thought the team just didn’t care that much when they made this game, but that was before I learnt that this game was greenlit around the same time as 4 Sumeragi. Why was there a need to make this a separate game when Capcom were meant to be improving on 4’s mistakes? 4 Sumeragi could have been a game that was as good as the rest of the series combined, with a Tournament Mode, a proper Unification Mode and some Versus Modes, and yet efforts were split so they could create this game. I know they were desperate, but come on.
In the end, this game sold 25,000 copies in its first week and 65,000 copies by the end of 2018, with both PS3 and PS4 ports coming between Sengoku Basara X (at 50,000 copies) and the 2 Heroes Wii Double Pak. This may just be another nail in the coffin for the series, as Yukimura-den ended up being the last (console) game of the Retsuden spinoff series, let alone the Sengoku Basara franchise itself.
Once again, props to Raindrops and Daydreams for making reference materials for this game (and to DirtyPetals for translating the script). Next time, we take a look how the series faded into obscurity and died a slow, painful death, plus we discuss the reasons why the Basara series is never getting another game, let alone a localisation. And finally, the secret Basara sins of the renowned producer are revealed. See you then.
After checking out of our hotel, I went with the girls to the airport and helped them check in. I wouldn't be leaving with them that day, but instead, I was asked to head to another hotel, where I would be staying with my local counterpart and his family for two more weeks. Technically they wouldn't be in Hong Kong for another two days, but the upside is I can leave a few days before they go home.
My hotel was in the Tsuen Wan District but it's technically not in Tsuen Wan, but in a nearby suburb. It's so secluded and far from the bus stop that the last time we went, we had to take a taxi from the airport right up to the entrance. But since I'm not with my family, I thought I'd take a bus to the stop near the hotel and walk there. Yeah, it was a bit of a walk.
Once I checked in, I had a couple of days to myself. I was lucky enough to get a studio room with a table, because the last time I was here my room didn't have one. There's a shuttle bus to the MTR station out the front door that runs every 15-20 minutes. At peak times it gets full and we would have to wait for the next one. For those couple days I familiarised myself with places I would frequent, like Tsuen Wan or Tsz Wan Shan. I even took a bus to Tai Po because my uncle and his family lived there; on the way I passed by Wang Fuk Court, the place of that big fire in November 2025 where someone later got arrested on national security charges for demanding accountability. The government is still making lives hard for survivors of the fire. I swear, this is one of the reasons why Hongkongers protested over the years, for God's sake.
The girls never seemed to forget me even after they went back to their universe as they kept sending me photos of themselves for a while. They also filmed videos of our parties and romps and I'm not gonna lie, it made for some great material. The images of their bodies were burned into my mind from the, well, full month of sex that we had.
So anyway, I met up with my local counterpart and his family. Most of the next two weeks were made up of shopping and eating. We even had a few family gatherings as well, having yum cha in Tsz Wan Shan and dinner at my uncle's flat in Tai Po. My nan and my cousin asked me if I had a girlfriend, as they always did - normally I'd just deny it, but because of everything that happened, for the first time I was actually shocked and confused at how I should answer that question. Naturally I declined it as always; I mean, how could I tell my family (even if they're not from my universe) that I have several sexfriends and that I (allegedly) murdered another girl and her boyfriend out of lust and jealousy?
One time, I was at a Donki (Don Quixote) store and I found a sex toys section next to the tokusatsu toys, so that was amusing. Other times I continued to witness the government rubbing their win in our faces and making national security their main personality. I even went hiking up Mount Parker (between Quarry Bay and Tai Koo MTR stations) with some of my aunts. I had never climbed a mountain that steep in a while. But perhaps the biggest highlight of this leg was going into Shenzhen. You see, I hadn't been into Mainland China for at least 20 years. Given everything that's happened in the later half of that time, if going into Hong Kong (as a truly innocent person) is poking a beehive with a stick, then going into China is stepping into a hornet's nest.
I met up with my uncle and his family on the East Rail Line before we went up to the Lo Wu Border Crossing. I had to go in a separate line to my uncle's family because they were residents. After completing exit checks on the Hong Kong side, we went over the bridge and completed entry checks on the mainland side. I recall that I had to write down my Chinese (kanji) name so it could be noted if I used my passport the next time. Everyone else including myself managed to get through in a breeze (after everyone in front of us had been processed), but my (counterpart's) parents took a little longer than normal. While I was being processed, I heard a commotion in the line next to mine where my parents were. I later found out that some nigis forgot to fill out the online entry form so they left the line to fill it out, then when they got back in the line they just decided to push to the front. I never thought I would be saying this, but I bet border crossings will become simpler come July 2047 (because they won't be needed anymore).
After that, we put our bags through the x-ray and then we were officially in Shenzhen. We went into the metro station and just as we passed the gates, our bags had to be x-rayed and we had to go through metal detectors. Yeah, that was a thing. As if crossing the border wasn't nerve-racking enough. Anyway, we headed to a shopping centre, where we had yum cha at a chain restaurant. We then looked around the shopping centre, sat around for a bit and then went to have dinner. After dinner, we went back over to Hong Kong and then went our separate ways.
You know what the funniest thing is about Hongkongers complaining about mainlanders? They never actually hated China or the entirety of their populace. They just hate the government's authoritarian rule and imperialism, along with the nuisance behaviours of redneck coloniser "Nukongers" and tourists coming from the mainland. Just take a look for yourself and you'll see what I mean; parents letting their kids shit in the streets, refusing to learn Cantonese and entitledly demanding that other Asians speak to them in Mandarin among other things. Nobody is hating on how cheap things cost, how great the places are, or how yummy the food is up there. It's just glass-hearted snowflakes taking every slightest bit of criticism (from who they consider their own people, mind you) towards the smallest things and making it about their country of 1.4 billion. They're no better than MAGA rednecks in my eyes. But no, we all lost in 2020, and all the "Trukongers" have either emigrated or are blending in with the crowd and heading over the border every weekend if they're interested.
The "Great Replacement" is a conspiracy theory where it is said that white people (in majority-white countries) are being replaced by non-white people, particularly Muslims. While I don't believe in that of course, I do believe in the Great Cultural Replacement theory, the replacement of local culture and the Cantonese language in Hong Kong. Ironically, I read somewhere that the best place to preserve the Cantonese language is outside of China; although I couldn't agree more with that statement, the Chinese colonisation of the modern world is continuing; the only reason why it's accepted is because they have the money to justify it.
My bitterness towards everything may not go away anytime soon, but I'm glad I was able to at least work some of it off with this storyline saga. I just hope I don't get arrested for writing this the next time I get dragged back to Hong Kong.
Anyway, the two weeks went by rather uneventfully and I was finally able to go back home, but I had some unfinished business left to finish. I said goodbye to my local counterpart and his family the night before, then reorganised my luggage before going to bed. After eating the last cup noodle I had for breakfast, I gathered my bags and checked out before being picked up by the Shadow Proclamation. Inspector Shingo Tokihama debriefed me on my mission and I was free to go; the Lincoln Loud files cleanup operation was also completed.
Over the course of my mission, the girls have been convincing me to visit their universe; I always said that I would think about it and they would keep begging me to visit, even as I was alone on the extended leg of my mission. But I kept thinking about it, and eventually, I agreed and arranged to go there once my mission had ended. As I had brunch at the interdimensional café, I let the girls know that I would be heading to their universe soon. Once I finished, I took my bags and went through the portal to universe LOL-69, where I met the girls in their city, which was pretty much the same as the one in my universe.
For the next two weeks I stayed with Rika as the girls and I had more fun with each other, having orgies with their partners, meeting their OnlyFans model friends and so forth. I even got to meet the legendary Natsuta Hanamori and had some intimate one-on-one time with Rika. I agreed to stay in contact with the girls, especially Rika, as friends with benefits. The only question was whether I should let the girls keep calling me "Shouta-kun" or have them call me "Azuma-san", but that's for another day (if I decide to answer it).
Thanking the girls for having me wasn't the main piece of business I had to settle, however. Over the past few weeks I was privy to certain rumours that I never believed until I saw her in my nightmares. Her friends thought not posting birthday pics of her on Instagram would prevent me from finding out, but deep down I knew the truth.
What is going on, people? We’ve finally come to the post-Soulbound phase of Kisekae Insights. That was going to be the end of the series but then Decade Legend Fighters happened and I needed a few more instalments because I like to wrap things up nice and even. So before that, here’s some more filler for what is going to be the last time in this series.
Back in 2013 for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Series, the Hiroki-Akari relationship arc was at its peak. Crazy things had happened between them and things would get even crazier as the year went on. As part of that series, I prepared a lot of extra material for it, from Doctor Who Confidential, a “100 questions” segment for Hiroki and his prototypes based on a similar thing done for Madoka Magika, and a Monster Files segment similar to what BBC Doctor Who did back during a time when it was good.
At the end of the Confidential there would be a music video I would feature for the episode, and for a couple of episodes I decided to put on a mini-movie. See, Hiroki and Akari would be forced to live together while holding hands due to a circumstance, but then the two decide to let go and they would fade out of existence and into a pocket dimension until they decide to give it another chance and… yeah, it’s another ripoff of an existing story.
During the early-2010s, Hong Kong singers Jason Chung (鍾一憲) and Karene Mak (麥貝夷) formed a couple unit and released a couple of albums. Amongst them were two songs used as part of the mini-movie I’m about to bring you. The first part was released, then the second part was released that would see the couple disappear. If the second part got over a certain amount of views in a certain amount of days, then the true version of the second part would be released, which it did. Some time after that someone did a writeup of it on their blog and I got inspired to translate it for my version. While I’ve been unable to find the source for that writeup, I’ll still bring my version of it to you. So here is my “Doctor Who” mini-movie, Natural Mismatch (錯手).
Part 1: 犯眾憎
“I haven’t actually dated yet, to tell you the truth, so I’m actually a bit nervous; what’s the girl I meet going to be like?”
“My ideal type of man has to be fun-loving, smiling, sunny and not to forget, with a bit of muscle as well, ha ha ha!”
“Tender, polite, long hair, big eyes, that’s the kind of girl I like…”
“…maybe with dimples and a cute smile…”
“…and don’t forget, she has to be nice to people, including her parents…”
“Girls like to be treated well and for the love of God, can we get a bit of manliness here?”
“…she should massage my shoulders when she can…”
“For a fun-loving girl like me, then of course he should be fun-loving as well, particularly if he likes stimulating things…”
Every person has specific criteria for choosing a partner. Some might focus on looks, some might focus on personality.
So we might imagine, “What sort of person will my future partner be?”
People have so many expectations when it comes to love, but how many people can get what they wish for?
From the first day they meet, people will allocate others to different places based on their traits.
People with similar traits will be in the same place, then the brain will place the other traits that people in this area have on the other person.
For example, average-looking people mostly have strange personalities, big-mouthed people are mostly naggy, tall people definitely have spirit, and big-eyed people are mostly smart.
Even if this is your first time with the other person, even if you know you can’t judge a book by its cover, even if you know that there are things you can’t conclude arbitrarily, it’s only human nature.
So, based on these divisions and selections, the first impression of someone will have a deep influence to the point where it conceals the truth.
“From this experience, we became a loving pair of strangers.”
He is a seasoned warrior, living by the way of the sword from a young age.
He had a lover, but following recent events, they were forced to part, not knowing when they would see each other again.
He is an ABC, but he observes and appreciates both cultures, sometimes mixing them to put his own spin on them because he isn’t well versed in either.
She is your typical ABG, LG, whatever you want to call her, even ABC if you think she is one.
She knows how to fight, finding the courage to pick up her sword and train with her comrades or rush into battle.
She is the kind of girl who likes K-pop and bubble tea yet doesn’t appreciate her parents’ culture, rather appropriating parts of different cultures to suit her tastes.
One day, two people from different cities were walking home after training.
They don’t pay even a bit of attention to the other person, because they received a notification on their phones at the same time.
From an ancient Greek legend: When you make a wish with the one you love on the 10th of October at 10:10,
Your wish will come true, no matter what!
But there is one condition: every person who has heard this blessing has to spread this blessing to other people to prove that you have a selfless heart so that you can really have happiness.
There was a young man who unfortunately suffered an incurable disease.
His wife inadvertently heard of this legend, so the two of them made a wish together, then they spread this legend to every person they knew…
“What a stupid message,” the two of them thought.
They couldn’t help but look to the skies, wondering when their wishes would come true.
But right at that moment, something suddenly fell from the sky.
By instinct, they stepped back and pulled the other person away as well.
Crash!
What shattered on the ground was a flowerpot, a flowerpot of death, that nearly took their lives.
After the fright went, they let go of each other and after quickly thanking each other, continued on their way.
But suddenly, they discovered that there was something strange going on, as their hands started to become invisible.
They stopped and looked back to see that the same thing was going on with the other person.
What’s going on? They were fine before they let go of each other.
So they tried taking the other’s hands again, and their hands became visible.
He dragged her to another city, knowing that there was someone who could help them find out what was going on.
They approached a blue police box in the street. Obviously he knew what it was, but she thought otherwise.
He took her inside to introduce her to the Doctor, who could only say, “What?” in surprise.
“It’s bigger on the inside,” she said after looking inside and out.
They told the Doctor of their situation and with his help, they discovered the cause.
Intertwined Pinkie Syndrome.
“What? That’s ridiculous!” they exclaimed.
One in a trillion chance.
……
…no chance of revival.
They let go of their hands and they became invisible again.
Forced separation will be fatal.
Because of that, two strangers were forced to hold hands to survive.
From another point of view, however, the cause of their troubles was different.
Perhaps it was a trap from a bygone war, but in reality, a man from the future detonated a bomb on them to erase the memories of them meeting in the past.
They were manipulated by an unknown force to keep meeting since they were little and it was causing damage to the fabric of time.
The man from the future did what he did to correct history and restore their timelines, but the damage had already been done.
Their timelines were burst open as a result of the explosion and when they came into contact, their timelines were fused together.
If they were to separate, then they would disappear as their timelines would have no beginning or no end.
The Doctor didn’t want them to meet again because of that, but even then, he was too late to stop this from happening.
Maybe they didn’t meet before in other timelines, but for our sakes, let’s stick with this one.
He and she were forced to live together for fear of disappearing.
They had to tie their hands up when they went to sleep so they wouldn’t let go.
When either of them had to go to the bathroom, the other person would have to stand there and wait with their hand in the door, much to their annoyance.
When she had to put on nail polish, he would have to hold the bottle for her while he struggled not to breathe in the fumes.
When he wanted to go to the library, she would get bored and beg him to leave, only to be hushed because, well, they were in a library.
A great deal of you would have played with a chatterbox when you were little.
Officially, it is a kind of fortune teller.
The people participating can write some instructions on it.
If you pick something, then like it or not, you still have to face your fate.
“Yay! We’re learning Chinese! Come on!” As if by luck, this was a day when he usually went to Chinese school.
“……” But she was never interested in learning Chinese, particularly since he woke her up early just to do that.
They got weird looks from people at Chinese school, probably because of Asian attitudes that dictated that boys and girls should not be in such close contact with each other.
They couldn’t participate in normal activities at school, so his teacher gave them some words and texts to copy out.
He wrote with his right hand and she wrote with her left, much to their luck as those were the hands that fused each other.
They had trouble writing at the same time with different hands, so one of them helped hold the paper while the other wrote.
He saw the many mistakes she made in stroke order or length and kept pointing them out to her annoyance.
But it was no use and it was uncalled for because she didn’t speak Chinese at home, let alone understand it at the same level as him.
“Two words. So annoying! The boys I know aren’t like that…”
“…they’re all cheerful, smiling and all that, but this guy? He wears glasses like a freaking turtle.”
“And what’s he doing? He’s always complaining that I stay up late, that I’m too noisy or that I’m in a band…”
“and even better, he likes girly things like watching arts films and crying!”
“Just what the hell do you want?”
“Yay! We’re jamming with my band tonight!” She took the chatterbox as she was revelling in excitement.
The members of her band, the Damsel Dazzlers, were also in the same army as them.
They encouraged him to join in their jamming, but he just stood there, uninterested, watching her singing and dancing to the music, like he wasn’t there next to her.
Suddenly, he let out a shout and threw himself about, to her surprise.
But when he calmed down, she went back to what she was doing…
“What on earth have I done to deserve this?”
“I haven’t actually dated yet, but the first time I held hands with a girl gave me this kind of impression of it.”
“Our lifestyles are too different and we can’t live like this.”
“What should I do?”
Back at home, they were watching some kids shows and cartoons that he had recorded on the timer. “Oh my God, the Sea Princesses (or insert a name here) are so cool!”
“This is boring,” she said helplessly, wanting to close her eyes and sleep.
She changed the program and by that time, they were watching The Ring (or insert other horror movie here).
She was strangely excited while he was screaming in agony, contrasting each other.
Then, when Sadako (or insert character here) crawled out of the TV, she grabbed his neck.
“Ahh! What are you doing!” he exclaimed in fright, wanting to hide underneath the sheets.
She couldn’t stop laughing.
7:30 AM.
“Hey, wake up,” he said, pulling on his hand, which was tied with hers.
“What?”
“It’s 7:30. Wake up.” He almost dragged her off of the bed.
“7:30? Dude, wake me up when it’s 12:30…”
“We’re going running.”
And just like that, he was dragging a cow out for a run, so early in the morning, which was really funny because he didn’t seem to be the type to go running every morning.
No matter how much she resisted, she pitied the fact that fate wasn’t on her side…
Later that day, they played the chatterbox again and that night, they were going clubbing.
“Hi Amano! Hi Nonomura!” She met with her friends in front of the Irish Pub in Chaozhou.
“Hey, is that your new boyfriend?”
“Him?” she pointed. “Nah, he’s driving me. Forget him, let’s get wasted!”
“Yeah!”
But halfway to their destination, he suddenly pulled her the other way…
“What the hell do you want, dude?”
“Do you know how annoying you are?”
“I’m annoying? I don’t speak Chinese, I don’t go to the library, I don’t watch…”
“Oh, screw it then! If you don’t like it, then we can just let go!”
“OK, whatever you want, man, I don’t care.”
And then, they let go of each other’s hands…
Part 2: 天生不對
“Is learning to be tolerant of each other really as hard as we think?”
As they let go, they began to disappear into thin air,
painlessly and unconsciously.
The invisibility spread from their fingers, to their arms and slowly, all over their bodies.
In about five minutes, they would disappear from existence.
No one would know what really happened and no one would know where they went…
Perhaps we think…
…that if we lived in pain, we could end it happily,
with our problems solved and nothing else to worry about.
But when we near our deaths, perhaps we think that…
…life can still be very meaningful.
People live so they can live, not just survive.
There are many things in life that are worth pursuing, worth stopping for,
so they can make their marks in our lives.
No matter how big the hardship, even if the problems in front of our eyes haven’t been solved yet,
we could just take it easy and calmly face our problems.
Perhaps people are born with the ability to solve problems and hardships.
It’s just a matter of whether we are willing to use it.
Before, he had his back to her, but he decided to turn around and offer his right hand,
as if he was saying, “Will you do it? Will you help me face our problems together?”
Perhaps it was from all the days they were together, because it was like she was able to hear what he was saying in her heart.
Or perhaps it was because a preview of the reality without them got 500,000 views on YouTube from fans who wanted to change the outcome and correct history.
So she offered her left hand,
and their hands came back together.
Their disappearing bodies became visible again.
“Perhaps learning to be tolerant of each other…”
“…could lead us both to a new life…”
“Hey, could you open this bottle for me?” They had finished running and were sitting on a bench.
She opened his bottle for him. He took a swig, then put the bottle on the ground.
She was feeling thirsty as well, so she took the bottle from the ground and took a swig from it.
“Hey, that’s my…” he looked at her in surprise.
She suddenly realised what happened and quickly put down the bottle.
Their gazes were locked on each other before they were averted in awkwardness.
Perhaps this could be a good start for them?
When you have a different attitude, even if it’s to the same thing, it will feel very different.
When they brushed, they helped each other put on toothpaste;
When she was doing her nails, he wasn’t writhing in agony;
When he was at the library, she didn’t beg him to leave;
She learned how to read and write Chinese (albeit with her right hand), and he learned how to jam with her band;
They went to the TARDIS and played with a lost child while the Doctor tried to locate his parents;
They cried together when they watched romantic films, and got scared together when they watched horror films,
like a truly loving couple.
One day, they were walking on the street.
“Hey!” He shouted to the elderly woman in front of them.
A van was reversing and was about to hit the woman.
They quickly ran over; he went and told the driver to stop, while she helped the woman away.
Luckily, they had prevented an accident from happening,
but another accident happened.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor had his brainy specs on as he looked for a way to cure their condition, or break their spell.
How to break the spell:
It is said that if the two people affected sacrifice their lives to save someone…
…then the spell will be broken.
This left the Doctor wondering whether such a highly emotional method, not to mention potentially dangerous, would even work.
However, the Doctor knew that the two would somehow overcome their hardship and return to normal eventually.
In their rush to save the woman,
their hands had separated and nothing strange happened.
To them, however, this was a miracle.
They looked at their hands in shock.
They looked at each other,
not saying anything,
as if their actions spoke louder than words.
They could hear their eyes telling them,
“Everything’s back to normal, my lovely stranger. We should go back to our own lives now.”
Little did they know that this woman was a teacher at his Chinese school.
She thanked the two while also commenting on their relationship together.
After all, she was someone who embraced and taught Asian values to others.
“Are the fates toying with me?”
“Now that I think about it, after being together, this freaking turtle isn’t bad!”
“Just when we started getting used to each other, we have to break up…”
“I know he’s childish, but he’s got an adorable side to him!”
“Living with her wasn’t that bad, I mean, after all, she’s the first girl I actually dated. I think I’ve learnt something from all this…”
“I think I’ve become a bit different…”
“But it’s still very strange. What should I do now?”
The memories of their time together left deep marks on their lives.
No matter what, they could never forget the time that they were as close to someone as they were to themselves.
Even if they gave up on each other,
even if they argued, even if they “let each other go”,
even if they knew that real life would never let them have such a relationship (or so they thought),
Those happy memories of each other…
…would never be forgotten.
The preceding events were a by-product of the ongoing conflict that raged across time and space.
Were it not for that, this would have been the true history of their first meeting.
One day, two people from different cities met each other on the street.
They were part of the same army, so it figured that they would have to introduce themselves to each other sooner or later.
“Hi! What’s your name?” She got his attention and he looked at her, mesmerised by her beauty.
“Hiroki,” The boy replied nervously, not sure what to say next.
That day, he forgot to ask for her name, only to find out later through other sources.
The regret from that stayed with him for quite some time, because it was the one chance he could make a new friend and he blew it.
As if by fate, history changed and the boy finally had the courage to ask. “What’s yours?”
“Oh, I’m Akari. Nice to meet you!” Her reply put his future at ease.
“You too! Sorry, I’ve got to go now or I’ll be late! See ya!”
“See ya!”
Little did they know, however, that there would be more to them than that innocent first meeting.
The next few years for them would not be easy, as they would become more than friends despite the difficulties they were apparently cursed with.
History changed again and the boy suddenly had something he wanted to say, as if it would be important for her in the future.
“Sorry, one more thing! Run. Run, you clever girl, and remember me.”
After he said that, the two of them were confused at what he had said.
They shared an awkward laugh before they waved goodbye and he went on his way.
It was a certainty that they would see each other again, but what would happen then, even they wouldn’t know yet.
“From this experience, we became a loving pair of strangers.”
“But if I had another chance to choose…”
“I’ll cherish the one I choose to hold hands with.”
Oh, how life doesn’t reflect art. I spent my secondary school years memeing a relationship that would never happen and now I’m paying the price for it, but I’m not entirely to blame.
Anyway, yeah, that was an intense story when it came out. Can you believe Akari is left-handed and that she wasn’t interested in Chinese culture unlike Hiroki? I sure couldn’t!
Thanks for joining me again. See you in the next one.
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 5: Sengoku Basara 4
Sengoku Basara 4 (戦国BASARA4)
Platforms: PlayStation 3
Release date: 23 January 2014
They did it. Capcom finally managed to beat Koei Tecmo to the punch by releasing Sengoku Basara 4 two months before Samurai Warriors 4. This is despite Koei Tecmo releasing WO3U, SW2HD and DW8XL in the six months before SW4, not to mention that they were in the midst of porting games to the PS4. This really came out of left field for them, wasn’t it?
Capcom continued riding the wave of peak for Sengoku Basara through the early 2010’s. While continuing their collaborations with local and prefectural governments, stage shows continued year after year, the live-action adaptation MOONLIGHT PARTY premiered on the TBS network (in Japan) in 2012, another anime series Judge End/End of Judgement (adapting events of the third game with no connection to the first anime series) went into production to premiere in July 2014, and planning began for the next Sengoku Basara title.
Somehow, despite all odds, Sengoku Basara 4 managed to come out in January 2014, beating Koei Tecmo to the punch for the first (and only) time as Samurai Warriors 4 wouldn’t come out until March. What changed since 3 and how would it do? Let’s find out.
Sengoku Basara 4
With the sales performance of Sengoku Basara 3 (and Utage) in Japan, there were huge expectations for the next title, Sengoku Basara 4. The game’s development team had grown three times the size of the original. Producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi was busy with producing other works while Sengoku Basara 4 was in production, so he had to leave everything to the director, Makoto Yamamoto. But despite leading the team with his visions and ideas, not all of the herd was following.
When Kobayashi came back to the Basara development floor in July 2013, he witnessed a heated discussion between Yamamoto and the lead programmer (presumably Shinya Shigeyoshi):
“You call this action? This is nothing like what I was talking about!”
“But Mr. Yamamoto, you said you wanted the action to be ‘more dynamic’!”
“This isn’t what I meant at all! The character is just jumping around!”
“So, what exactly do you want me to do?!”
The tension in the room was palpable, but everyone else around them seemed to be used to it. It was like the main camp in a warzone. Kobayashi took Yamamoto into a meeting room and asked if everything was alright, since there was only six months until the game had to be released. Yamamoto assured Kobayashi that he was doing everything he could, but Kobayashi didn’t seem convinced. The development team seemed more frustrated than enthusiastic, and given how long he left the team in Yamamoto’s hands, Kobayashi thought that maybe the pressure was getting to him.
Capcom went back to the PlayStation 3 for Sengoku Basara 4, not even bothering with the Wii U because we all know how that went. They didn’t make a PS4 port at this point, presumably because they wanted to focus on how to make it in the series’ signature style first. Unlike the last game which used MT Framework Lite, this game and its expansion (and its later spinoff) uses the mainline MT Framework 2.x.
This game is not a sequel to the games that came before it, but rather a reboot set in an alternate timeline. Shogun Yoshiteru Ashikaga longed for a world of war and decided to relinquish his position, offering it to any warlord who could beat him and be worthy of taking his place. This would begin the Sengoku Genesis War.
So with this game being a reboot, you’d think there’d be space for cut characters to return, right? Well, yes, but first, let’s take a look at the new characters:
Sakon Shima
Katsuie Shibata
Naotora Ii
Shikanosuke Yamanaka
Matabei Gōtō
Sakon essentially has two movesets in one, which is dependent on his stance; either a bladed stance holding his twin swords normally with his left foot forward, or a kicking stance holding his twin swords backhandedly with his right foot forward. Naotora in Basara is different to her Samurai Warriors counterpart. Naotora in SW is whiny and apologetic to a fault, while Naotora in Basara is a girlboss feminazi. Shikanosuke is accompanied in battle by his deer companion, Oya-san (Pops), who is actually female as revealed in his anime route. His whole story is about trying to find his lord, Haruhisa Amago, but he never seems to find him even though he can be right in front of them. I’ll explain later.
Katsuie and Matabei’s character designs look like they’re upgraded generic officers. Katsuie became emo after failing to rebel against Nobunaga, but instead of raging against the machine, he ends up fighting for the machine like lefties in real life when politicians on their side are in power or lefty politicians when their supporters want them to rage against the machine. Matabei was a prominent vassal of the Toyotomi, but his overconfidence led to his defeats against Kenshin and Masamune, and he became deranged when his own side mocked him as a result. Now, his whole deal is going through his own Death Note hoping to personally mutilate everyone he listed in it- okay, Kobayashi, what the fuck is with you and your obsession with emos and mentally deranged people?
Two new NPCs are also featured, one being Yoshiteru Ashikaga, the central character of the game, and the other being Maria Kyōgoku, the older sister of Nagamasa Azai and a convert to Christianity in history. I’m surprised she’s not a Xaviist tbh. She is also voiced by Miyuki Sawashiro, Itsuki’s replacement seiyuu for the mobile game.
Most of the playable cast of Sengoku Basara 3 Utage return in this game. Kenshin, Kasuga, Toshiie, Matsu and Shingen are made NPCs once again, but Sasuke, Hideyoshi and Hanbei are playable. Ujimasa Hōjō has been cut from this game, either having passed away or being killed by Hisahide. Ranmaru and Nō are relegated to cutscene status because Tenkai/Mitsuhide is holding them hostage. Itsuki, Xavi, Yoshimoto, Kennyo and Musashi along with the area warlords from 3 remain unplayable despite there being a good opportunity for their return with the timeline reboot.
Despite the timeline reboot, some elements from previous games still happen; Mitsunari still has a hateboner for Ieyasu as he betrays Hideyoshi but doesn’t kill him, Xavi still leaves Japan and Sōrin takes over as leader of his sect, and Mitsuhide still has his name taken by Hisahide and becomes Tenkai.
The opening theme for this game is Round Count ZERO (Kamen Rider Agito!) by T.M.Revolution, appropriate given the theme of this game. The ending theme is Runners high by SCANDAL, which barely anyone would know given what would happen in its expansion.
The whole game mostly revolves around its story mode, namely Sengoku Creation Mode, which like 3’s Sengoku War Chronicle, is another combination of Story and Conquest Modes. With approximately 20 clans all over Japan, each character plays a total of six battles in this mode.
Aside from normal battles, battles can have various types, determined by the background of their titles. Outbreak (勃発) battles have red backgrounds and they randomly appear depending on what other armies do. Spinoff (派生) battles have blue backgrounds and I think they are the next likely candidates to be conquered by other armies if you don’t play them. Omen (予兆) battles with purple backgrounds can transform into another type of battle if they are left alone, for example Sawayama Castle or Komaki-Nagakute could become Sekigahara (West and East respectively), Azuchi Castle could become a Shizugatake battle against the Oda forces, and an open Ōtomo XaviLand could become closed. There are also 1v1 (due to the nature of this game it’s more like 2v1) battles against a single character. Because there’s no way to see the statuses of each faction across the land like in previous games, the way battles are listed seems to be random, which is par for the course with this series.
The opponent you fight in the final battle is dependent on a priority list, with Yoshiteru Ashikaga being the highest, so if you ignore him in the 5th battle, you will definitely fight him in the 6th (but I can’t be sure because it’s so random).
Most of the story is delivered in the dialogues before and after each battle, which are displayed as your character rushes to the next battle in the background. Because of this, you’ll be looking at the results of your last battle while the story plays above it. You can also hear the story again by pressing Start while preparing for battle. As the battlefield candidates for the next battle are listed by messengers, you’ll see brief cutscenes of those battlefields as well.
Aside from the normal Sengoku Creation route, most characters also have Drama routes which spin off from the fourth battle onwards and are 2-3 battles long with fixed battlefields and unique cutscenes (therefore some characters may end up playing 5 battles instead of 6). In addition, three characters, namely Sakon, Katsuie and Shikanosuke, have Anime routes that follow the same concept as Drama routes, but they have different stories and their ending cutscenes, which are also the only cutscenes they get, are animated by Production I.G, who also animated the Sengoku Basara (Samurai Kings) anime, in association with Wit Studio. I presume that they had more Anime routes planned for other characters, but due to the production issues the developers decided to just go with what they had and save the others for the expansion (though for the three Anime routes already in this game I’d question why they didn’t save them for the expansion either). Same goes for the few characters who don’t have Drama routes in this game.
When choosing a character, you can select whether you want to play Sengoku Creation in full (allowing for that route to be completed) or just their Drama/Anime routes.
Free Mode also exists, but the background is just your character standing there as you pick your next battle. That’s it.
In battle, there are multiple resources you can collect aside from gold, namely Enhancement Inrous, Whetstones, Iron Orbs and Fortune Hammers. Weapons are no longer obtainable from treasure boxes (the deluxe variants now give you multiple items), but instead, they are obtainable from post-battle rewards. The post-battle rewards you get are dependent on the score and rank you achieve in the battle; such rewards include weapons (for both your main and partner character), resources and even Battle Playbooks.
Enhancement Inrous are basically your EXP stock. You can upgrade characters a level at a time or allocate all the EXP you have to one character.
The Basara-ya Shop is where you do all your purchases and weapon upgrades. Sales (割引) and bargains (掘出物) will show up in the shop from time to time. Sometimes weapons can be purchased with undisclosed stats that are randomised when you purchase them.
Having save data from previous PS3 games, namely the HD Collection, 3 and/or Utage, will yield you some resources when creating save data for this game. Having data for all three games will also yield three Battle Playbooks.
Weapon selection and upgrading works differently from previous games. In previous games, you would obtain weapons and your current weapons would be upgraded accordingly, or they would be sold for gold if your weapon level was already the highest out of all of them. In this game, you can obtain multiple weapons with attributes and merge or upgrade them accordingly, like in Koei Warriors games. A maximum of 20 weapons can be kept per character and each character has seven types of weapon.
Weapon stats and attributes, also known as inscriptions, form the first half of what replaces the item system from previous games. Normal attributes (in grey and black) can be upgraded into enhanced attributes (in grey and blue) by merging an Extreme (極) attribute into them. Some attributes can also be merged with each other to form Fusion attributes, but both compatible attributes must be the same type for it to work (gold and black for normal fusion or gold and red for enhanced fusion). Special attributes (in green) are also available, whether in obtained weapons or by merging a Change (変) attribute into any attribute. There is a chance that the attribute may rust (in brown), reducing the damage dealt to enemies. Depending on the rarity level, weapons can have up to 6 attribute slots. Rarity levels can be upgraded by using iron orbs.
There’s a slight drawback when checking weapon attributes during weapon selection. In classic era Koei Warriors games, weapon attributes didn’t need in-game descriptions because it was obvious what stat it was upgrading just by looking at the name. It became necessary to show descriptions in modern era games because there were more of them and the effect wasn’t obvious by the name. Because this game doesn’t have a function to see what attributes a weapon has at the press of a button (but you can see it when merging weapon attributes), you would have to press R2 (L2 in Sumeragi) and look through the list to find that specific attribute (and also what can be merged with it or merged to create it).
Weapons have five stats that can be upgraded; health, attack, defence, Basara Gauge (fill amount) and kiai (guard resistance). You can use a fortune hammer to randomly upgrade a stat or rarity by a certain amount depending on the blessing tier. 25% of the stats are merged onto the base weapon when combining weapons. At level 5 rarity, each stat can be upgraded to a maximum of 1,500.
When selling weapons, weapons with the Treasure Sword (宝刀) attribute will yield an extra 10,000 gold (this also stacks with multiple copies of this attribute). You’ll also gain Fortune Hammers with Enhanced, Fusion or Special attributes and Whetstones for each parameter rounded down to the nearest 10.
Playbooks are the second half of the item system replacement, consisting of Battle, Music and Dialogue Playbooks. Up to three of each type can be taken into battle.
Battle Playbooks are consumable items that act as battle modifiers that can sometimes yield bonus rewards. One such book has enemies regain their health gradually but allows you to receive double the gold earned after clearing the battle. Another book halves the damage you receive from enemies, but your post-battle rewards are halved. Yet another book has you and your partner start the battle at level 1 and the EXP you earn goes into your Enhancement Inrous. It’s best paired with another item that gives you access to all your Special Attacks and Super Attacks at max level.
Music and Dialogue Playbooks replace the Rally Instruments and filler dialogue items from previous games. Music Playbooks are just BGMs of character themes or the opening and closing themes. Dialogue Playbooks include the Rod of Flattery, the Wig of Encouragement and the Ōshū Community Crashbox from previous games; new Dialogue Playbooks consist of one where Kanetsugu Naoe boasts his invincibility, and another set in a bar where soldiers go for a drink - even Kanetsugu, the Crashbox host and the female announcer can be found drinking there. Note that the Sengoku BAR playbook (as the latter is called) and the Crashbox cannot be used together.
The battle mechanics are carried over from 3 Utage, but in this game, level-ups now happen in battle and new attacks can be used as they are unlocked, plus characters can also switch their three Super Attacks by holding L1 and pressing R2. When you sidestep right before an enemy’s attack hits you, you can evade it and get a chance to counterattack. Deadlocks will also yield gold as you clash.
The new Super Mode for this game, the successor to the Sengoku Drive and Senkoku Boost, is called Maximum Style, or as I like to call it, StyleMax Mode (粋の至り). It is activated by pressing L1 and R1 with a full Style Gauge. Like with Senkoku Boost in the last game, it slows down time as it increases your attack and hit count among other effects. Triggering a Basara Attack in this mode makes it a StyleMax Basara Attack (粋バサラ技).
The tag-team mechanic from 3 Utage is fully implemented in 4. A tag partner will accompany you in battle and you can order them to attack enemies by holding down L2 and guiding the Order Ring (指令円) to who you want them to attack. Like with two-player mode, you can revive your tag partner quicker when downed by standing in the revive circle. When your tag partner reaches level 50, you can swap with them by pressing R3 (or L1 + Cross if it is set in the settings). If you have the Battle Playbook that locks you to level 1 however, it will no longer work.
When both your character and tag partner’s Basara Gauges are full, you can perform a double Basara Attack known as the Giga Basara Attack (戯画バサラ技). Both characters’ names, emblems and taglines are shown on the screen as they pose before enemies are hit with a geyser of ink, finishing with unique Basara-e drawings and Giga kanji for both characters (in the format OOXX婆娑羅図). This can also be performed in two-player mode; one player triggers it by holding down L2, then pressing Circle when the other player is within the ring that appears around them.
In battle, cuck sheds in bases have become cuck towers that can have up to three levels, and enemies can stack themselves into various formations. This is all done with the help of battlefield strategists that command them. When clashing with the base captains, you have a chance to trigger a timed attack that can instantly destroy a level of the cuck tower when you deflect their attack.
The fugitive system from 3 Utage has been refreshed into Fugitive Bingo. When selecting a stage, an icon will appear if a fugitive has been spotted. Finding and defeating the fugitive on that stage marks them off on a bingo board. Each square on the board corresponds to a specific set of stages. There are separate bingo boards for each difficulty. You can earn rewards for completing rows, columns and the whole board. There is a Battle Playbook that you can use to instantly locate fugitives on the stage.
In the settings, you can assign shortcuts to the D-pad buttons, whether to switch characters, switch between Super Attacks, order your tag partner to head somewhere or activate StyleMax Mode. In my experience (at least in Sumeragi), assigning a function to the D-pad makes the original buttons stop working, so I wasn’t able to change Super Attacks with L1 and R2 or switch characters with R3, but that’s alright.
For the first time, DLC is available for this game. There are soundtrack packs from previous games (眠れ緋の華 is also in there, just so you know), costume packs for select characters, PSN avatars and PS3 themes available. Aside from that, there are starter packs and boost packs that provide you with resources and max-rarity weapons with 6 Extreme attributes. There are also free sample packs with 6000 gold and 6000 EXP along with a jumbo Xavi costume for Muneshige. That’s the closest thing to having Xavi back in this game aside from Sōrin’s homages. You can also pay to unlock all playable characters from the start.
Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi - Anniversary Edition/Set (戦国BASARA4皇 - ANNIVERSARY EDITION・SET)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 (+ Anniversary Edition/Set)
Release date: 23 July 2015, 21 July 2020 (Anniversary Edition/Set)
Sengoku Basara 4 failed to reach its sales targets. While the game managed to sell under 160,000 copies in its first week (coming second between 3 and 2), it only ended up selling over 230,000 copies by the end of 2014, keeping in mind that Sengoku Basara 3 managed to sell over 200,000 copies in its first week. Naturally, the company directors and general managers were losing faith in the series. Maybe the peak that was the Sengoku Boom had passed and was petering out. Maybe there were too many new elements and actions. Maybe there wasn’t enough promotion to capture new fans. These were certainly factors that contributed to the poor sales performance - the difficulties during development and Capcom suing Koei Tecmo for patents they couldn’t prove their recent use of certainly didn’t help - but producer Kobayashi thought that those weren’t the main issues.
As Kobayashi and director Yamamoto reflected on the development difficulties on 4, Kobayashi suggested that the main problem was that they didn’t properly communicate their vision for the game to the team. Kobayashi had spoken to team leaders throughout the course of development and he often heard them say that they didn’t understand what Yamamoto wanted, considering the possibility that his ideas weren’t understood by the team. Yamamoto thought for a moment and realised that Kobayashi was right; he was so focused on doing whatever it took to surpass Sengoku Basara 3 that he didn’t spend enough time thoroughly explaining things, forcing his ideas on the team rather than directing them. Kobayashi being absent from the team and leaving everything to Yamamoto put tremendous pressure on him and he realised that he should have done a better job following up. With a bigger project came a bigger team and with it came bigger difficulties in ensuring that everyone was on the same page.
Seeing as July 2015 would mark the tenth anniversary of the series, Kobayashi and Yamamoto were determined to try again with Sengoku Basara 4 so they could improve on it. When they brought their proposal to the approval meeting, they knew that there was no chance they could gain that approval based on expectations and enthusiasm alone. Regardless, they didn’t back down on their convictions, convincing the directors and managers of what marketing and licensing opportunities the series had inspired so far and what else could be inspired by it. Perhaps wanting to give the series another chance, Kobayashi and Yamamoto’s proposal for an anniversary title, an expansion of Sengoku Basara 4, was approved. If this were to be the last hurrah for the series, then they were determined to make the best game they could and go out with a bang. Their target for launch was July 2015.
(The timeline Capcom gives is confusing because it implies the approval meeting takes place in mid-2013 during the development of Sengoku Basara 4 because why even put out a pitch for the next title when you haven’t finished the title you're working on currently, so I just guessed the logical timeline.)
Reflecting on how disordered the development structure was for the vanilla 4, the team was restructured to facilitate ideas and build mutual understanding, centreing on those who had worked on the series before and appointing some members to lead teams for the first time. It was built to encourage younger staff to push their limits.
No sooner than work on the expansion began was it necessary to make it compatible with the PlayStation 4 for the first time. They had been using Capcom’s proprietary MT Framework engine for their PS3 games, but for the PS4, they needed to use a new next-gen engine that was also being developed in-house and take great pains to render everything in 1080p. It wouldn’t be logical to create a rehashed expansion like they did for 2 Heroes or 3 Utage, which was just as well for them because they felt the vanilla 4 needed improvement, not to mention that they only had 6 months to complete it. I presume the team had more time to work on previous expansions because their vanilla games did so well or the team was smaller back then.
And so, the expansion was released on time, just a couple of days after the series’ 10th anniversary. It was titled Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi, Sumeragi being an ancient pronunciation of the kanji that meant “emperor”.
Because for the first time, this was an actual expansion and not a rehashed expansion, more things could be carried over to Sumeragi from 4. These included character levels, unlocked costumes, weapons and their attributes, Playbooks, Sengoku Creation clear progress (but not any in-progress stories) and Fugitive Bingo progress. Resources would not carry over into the expansion and would instead be converted into a new resource called Tenka Medals; the OP/ED Music Playbooks would unlock their equivalents in the expansion.
If you were playing Sumeragi on the PS3 it would ideally just take the save from 4, but if you were playing on the PS4, you would need to upload that save to the PSN (I’ve seen reports saying you might need to upload it even if you’re playing on the PS3). Despite this however, cross-save is not supported between the PS3 and PS4.
Seriously, at this point Koei Tecmo have implemented cross-save on WO3U, DW8XL and SW4, plus like KT did with the vanilla WO3 and DW8, Capcom updated Basara 4 to be able to upload save data to the PSN so it could be used to create the save data for Sumeragi. They had no excuse not to implement cross-save.
With the PS4 version, aside from the graphics (and sound) being upgraded to 1080p quality, the game now runs at 60fps in two-player mode, whereas it would run at 30fps on the PS3.
Yoshiteru and Maria are now playable in this game along with a new character, Rikyū Sen. Yoshiteru implements a roulette system in some of his attacks that can buff him or deal attacks with various elements. Maria attacks with streams of cloth from her sleeves that can tie up enemies. Rikyū switches between two distinct personalities, the pacifistic Wabisuke and the bloodthirsty Sabisuke. In other words, he’s a schizo.
With the addition of Yoshiteru and Rikyū comes two new elements unique to them. The Quake element, used by Yoshiteru, splits the earth for additional damage in short-range attacks and puts fear into enemies in a wider area. The Feeling element, used by Rikyū, can either make enemies go depressed and stop attacking, or go berserk and attack ally and enemy alike.
Kenshin, Kasuga, Toshiie, Matsu and Shingen have been made playable once again with two new Super Attacks, putting them on par with other characters for the first time since 2 Heroes. These additions bring the total to 40 playable characters for this game. Similar to 3 Utage, Mitsuhide’s appearance is selectable as an alternate costume for Tenkai.
Itsuki, Xavi, Yoshimoto, Kennyo, Musashi and Ujimasa do not return, but if they brought them back and made them playable, that would bring the total up to 46. If they added the area warlords and made them playable along with Kanetsugu, that could bring the total up to 52. To make the character selection screen evenly lined up in rows of 6, 7, 8 or even 9, they could also add some more new characters with or without the area warlords (from future releases, Masayuki Sanada, Nobuyuki Sanada, Komatsu/Ina and Kiyomasa Katō come to mind) to make the total 48, 54 or 56 characters, the latter bringing it on par with SW4-II.
The opening theme for Sumeragi is DOUBLE-DEAL by T.M.Revolution, with an animated opening to pair with it. This song also plays in the background on the main menu, making it feel more like a party than 3 Utage’s menu. The ending theme is ヘブンリーブルー (Heavenly Blue) by Chiaki Ishikawa, which also plays through the results scroll after the credits upon clearing a story. It’s the first Basara theme to have a katakana title and it pisses me off because I have to add an English transliteration next to it.
I’m going to address this now; the release of 4 Sumeragi as an actual expansion made the vanilla Basara 4 obsolete (like DW8XL’s PC and PS4 ports did for the PS3 port). There is no incentive to play the vanilla game and as such, there are very few videos of it, with the majority of gameplay videos coming from Sumeragi. The opening movie for 4 can still be found on YouTube, while it’s difficult to find a video of 4’s credits separately; the only video of 4’s credits I could find doesn’t have any sound. Given how the same user posted the credits of Sumeragi as well without any sound, I think it’s more a case of the software they used than the song being copyright claimed, especially since you can also see it in this video.
The main story mode of this game has been upgraded to… Sengoku Creation Extreme. In the vanilla game, when you entered that mode there would be a short monologue from Yoshiteru before he throws his scroll to the viewer, transitioning into the character selection screen (Free Mode has a similar cutscene as well). Sumeragi removes this altogether, which is a bit of a shame but it is what it is. New stages have also been added in the expansion and all characters are unlocked from the start.
Every character now has a Drama route along with their usual Sengoku Creation (Extreme) Route. Additional Anime routes have been added for Masamune, Yukimura, Motonari, Motochika, Mitsunari and Ieyasu, making for a total of 9 characters with Anime Routes. These cover most of the God7 from the BSR48 General Election (excluding Kojūrō and Sasuke), but it’s a shame that these only make up a quarter of the total playable cast when production of the vanilla game was so fraught with difficulties that they only put 3 in the vanilla game and made 6 more in Sumeragi. Even Keiji didn’t get one despite being the poster boy for Sengoku Basara 2.
New to this game are Tenka Medals (天貨メダル) and the Battle Roulette (合戦ルーレット) system. When selecting a battle, a roulette icon may appear if the battle is compatible with it. You can choose to toggle it on or off with the R2 button. If it is on, soldiers carrying roulette wheels will appear all over the battlefield, which will trigger Battle Roulettes when they are defeated, plus destroying cuck towers (first time only, subsequent reoccupations not supported) will trigger Battle Roulettes as well. A large roulette wheel spins at the top of the screen and what happens depends on what space it lands on:
Gold - Jackpot (千金): You earn 1000 Tenka Medals, plus for 30 seconds, you enter Super Fever mode to earn more gold, all your attacks are critical hits and defeating enemy soldiers yields you medals.
Red - Medals (天貨):
Haruhisa Amago, now having joined the Xaviists and given the name Poem Amago, crawls under the battlefield for 45 seconds, popping up every now and again. Hitting him when he comes above ground will yield you medals. It’s ironic when this happens while you play as Shikanosuke given how he’s trying to find his lord but he doesn’t notice him. Why not make it so this doesn’t happen when you play as him?
Soldiers carrying stacks of medals will appear around you for 30 seconds. Defeating them will yield medals.
Black - Transformation (変化): For 45 seconds, you transform into one of the following and defeating enemies will yield medals:
Kanetsugu Naoe: You can defeat enemies in one hit and even perform a Basara Attack, but if you get hit even once, he headplants into the ground and the transformation ends.
Akatsukimaru: Sweep up enemies as you rampage across the battlefield in a miniature version of Motochika’s warship. Fire a laser beam by holding down R1 or fire all cannons with Circle, but doing the latter will end the transformation.
Bombardier: Set, throw or bury bombs to your will. Some bombs may be red which summon fire pillars, while some may be gold which produce large explosions. Pressing Circle produces a large gold bomb, causing you to Aluwakbar yourself as it deals damage to a large area.
Skull - Punishment (罰天): One of the following happens:
Bombs will rain down from above for a few seconds and you have to dodge them. Unlike in 3 Utage, you can’t bat them away by hitting them.
Musashi Miyamoto will appear and fight you for 45 seconds. Defeating him will yield medals and a deluxe treasure box.
Xaviist angels will stun you and try to take your soul to heaven, so you have to shake them away otherwise your health goes to zero and your tag partner has to revive you. I’m not joking. If you’re already in another transformation or in StyleMax Mode, it will automatically reject the angels.
Green Revolution (革) boxes can appear on the battlefield, which can increase the chance of a particular result when the roulette is next triggered. It is also possible to trigger the roulette again and have another transformation, but it’s best to do it a few seconds after the effect comes in and not while the roulette is still spinning, otherwise it won’t work. In two-player mode, it is possible for both players to trigger roulettes at the same time.
Game planner Keiji Teranishi recounted that the Battle Roulette was the most challenging aspect of this game. Yamamoto wanted to include a casino element from the start, originally envisioning a system where players could use medals to place bets for more medals, however it didn’t feel sufficient and there was backlash from the development team who thought that there needed to some action elements incorporated into it, so Teranishi asked Yamamoto to rethink it. Yamamoto halted development on his concept to do just that, even getting the rest of the team to pitch in discussions and feedback. This led to the creation of the Battle Roulette system as seen in the game, part of the over-the-top action that Sengoku Basara was known for.
Tenka Medals can be used in a new Prize Exchange Store (景品交換) by pressing L1 in the battle preparation menu. In the vanilla game, L1 was used to set Battle Playbooks and R1 was used to set Music and Dialogue Playbooks. In Sumeragi, the two menus are merged, but the prompt to set Battle Playbooks went to the right hand side of the screen so I’d press L1 thinking that would be to set my Playbooks when in actuality, it would open the Prize Exchange Store. Why not put it on the L2 button or have it as an entry in the battle preparation menu?
Anyway, Tenka Medals can be used to purchase costumes, weapons with character-unique attributes or the Open (開) attribute, or a new sixth Special Attack for characters. It can also be used to purchase a special Dialogue Playbook that has the female announcer interviewing soldiers on the battlefield. It can’t be used together with the Crashbox or Sengoku Bar Playbooks.
Speaking of new Special Attacks, these can be triggered with L1 and Square when they are purchased for 800 Tenka Medals. The new sixth Special Attacks were developed by main programmer Shinya Shigeyoshi; upon returning from vacation, Yamamoto asked him to create two new attacks for all 40 characters, which came as a shock to him because with the schedule he established and the tasks he allocated to his team members, there wasn’t enough man-hours to set aside for it. When Shigeyoshi tried pleading with Yamamoto, he told him that the game needed more gameplay elements, adding that he could combine existing assets if needed; it needed to be done no matter what.
Shigeyoshi decided to offer Yamamoto a compromise of one new Special Attack for each character and gave two proposed ideas; one was a throwaway proposal that was basically an extension of existing attacks, and the other was a prototype of an all-new Special Attack altogether. Yamamoto saw the latter and was amazed at the quality, praising it for adding a new dimension to the gameplay, and that was what he went with. Creating new attacks for 40 characters wasn’t an easy task for Shigeyoshi on top of his other duties as main programmer, but luckily other team members pitched in to help. Despite all this, the new Special Attacks are not named, which you’d think they’d be able to sneak in at some point, but like with all the other decisions made throughout the development of this series, it is what it is.
Fortune Hammers can be used to shuffle battle rewards before heading into battle. Depending on the result you can get better rewards, or if your luck is bad then you might get up to six rusty weapons for both characters.
Character switching is now available from the start instead of when characters are at level 50. For most players who are most likely playing Sumeragi anew, this means that both your character and tag partner can level up at the same time (assuming you both start at the same level with the same amount of EXP). The level cap has been increased from 200 in 3 Utage (100 for vanilla 4) to 999. When allocating EXP to characters, you can level characters up 10 levels instead of allocating all the Experience Inrous you have to one character.
While in StyleMax Mode, you can extend your time in that mode by quickly swapping characters and attacking enemies that have yellow in their health bars (that is, they’ve taken damage but it hasn’t fully taken effect yet). This is called StyleMax Reversi (粋の至り・廻).
A new Heaven difficulty has been added above Basara difficulty, which is unlockable by clearing the final battle of a story in Basara difficulty. Enemy commanders can use Basara Attacks, enemy guard resistance will increase and all rice balls become holy water that recovers the Basara Gauge.
Characters can now hold up to 40 weapons each. There is also a new Open (開) element that allows your weapon to be upgraded up to level 10 rarity and a stat limit of 3,000, but you still only have a maximum of 6 elements, one of which is taken by the Open element and cannot be overwritten, so you really only have 5.
DLCs are available once again, and the costumes and soundtracks from 4’s DLC can be downloaded in Sumeragi for free. New DLCs include more costumes and boost packs for resources and weapons; aside from the high-rarity Extreme attribute weapons, you can obtain packs of high-rarity weapons with a particular category of attribute. Small packs allow you to redeem one such weapon, while large packs enable you to redeem up to five weapons. PS3 players get avatars and themes for the eight characters made playable in Sumeragi, while PS4 players can get a Sumeragi special theme. A disco mix of 10 character BGMs are available alongside past theme songs for the series (across games, anime and stage shows), but only those performed by Takanori Nishikawa (as T.M.Revolution and abingdon boys school) and Chiaki Ishikawa, presumably due to licencing difficulties or because they’re the most prolific singers for the series. It’s also through this that you can get Count ZERO as a BGM once again. You could also unlock second costumes and all Special Attacks for all characters.
Pre-orders of the game would receive a special Sumeragi ID that would allow you to claim four element-changing weapons for Ieyasu, Mitsunari, Masamune and Yukimura, along with a code in the physical box that could redeem said weapon for Yoshiteru. The Sumeragi ID had to be registered on Capcom’s website up to 6 weeks prior to the game’s release, then up to 8 weeks after, you had to log in again with the Sumeragi ID and enter the code for Yoshiteru’s weapon, which would then give you the PSN code for the four weapons. And they couldn’t tie this into one code included in the physical box why? Three more element-changing weapons for Sakon, Maria and Katsuie were also made available as magazine bonuses.
5 years later in 2020, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Sengoku Basara series, 4 Sumeragi was rereleased on the PS4, known as the Anniversary Edition physically or the Anniversary Set digitally. All second costumes and Special Attacks would be unlocked, plus all the DLC costumes, soundtracks, past theme songs and the disco mix would be included, on the disc for the physical edition with a PSN code for boost packs (that was only valid for two years after release), or as a separate DLC pack digitally (in a bundle with the digital version of Sumeragi or separately if you already own the game). The DLC pack is not available for the PS3 port, and if you have the physical Anniversary Edition and you didn’t own any of the DLC included on it when you played Sumeragi normally, the DLC you didn’t own will not be available if you switch back to the normal version. Save data is the same for both the normal and anniversary editions, and the redeemed DLC resources are just added onto what you have already.
Here’s a kicker. Originally, it was announced that you would get all eight of the element-changing weapons along with one large Sumeragi Starter set and one large set of the 11 high-rarity attribute weapon packs each. A month before the Anniversary Edition was released, Capcom announced a change to this part of the DLC; the element-changing weapons would not be included, instead being replaced with five Sumeragi Starter sets and three large sets of the 11 high-rarity attribute weapon packs each. Considering how convoluted it was to get those weapons on pre-order, what fucking gives?
The PS3 port was delisted from the PSN Store on 13 February 2026, which was announced as I was writing this retrospective. You know a series is dead when its publishers would rather kill its older ports instead of letting them sink with the stores, but more on that in a later instalment.
While playing the game on RPCS3, I noticed that my ISO rip of the physical game would crash if I tried selecting Katsuie or Matabei. I got the PKG of the digital version and installed it and I didn’t have those issues.
Like with 3 Utage, there is no English localisation for the vanilla 4 or Sumeragi. However, there is a fan project dedicated to translating the PS3 version of Sumeragi and they have made an English patch compatible for it. However, given that it only works with the disc version, I struggle to see how it would get past the Katsuie/Matabei bugs in my case.
SWSB Comparison 4
Sengoku Basara 4 cuts 5 NPC characters and 1 playable character, brings 2 characters back and adds 5 new characters while making 5 more characters NPCs, making for a total of 32 playable characters with 7 NPCs. Sumeragi makes the NPCs playable and adds one new character for a total of 40, and if you count Kanetsugu, Haruhisa and Musashi there are 3 NPCs for a total of 43 characters. I’ve also stated how the cast can be expanded to include past cut characters, NPCs and some future characters to create a total of 56, on par with Samurai Warriors 4-II.
Basara 4 and Sumeragi only have Sengoku Creation Mode, with all characters receiving Drama routes and 10 characters receiving Anime routes in Sumeragi. Samurai Warriors 4 and 4-II split the Story Modes by faction (with the stories in 4-II focusing on the new characters), but 5 characters are not playable in 4’s Story Mode, with even more not being playable in 4-II’s Story Mode. Samurai Warriors 4 also adds Chronicle Mode while 4-II has Survival Mode, incorporating the Infinity Castle and Challenge Mode. And of course, SW4 has custom character functionality.
Battle-wise, Basara 4 Sumeragi adds one Special Attack and changes Senkoku Boost/Sengoku Drive to StyleMax Mode while SW4 adds a Musou Finisher, the Frenzy Finisher in Rage Mode, Hyper Attacks and Mighty Strikes. Basara only introduced double Basara Attacks in 4 with the Giga Basara Attack.
Sengoku Basara 4 was only released on the PS3, with the Sumeragi expansion also making it available on the PS4, but without cross-save capability. Samurai Warriors 4 and its expansions were made available on the PS3, PS4 and PS Vita, with a spinoff on the Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita along with Switch and PC ports being released years after.
Sengoku Basara gained an edge when Basara 4 was released two months before SW4, but ultimately Samurai Warriors prevailed with everything else. Overall, Samurai Warriors has won over Sengoku Basara in features and battle mechanics, but their slip-up with SW3 was largely a result of their exclusivity deals with Nintendo, allowing Basara 3 to prevail in this one horse open sleigh race.
Regardless of my feelings on both series, it’s important to remind everyone what direction Koei Tecmo and Capcom took with Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara; Samurai Warriors (and by extension the rest of the Koei Warriors series) aims for realism in 1-vs-1000 battlefields, while Sengoku Basara aims for character appeal and over-the-top action to attract casual fans. With their approaches, the Koei Warriors series would experiment with new formats and consoles in multiple spinoff games, while Sengoku Basara managed to spark an interest in Sengoku-era Japan and branch out into other mediums, collaborating with local governments to use their characters to promote tourism.
Sengoku Basara 4 was a game fraught with difficulties throughout its development and a struggle to sell well due to conflicts amongst the team and the passing of the series’ peak that was the Sengoku Boom. Although the team managed to turn some things around in the short time they got to develop the expansion, it ultimately wasn’t enough to keep the series going. Though the battle mechanics continued to mature from the last game, the game modes (and anime routes) were unfortunately lacking even in the expansion; there was no way to see clan territories in Sengoku Creation Mode and there were no other modes apart from that mode. Perhaps the internal conflicts and time constraints played a factor in the game and its expansion being released as they were. Regardless, it’s still a great game in terms of gameplay.
If you could only play one game in the Sengoku Basara series, then make it 4 Sumeragi. While 4 is accessible enough to new players as a reboot for the series, the improvements made to Sumeragi make it the definitive experience for newcomers. Even if you’re playing through the entire series and you’re figuring out what version of 4 to get, there’s no need to bother with 4 because Sumeragi is an actual expansion this time.
I must give props to Raindrops and Daydreams for creating reference guides for 4 and Sumeragi. They’ve been a great resource for Sengoku Basara information and I had a little discussion with them 10 years ago during the Koei Warriors Rant Series days. It’s just a shame they’ve disappeared off the face of the internet.
The Sengoku Basara series had essentially reached its end because 4 Sumeragi only ended up selling over 140,000 copies across the PS3 and PS4 by the end of 2016, which was under what vanilla 4 sold in its first week. Unexpectedly however, they were also working on another spinoff game at the same time as Sumeragi. Next time, we take a look at a last, last chance experiment made for a final, final attempt at reviving the series with Sengoku Basara Spirit of- I mean, Legend of Yukimura Sanada.
Even when you're in another universe, some things never change.
Two hours on a plane later and we finally got to Hong Kong. As stated, I went there last year and I got a bit sick, so this time around I'm going to be careful of what I eat. Good luck me.
We got through immigration and customs quote quickly. Nobody wanted to check my stuff, whether it was my phone or luggage. Hong Kong (and also China?) is rather lax when it comes to biosecurity unlike Australia, and luckily my ID checked out with them; even if I entered under my real name I doubt I'd be important enough to raise any red flags even with my vagueposting.
On previous visits to Hong Kong I got a bus or a taxi to my accommodation (if my uncle didn't drive me). This time however, we took the Airport Express into Central and it took about 25 minutes. Our hotel was right above the station in the shopping centre. The place is so damn expensive for the average traveller, but that's to be expected for a 5-star hotel in this location. Luckily the Shadow Proclamation had everything covered.
Room 2: Tazuko Nobesawa, Mariko Ōsawa, Harumi Sakenobe, Hina Uchigashima
The girls wanted to go to Disneyland, Lan Kwai Fong and some museums. I also took them to Kai Tak, The Peak and Tsim Sha Tsui, even to Ma Wan just for the hell of it. I introduced them to cha chaan teng culture and at proper restaurants, I even showed them how locals rinse their bowls and chopsticks and how they have a separate set of chopsticks for getting your food. With all the shopping these girls do sometimes I wonder how they'll organise it all when they go back home.
I did mention that Hong Kong was somewhere I was both looking forward and dreading to go. While I love things like their public transport system, the Octopus card and all the foods I normally don't see back home, I hate how things have gone from bad to worse for decent Hongkongers over the past decade.
While I was being held at the Shadow Proclamation I heard the news that Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison for national security offences. My first reaction was, "He's only getting sentenced NOW?!" not in a way that implied I support it, but in a way that was like "Hasn't he suffered enough?" because he was in prison since his arrest in 2021. Apparently there was cheering in the courtroom when the sentence was handed down. So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.
Following the news these past few months, I recall how Maduro's arrest in Venezuela and the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran were celebrated by their countrymen and diaspora abroad. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of them because I hope to celebrate something like that one day. Unfortunately, those events weren't the be-all end-all to the problems those countries have had, and in our case such an event happening would ring hollow to us.
Unlike the liberation of Syria from the Assad regime at the end of 2024 however, the events in Venezuela and Iran were caused by US intervention, which led me to conclude that nobody cares about foreign intervention in political movements. Political movements have been accused of being CIA-funded or whatever so much that people just don't care and they're willing to accept it if it achieves their goals. Who cares if the Hong Kong democracy movement was CIA-funded? Why should people have any qualms about colluding with foreign forces if their country doesn't have their best interests at heart (to put it lightly)? After the 2019 protests lost, Hong Kong has made national security its entire personality and every single piece of news about it feels like they're rubbing it into our faces. This has made people angry to the point that they've become apathetic so as to keep living peaceful lives and not get arrested. The nebs are running the ghetto and everything they’re doing to the hobys at this point is just gloating.
Some of that anger must have rubbed off on me because some of the girls started complaining that I've been a bit too rough with them. Rika decided to take me out for a coffee one morning so she could ask what was going on with me. I didn't make direct references, but told her that the news was making me feel negative. She soon switched the subject to whether I would visit their universe and I said I would think about it.
All good things must come to an end however. On our last night we packed our bags and had a finale party before we went to sleep. The next morning however, I got a call from Inspector Shingo Tokihama.
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 4: Sengoku Basara 3
Sengoku Basara 3/Samurai Heroes (戦国BASARA3)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii
Release dates:
Japan: 29 July 2010
USA: 12 October 2010
Europe: 15 October 2010
Sengoku Basara experienced a peak following the release of 2. The Sengoku Boom saw a renewed interest in Sengoku era Japan and an influx of new fans to the series, particularly female history buffs or rekijōs (歴女) who were attracted to the charismatic warlord characters of the series.
At the same time, Sengoku Basara also branched out into other mediums. Two anime series, based on the events of the first two games (and including some elements of the third) were produced by Production I.G and broadcast in 2009 and 2010, licenced to the West as Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings. A movie based on the events of 3, The Last Party, premiered in June 2011. Following that, a live-action series, MOONLIGHT PARTY, premiered on the TBS network (in Japan) in 2012. The series also branched out into stage shows, manga, radio shows, drama CDs, trading card games, pachislots, figurines, even Roomba-style vacuum cleaners. And people say capitalism is bad.
In the midst of it all, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi and director Makoto Yamamoto would need to put out another game for the series, and Sengoku Basara 3 came out in 2010 during the series’ 5th anniversary. But something clicked in Capcom and the Basara development team; while Devil Kings, the localisation of the first game flopped, the English release of the Sengoku Basara anime (and manga, Samurai Legends) likely led them to realise that there was still an audience on the other side of the ocean. So they decided to take another chance at localisation and Sengoku Basara 3 was released in the West a few months later as Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes.
Seriously, 2 Heroes, Battle Heroes, Chronicle Heroes, Samurai Heroes, Samurai Kings, Samurai Legends, the naming just gets more and more confusing by the year. Hey guys, which of those titles are Japanese releases and which of them are Western releases? Let’s dig into Sengoku Basara 3/Samurai Heroes and see just how far the peak is.
Sengoku Basara 3/Samurai Heroes
Sengoku Basara 3 is the beginning of the series’ modern era, moving on from the PlayStation 2 to the PlayStation 3. At the same time, they also released a Wii port, like they did for 2 Heroes. Gee, it’s almost like Capcom didn’t need to collab with a bigger corporation like Nintendo to deliver a side mode that would only be playable on the Wii for IP reasons, then fuck up sales in the West by letting them publish the game there and stifling any possibility for a localisation of its expansion or the PS3 port and then only release their staple spinoff on the PS3 after realising their mistake.
From this game onwards, Sengoku Basara games would be built on Capcom’s in-house MT Framework engine. As the engine was only compatible for the seventh generation of gaming consoles, a special version of the engine, MT Framework Lite, was created to reduce the time and costs associated with developing Wii games, and so Sengoku Basara 3 (and it's “expansion”, Utage) were developed with it.
This game’s story centres around the Battle of Sekigahara. After the death of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi Toyotomi quickly unified Japan and planned to expand out into the world, but his subordinate, Ieyasu Tokugawa, questioning his motives, betrayed and killed him in a fierce battle. Mitsunari Ishida, another one of Hideyoshi’s subordinates, arrived too late to save him, and from then on, his hate and desire for revenge against Ieyasu became his entire personality to hysteric proportions, constantly shouting his name like a jilted lover because damn it, everything is gay about this.
With the change in the era comes a shakeup to the character lineup. Let’s start off with the new playable characters in this game:
Ieyasu Tokugawa
Mitsunari Ishida
Yoshitsugu Ōtani
Magoichi Saika
Kanbei Kuroda
Tsuru
Ieyasu is listed here because he’s got a new older design and moveset, plus he’s listed as a distinct character from his younger design in Chronicle Heroes and the BSR48 General Election. Ieyasu’s now a boxer, and his L1 Special Attack allows you to spam punches.
Yoshitsugu is depicted wrapped in bandages like a mummy and floating on a palanquin in reference to historical rumours that he had leprosy. It’s noted in character descriptions that he was driven mad by his illness and strived to bring misfortune to all humanity by instigating a decisive war. This apparently pissed off some Japanese fans when leaks came out from Famitsu Magazine in October 2009, but it only became more mainstream in February 2010 when the Japanese Leprosy Association released a statement advising that such a depiction could offend leprosy patients and survivors. His character description on the game’s website was changed following this, but when the game was released a few months later, his in-game description was unchanged. The same would be the case for the English version of the game.
Magoichi is a woman in this game, referring to how the name is a title adopted by various individuals of the Suzuki clan (鈴木氏), usually their leaders. In a conversation with Motochika, it’s revealed that her birth name was Sayaka (サヤカ), referring to a theory that in Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea, a man (the game says woman for some reason) named Sayaka (沙也可) who defected to the Joseon Army and became known as Kim Chungson (김충선/金忠善) was of the Saika Renegades. Or maybe it’s because her seiyuu is Sayaka Ōhara, who knows.
Tsuru, or rather Tsuruhime, who represents the Kōno clan of Iyo, is an interesting addition given that she died young in 1543, before the time of the Kantō Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga. Her divine inspiration and fighting skill led her to become the Japanese Joan of Arc.
Here are the new NPCs:
Hideaki Kobayakawa
Tenkai
Yoshiaki Mōgami
Muneshige Tachibana
Sōrin Ōtomo
Hideaki Kobayakawa is portrayed as a coward who is scared about everything and fights with (or should I say in?) a wok, more concerned about stuffing his fucking face than fighting. Stop spinning out in your wok, you fat cunt, you run like a fucking twat.
Tenkai is a mysterious monk who acts as Hideaki’s benefactor, manipulating him for his own goals. If you think he looks exactly like Mitsuhide but with a mask, you would be correct because it literally is him, as seen when you play his Story Mode in Utage. After betraying and killing Nobunaga at Honnōji, he has an epic crashout over wanting to be human and eventually finds himself at the mercy of Hisahide Matsunaga, who steals his name and with it, the credit of having killed Nobunaga. A flashback with Nobunaga leads him to take on the name Tenkai. Towards the end of Nobunaga’s Story Mode, all he wanted was to be acknowledged by Nobunaga, but all he can say is…
Tenkai’s true identity as Mitsuhide also makes reference to a popular theory that he survived his defeat at the Battle of Yamasaki and changed his name, going on to live past Sekigahara and into the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Sōrin Ōtomo is the successor of Xavi’s Christian server sect, the missionary having left Japan for his homeland; whether he left of his own volition or was exiled is unknown. His historical counterpart was known for converting to Christianity in his later life, being baptised under the name Francisco. You know, why is it that Sōrin doesn’t have an English name despite everyone else in his sect having one?
Muneshige’s gimmick is that we can hear his internal thoughts in dialogue, but the problem is that his thoughts are expressed in ellipses so nobody can properly know what he is thinking, not to mention that it creates accessibility issues, as if the cutscenes not having subtitles wasn’t already bad enough. The only saving grace is that his thoughts are written out in the English version (albeit not in brackets).
Quite a number of characters have been cut or relegated to NPC status, and the way that they’re listed is a clusterfuck. Characters relegated to NPCs are Kojūrō, Sasuke, Kenshin, Kasuga, Toshiie, Matsu and Ujimasa. Shingen, Hideyoshi and Hanbei only appear in cutscene movies, while Nō, Ranmaru, Itsuki, Xavi, Yoshimoto, Kennyo and Musashi are fully cut from the game. As stated, Mitsuhide is now known as Tenkai, while Nagamasa and Hisahide take a break for this game.
I mentioned about what happened to Itsuki’s seiyuu, Tomoko Kawakami, in the last instalment. In-game, she retired from the battlefield and returned to being a farmer in the far north, then in Sengoku Basara 4, it’s said that she is trying to make it as an idol in Hollywood.
Aside from Kanetsugu, several upgraded generic officers have been introduced as area warlords with their own stages:
Haruhisa Amago
Yoritsuna Anegakōji
Harumasa Nanbu
Yoshishige Satake
Hirotsuna Utsunomiya
The opening theme song for this game is Naked arms by T.M.Revolution. Amazingly, an English version of the song was also produced and used in the English version of the game, and it is a song alright. The ending theme in the Japanese version is 逆光 by Chiaki Ishikawa. Ishikawa made a couple of insert songs for the Sengoku Basara anime and would later do the same for the 2014 Judge End/End of Judgement anime. It’s stated that the ending theme (or rather, the “main theme”) of the English version is Kizuna, Kokorozashi, Inochi (絆 Bonds/志 Will/命 Life) composed by Kō Ōtani, but unfortunately, that is misinformation; the title actually refers to three different BGMs in the game (one of them being the main menu BGM). The ending theme in the English version is actually The Last Brave (掉尾の勇), composed by Rei Kondō and included in the soundtrack for Utage.
Story Mode in this game is now called Sengoku Drama Chronicles (戦国ドラマ絵巻), or Heroes’ Story in the English version. Each character has multiple story routes that they can play and multiple ways of progressing through those routes. Everyone plays the Red story route on first playthrough. Other routes, like the Blue, Green, Purple or Brown routes, are available after clearing the Red route once first. Playthroughs will mostly be around 8 stages long. Honestly, mapping out all the battle permutations is so confusing. Why not divide the story into groups of battles that you have to clear in order to proceed, like DW4? You can review the routes your character has taken at any time, in the Guide section in-game or from the main menu in the Gallery.
There are 7 versions of Sekigahara to be played in this game, which is usually the final battle of the Red route in each characters’ story. An alternate Honnōji route is available by playing as Oichi; clear her Red route, then play the Green route and defeat Tenkai at Karasu Castle (which is actually incorrect, Okayama Castle, as it is known now, was known as 烏城 U Castle, 金烏城 Kin’u Castle or Ujō Castle if you like tautology - Karasu Castle is actually the name for Matsumoto Castle) to unlock the Purple route, then once you clear the final stage at Honnōji, that route will become available for all characters.
Free Mode is known as Quick Battles in the English version. Unlike 2, Conquest Mode has been removed from this game. Its premise and concept have been combined into Sengoku Drama Chronicle, showing forces eliminating or merging with one another instead of just showing the clans and their territories. Sure, you can look at a map of the current situation of the land between battles, but it’s just not the same.
The battle mechanics have been changed for the modern era. Instead of only being able to equip two Special Skills (the English version calls attacks/skills “Arts” lol) at a time and having to switch between them, you can use all four Special Skills as they are unlocked. They can be triggered by pressing Triangle while stationary, while moving or while holding L1, plus another one can be triggered with R1. This means that the guard button has now been moved to L1. Gee, it’s like they should have gone with that in the first place. Also with this, you can deflect an enemy attack by pressing L1 with the right timing.
Some characters’ Special Skills have also been adapted into the new Super Attacks (or Super Arts in the English version) and some new Super Attacks have been made. As they are unlocked, you can choose between one of three Super Attacks to take into battle, which are triggered with R2.
The Sengoku Drive from the last game has been changed to the Senkoku Boost (戦刻ブースト, known as Hero Time in the English version). The gauge is filled as you play the stage, then when it is full, you can trigger Senkoku Boost by pressing L2. While in Senkoku Boost, time will slow down around you, you gain twice the EXP, your hit combo chain won’t end, you gain super armor and you move 35% faster on top of being able to ignore enemy guards and attack downed enemies. Senkoku Boost is 10 seconds long, but it can be extended by 2 seconds for every 5 enemies you defeat. And of course, triggering a Basara Attack here makes it an Ultimate Basara Attack.
Now when guarding an enemy attack at the right moment, you can instantly parry it. Deadlock Attacks have finally been introduced into the game; they work just the same as it is in Samurai Warriors, but you and your opponent are constantly clashing weapons instead of just pushing against each other. You can also sidestep or strafe by holding L1 and moving the analog stick/D-pad in any direction. Holding the analog stick or D-pad in any direction for a little while or pressing a direction quickly twice makes your character sprint.
Characters now have 6 weapons instead of 8, but there are two copies of each weapon with different stat enhancements, plus the second copy of the final weapon has a different appearance.
Items are now equipped onto a weapon instead of on a character, so you can have different items on each weapon. Weapons apart from the basic weapon will have a fixed item as well. Items can be picked up from treasure boxes or forged at the Basara-ya Shop with materials and gold (named Zennys in the English version lol). Some materials are exclusive to specific stages, however.
Character-exclusive items are available again, but they are all in a four-set (named after the characters’ kanji introductions) that only takes effect when the whole set is equipped. However, all you need to do to get the whole set is play Sengoku Drama Chronicle with a character 4 times.
In the Rally Instrument series, the Rally Tsuzumi, now the Recital Tsuzumi (自演のつづみ), returns to playing your character BGM, and the Support Flute (応援の竹笛) is a new item that plays your ally’s BGM, assuming that they have one because most of them are generic officers. In addition to the Rod of Flattery there’s the Wig of Encouragement (ハゲましかつら), which in the Japanese version has your soldiers give some words of encouragement that’s apparently supposed to reduce your will to fight but I think it’s supposed to have the opposite effect. Apparently in the English version this item makes your soldiers talk crap and neg you, but unfortunately I can’t confirm.
After fighting certain stages in Sengoku Drama Chronicle, you can unlock allies to bring into battle, including unique and generic officers. There are 100 allies to unlock. Each of them will have a skill and another when their trust is at maximum. When activating a Basara Attack, your ally’s assist skill can trigger, then they can do it again when executing another Basara Attack after two minutes (some officers have the ability to do it again after one minute or instantly when their trust is at max).
On the battlefield, a base system has been implemented with base captains stationed in what Jim Sterling’s fanbase calls “cuck sheds”. By defeating the base captain, the cuck sheds will explode, generating hits on every enemy knocked away, and more enemies will spawn in a panic so you can defeat them. It is possible for bases to be neutral so when you hit the cuck shed, the base will belong to you.
At 500 hits, you’ll enter Fever mode which gives you 5x gold, then at 1000 hits, Super Fever mode will give you 10x gold. There’s also a hammer item you can obtain that will give you gold with every hit.
Flying foxes and catapults have been added to battlefields, allowing you to get from one end to the other in seconds. Aside from that, that’s about it.
While playing a stage, there is a 20% chance of spawning a fugitive (おたずねもの). When such a chance occurs on a stage, a message will appear 2 minutes from the start (some stages also have conditions that must be fulfilled first). A fugitive will randomly spawn in one of three locations and a message will appear. You’ll then have another 2 minutes to find their location, then once you do, you’ll have 30 seconds to defeat them otherwise they will escape. Defeating fugitives will yield you 10,000 EXP and a seal of increased attack, defence or luck for each character.
As is obvious, Sengoku Basara 3 received a localisation in the West under the title Samurai Heroes, and they didn’t 4Kids the localisation unlike Devil Kings. The dub was produced by Reuben Langdon’s company, Just Cause Productions, and all the voice actors are credited in the credits. Johnny Yong Bosch and Vic Mignogna, who voiced Yukimura and Tenkai/Mitsuhide, also voiced their respective counterparts in the English dub of Samurai Warriors 3. They and a number of other voice actors reprised their roles from the anime, and most voice actors from this game would reprise their roles in later anime releases. Some of the characters’ names are spelt differently to how I’m used to them being spelt conventionally (on Samurai Warriors), like Kanbe for Kanbei, Saica for Saika, and Tsuru has the “hime” suffix on her name where SW would not include it. I continue to use SW conventions for names in this series because that's what I’m used to.
However, because the West didn’t get Sengoku Basara 2 in English, there’s a lot of story elements that fans won’t understand unless they’ve played the other games in Japanese. Where is Shingen and why is Yukimura leading the Takeda? Who is this Xavi guy and why should I care about him? What is Hideyoshi’s deal and why isn’t he playable? Why is Oichi a psychotic emo who sounds like she cuts herself? Sure, people could watch the anime or read the manga to understand some of these plot points, but need I remind people that this series is supposed to be targeted to a casual audience? Why should players need to access supplementary material to understand the story, and frankly, why should they care? Shonen Otaku has a list of “Western audience plot holes” on his retrospective blog post.
Unfortunately, sales of Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes did not reach expectations, yielding only 200k or-so copies in the West. As such, the next expansion would not receive a localisation, and nor would any future Basara games despite passionate fan feedback. But that’s something I'll get into later.
Sengoku Basara 3 Utage
Sengoku Basara 3 Utage (戦国BASARA3 宴)
Platforms: PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii
Release date: 11 November 2011
In Japan, Sengoku Basara 3 sold over 200,000 copies in its first week and 500,000 copies by the series’ fifth anniversary in September 2010, making for a total of 2.1 million copies for the entire series. Capcom continued to expand the franchise into other mediums and collaborate with prefectural governments to use Sengoku Basara characters to promote public safety and tourism. They would also release another expansion for the series, known as Sengoku Basara 3 Utage. (TL: Utage means party.)
The NPC characters in 3 have been made playable (again) in Utage, but no cut characters return. Hisahide Matsunaga also returns from 2 Heroes and is also playable for the first time. The returning characters that don’t have stories, namely Kenshin, Kasuga, Toshiie, Matsu, Ujimasa and Shingen, only have one Super Attack and all their weapons have the same name design (but with the same effects), otherwise they have the same amount of Special Attacks as everyone else. Mitsuhide’s appearance appears as an alternate costume for Tenkai in his Story Mode.
Unlike in 3 where the tone of the menu is as serious as the rest of the game, Utage relaxes the tone a bit as the menu UI has the feel of a painting. For a game that styles itself as a party, the menu doesn’t quite have that feel; it's only in the next expansion that it does. At least the visuals don’t give you tonal whiplash.
The theme songs, however, do have more of a party feel. The opening theme is UTAGE by T.M.Revolution, while the ending theme (albeit more subdued) is 黄昏 by Do As Infinity.
Like with 2 Heroes, you can carry over your save from 3 and it will carry over unlocked alternate costumes for characters and character-exclusive items, but only if you have a full four-set. You’ll also get 1000 gold for doing this, plus additional gold for completing specific titles.
Unique to this game, character levels and acquired allies (except Nobunaga) can be synced between 3 and Utage, meaning that levelling up a character in Utage will also reflect it in 3 (up to level 100) and vice versa. It’s common for games to have save data bonus or carryovers for sequels or expansions, but this is the first time I’ve seen this mechanic affect prequels or vanilla games. This isn’t like 2 Heroes on the Wii or the PS3 HD Collection because the save data for both games is in one save file, I’m talking about one game’s save data being modified by another game. I don’t think many game developers do this, mostly because there’s no incentive in doing so, but also because there’s a risk that save data could become corrupted if it goes wrong, but I’m sure they’ll have it ironed out in testing bwahahahahahahaha~~~
8 characters have three-stage Story Modes, namely Hisahide, Kojūrō, Sasuke, Hideaki, Tenkai, Yoshiaki, Muneshige and Sōrin. Each of the Story Modes are presented differently in their chapter titles and introductory cutscenes; Hisahide and Kojūrō’s introductions look standard for a Musou-style game, Tenkai’s is darker but still fairly standard, Muneshige’s blends in a bit of frivolity as his letters to his wife slowly transition into nonsensical monologuing over nature backgrounds, Sasuke’s goes full Matrix, Sōrin’s is a musical puppet show and then Hideaki and Yoshiaki’s intros go full-on gaudy as they use fonts equivalent to Kristen ITC or that hippie font (Hobo Std).
For everyone else (including the aforementioned 8), Conquest Mode makes a full return in this game. The map is shown properly on the screen when choosing which clan to attack. For the first battle, you can choose to attack any clan even if it’s far away from your home territory, then after that, you can only attack clans that border the area you’ve been taking. Up to 8 stages can be played in Conquest Mode.
A roulette box soldier will appear on some stages. On those stages, a roulette will spin every time you destroy a cuck shed and occupy a base. There are three possible results; a miss (凶) results in bombs being dropped around you, a hit (吉) allows you to recover your health and Basara gauge plus increase your attack and defence, and a big hit (大吉) gives you reward tokens (a maximum of 32 that are redeemed after clearing Conquest Mode) and enemies holding coins will appear while also allowing you to obtain coins for every attack as if you acquired the mallet item.
Hidden battles will appear on the third, fourth and fifth battles depending on what clans have been defeated and other conditions. If you don’t get at least 400 KOs at the end of the second battle, you’ll go directly into the homeland defence battle. What appears on the third battle after getting over 400 KOs is dependent on whether 20 minutes has passed, the fourth is dependent on how high your maximum hit count is before defeating 1400 KOs (but past that you can face Hisahide on a highway), and the fifth is dependent on whether 50 minutes have passed before getting 35,000 gold (but past that you’ll face Ieyasu and Mitsunari at Yamazaki if you’ve defeated them at that point).
What appears for your final battle (at the 6-8 battle mark) at Sekigahara or Ōsaka is dependent on how much time has passed, how many KO’s you’ve achieved, how much gold you’ve gotten and how high your maximum hit count is. Under any circumstances, if less than 35 minutes have elapsed, you’ll get the Sekigahara Intrusion Battle (関ヶ原乱入), but if more than 75 minutes have elapsed, you’ll get one of two Ōsaka Summer Campaigns (Red/Tiger - Sanada if less than 2000 KOs, Blue/Dragon - Date/Tokugawa if more than 5000). Sometimes, certain final battles will occur regardless of those conditions depending on the final clan you face, but there are exceptions depending on which clan you play as.
It is possible for Honnōji to appear as the final battle, but that requires Sekigahara/Ōsaka to be cleared by the seventh battle. It will only appear if 80 minutes have not elapsed, 3800 KOs have been achieved, 70,000 gold has been earned and a total max hit count of 5000 has been achieved. WOW THAT’S A LOT OF CONDITIONS.
Oh, but it gets better. Remember how in 2 there’s a trophy for clearing Conquest Mode in 36 minutes? This time there’s a trophy for clearing it in 5 battles. To do that, you’ll want to avoid the homeland defence battle and the Sekigahara/Ōsaka final battles. For the former, aim to get 400 KOs by the end of the second battle. For the latter, you’ll want to avoid having the Tokugawa, Ishida, Date, Takeda, Saika, Mōri, Mogami, Kuroda or Kobayakawa clans as your final battle, so it’s best to play as one of them and try to defeat some of the clans that aren’t on your side, then hope that the others will end up getting killed. If you can reach the fifth and final battle in under 35 minutes, you should play as Ieyasu, Tadakatsu, Mitsunari or Yoshitsugu. You can stretch the total time to over 75 minutes and get 2000-4999 KOs, but if you don’t want to, aim for under 75 minutes, 7,000-99,999 gold and 800-19,999 max hits.
There’s also an additional mode in Unification Mode called Sengoku Dream Chance. The idea is that you bet on which clan will be your opponent in the final battle. You start off by placing bets on up to three clans. You can bet from 200 to 99,900 gold in increments of 100, or you can bet 100 gold worth of Basara chips without using any of your gold. If a clan you bet on is defeated by another clan, you lose the bet for them, but if you defeat them, you will get your bet back, sometimes at a higher rate depending on how many clans are remaining. If your bet prevails, the leader of the clan you bet on will congratulate you, but if the payout is higher, Hisahide will congratulate you at over 6 million gold, or Nobunaga will congratulate you at over 8 million. This is a very interesting gimmick that has never been done in a Koei Warriors Empires game, but if they did then players could exploit alliances to rig the game in their favour (maybe if they made it so you could only ally with one kingdom you bet on that could probably work).
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A Japanese Game Mode has been added to this game, and it works like a mix of Mission Mode in the PSP games (Battle/Chronicle Heroes) and Tournament Mode from 2 Heroes. There are a total of 31 missions to complete and completing them is the key to unlocking allies in this game.
Duel Mode has also been added. Aside from 1v1 battles, you can also play 3v3 or 5v5 battles in a round-robin or tournament format. While the skills you can use are dependent on your level outside the game, everything else is fixed. Matches can be normal or you can have tumultuous matches where shit just gets fucked up, yo. Different things can happen depending on the battlefield, and you’ll also have items falling from the sky that can boost or nerf you. Clearing Story Mode will unlock a 30 Player Tournament, which has you fighting every other character in this game, then clearing that will unlock the 60 Player Tournament, which is like the 30 Player Tournament but you fight everyone twice, the second time in their alternate outfits.
As stated, the returning characters without stories in this game only have one Super Attack. For all characters, however, a fifth Special Attack is available by holding down the Square button. Characters can go up to level 200 instead of 100, but when syncing back to the original game, character levels only sync up to 100.
After clearing Story or Conquest Mode on Ultimate difficulty, you can unlock Basara difficulty for another step-up.
Sengoku Drive from 2 Heroes returns in this game. When preparing for battle, you can select whether you want to use the Senkoku Boost or Sengoku Drive for your “Rage Mode”.
Each character only has one copy of a weapon. After clearing battles, you’ll obtain achievement resources that can increase your character or weapon stats. Stage-specific materials are no longer obtainable, but they will be unlocked in the Basara-ya Shop after clearing the stage for the first time, so you can still use them to upgrade yourself.
In terms of items, a new item I want to highlight is the Ōshū Community Crashbox (奥州特攻目安箱/おうしゅうぶっこみめやすばこ). This is a radio show hosted by a Date soldier and delivered as filler dialogue like the Rod of Flattery and the Wig of Encouragement, where characters send in messages under various Crashnames (特攻名夢/ぶっこみネーム) that are read out on the show. It’s through this show that we hear from Itsuki, who was cut from the rest of the series as stated. Among the messages, Hisahide sends his in lacquerware and tells you to jump off the West Gate Bridge, Kotarō and Tadakatsu’s messages are unintelligible given their characters, and Yoshiaki’s message is just met with a “Nah, screw that guy.” The Date soldier is also joined by a female announcer giving news, weather and traffic updates. This is an idea Koei Tecmo would never adapt because they’ve already filled the dialogue with officer defeated phrases and praise from allied officers every 100 KOs.
Another item in the Rally Instrument series is the Harmonic Gramophone (伴奏蓄音機), which serves the same purpose as the Rally Tsuzumi in 2 Heroes where you can listen to the last BGM you heard in the Gallery.
The reason why character-exclusive items only transfer from the original game if you have a four-set is because the sets are combined into individual items. They will be available for 500,000 gold in the Basara-ya Shop after clearing Conquest Mode once.
Speaking of the Basara-ya Shop, it returns to the format used in 2 Heroes, which also means that the Basara-kuji lottery is back. Tickets are obtained from selling already-obtained loot after battle; unlike 2 Heroes, this game uses a tomi-kuji format where a fortune stick is drawn from a bamboo tube, and you can win gold or store discounts. You can also get silver tickets for two draws and gold tickets for 3. Depending on your luck, you can get 100 gold or 10% off (末吉), 500 gold or 20% off (小吉), 1000 gold or 50% off (中吉), or 10,000 gold or a free item (大吉).
Tag-team play returns from Tournament Mode of 2 Heroes. After clearing all 8 Story Modes, you’ll be given an option when selecting a player character at maximum bond to be your assist ally or tag partner. When you select the latter, you’ll be able to switch between characters by pressing L1 and Cross, otherwise everything works as if you were playing with 2 players. And speaking of 2-player functionality, it is now available on all modes, even in the original game.
SWSB Comparison 3
This one’s going to be a twist.
Cutting out 7 characters and shelving 1 more (Nagamasa) from 2 Heroes, Sengoku Basara 3 carries over 24 characters and adds 5 characters in vanilla, 4 more in Utage (not counting Tenkai because he and Mitsuhide as the same character) and 5 more NPCs for a total of 38 characters. Out of the 38 characters, a total of 32 are playable in 3 Utage. The BSR48 General Election made young Ieyasu and Tenkai separate characters for a total of 48. Samurai Warriors 3 cuts 2 characters from SW2 to carry over 30 characters, then brings back 1 character from SW1, adds 7 characters in vanilla and 2 in XL for a total of 40 characters. In short, Basara 3 Utage contains 32 playable characters and 6 NPCs, while SW3XL contains 40 playable characters (one more if you want to count Takamaru).
Basara 3 has 16 characters that are playable in Sengoku Drama Chronicle, then Utage has 8 characters with Story Modes for a total of 24, one less than 2 and Heroes. SW3 has 30 characters with Story Modes, then the remaining 10 characters get Story Modes in 3XL.
Basara 3 only has Sengoku Drama Chronicle, while Utage has Story Mode, Conquest Mode, Japanese Game Mode and Duel Mode. SW3 gives us Story Mode, Historical Mode and Murasame Castle in the Wii version. SW3XL additionally adds Original Career Mode and Challenge Mode.
Battle-wise, Basara 3 made it so all four, later five in Utage, Special Attacks are usable as they are unlocked, while also adding three Super Attacks of which one can be used at a time in battle, and introducing the Senkoku Boost which is slightly different to the Sengoku Drive of 2 Heroes, which is reintroduced in Utage. SW3 doesn’t change much from SW2, but it adds the Spirit Gauge and the ability to perform an Ultimate Musou Attack.
Aside from the number of characters and Story Modes, Sengoku Basara and Samurai Warriors came neck-to-neck in terms of gameplay modes and battle mechanics, but despite the overwhelming results, I’m giving the point to Sengoku Basara this time. Samurai Warriors 3 ended up being dragged by one main factor; the vanilla game’s Nintendo exclusivity. Adapting Murasame Castle from a Nintendo IP meant that the vanilla game had to be exclusive to the Wii (even though they were already planning on it), and the battle mechanics suffered as a result. They also signed an exclusivity deal with Nintendo for Western distribution of the vanilla game which (presumably) meant they couldn’t localise any expansion or spinoff that wasn’t published on Nintendo consoles. The release of SW3Z on the PS3 and the PSP only softened the drag, but with little improvements to the battle mechanics or no localisation to the West, it was unable to make up the distance.
Despite Sengoku Basara taking the same approach with 3 and Utage as it did 2 and Heroes, at least both games and expansions were made available on Sony and Nintendo consoles. Localising 3 into Samurai Heroes was just icing on the cake.
Sengoku Basara 3 is the peak game of the series. It modernises the series for the HD era while still maintaining the series’ signature traits. Though an attempt was made at bringing the series to the West once again, it failed to reach expectations.
Fans tend to recommend Utage as the game to play over 3 and I would have to agree as well. Even with the ability to sync character levels and ally acquisitions between 3 and Utage, there’s not much else to transfer beyond that. 2 and Heroes could only sync between each other because their weapon and item systems didn’t change between games, plus both games shared the same save file on the consoles that supported it.
Everything has its peak and eventually, that peak must end. We ride the wave next time with Sengoku Basara 4.
Following another hour-long trip back to the airport, it was another 2.5 hour flight to Taoyuan Airport before another 40 minute ride on the express metro to Taipei Station, where our hotel was next to one of the exits. Staying right next to Taipei Station meant that it was easy for us to get where we wanted to go.
Room 2: Ikumi Shimura, Shouta Katsumichi, Tazuko Nobesawa, Hina Uchigashima
There's something about having to entertain and satisfy a group of women that other men won't tell you about. As enjoyable as it may be, the truth is that it's a lot of hard work and you get exhausted pretty frequently. Everywhere we go, my sex drive always seems to be in demand thanks to the girls. My handler (Inspector Shingo Tokihama) made sure I was prepared for such situations with things like Viagra and a list of tips on how to boost my sex drive. Sometimes I think I'm going to die of a heart attack from being squeezed out like that.
Sometimes I'll be alone with one girl in the room while the others head to the other room or somewhere to "give us some privacy". Sometimes multiple girls, or all 7 of them, will be in the room as well because they want to join in. Did I tell you about the bathroom situation? Those girls like to watch too. Honestly, if I don't get a cold from being nude all the time I'll probably start getting sick from girl germs. I've started to become familiar with the girls inside and out, but who am I kidding, I'll end up forgetting them all in a matter of months.
At one point, I asked about their friend Natsuta Hanamori from their universe and they talked about him fondly. A decade ago they went to a holiday house with him and a girl, Yukari Tanamura, who he was madly in love with beyond their usual hookup culture, as in he wanted to start a family with her. The main purpose of that trip was to help them realise their feelings for each other, which they did and now they're happily married.
Aside from a couple of them, the girls had partners, whether they were engaged, married or just hadn't gotten there yet. Rika took a bit of a liking to me, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into a serious relationship with her, primarily because I'm from a different universe to them and I have my (internet) career ahead of me; I'm only on this mission to pay restitution and to hide while the Shadow Proclamation covers up the Loud files.
What didn't help things was the fact that the girls liked to watch porn and some of them and their friends even had accounts on sites like OnlyFans. The girls' partners were also featured in some of the OnlyFans videos. In any decent universe, each and every one of them would belong to the streets. In a way, letting the girls surround and have their way with me is a form of revenge for their friends letting their partners spitroast gangbang them, but that's the culture of their universe.
Some places we went to in Taipei included Ximending, Taipei 101, Songshan, Banqiao and Tamsui. Dihua, Dongmen and Nanmen markets were also good at this time of the year, not to mention some of the night markets like Raohe, Shilin and Linjiang. We went to Din Tai Fung, had hotpot and got as much street food as we could get in a week, among other things.
Back in Seoul I remember that every metro station we went to had cabinets of emergency supplies. Even our hotel room had an emergency torch that would turn on when you pulled it out of its holder. I've read that Taiwan has been holding public emergency drills every year, but honestly, I'm just not sure if they're as prepared as Seoul. Then again, those guys have had at least 70 years to prepare whereas the threat from the nebs across the strait only started rising up in the past decade.
The nebs have been threatening to invade Taiwan for over a decade now and nothing much has come of it, though in recent years it appears that the threat is starting to become real and the possibility of an invasion could be imminent. Taiwan has become the real underdog of the world since they were ousted from the mainland all those years ago. N-word loving n-word countries constantly break ties with them for the nebs, and who could forget the way they were treated by the UN and the WHO during the pandemic? Taiwan deserves to be recognised and vindicated by the world, but some will never forget the way they treated them over the years because of the nebs.
That being said, our next destination is somewhere I'm both looking forward and dreading to go.
Sengoku Basara X - Cross - (戦国BASARA X - クロス -)
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Release date: 26 June 2008
Koei Tecmo has released gargantuan amounts of spinoffs for their Warriors games over the years. Aside from the regular Xtreme Legends expansions and Empires games, Koei Tecmo have used spinoffs to experiment with new consoles and game formats. It got to a point where it was getting tiring to see them release Warriors games every few months with unimaginative names and no English dub. Dynasty Samurai 54-II DX Xtreme Legends Special Hyper Ultimate with Moushouden and Empires HD version Z anyone?
In contrast, Sengoku Basara does have its spinoffs, but in terms of games they were kept to a minimum because this wasn’t Capcom’s bread and butter. They also collabed with other companies to have them develop the spinoffs while Capcom took care of publishing. In the midst of a transition between the classic and modern eras of Sengoku Basara, let’s take a look at its spinoff games.
Sengoku Basara X
Sengoku Basara X (pronounced “cross”) is a 2D fighting game originally released in arcades on 9 April 2008 using Namco’s System 246 and 256. It was developed by Arc System Works, famous for the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue series. The theme song is Crosswise by T.M.Revolution once again (same as the first game), with the animated opening movie produced by Studio 4°C.
The game features a limited cast of characters. There are 10 playable characters, namely Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Masamune, Yukimura, Oichi, Keiji, Motochika, Motonari, Tadakatsu and Kenshin. The PS2 port adds 2 more characters, Kojūrō and Hanbei.
With the exception of Motochika and Motonari, who only summon soldiers, the rest of the cast will have reinforcement characters who are only summoned in attacks. Kojūrō and Hanbei serve as reinforcements for Masamune and Hideyoshi respectively and vice versa. The reinforcements for the other playable characters are NPCs and they are as follows:
Nagamasa Azai (Oichi)
Kasuga (Kenshin)
Sasuke Sarutobi (Yukimura)
Shingen Takeda (Yukimura)
Toshiie Maeda (Keiji)
Matsu (Keiji)
Ranmaru Mori (Nobunaga)
Nō (Nobunaga)
Ieyasu Tokugawa (Tadakatsu)
The reinforcement system is similar to the Striker System from The King of Fighters 99-01. Both players have a level count that increases up to 100 as time goes on. Reinforcements can be summoned when the indicator shows that you can, at which point the level increase will pause until they arrive, shown by a timer. They are summoned automatically when you reach Level 100. Once they arrive, you can use your red reinforcement gauge to summon your assist character in attacks and defences.
Both players also have five stocks of Basara Gauge, and an additional Ichigeki (One-Hit) Gauge that is filled by gaining skill points (also known as Stylish Points). Once the orb starts glowing, players can perform a One-Hit Basara Attack, which instantly Basara K.O.’s the opponent and ends the match.
The PS2 port also enables the use of easy controls, which maps Special Attacks to the L1, L2, R1 and R2 buttons, and the mapping of movement to the analog stick. It also adds a Challenge Mode, where you have 12 stages to get as many skill points as you can within the time limit.
The game wikis utilise numpad notation, which considers the analog stick or D-pad as if it were the numpad on a keyboard, and maps the light/medium/heavy attack and reinforcement buttons to the face buttons on the controller.
Sengoku Basara X is a game that is described as a “kusoge”, a “so broken it’s bad, so bad it’s good” kind of game. Look, I’m not a player of fighting games so I don’t think I’m the best person to talk about this. Figuring out the controls for the first Dynasty Warriors game on the PS1 was hard enough. If you want to learn more about this game, feel free to watch Khanage’s video on it. He explains this game better than I do, but then again, literally any video you find on YouTube about this game explains it better than I can anyway.
Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes
Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes (戦国BASARA バトルヒーローズ)
Platforms: PlayStation Portable
Release date: 9 April 2009
Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes is a 2v2 team battle game similar to the Gundam vs. series. This game was developed by Access Games in cooperation with Capcom. The cast of 2 Heroes returns in this game.
The theme song of this game is JAP by abingdon boys school, a racial slur used as a term of empowerment to “awaken the Japanese spirit”. This song was also used as the opening theme to the first season of the Sengoku Basara anime, which aired in 2009 around the same time as this game’s release. A new insert song for this game, used as the ending credits theme for female characters (male characters use JAP), Sailing free, was sung by OLIVIA (Lufkin) and Oichi’s character song, 眠れ緋の華, returns because of course.
Mission Mode has you playing three sets of 50 missions centred around Masamune, Yukimura or Keiji. Characters will join your party as you complete missions and some missions are exclusive to certain characters. Sometimes, Perfect Victory Campaigns (完勝キャンペーン) can be triggered on already-cleared missions, where winning them with perfect victories will yield you double gold and fully recover the health of all characters in your party.
Story Mode consists of 6 stages for every character in this game, while Free Battle lets you play 2v2 exhibition battles against other characters and set your own settings for them. After clearing Story Mode with a character and winning multiple Free/Story Mode battles with them, there is a chance of triggering a Basara Competition Battle (BASARA者認定戦); winning a competition battle will raise your rank, but losing it at a higher rank will lower it. Raising ranks is the key to unlocking costumes for characters.
Challenge Mode, presumably unlocked after completing Mission Mode, has you fighting sets of five battles to raise as much gold as you can. You can decide to quit and take the gold you earned with you or keep going, but if you lose Challenge Mode, you lose all the gold you earned.
Ad-hoc multiplayer gameplay is also supported; you can play Free Battle with up to four players, and Story Mode with up to two.
In the settings, you can adjust the CPU difficulty level, your maximum health, the time limit of battles, the fill level of the Basara Gauge or the duration of the Sengoku Drive. You can also enter cheat codes that were made available on the game’s official website, in strategy guides or on Japanese game cheat sites to unlock hard to get items.
The battle mechanics of the PSP games are very cut-down compared to their console games. Aside from the Normal Attack string and the Jump Attacks, only two Special Attacks made it into the game, which can be triggered with Triangle and R + Triangle. R + Square adapts another Special Attack into a Sneak Attack (牽制技). There is no Basara Attack in this game, with the Basara Gauge instead triggering the Sengoku Drive when Square + Triangle + Cross is pressed. Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s hard enough pressing 2 buttons to trigger a Musou Attack in DWStrikeforce and now you want me to press 3? It’s just too awkward. Also, until I read the instruction manual carefully, I actually thought the Cross button in that combination was the Circle button. Triangle + Circle + Cross would be less awkward for my fingers, but honestly, Triangle + Circle is good enough.
The game makes you lock onto enemies and you can switch targets by pressing Circle. You can lock off an enemy by holding down Circle, but note that when you’re attacking, your Normal Attack String will lock you in one direction, like the dreaded charge lock mechanic of classic-era DW. At least when you’re locked onto an enemy you’ll know which way you’re attacking.
In battle, both sides will have a morale gauge that goes down when a character is defeated and has to respawn. Your characters will also have a cost depending on the weapons and armor you have equipped. For the most part, you win when you get your enemy’s gauge down to zero, and you lose if your allied gauge goes down to zero.
You can give orders to your tag partner by pressing Select. They can be free to do whatever, target the same or different enemies as you, or focus on attacking or evading.
Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes is a pretty nice spinoff that still maintains most of the spirit of the console games, with enough content to last you a while.
It should also be noted that this game was removed from the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and PS Vita on 29 October 2025. The PS Store for the PSP has been dead for a while anyway, but at least I managed to find a copy somewhere. 20 years of this franchise and the biggest news coming out of it is this.
Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes
Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes (戦国BASARA クロニクルヒーローズ)
Platforms: PlayStation Portable
Release date: 21 July 2011
Let me just stop you right there and say that this game is literally the same as Battle Heroes. I’ll list the differences that this game has.
The theme song of this game, and the ending credits theme for male characters, is FLAGS by T.M.Revolution, which was also the opening theme to the Sengoku Basara anime movie, The Last Party, which premiered the month before. I also want to give honourable mentions to SWORD SUMMIT, the opening theme to the second season of the Sengoku Basara anime (broadcast in 2010), and The party must go on, the ending theme to The Last Party. The insert theme, and therefore the ending credits theme for female characters, is 誓い by Do As Infinity. And then fucking Oichi gets 眠れ緋の華 again for her ending credits theme, the psycho bitch.
This game carries over the characters from Battle Heroes, which was the cast of 2 Heroes, and adds two characters from 3/Samurai Heroes, the adult Ieyasu Tokugawa and Mitsunari Ishida. It also marks the last appearance of Tomoko Kawakami as Itsuki, albeit through archived voice clips; she began to go on hiatus from late-2008 due to ovarian cancer and went into retirement in early-2010 before passing away on 9 June 2011. Although Itsuki’s character was cut from future games, her role was recast to Miyuki Sawashiro when she reappeared in 2011 for Sengoku Basara Mobile and in 2018 for the Gakuen Basara anime.
When creating save data for this game, you’ll be asked if you want to carry over your progress from Battle Heroes, including unlocked characters and their ranks, purchased weapons and armors and unlocked costumes.
Mission Mode now focuses on the Western and Eastern armies led by Mitsunari and Ieyasu, the focus being inspired from 3/Samurai Heroes. Challenge Mode also appears to be available from the start instead of having to be unlocked.
Story Mode has been replaced with the Conquest Chronicle, which is essentially the format of 2 Heroes’ Conquest Mode. Obtainable treasures from each territory include gold, illustrations, voices and treasure boxes that make troops carrying them appear in the next battle. Some territories can have no treasures at all. Even as other clans expand their territory, they will still maintain the same treasure, meaning that as treasure levels go up, you might see yourself getting multiple illustrations or voices in one battle.
When facing certain clans in Conquest Chronicle, characters can trigger Chronicle Battles, which are reenactments of story battles from the rest of the series, including the battles of Sengoku Basara X and even battles from Battle Heroes. These battles have fixed reinforcements, so your usual tag partner won’t appear in them unless they’re actually in the battle. Most of the time you’ll end up having a jinbaori troop or a ninja partner.
What was Free Battle Mode in Battle Heroes is now Team Battle Mode in this game. Free Mode allows you to replay the battles you’ve unlocked in Conquest Chronicle, including Chronicle Battles which have fixed characters.
Ad-hoc multiplayer gameplay also supports two players for Conquest Chronicle and Free Mode. Basara Competition Battles can now be triggered without having to play characters in Conquest Chronicle first.
So yeah, like I said, Sengoku Basara Chronicle Heroes is literally the same as Battle Heroes, just with a different story mode format and “reenactments” of battles from previous games.
SWSB Comparison X
Do I really need to? Sengoku Basara X and Dynasty Warriors 1 are practically on par with each other, save for the latter having 16 characters (including the secret characters) and the former having 10 on arcades and 12 on the PS2.
Battle Heroes and Chronicle Heroes are distinctly different from the first two Dynasty Warriors PSP games and Samurai Warriors State of War, mostly because Koei’s games are spinoffs of three different games, so therefore the battle mechanics are different. The DW PSP games also allow you to trigger skills with up to four officers that you take into battle.
Koei Tecmo wins with the Warriors games every single time, except if you’re talking about the frequency of spinoffs then Sengoku Basara wins by virtue of them not taking the piss with them. Let’s just move on with this damn retrospective.
Sengoku Basara’s spinoffs are interesting even if they are few. Next time, we move into the modern era of the series with Sengoku Basara 3.
After a fun week in Tokyo, our next destination was Seoul. We got on the train again to Narita Airport, where we took a 2.5 hour flight to Incheon Airport before another hour-long ride into the city. I noticed the girls getting closer and fonder to me. Maybe it's because of all the sex I've been having, or maybe it's just the nature of people from universe LOL-69. Or maybe I'm just complaining that my lobster too buttery and my steak too juicy.
It took us 2 hours to get through immigration. There were 10 counters on the foreigner entry side and a long winding line to get to the front. Once you got there you were left to just pick a line. Some people left their bags in one part of the line and picked them back up passing through the next. I saw a number of people with marketable plushies in the window pockets of their bags - "ita-bags" as I would later learn. I would see more of those around me on my travels.
After collecting our bags and heading out of the customs area, we stopped at the convenience store for some snacks and I helped some of the girls set up their eSIMs because they hadn't done it in advance. I also had to explain to everyone how the WOWPASS card worked - it's a tourist debit card with a secondary balance that can be used for public transport (and convenience stores). It took some time for Mariko to understand how it all worked, which frustrated me more than anything. But luckily her friends were there to help me explain.
Our hotel this time was in Hongdae, down the road from the station. Because we were on the airport line we had to walk down some hallways to get to our exit. On the screens around me were all sorts of promos celebrating special days for K-Pop idols, some on the same day. What day is it?
The hotel room arrangement was as follows:
Room 1: Chika Satomi, Harumi Sakenobe, Hina Uchigashima, Shouta Katsumichi
Why do hotel rooms these days have windows in the bathroom? Every time I close them the girls always seem to open them back up. Having to deal with them coming in and getting in the shower with me was bad enough.
So anyway, highlights of this trip included Gyeongbokgung, Namsan, Myeongdong, Gwangjang and Dongdaemun Markets and the Starfield COEX Mall. In Hongdae, there was the AK Mall that had some anime stores towards the top. The Frieren exhibition was happening as well. I bought a ticket, went in and did a little quiz with the help of Google; I got one of the questions wrong, but the people were still happy to give me a couple souvenirs - a Heiter postcard and a Himmel/Frieren coaster.
When choosing what to eat, I wanted to choose places that had non-spicy options. That isn't to say that I can't tolerate spice at all, but even if some of the food was spicer than I expected, I was able to tolerate it in the end. One time I took the girls out to have seolleongtang and another time the girls wanted to go to one of those you-make 24 hour ramyeon places. I managed to get a chance to eat perilla oil noodles, jajangmyeon and naengmyeon, and I found a pasta place that served Toowoomba pasta, the legendary Australian dish... that isn't Australian in origin at all.
This trip had all of us taking turns dragging the group to where we wanted to go. I didn't really feel like shopping for clothes or whatnot, but I ended up buying a few things thanks to the girls convincing me. But for all the yummy food I was able to eat, I'll happily say it was all worth it.
Fun fact about this pic, there were less logos on the version that was on the published document. For a while, I wondered why it was missing some particularly important logos, and then recently, I created a new version to add them in. It’ll replace the current version when I finish the new version of the document.
So like with the Kingdom of Paradise adaption for Series 2, I hope you’re familiar with the story of Parallax. If not, then the TV series is available on YouTube and I’ve also done a retrospective on it.
If you thought the stakes were high enough in Series 3 or the first half of Series 4, think again because in the second half of Series 4, the stakes will get even higher. I also turn up the preparations for the Kamen Rider Chronicle (particularly Zi-O) as this is one of the two series that leads up to it (the other being Three Kingdoms Series 4).
Insert theme: まちがいさがし
Arc 15: Shaking It Up
Eigen dreams of a girl in the ruins of a desert city calling for help. The next morning, the Barrier Base crew tracks down the source of the call to Gallifrey and so have Metallic and Crestor. This is a post-Hell Bent Gallifrey, which was returned to its original place in space and time, but like in the Chibnall era, the Capitol is in ruins with rivers of purple water flowing. Entering the ruined Capitol, Mogoro and Metallic’s groups encounter two (Time Ladies) girls named Lenamin and Riamin, who are apparently the last remaining survivors on Gallifrey that called for help. They bring the groups to their hideout where they encounter each other; it is then that Lenamin and Riamin reveal themselves to be Silvia and her mother, Betti. The two of them respectively transform into their Mega form and Kamen Rider Sylphi, defeating the two groups before leaving in a stolen bowship.
Metallic’s group leaves to pursue Betti, but just as Mogoro’s group is about to do the same, Eigen tells them that he can still hear someone calling for help within the Capitol, so Shinbu is tasked to stay with him while the others join the pursuit.
As everyone confronts Betti and Silvia on Valleytown World, Mogoro notes that Betti seems familiar to him and asks her if she knows Veronica Johnson. She says that Veronica is her twin sister and that she hasn’t seen her for seventeen years because she had to hide from her and her family. After Betti was restored from her blandishment at the end of Parallax, she was trapped on her Desert World until she found Silvia’s egg, which took her out of the Parallax she knew and into another. Betti took Silvia on as her daughter and as she became able to shapeshift into whoever she wanted, she passed the ability to her mother upon discovering that Veronica, Ben and Katherine had somehow managed to follow her.
Back on Gallifrey, Eigen and Shinbu find the real Lenamin and Riamin tied up beneath the Cloisters. They explain how the planet was blandished by Betti, then ravaged when the Time Lords attempted to investigate. She was unable to steal a TARDIS because the Time Lords managed to lock down all time technology on Gallifrey so it could only be used by Time Lords. The four quickly leave Gallifrey in a TARDIS.
Returning to Valleytown World, Betti explains that she turned the water on Gallifrey purple to get rid of the aberrants. On her Parallax, it was designed to blandish those who deviated from the personality average, but in this multiverse of Parallaxes, it is now designed to blandish interdimensional aberrants, people who are not of the universe they are in. Jeopardy notes that Betti would be blandished (again), but she says that she changed the formula so that it wouldn’t work on those with Guardian blood like her. Mogoro and Metallic’s armies fight Betti and Silvia, who have also allied with Mawashi and Clyde. Eigen and Shinbu arrive as well and Betti and Silvia decide that it is time to withdraw. As the two armies go their separate ways however, they suddenly disappear from their ships in a bright flash of light.
Mogoro and Metallic's groups find themselves in a pocket dimension, split up into groups and placed on different battlefields of the Last Great Time War on Earth. They break through the battlefields in their own ways, eventually meeting at Ōsaka Castle during the events of the Ōsaka Campaign. The groups dodge various groups of Rangers and Riders among other armies as the Barrier Base crew head to the main keep, where Hiroki and Kayley are also headed, while their friends hold off the Rangers and Riders on the way. As the crew makes their way to the top of the main keep, they fight various enemies like Parker Zhou, Gold Drive, Drive and Mach before the Doctor and Mogoro reach the top floor where Decade is fighting Duke. Decade is defeated by Duke and the Doctor as GokaiRed; he falls into the Doctor’s arms while trying to finish off Akari and dies, satisfied at winning the battle yet unable to learn whether Akari ever loved him.
Suddenly, the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews disappear along with the Ultramen and the primary and secondary Kamen Riders before reappearing in a deserted field in the year 2068. Hiroki (and Kayley) are revealed to be alive as they reveal their upgraded (and recoloured) transformation gear, the magenta Decade Beltmorpher X and cyan Diend Gunmorpher X. They reveal that when they were brought into this pocket dimension, they were contacted by the demonic overlord and made a deal with him to show himself if they brought the Heisei Kamen Riders to him, receiving their upgraded gear as part of the deal as well. The Hiroki and Kayley they fought at Ōsaka Castle were holograms of themselves that they were controlling.
The demonic overlord reveals his identity as Ohma Zi-O, explaining that he brought warriors from both dimensions into this pocket dimension to judge their strength for himself. He opens portals back in Ōsaka and the battle is joined by Kamen Riders Ex-Aid, Build and Zi-O, along with Genm unbeknownst to the three, before leaving through the same portals they came from. Ohma Zi-O declares the end of his cooperation with Hiroki and Kayley and returns everyone back to where they were taken from. Hiroki’s mystery of the demonic overlord’s identity has been solved, but at the cost of his relationship with Akari. As a result, Hiroki spends the next episode trying to reconcile with Akari, acknowledging that he needs to see things from her point of view and be more considerate of their feelings.
As the Barrier Base enters the Time Vortex to escape the pursuit of Che Antara and Gengilas, the Barrier Base gets pulled out and it crashes on Earth, specifically 1971 in what would become Yokohama. The Barrier Base’s exterior is destroyed and so are the engines, though the central computer is still standing. The rooms have been jettisoned so they have no food or drink either. Meanwhile, Hiroki experiences nightmares involving prawn-like insectoids as Che and Gengilas approach Yokohama. As the operations to evacuate civilians and fend off Che and Gengilas’ forces commence, Hiroki and some other residents begin acting erratically.
Back in 1971, the computer falls into an underground tunnel and the Barrier Base crew explore it, eventually finding the insectoids, the Tractators, and their leader, the Gravis, who was revealed to have pulled the Barrier Base from the Time Vortex. They aim to turn the Earth into a gravity motor which would allow them to drive the planet anywhere they want. The two sides begin fighting, but as they fire their finishing attacks at each other, everyone disappears in a flash of light. Everyone would suddenly find themselves in the next year and the encounter cycle would continue for the next 50 years until 2021. The wrecked Barrier Base would eventually become a UNIT base that would be seen in other stories in my personal project.
Hiroki’s condition was similar to those he experienced on Frontios during the events of Doctor Who Series 8, caused by the repeated appearances of the Tractators and the subsequent memory wipes. As the Tractators appear again in 2021, Hiroki desperately tries to fight the Gravis in his paranoia, but a wave of energy sent out by the Barrier Base’s computer calms the erratic residents down. The Barrier Base comes out once again; Mogoro offers to move the Gravis and the Tractators to an asteroid where they can fly around space as they wish, but the Gravis refuses, insisting on having Earth no matter what. Hiroki is also joined by the rest of the Decade Riders and the Gokaigers as they defeat the Tractators, Decade killing the Gravis with his Dimension Kick to end his torment for good.
The Barrier Base knew that the Tractators couldn’t be defeated until 2021 in order to prevent history from being changed, hence why it used the energy from the colliding energy attacks to seal everyone away for a year and wipe the memories from the minds of the residents, but as a side effect, it created a low-level psychic field around the city where the horror of the Tractators would manifest in people who had been in the city long enough to have a strong psychic connection. This is why Hiroki’s “memories” of the Tractators were triggered when he was on Frontios.
A TARDIS materialises in the city and the Barrier Base crew head over, where they find Lenamin and Riamin. They reveal that the old Barrier Base was indeed a Type 400 TARDIS that ended up in Chikuan after some Time Lord lost it. With that TARDIS destroyed, Lenamin and Riamin gift the crew with a new TARDIS, which they christen the Barrier Base 2.0, and when they head inside, they find that everything is exactly the same as it was on the old ship.
On Minato-Sugaru Island, Jasper is put on trial for several charges, and in turn, Jasper attempts to sue Storm Arekawa for assaulting him, the Canterlot Day Spa for refusing to serve him and the Minato-Sugaru Police Department for mistreatment and harassment of himself, his mother and his aunt. Following deliberations, all cases and charges are dismissed and Jasper is declared a vexatious litigant; this “extreme court” was planned in order to fulfill his demand for a court trial. Jasper transforms into the Hercules Zodiarts and fights Storm as Kamen Rider Sorcerer. Silvia offers Gamma Eyecons to his mother and aunt and they transform into Gamma. After a battle, Silvia and Jasper are defeated while the two Gamma are destroyed, killing Jasper’s mother and aunt.
The Barrier Base crew fight Betti’s army on New Hayasaka, but they are forced to escape when Che, Gengilas, Mawashi and Clyde reveal their own power-ups. However, they are quickly deployed into action once again when Betti attacks Earth with her army, and they join the Gokaigers, Decade Riders, Ultramen, Space Sheriffs and Parker Zhou in fighting off Betti’s army. Crestor’s army arrives to seek revenge for the attack on his home, but is quickly defeated by Clyde with the Lupin Magnum.
Betti (as Sylphi) turns the day into night and summons a wave of purple fireballs, destroying the area around everyone. She attempts to unleash a second wave of fireballs, but is stopped by the appearance of the Ranbu Xross Weaponrisers, which are obtained by Mogoro, Parker, the Doctor, Hiroki, Hikaru, Larry (Gavan) and Crestor. The area is restored as Betti’s army is defeated with these new weapons and forced to retreat. Metallic is also revealed to possess a Weaponriser as well.
After the Sea Princesses encounter Kamen Rider Ryuga for the first time (see #20), Silvia shows Che and Gengilas their new Megazords, the Snap Freeze Antararaptor (封氷合体 アンタララプター) and the Fire Blaze Gengilasaurus (爆炎合体 ゲンギラサウルス). Che and Gengilas then fight the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews in Elwood City where they use the Baraba sword replicas to open portals and summon purple fireballs. The Ultramen attempt to fix the damage afterwards, but they are unable to fix it fully at this time. It’s finally here where I give backstories for Che and Gengilas because I didn’t do it back in Series 3.
While shopping in the Doctor’s universe, the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews along with Crestor are arrested in public by SWAT units for breaching coronavirus restrictions, sex with minors and being accessories after the fact. Similarly, Spike and some others on Minato-Sugaru Island are arrested as well. Yūki Tachibana demands answers from UNIT about this but they deny having any involvement in them… which is actually true because they weren’t behind these arrests. The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews along with the other captured individuals are placed in the custody of the Minister of War; Silvia had them arrested because she didn’t want them getting in the way of their plans, using the “forgotten incident” in Quahog as an excuse to justify this.
Meanwhile, Silvia dispatches Che and Gengilas in their new Megazords to defeat the Power Rangers and Kamen Riders for good. The Rangers send out their Megazords, but they are no match for the D4 Ray fitted on the Antararaptor and Gengilasaurus, which also opens dimensional rips. Che and Gengilas then use their Megazords to attack other planets with the D4 Ray.
Parker Zhou teams up with Princess Twilight Sparkle, Ayaka Kikuchi, Yūki Tachibana, Starlight Glimmer and Jee Gun to find the captured individuals. Yūki reports that neither the local police nor the federal police were responsible for the arrests, so Parker decides to confront Premier Daniel Andrews over this. It’s then that Silvia appears and explains that the D4 Ray was created based on Baraba’s sword and Che and Gengilas’ Megazords were constructed from data gathered from the Rangers, Riders and Crestor’s comrades. Silvia prepares to fight the group and Yūki offers to hold them off with Princess Twilight, Starlight and Jee Gun while Parker and the rest of his group head off.
On the way, Parker encounters his family from his spinoff series, only to be confronted by Betti. Magica and Serranon arrive to stop Betti as Parker’s group continues on, but much to their surprise, the magical girls of Mitakihara and surrounds appear in a flash of lightning. Parker’s group is confronted by Kamen Rider G4, a robotic Rider designed as a defensive weapon in response to anti-lockdown protests, and Ayaka transforms into Kamen Rider Rey to fight it. When G4 uses his Gigant to launch missiles at his opponents, one of them explodes near where Daniel Andrews is having his press conference, resulting in him having to be escorted back to his office.
Parker pursues Andrews to his office, knocks out the guards at the door and then points his sword at him, asking him who arrested his friends. After Andrews admits that no police department has ever made contact with the Barrier Base or SEPTAN crews as they are not on any wanted lists, he recognises Parker as a former Premier (in the Year that Never Was) and informs him that Michael O’Brien, the Opposition Leader, has a warehouse under a ghost corporation that he chairs, and that if Parker can find his friends there, he will pardon them from whatever they were charged on.
Parker’s group heads down to the warehouse, but Metallic 5 manages to find it first and unlocks the cells, freeing everyone with his Weaponriser. The Barrier Base group chases Betti, Silvia, Jasper and Michael to where they spring a trap for them. As the group splits up to fight the four villains, Parker fights Michael, who transforms into Kamen Rider Dark Ghost. Michael is eventually defeated by Parker using an attack activated through his Weaponriser.
Meanwhile, Che and Gengilas return to Earth and the Rangers and Riders go to meet them for a final fight. The Rangers destroy the Antararaptor and Gengilasaurus with their Megazords before other Rangers and Riders join them to fight them both in their super forms. After Che and Gengilas’ armies are defeated, the Gokaigers and Decade Riders summon the Superhero Final Bazooka to destroy them for good.
After the battles, Takumi is reunited with his comrades, the damage caused to this dimension with the D4 Ray still remains, Daniel Andrews follows through with his promise and Michael O’Brien disavows his actions during his time as the Minister of War and also resigns from said position. Betti and Silvia head to the location of Che and Gengilas’ final battle and retrieve their power-up items as they still have some use for them. Over in New Hayasaka, Metallic learns of Che and Gengilas’ deaths and begins laughing maniacally…
Arc 16: Towards the Future
Betti and Silvia are in the Reading Room when Silvia senses some people; they are revealed to be Ben Johnson, Katherine Raddic and Veronica Johnson, who Betti hasn’t seen in 17 years. The three of them think that Betti is trying to blandish the worlds again like she did 17 years ago, but Betti tells them that her plan of blandishing interdimensional aberrants is altruistic because different universes are merging with Shinbu and the Doctor’s universes, and that if the Dimensional Merge continues, the entire multiverse will be destroyed.
Meanwhile, there is an increase in dimensional fluctuations as unknown characters and parallel counterparts from different universes are roaming about in both Shinbu and the Doctor’s universes. Hiroki is nowhere to be found and the Capital Centre in Yokohama has been locked down. Akari goes to the Doctor to ask for his help, then when he completes a scan of the centre, he becomes alarmed and tells Akari to find a way in from the secret tunnels under UNIT’s Barrier Base. When she enters the centre, she finds Hiroki as Decade fighting parallel versions of himself along with their partners and friends.
The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews, along with Hackbot and HMM, head to New Hayasaka to confront Metallic, believing him to be the cause of the increase in interdimensional activity. As they confront Metallic however, Mawashi and Clyde’s forces attack New Hayasaka along with Betti and Silvia, who have the Guardians with them. The Guardians tell Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen that they have failed to prevent the Dimensional Merge as it is still happening despite their previous attempts at “stopping” it. Unlike the last time, the Dimensional Merge is now affecting each and every conceivable dimension. It is impossible for multiple universes to exist in the same space within the Void because each universe has its own origins and history and they can conflict with each other, causing paradoxes that can destroy the multiverse. The only way to save it now is to blandish the aberrants from every universe and send them back to their universes of origin.
As the battle begins in New Hayasaka, Akari finds Hiroki and takes him away as they hide in a department store. Hiroki’s parallel selves are about to close in on them, but the appearance of a certain individual defeats them. That individual is none other than Fifi Forget-me-not. OK, it’s actually a counterpart from a universe where she didn't die of ovarian cancer and instead, became the queen of her universe’s Never Land. She is known as Queen Fifi. The three of them make their way out of the Capital Centre to meet with the Doctor.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor and Karen are confronted by the former’s older incarnations, who are demanding answers as to why all universes are in danger of being destroyed. They also call the Fifth Doctor out for going back on his principle of not using weapons; when he tries to call out their hypocrisy of them using weapons (or making people into weapons) despite claiming to be pacifistic, they call him out for being willing to jump into a battle at the drop of a hat. The Doctor manages to escape with his friends.
Betti and Silvia escape from the battle in New Hayasaka and prepare a giant watermelon-shaped bomb in the Doctor’s universe that will explode in three hours, releasing a tsunami of blandishing water. With all attempts to destroy it coming up fruitless, Ginga Generation takes the bomb and throws it into the sun, but it triggers a solar flare that causes the vapourised blandishing water to enter every universe, blandishing all interdimensional aberrants and re-separating all merged universes.
The main Barrier Base crew are saved from being blandished as they were following Ginga Generation in the Barrier Base, but everyone else, including the remainder of the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews, find themselves back in their own universes. The words “BAD WOLF” begin appearing in every universe as the Barrier Base crew are called to Gallifrey along with the Doctor and Hiroki. When Lenamin and Riamin show them a message from another universe in Circular Gallifreyan that translates to “Bad Wolf”, the Doctor and Hiroki realise its meaning; Fifi is trying to look for them.
The message is traced to Queen Fifi, who used a Void Beacon to send the message to every universe. The group uses the Weaponrisers that they have to pinpoint their friends’ universes and bring them back. The Doctor also uses Hiroki’s body for this plan; to improve the accuracy of finding the right universes, he intends to activate the Jenova cells in Hiroki’s body and invoke the Jenova Reunion Theory to locate his prototypes and use them as anchors. Through this, they manage to restore the Doctor’s universe to how it was before it was blandished.
The Guardians and the Doctor’s older incarnations surrender to the group, admitting that their positions were wrong and that they believe in the new generation of Guardians. Betti and Silvia confront the heroes and they fight each other. During the battle, Hiroki sprouts wings from his back, which allows him to transform into Decade Angelic Emotion (ディケイド 天使態), which is Decade but with wings (think Sieg’s wings from Den-O Super Climax Form). Betti’s army is eventually defeated.
Parker decides that the only way to restore all universes to normal and regain balance in the universe is to fire the Harmony Signal again (which was last used in the 50th Anniversary Series to stop the Salacian Time War). Mogoro aims to find the Ranbu Diamonds before Metallic does. Meanwhile, Betti intends to let Metallic complete the Ultimate Dimensional Merge before she blandishes the merged world.
Betti uses the Giga Battlenizer to revive the Central Kirin Army and the Mt. Gokuho clan to toy with the Oukans. The Barrier Base crew return to Ouka and meet with their friends before they find themselves attacked by the summoned enemies. After they are defeated, the Four Gods appear again and resurrect the Kirin Gate’s original guardian, the Yellow Chimera Beast Kirin. The Barrier Base crew defeats the gods and they celebrate in Chikuan. Shinbu and Suirin decide to go back to just being friends after their relationship fails to develop for two series.
Antoni returns to his family in Kawakara after the events of the Parallax War and his post-Parallax War encounters with the Doctor, deciding to retire. He never expected that his grandchildren would be there, and as expected, they are angry at Antoni for abandoning his family. Hiroki, however, is more sympathetic, as he believes that Antoni wants to change and make up with his family. Antoni is visited by an old nemesis, Parker Zhou, who tells him that if he wants to reconcile with his family, then he should prove to them that he is worthy of their respect. This leads Antoni to issue a challenge to his family, and they face each other off in battle. Betti and Silvia see this and decide to resurrect Davros and Patrick Han, but they are defeated as Antoni successfully reconciles with his family.
Betti resurrects Specter and the Freaky Monkey Five and they attempt to take control of the Vocaloids before they are stopped by Terumi, Minoru and the SEPTAN crew with the help of Mirai Suenaga and the Solar Marines. Bowser and Eggman’s armies are driven back by Mario and Sonic’s army before they make peace thanks to Hackbot and HMM, who convince the four that they will end up destroying themselves if they continue to fight, especially when there’s a bigger villain than Bowser and Eggman out there.
Yanagiri, Night Star (now with a new human form) and Madvalis are the next to be resurrected by Betti, but Yanagiri attacks her and steals the Giga Battlenizer before leaving. Night Star is sent to accompany him and the two fight Jee Gun, Copper Plume and Rally Flag. In her fight with Jee Gun as Fourze, Night Star transforms into her Roseka form, Serazenta Rozeka, and uses her three Types to defeat Fourze. Yanagiri is about to finish off Copper and Rally as well before the Ultramen arrive and help them and Jee Gun away. In their rematch, Yanagiri summons several monsters and the Ultras defeat them before he is finished off with Hikaru using his Weaponriser. Night Star manages to steal Hikaru’s Weaponriser before returning to Betti.
Over in New Hayasaka, Metallic is unable to locate the Ranbu Diamonds because something is likely shielding them from detection. Betti and Silvia arrive with Night Star and Madvalis, unknowingly observed by the Space Sheriffs. With the Weaponriser stolen from Hikaru and possessed by Metallic and Crestor, they have three in their possession and five more to collect. Derrick senses another Weaponriser nearby and Metallic orders his troops to search for it. The Space Sheriffs are discovered but they manage to shake off their pursuers.
Meanwhile, Megumi recalls her past memories with Crestor and decides to liberate his sweethearts and gal-pals from their slavery. She successfully manages to do so and is labelled a traitor by Crestor’s comrades before escaping with the girls. This is reported to Metallic and Crestor, but they dismiss it as they focus on gathering the Weaponrisers.
Metallic and Clyde’s forces attack New Hayasaka, breaking away from Betti and Silvia as they fight the Sonikas and Rosekas. The Space Sheriffs are confronted by Madvalis as they attempt to escape; Madvalis is defeated, but when Night Star turns her attention to the Space Sheriffs, she defeats them and takes Gavan’s Weaponriser, which is given to Metallic, leaving him with four.
The Doctor summons Akari to the TARDIS; a blood sample he took from Hiroki has the blood collecting on the side of a Petri dish like a compass, changing its direction every time they go somewhere different. Through triangulation, they work out that the blood always points in the direction of where Hiroki is. As Hiroki fights more parallel versions of himself, large numbers of people and animals appear to be converging on his location as well. Hiroki’s prototypes are also among the convergents. Arriving in the area, the Doctor scans one of the convergents (not related to Hiroki) and discovers that Hiroki somehow embedded some of his cells in the person’s DNA.
Hiroki holes himself up inside a castle. The spirit of Gyūki begs him to stop fighting but he refuses. The Doctor and Akari find Hiroki and they ask him why he is doing all this; he explains that ever since the Jenova cells in him were reactivated, he has been dreaming of a version of himself turning into a monster and he wants to prevent it from happening. Using his cells to control people is wearing himself thin, and he merges the spirit of Gyūki into himself before absorbing the energy from his own Weaponriser, causing the Jenova reunion to fully commence as his prototypes and all the people and animals he embedded his cells into are merged into himself, transforming him into the monster from his dreams, the Supreme Ego Monster Hokkinlai (唯我独尊怪獣 ホッキンライ).
The Ultras merge into Ginga Generation to fight Hokkinlai alongside the Gokaigers, Kamen Riders, and Akari, Karen and Queen Fifi with the Weaponrisers. Hokkinlai is defeated, everyone is unmerged from Hiroki and Hiroki’s Jenova cells are resuppressed, removing his ability to summon his wing or transform into Decade Angelic Emotion. The three Weaponrisers (which belonged to the Doctor, Hiroki and Parker Zhou) are taken by Crestor’s comrades, leaving Mogoro’s Weaponriser the final one to be collected. Returning home, Akari asks Hiroki if there was ever a version of himself that he was proud of, and they meet the meta-Philip Zhou, who was last seen in Three Kingdoms Series 4 and is striving on becoming his best self.
Back on Minato-Sugaru Island, the conflict between Storm Arekawa and Jasper continues. Angered over his constant defeats, Jasper goes to New Hayasaka and asks Silvia to make him a woman. At the same time, Crestor asks Silvia the same thing because he feels that he can resonate with other women more if he was one. Silvia casts a sex-change spell on the two that will make them female and increase their power for 12 hours. Jasper embraces his alternate identity as Jasmine Samuels while Crestor adopts the name Crestina Calandia.
Metallic leads his forces to attack Minato-Sugaru Island. Storm fights Jasper once again and Jasper is confident that Storm won’t kill him now that he is Jasmine because it would be a hate crime, but Storm doesn’t care because he has justice on his side and also because he knows Jasper only wants to be a woman because he wants to be touched by other women. Megumi intrudes in the battle with Ricarlo and Aidnalac, who she has managed to turn against Crestor, along with Mawashi and Clyde. This sudden betrayal leads Metallic to retreat and Jasper is called back as well.
Upon regrouping, Metallic reaffirms that their main objective is to obtain the final Weaponriser from Mogoro. His forces return to Minato-Sugaru Island and fight the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews. Mogoro is forced to face Metallic with his Weaponriser, but Metallic manages to defeat him with the Ranbu Xross Starslash. Metallic takes Mogoro’s Weaponriser and the eight Weaponrisers transform into the Ranbu Diamonds and Master Diamond, which is what they were this entire time, concealing themselves when Metallic stole back the Master Diamond. Metallic’s forces withdraw in victory as Silvia’s magic on Jasper and Crestor wears off.
Jasper demands Silvia to make him a woman again as he still hasn’t gotten his revenge yet. Silvia agrees, warning him that he will die if he is defeated again, but she doesn’t tell him that he will die anyway in 12 hours because Jasper’s body can’t take another sudden change and power surge in such a short amount of time. Jasper proceeds to terrorise all the women on Minato-Sugaru Island before Storm confronts him. The two of them transform and fight before Jasper provokes Storm into finishing him off, which he does. Jasper is defeated, his Zodiarts Switch is destroyed and his body dissolves into stardust. This is witnessed by the police, who arrest Storm for Jasper’s murder, but after spending the night in a cell, he is released the next morning without charge, with the events of the previous night deemed to be a typical monster attack and Jasper’s death declared an accident. It’s clear that Yūki Tachibana had to pull some strings to achieve this, but because the higher-ups no longer want anything to do with Jasper because he was enough of a menace to emergency services, it was an easy move for them. Basically, the police let Storm get away with a hate crime because the victim was (literally) a monster.
And so we reach our final arc, The Ultimate Dimensional Merge. I only reached this point writing it in late-January 2022, and as a testament to how long it took to write this series, I kept a mini-diary of the time it took to write these final episodes. It took me 17 days to write 4 episodes, and Series 4 was finally wrapped up at the start of February, 7 months behind schedule (19 if you consider that it was supposed to end in June 2020). Some plot elements from Kamen Rider Saber were also adapted for this story. Let’s get right into it.
Now with all the Ranbu Diamonds and the Master Diamond together, Metallic and Crestor restart the Dimensional Merge. The power of the diamonds combine and distribute themselves among Crestor and his comrades, enhancing their powers. The dimensional fluctuations begin rising dramatically as more people and locations from different dimensions begin appearing in both Shinbu’s and the Doctor’s universes. The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews meet up with UNIT, the Shadow Proclamation and the Guardians among others. Parker states that his preparations for the Harmony Signal have been completed and that it is now being charged up. In the meantime, the group decide to work on three things - take back the Reading Room, attack New Hayasaka and defend Earth from Metallic.
Mawashi and Clyde attack New Hayasaka and Metallic orders that Ricarlo, Aidnalac and Megumi be brought back alive. Aidnalac unleashes a Metal Sonika while Ricarlo unleashes “badly-drawn” versions of the Sonikas and Rosekas before they turn into exact copies of them. Earlier, the two managed to get Blake, Mitchell, Sodorill and Sunako to join them. Metallic’s forces manage to wear down their enemies and they withdraw. On the way back, Ricarlo, Aidnalac and Megumi attempt to assassinate Crestor, but they are captured and so are Blake, Mitchell, Sodorill and Sunako. Metallic channels the Ranbu Diamonds’ power through them to put them under his and Crestor’s control while also multiplying their power, the resulting power overload means that they will die upon being defeated.
Betti returns to the Reading Room with Silvia and Night Star, but they are locked out thanks to the Guardians’ staves, forcing them to return to New Hayasaka. Betti joins Metallic and Crestor as they lead their armies against Mawashi and Clyde. The two are defeated with their armies and they disappear, proclaiming to Crestor that while he may have won this battle, he won’t win the war. After that, Metallic begins unleashing his fleets across the multiverse. On the Doctor’s Earth, Daniel Andrews and Michael O’Brien are killed during the attacks. Yeah, I wrote Arc 15’s finale during a time when I still had some respect for Premier Daniel Andrews. This was after he announced coronavirus vaccine mandates and implemented a system of vaccine discrimination in Melbourne.
Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen are summoned to the Reading Room along with the Doctor, Hiroki and Parker. Upon entering, Eigen discovers that the fullest extent of his knowledge has been unlocked, which was forgotten due to being with the Barrier Base crew for so long. It is revealed that Eigen originated from the Reading Room and the Reading Room is actually the heart of the Voidstation, last shown as the “Citadel of Hirokis” in Kamen Rider Decade. Lenamin and Riamin looked into the Reading Room’s history and discovered that Eigen was a god-like guardian stationed in the Voidstation, watching over the universes from the Reading Room since the beginning of existence itself. When Metallic attempted to begin the Dimensional Merge for the first time, the guardian descended into Shinbu’s universe in the form of Eigen Kasamisoka, but since he took longer than expected to adjust to human society, the guardian intervened to grant Crestor the wisdom to stop the Merge, resulting in him becoming dormant inside Eigen as he became an entity independent of the guardian (though Eigen was still able to use some of the guardian’s powers as shown in Arc 8).
Ben, Katherine and Veronica use their staves to release the guardian’s spirit from Eigen’s body and place it back into the Voidstation. The guardian grants the group three questions and the answers are as follows: Metallic and his army can be defeated with determination, it is impossible for Crestor to be saved because he is too self-absorbed in himself, and the Dimensional Merge cannot be stopped because the Ranbu Diamonds’ power has evolved to the point that they can recharge themselves with their own energy, meaning that not even the Harmony Signal can change anything. Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen tell the guardian that he is wrong because they believe that there is always a way to change the future, to which the guardian shows that several universes and planets (including Gallifrey) are beginning to disintegrate as a result of the Merge. Shinbu and the others return to Earth just as their comrades are defeated by Metallic and his forces. As everyone meets back up that evening, the Harmony Signal is only 40% charged, so they will need to buy some time. We get some scenes of everyone conversing between themselves as they prepare for what will be their final battle.
The next morning, the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews, along with the Gokaigers, Decade Riders, Ultramen, Space Sheriffs, Guardians, Parker and Queen Fifi, head for New Hayasaka while the remaining heroes remain on Earth and Normal World to fight Metallic and his forces. The Barrier Base group gradually split off to fight Crestor’s comrades as they guard Shinbu and Mogoro to the mayor’s office to fight Crestor and Metallic. The mayor’s office is revealed to be inside the space station META-5 as it begins to fly off into space.
Mogoro chases Metallic to the final chamber where they previously fought during the initial Dimensional Merge. Metallic reveals details about his past; he and Mogoro were created by Wells Moreau to be the successors of his legacy, but while Mogoro was raised by Jeopardy, Metallic was released into space and left to fend for himself. He found the Master Diamond and learnt about the Ranbu Diamonds and their power, then he discovered Crestor Calandia, a boy who was disconnected from this world yet still connected to it in his own way, and decided to befriend him out of curiosity, using the Master Diamond to make his world come to life. Metallic learned how the people around Crestor treated him and came to the conclusion that nobody deserved to live if they weren’t capable of showing compassion to someone like him.
Betti is killed by the Guardians while the rest of the Barrier Base group struggle against the Ranbu Elite and Crestor’s non-human comrades. With Shinbu and Mogoro also struggling against Crestor and Metallic, the Ranbu Diamonds grant Shinbu, Mogoro, Eigen, Suirin, Densei, Rinta and Ryo the Weaponrisers, allowing them to gain the upper hand against their opponents. Crestor’s non-human comrades are defeated and the attacks of the Barrier Base crew resonate with each other, turning all of Metallic’s minions across the multiverse into dust.
Metallic and Crestor are defeated. Shinbu comforts Crestor as he disappears and Mogoro is told by Metallic to escape in the mayor’s office, which is also an escape pod. Shinbu and Mogoro return to their friends and with Normal World disintegrated at this point, they head back to Earth as it is the final planet to disintegrate just as the Harmony Signal finishes charging.
Suddenly, the Barrier Base group find themselves in a black space, which is then revealed to be the Reading Room. Thanks to an appeal from the transient world Hiroki (who returned alongside transient world Fifi at the start of this arc), people and beings from all across the multiverse are shown telling stories of their adventures in the hope that existence can be saved. The guardian of the multiverse reveals that he was the one who saved the Barrier Base group and brought them to the Reading Room, a tiny speck of existence that will remain after everything ends. Everyone joins hands and the Harmony Signal is fired, rebuilding the multiverse and everything within it to how it was before it all disintegrated. Thanks to Shinbu, Mogoro and Ben Johnson, Metallic 5 and Betti are given new lives in a new universe, living as a family with their “son”, Crestor Calandia, and his girlfriend, Megumi Sonozaki. In this world, Crestor remains the creator of the Sonika webcomic and is also an advocate for autism and neurodiversity on social media, while Megumi is also a fellow artist who met Crestor playing card games at Games World. They went on to become a couple and they collaborate with each other on their art and livestream themselves playing games and drawing art to a niche yet substantial online audience.
In the aftermath, Windy Adams joins the Kougami Foundation, Takumi Kamijō stays in his universe as he is unable to return to the Madoka Magica universe (because Walpurgisnacht Rising hasn’t come out yet), Hikaru/Storm Dasher returns to Equestria and his royal duties, the Gokaigers disband once again, and others like Queen Fifi and the Guardians return to their universes. Dangen and Lucy move to Chikuan and live with Suirin and Densei, Terumi, Minoru and Jeopardy join SEPTAN and form a new crew of their own, Rinta and Ryo travel the multiverse in search of intimate encounters and Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen continue to travel in the Barrier Base just as they always have. Metallic may have been defeated, but the journey of the Barrier Base crew continues forever.
This has been Soulbound, and with it the main timeline of my personal project, Kisekae Insights. Most elements of my personal project, including the Doctor, the Gokaigers and Hiroki’s prototypes, would be retired, while Hiroki and the Kamen Riders would continue on for a couple of post-story side series, namely Kamen Rider Zi-O and Kamen Rider Decade Legend Fighters. Zi-O has already been covered in the previous run (#43 to #50) and Decade Legend Fighters will be covered soon towards the end of this run (#68 to #69).
Because the stories of Three Kingdoms and Soulbound have been condensed for this series, a lot of details have been skimmed over. Unfortunately, there is a limit to what I can elaborate on because I don’t want to share the official documents outside of my Facebook friends (and their friends) for privacy reasons, but if I am asked, I will answer however I can.
My main goals for this series have been achieved, so now it’s time to wrap things up. A few filler instalments are up next before we cover Decade Legend Fighters. Thanks for joining us and I hope you’ll stay with us as we head down the final stretch.
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 2: Sengoku Basara 2
Sengoku Basara 2 (戦国BASARA2)
Platforms: PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii (Double Pak)
Release date: 27 July 2006 (PS2)/29 November 2007 (Wii)
Sengoku Basara 1 helped save Capcom’s finances after two years of losses. It was an ambitious project that very few believed in until a change in director helped turn perception of the game around within the company. Director Makoto Yamamoto’s vision of the game was to take liberties on historical facts and give characters outlandish personalities incorporating pop culture references, giving it a feel of patchwork exaggeration that the series would become known for. The first game was relatively successful and it contributed to a massive increase in profits for Capcom.
Likely due to this and his works on other Capcom IPs, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi was allowed to make a sequel, which was released a year after the first game. That sequel would spark the beginning for a peak for Sengoku Basara, leading to a renewed interest in Sengoku period Japan known as the “Sengoku Boom” and the series receiving expansions and spinoffs while also branching out into other mediums.
Let’s dig into Sengoku Basara 2 and take a look at the series’ evolution.
Sengoku Basara 2
Uniquely for this game, Takanori Nishikawa did not perform the opening theme song; instead, it was DIVE into YOURSELF by HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR. Presumably due to licensing issues, this song was not reused in rereleases of this game, instead going back to Nishikawa’s songs which I’ll explain when I get to them. This game also introduced ending theme songs in the credits, with this game’s ending theme being Brave by Tomiko Van of Do As Infinity.
For the first time, the game introduces an overarching story, which is teased in the opening movie and used in the background of all characters’ Story Modes. While the last game’s story was loosely connected around Nobunaga and Honnōji, this game’s story is centred around Hideyoshi, the ruthless unifier of Sengoku-era Japan who becomes Nobunaga’s rival, which is ironic given how in history, Hideyoshi was originally a soldier and later an officer under Nobunaga.
In turns of characters, from the last game, Motochika and Motonari have now been made playable, with Motonari’s weapon changing from a saihai to the Circle Blade, fitting his character as a Child of the Sun (Black RX reference not intended). Ujimasa, Yoshimoto and Ieyasu remain NPCs.
For new characters, there are:
Keiji Maeda
Hideyoshi Toyotomi
Hanbei Takenaka
Musashi Miyamoto
In terms of new NPCs, there are:
Kojūrō Katakura
Nagamasa Azai
Oichi
Kennyo Honganji
Kotarō Fūma
Keiji Maeda is the new poster boy for this game alongside Masamune and Yukimura, who are seen in the opening movie. Kojūrō’s inclusion gives the Date another representative, Nagamasa is a knight of justice, Oichi is a psychotic emo girl and Kotarō is a silent ninja, even more silent than Tadakatsu and he makes clanking noises. It’s also in this game that the red oni/blue oni rivalry of Yukimura and Masamune is established, because damn it, everything is gay about this.
There are also two more sets of special NPCs. Firstly, unique to this game, there’s the Five Spears (Gohonyari), a Super Sentai parody hired by Ujimasa, Nagamasa and Yoshihiro in their battles. They share the same life bar and when they take enough damage, they’ll fire their team cannon which is easily avoidable and explodes afterwards, “killing” them. Secondly, there’s Kanetsugu Naoe, a retainer of the Uesugi who prides himself as being invincible yet ends up looking clumsy. And I thought him preaching about love and honour in SW was annoying enough. Kanetsugu would continue to appear in later games.
Anyway, let’s get onto the game modes. Story Mode is a new addition to this game, with all playable characters (except Musashi) being given 5 (sometimes 6) stages, similar to the Koei Warriors classic era games. Clearing the bonus objective on each character’s fourth stage allows you to obtain their unique item (but Musashi’s can only be obtained on Free Mode).
Conquest Mode continues from the last game. Each territory will have a treasure that can be collected by conquering it, such as gold, EXP, treasure boxes (items) or equipment (weapons/armours). The levels of treasures go up as other territories are conquered by other clans, but when you conquer a clan who has occupied numerous territories, you can only take one of their treasures. Treasure boxes and equipments can also be found on the battlefield.
Sometimes, you’ll get a random encounter event from Musashi, who will challenge you to battle on Ganryūjima. The target of this stage is to defeat him as fast as you can to get as much gold while also avoiding his traps (because even in real history, blud was playing dirty in his duel with Kojirō Sasaki), and most times the battle will end abruptly because the gold counter runs out and Musashi just decides to bounce.
Because of the new Story Mode, in Free Mode you’ll see that every clan has more than one stage to fight them in. There are a total of 48 stages available in the game.
Another new mode introduced in this game is the (Grand) Tournament Mode. In this mode, you’ll go through 100 rounds of beating various enemies. At the end of each round, you’ll get a roulette wheel that you press R3 to stop, and you’ll get a recovery item (check) when the light lands on the marked space. Gold and EXP rewards stack with every round completed; every ten rounds, you’ll be able to save and exit the mode, but when you start again, your gold and EXP rewards start again as if you started from the first round. Completing 50 rounds unlocks a character’s 3rd armor and completing all 100 rounds unlocks a character’s 8th weapon.
A new addition to the battle mechanic for this game is the Sengoku Drive. Every 100 KOs, you’ll gain a level of Sengoku Drive, which can be stacked up to 3 levels at higher levels. Sengoku Drive is activated by pressing L2 (I prefer setting it to R2) and for a limited time (longer at higher levels), your attack and attack speed (of Normal Attacks only) will increase. You won’t be staggered in most attacks (except by a Basara attack) and you’ll maintain at least 1 HP. Enemy characters can also enter this state when their “Basara Gauge” (below their life bar up the top) is full. Activating a Basara Attack in Sengoku Drive makes it an Ultimate Basara Attack, which shows their emblem on the screen.
Hit combo levels are now marked more prominently from this game onwards, a feature taken from Devil Kings. As you reach 50 hits, the word Ready will appear on the screen. At 100, it changes to Go!, then every 100 hits it goes Double, Triple and Basara, earning a multiplier of gold with every enemy you defeat, before you reach Fever at 500 hits. This also activates Basara Fever, where your attack and hit count increases and you earn gold for every attack you land.
Pressing Select allows you to taunt your enemy. Although you’ll be defenceless while doing so, you can recover your Basara Gauge depending on how many enemies are around you. Also, on horseback, pressing Triangle allows you to jump your horse.
Two more weapons per character have been added from the last game for a total of eight. Here’s how to acquire each weapon:
Initially unlocked
Equipment reward
Basara-ya Shop
Equipment reward on Hard/Ultimate difficulty
Basara-ya Shop after clearing Story/Unification Mode
Equipment reward on Ultimate difficulty
Basara-ya Shop after clearing Story/Unification Mode on Hard/Ultimate difficulty
Clear 100 rounds in Tournament Mode
Also, armors have been introduced in this game that, like the weapons, add aesthetics to your character while boosting defense. Three armors can be unlocked as follows:
Basara-ya Shop
Equipment reward on Hard/Ultimate difficulty
Clear 50 rounds in Tournament Mode
Initially, you’ll still only be able to equip 3 items on every character, but as you level up, you’ll be able to equip 5. The three-set-effective-only items from the last game have been removed; instead, there are five-set items that yield greater effects when all five items in the set are equipped. Aside from the Rally Biwa, two more Rally Instruments are introduced; the Rally Koto (熱唱こと) which plays the ending theme song, and the Rally Tsuzumi (熱唱つづみ) which plays your character’s theme song. Take note that some items do not work in Tournament Mode.
Alternate costumes have also been introduced in this game, which are unlocked after clearing Unification Mode with each character.
New to this game is the Basara-ya Shop, where you can use the gold earned throughout the game to buy weapons, armors or items. You can also spend gold to upgrade your health, attack and defence up to 10 times.
Like the last game you can only see the enemy’s officer list when viewing the battle formations, but this time, you can see what elements enemy characters have. Speaking of elements, this game introduces the Light element, which can make it easier to break an enemy’s guard, and the Wind element, which pulls enemies towards you. Elements are found on the 3rd and 6th weapons and on some 7th and 8th weapons.
The Gallery also introduces a Records page, which ranks how many times a character has been used in battle, their total KOs, the highest hit chain records in battle, the total number of rounds played in Tournament Mode and the highest number of consecutive wins in the same mode. There’s also a Titles page which is basically a page of achievements/trophies that can be achieved in Conquest Mode. Each achievement yields a certain number of Title Points up to a total of 300, with items being acquired at 100, 150 and 300 points. On the original PS2 version, Musashi is unlocked at 50 points.
The cutscenes in this game are all CG, produced by Digital Media Lab, anima, wonderium and STUDIO IBUKI. Something that becomes very obvious when you see it is that the characters’ mouths don’t move in the in-game event cutscenes, which makes them look weird. The same was the case in 1.
Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes
Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes (戦国BASARA2 英雄外伝 - HEROES -)
Platforms: PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii (Double Pak)
Release date: 29 November 2007
Sengoku Basara 2 ended up selling over 135,000 copies in its first week and 285,000 copies by the end of 2006, over 1.5 times the sales of the first game in the same timeframes, making it one of the top 50 best-selling games in Japan for the year. This game also contributed 11% of Capcom’s annual sales in Japan at the end of the 2006 fiscal year. Ostensibly, an expansion was commissioned for release in late-2007.
Koei had been releasing Warriors game expansions, known as Xtreme Legends, for a few years at this point. Their approach was that players could transfer the saves of the vanilla games into a new save for the expansion so they could play the new content made for it while still maintaining their progress, but if they wanted to play the vanilla game’s content, they would need to “import” it by using a copy of the vanilla game to validate and unlock that content. Later expansions would have the vanilla game content already unlocked with the disc.
Capcom, however, would take a different approach. They would take most of the content from the original game, restructure some visuals and add new content and features to it. From this, the not-quite-so expansion, Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes, was created; the closest analogue for Koei would be Samurai Warriors 4-II.
When first running this game on the PS2, before save data for Heroes is created, you’ll be asked if you want to carry over your data from 2. This will carry over your characters’ levels, alternate costumes, weapons, armors, items and titles to Heroes. Since Heroes is a separate game from 2, if you decide to continue playing 2, any new progress will not carry over into Heroes and vice versa - any progress made in Heroes will not carry back over into 2. There is an exception, however.
A Wii port of Heroes was released simultaneously with the PS2 release, bundled in a Double Pak with 2. Because both games use the same save file on the Wii, progress made between 2 and Heroes is synced between them. Also, in the Wii port of 2, all characters and battles are selectable and Ultimate difficulty is available from the start.
In terms of controllers for the Wii, the Wiimote and Nunchuk or the Classic Controller can be used - it is not compatible with GameCube controllers. Apparently, Capcom experimented with motion controls for this game, but it was abandoned because it didn’t match the core selling point of the series being a button masher. The camera cannot be controlled while using the Wiimote and Nunchuk. I’ll stick to PlayStation controls for this retrospective, particularly since I can’t find a manual or a control list for the Wii.
The presentation of Heroes is significantly different from that of 2. 2 utilised CG cutscene movies and the main menu had a minimalist yet serious tone compared to 1. Heroes, however, changes every part of 2’s presentation. The whole game is now styled like a shonen manga; cutscene movies are animated by Magic Bus, character portraits are drawn in the anime style and used instead of the CG portraits, the main menu has an animated background showing all the characters in the game, and the UI of Heroes has been changed to fit as well. Sengoku Basara 2 and Heroes may share the same roots in terms of battles and gameplay mechanics, but holy shit, the tonal whiplash in the visuals is real.
Capcom returned to Takanori Nishikawa to provide the theme song for the game, Blade Chord, which he performed with his band abingdon boys school. This song is also used in the credits of the game. In the Wii port of 2, Blade Chord also replaces DIVE into YOURSELF as the opening theme for that game. While there is no ending theme song for this game, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi “invited” Oichi’s seiyuu, Mamiko Noto, to perform an insert theme, 眠れ緋の華 (Sleeping Scarlet Flower), which is used in the final cutscene of her Story Mode which also leads into a special ending credit sequence. Remember this for later.
Heroes makes all playable and NPC characters from 2 playable, however the upgraded NPCs who don’t have a story in this game (Ujimasa, Yoshimoto, Kennyo and Ieyasu) only have two Special Attacks, which is a bit lazy considering they also have 8 weapons, 3 armors and unique items like everyone else. The game also introduces a new NPC, Hisahide Matsunaga, who serves as the Big Bad for Heroes; he is also revealed to be the one who spurred the events of 2 after capturing and humiliating Hideyoshi.
With Hisahide comes another generic NPC group, the Miyoshi Triumvirate. They are a group of three assassin brothers whose historical inspiration is the group of three retainers made up of Nagayasu Miyoshi, Masayasu Miyoshi and Tomomichi Iwanari. The three brothers are not named in the game, just known under their collective title.
So because Heroes is more a separate game rather than an expansion of 2, the original game’s Story Modes are not included. Instead, 3 five-stage Story Modes are included for Kojūrō, Nagamasa and Oichi, while 5 three-stage Side Stories are included for Masamune, Yukimura, Keiji, Motochika and Kotarō. Clearing these stories will unlock third costumes for characters, which are recoloured versions of the main costumes.
Conquest Mode continues from the original game. In addition to the random Musashi encounter, you can also get a random Hisahide encounter in the same homeland defence stage as in 1.
Free Mode adds 16 stages unique to Heroes, upping the total to 64. Two battles from the original game have been renamed, but otherwise they are the same.
Versus Mode contains 8 party games that can be played against another player or the computer. For fairness, all characters are locked to level 1 stats in this mode without items. Weapons and armors can be selected (for aesthetics) but their effects on stats do not apply.
Tournament Mode gets an upgrade in Heroes. In single-player mode, you’ll pick two characters to enter the tournament and you can swap between them by pressing R1 and R2 (on default settings). Your inactive character will regain health as your active character defeats enemies, and you only have to defeat the named enemies to win a round, unlike the original game where you had to defeat everyone. Also, a new Soldier’s Challenge feature has been added, where you complete 20 sets of three mini-goals for gold, and in the final round, you’ll fight the two characters you last cleared this mode with (initially, it’ll be Masamune and Yukimura). Both characters’ eighth weapons and third armors can be unlocked when you complete all 100 rounds.
After clearing Tournament Mode once, you’ll be able to unlock the Xtreme Tournament, which adds a time limit to it. Your remaining time in each round carries over to each consecutive round up to a maximum of 999 seconds.
Two-player functionality has been introduced for the first time in this series, but it is limited to Conquest, Versus and Tournament Modes. Not having it in Story Mode is understandable, but why this isn’t available in Free Mode is anyone’s guess. In battle, you’ll have individual health and Basara Gauges, but the KO, gold and hit counters are shared between the two players. The results page will determine how many enemies each player defeated, and while treasure boxes and equipments are individual to whoever collected them, the total EXP earned will be divided between the two characters.
When one player is defeated in battle, they will show a revive marker and ring around them. As long as the other player isn’t defeated, they can go to the defeated player and stand in the revive ring, which will recover their health in time. The game is only over if both characters are defeated.
Also new to this game is the Priming mechanic from Devil Kings. Some characters’ Special Attacks have been upgraded to Prime enemies, allowing you to gain more hits per attack when attacking them as the outsides of their health gauges turn yellow. The Basara Gauge is still chargeable with all attacks.
Entering Basara Fever in Heroes causes you to enter Fever Drive, which is the equivalent of Level 1 Sengoku Drive without using your stock. It has relatively more effects compared to the vanilla 2 where it only increased your attack and hit counts.
You can also earn Basara-kuji lottery tickets to draw in the Basara-ya shop, usually from items you’ve already gotten. You’ll pick from 3 tokens and you’ll earn gold or discounts as follows:
Unlucky (残念賞): 100 gold
Lucky (当り): 1000 gold or 20% off one item
Very Lucky (大当り): 10,000 gold or 50%/100% off one item
Unique items in this game, if they haven’t been unlocked in the original game, can be purchased for 30,000 gold after clearing all three Story Modes for Kojūrō, Nagamasa and Oichi, but for those three, they can still be obtained by clearing the bonus objective on their fourth stage.
Remember the Rally Tsuzumi which plays your character’s theme song in the original game? In Heroes, that item now plays the last BGM you played in the Gallery. But what if I want to play my character’s signature BGM? There’s also a Rod of Flattery (ごますり棒), where your allied soldiers will praise you.
The Gallery section also adds overviews of the characters alongside overviews of the battles. The game makes it a point to highlight that the overviews do not reflect the depiction of the characters in the Sengoku Basara series. Well gee, that’s nice to know. For a moment there I thought Masamune actually spoke Engrish and Oichi was actually a psychotic emo girl.
In both 2 and Heroes, there’s a title that’s unlocked by clearing Conquest Mode by December of the third Basara year. One minute in battle equals a month in the Basara calendar, which means that you have to clear all battles in a total of 36 minutes. Let’s hope you don’t get the Hisahide intrusion stage.
Sengoku Basara HD Collection
Sengoku Basara HD Collection (戦国BASARA HD Collection)
Platforms: PlayStation 3
Release date: 30 August 2012
In the midst of the series’ modern era, Kobayashi announced the release of Sengoku Basara 1, 2 and Heroes in a combined HD remaster port for the PS3 as part of the BSR48 General Election results event in January 2012. This would make the entire Sengoku Basara series available on the PS3 and as such, I’ve also made RPCS3 my hub for the series.
The theme song of this release is WE aRE by abingdon boys school, which also replaces DIVE into YOURSELF as the opening theme for 2. Seriously, both the replacement songs actually manage to fit 2’s opening quite perfectly. Chronologically, this would be the band’s last single as their activities wound up afterwards, with their fan club closing two years later. They would perform at INAZUMA ROCK FES in 2018 and 2019; they also planned a live tour in Tokyo, Ōsaka and Nagoya for March 2020, but due to the pandemic, it ended up being an audience-less concert broadcast live on the pay TV network WOWOW on 30 December 2020.
All three games are included on the game as-is with HD widescreen graphics; aside from that, no other changes have been made to the games. Like the Wii port of 2 and Heroes, your progress syncs between the two games because all three games share the same save file for the HD Collection, which is in contrast to Samurai Warriors 2 HD’s approach which sold XL and Empires separately (in addition to being bundled) and had separate save files for them.
The games also support trophies, which for 2 and Heroes are linked to the titles for both games. Titles are synced between games, but because the conditions for each of them are different between games (2’s titles are only earned through Conquest Mode while Heroes’ titles can also be earned through other modes), earning a title for Heroes doesn’t mean you’ll automatically earn the trophy in 2 even though it really should. To give an example, in 2 there are titles for clearing Conquest Mode with each character. Those titles are also available in Heroes, so you can earn the titles there and they will show up in 2, but they won’t be reflected as trophies yet because you have to play them in 2 in order for you to get the trophy; even the Character Guide page won’t show that you’ve completed Story Mode (or Tournament Mode) in 2 if you’ve only cleared it in Heroes. I know the two games are different, but if you’re going to sync titles with save data then there’s no reason why titles and trophies can’t be synced as well. What makes it worse is that there are duplicate trophies between the two games (with the trophies in Heroes being unlockable outside of Conquest Mode like their respective titles).
The HD Collection allows you to unlock all characters and battlefields right from the start. All characters will be levelled up to the maximum level (19 for 1, 99 for 2 and Heroes) and all their Special Attacks and costumes will be unlocked. In 1, you’ll also be able to play against yourself in Free Mode without needing to clear Conquest Mode with all characters. This isn’t unlike the Saikyou Data Discs that Koei used to bundle with Premium and Super Premium releases of their classic-era games, but here it doesn’t unlock the weapons, items and trophies, meaning you still have to unlock those yourself.
Also included are promos for the PS3 and 3DS game E.X.TROOPERS along with all the candidate promos for the BSR48 General Election (a parody of AKB48 and their sister groups’ Senbatsu Elections), covering all 48 Sengoku Basara characters up to 3 Utage, and a special image video of the election’s winner, Masamune.
Let me explain what the BSR48 thing was all about. With the series at its peak around the release of Utage in late-2011, Capcom decided to hold a popularity contest for all the characters in Sengoku Basara introduced up to that point (including NPCs or characters that had been cut in later games). The top 7 characters (the God7/神7), plus one character who either came 10th, 20th, 30th or 40th, would be featured in an audio drama CD, while the top character would be the main character of the audio drama, receive a special image video and be featured as the main character in a web promo for the HD Collection. The voting was limited to players who purchased a copy of Utage and entered a code included with it on the website. It ran from 10 November 2011 to 10 January 2012, and the results were announced in a fan event on 28 January 2012; in the end, they managed to get over 45,000 votes. Clearly Capcom were desperate to fill in 48 characters to fulfil the parody or else they wouldn’t have included Kanetsugu Naoe, the younger version of Ieyasu or Tenkai.
The top 7 characters in the contest were Masamune, Mitsunari, Yukimura, Kojūrō, Sasuke, Motonari and Motochika. The characters who came in the ten-places were Hanbei (10th), Nobunaga (20th), Matsu (30th) and Yoshiaki Mogami (40th). Given his prominence, of course Nobunaga ended up being picked, having received 419 votes compared to Hanbei with 1,438 (Keiji just missed him with 1,390). And they say democracy is a scam these days. Anyway, you can check out the candidate promos here and a full tabulated list here. You can also check out all the posters here. The audio drama CD, Soul revolution, received a limited release with first-run releases of the HD Collection and was uploaded to YouTube by a fan some time after the game’s release.
SWSB Comparison 2
It’s time again for the quintessential Sengoku Basara/Samurai Warriors comparison.
In terms of characters, Sengoku Basara 2 carries over 19 characters from Basara 1, adding 4 playable characters along with 5 more in Heroes and 2 NPCs (Kanetsugu and Hisahide, not counting generic NPC groups) for a total of 32. Samurai Warriors 2 removes three characters from SW1’s cast (Goemon, Kunoichi and Kennyo), carrying over 19 characters before adding 8 characters in vanilla and 5 more in Xtreme Legends for a total of 32 (but it would be 35 if I counted the cut characters). Samurai Warriors finally represents the clans of Western Japan and adds a few more figures for the Oda clan along with a couple of notable swordsmen. Sengoku Basara decides to fill in a few gaps back east and add some capital villains with Hideyoshi and Hisahide.
In SW2XL’s Story Mode, all but two characters have Story Modes for a total of 32. Sengoku Basara 2 only has 21 characters with Story Modes, while Heroes gives 4 more characters a Story Mode for a total of 25 (Kotarō only has side stories and 4 more existing characters also have side stories but they’re not counted here). The Story Modes in Basara 2 are sadly not available in Heroes, however.
In terms of game modes (outside of Story and Free Modes), Basara 2 has Conquest Mode and Tournament Mode, while Heroes adds Versus Mode and an extra game in Tournament Mode. SW2 has Survival Mode and Sugoroku, while XL adds Mercenary Mode. SW has had 2-player functionality (4-players in Sugoroku) from the start while Basara only started implementing it in Heroes, but it’s not available in Free Mode.
Battle-wise, SW2 diversified the movesets of some characters and gave them Special Attacks, while Basara 2 retains the same controls as 1 while also adding the Sengoku Drive, which is analogous to Rage Mode in DW5 (but not as powerful). SW2 also adds three-level Musou Attacks, with the third level adding special effects.
Once again, the point goes to Samurai Warriors again for the higher number of characters, Story Modes and diversity in features. I know Sengoku Basara is trying to establish itself as its own thing, but it can’t be helped comparing it to Samurai Warriors when they’re practically going against each other. I will give 2 Heroes props for the Basara-kuji lottery, because everything in SW2’s shop is expensive and I don’t earn enough gold in the game to be able to get everything quickly.
Sengoku Basara 2 helped establish the franchise’s prominence within Capcom and the greater hack-and-slash genre, bringing forth a large media presence in Japan and a peak for the fandom that would last several years. In his retrospective video, Profar also notes that 2 Heroes in particular was a childhood memory for him and many Indonesian gamers, and an entry point into the series.
Aside from increasing sales year after year, the series had found a new audience - rekijōs (歴女), female history buffs who were mostly captivated by the games’ characters and plot, began buying merchandise, cosplaying as characters from the series and even going on pilgrimages to famous historical sites. This was the beginning of the “Sengoku Boom” in Japan.
Notably in 2008-09, the Miyagi prefectural government collaborated with Capcom to promote a destination campaign using characters from Sengoku Basara, predominately Masamune and Kojūrō. They had Kojūrō on the sides of buses in Shiroishi City (which had seen an increase in tourism thanks to 2 Heroes and the Sengoku Boom) and Masamune as the face of local rice packets and a general prefectural election. Capcom would continue lending the franchise to be the face of other prefectural and local governments even into the mid-late 2010s. This is another thing that Capcom has above Koei; you don’t see their Warriors characters being used this extensively.
If I were to give a recommendation for which game to play between 2 and Heroes, I would recommend the Wii port or the PS3 HD Collection just so you can have your progress reflected between both games, but if I could only pick one, I would go with what others would suggest and recommend Heroes.
This would be the end of Sengoku Basara’s “classic era”, but there are still a few spinoffs to cover. Next time we take a look at some of those spinoffs - Sengoku Basara X, Battle Heroes and Chronicle Heroes. Don’t worry, it’s not just you. The naming alliteration gets even stupider.
We arrived in Tokyo after a 10-hour flight. After clearing immigration and collecting our luggage, we got on the Sky Access train through the Keisei lines and arrived at our hotel near Higashi-Ginza station. By the time everyone managed to settle in, it was late, but the girls were feeling hungry and even I wanted some ramen. I wanted to go to a full-on ramen place, but I ended up settling for a nearby Chinese place that had ramen and dumplings.
Mission: Chaperone the comrades. It was late at night so I didn't feel comfortable with them walking that far. After eating, the girls went to the nearby konbini to get some snacks before going back to our rooms. They shoved a couple boxes of condoms on me like I didn't know what they were thinking.
So how did I decide who would stay in each room? Drawing lots and planning algorithms. Through this process, here were the room arrangements:
Room 1: Mariko, Hina
Room 2: Ikumi, Chika
Room 3: Harumi, Tazuko
Room 4: Rika, Shouta
For most of the places the Shadow Proclamation arranged for twin double rooms, but for some reason, they were hard to find in Tokyo, so for that part of the trip they settled on four double rooms. Four is a bad luck number in Japan anyway and it was a good chance for me to get to know the girls individually first.
Some of the places we went to in Tokyo included the Tokyo Skytree, Akihabara, Shibuya, Tsukiji Market and Yokohama, particularly Chinatown. There were some places I wanted to go, but for the sake of the mission I had to put those plans aside.
We saw a lot of places and did a lot of things (in and out of the hotel), but perhaps one of the biggest highlights was an incident that happened at my room. See, the girls had gone downstairs to the hotel bath (spa) and I stayed in my room working on fixing up some content for the page. My Zeztz Sensor alerted me to a presence right outside the door.
WARNING! WARNING!
I looked at the footage from my phone. The guy outside didn't look like a staff member. He was clean shaven, had a black trenchcoat and was wearing glasses and sandals.
"Hello, uh, can you open this door please?"
"For what?"
"Uh, I just wanna make sure that uh, everything's okay. There seems to be something going on."
"What- What do you mean?"
"Uh, I dunno, just figured I'd check on something."
"I don't know what you want man. Get out of my room."
He kicked the door with his sandal, which seemed to send him flying back a few metres. "Open this fucking door. Where's your girlfriend, man? Where's your girlfriend, man?"
"Bro, what are you talking about?"
"Where's your girlfriend? Who's in there with you?"
"Bro, bro, if you don't leave..."
"Open this fucking door. Open this door or I'm breaking it fucking down, you understand me?"
"Leave this room. You don't-"
"Are you okay? Is everyone in this room okay?"
"Everyone's okay, what do you want?"
The guy knocked on my door a few times as he stood there, looking at the camera like he was in a standoff. After what seemed like a few minutes of silence but was only really 30 seconds, I decided to break the silence. "Can you leave my room, please?"
"Can you open the door, please?"
"You have nothing to do with my room. Can you leave my room?"
"Do you know what my name is?"
"Do you know what my name is? You don't belong in this hotel room. That's for sure."
"This is my hotel room, though."
"Yeah, I'm staying here. I don't know you."
The guy put his head close to the camera as he "revealed" who he really was. "My name is Harry Dresden, motherfucker. Open the door. This is my hotel room. Open the fuckin door." His voice turned deeper and he kept staring at the camera like he was winning this standoff. "Now, or I will fucking end you. Do you understand me?"
When he got no answer, he pulled his head back, then started kicking at the door again before screaming into the camera. "OPEN THE FUCKIN DOORRRRR!!!!! OPEN THE DOOR! LET HER OUT THE FUCKING CAGE!!! NOWWWWW!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME??? NOWWWWW, OR I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU! OPEN THIS DOOR! IS SHE OKAYYYYYY??? WHERE ARE YOU, BITCH?" He then began pushing his palms at the sensor like a Wing Chun master. At this point I knew I had to act.
GOOD MORNING! I-NA-ZU-MA RIDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ! P-LA-S-MA!
I am Azuma Yeonchi, Kamen Rider Zeztz.
The force of my simultaneous transformation and kick broke through the door and slammed the guy into the wall, rendering him unconscious. After detransforming, I used the Recovery Capsem to restore him from whatever possessed him and repair the door and the wall that I damaged. Once I got back into my room, the guy regained consciousness and he just walked away like nothing happened.
I never knew who the guy was, what his problem was or who even sent him. He didn't seem like a local. In the end, he wasn't worth looking into, and when the girls came back, it was just like nothing had happened.
Sengoku Basara Retrospective Part 1: Sengoku Basara 1
Sengoku Basara 1 (戦国BASARA)
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Release date: 21 July 2005
Sengoku Basara. It’s a name that’s been a speck of dust in the back of my mind, gathering and growing into a tumbleweed-sized dustball as I worked on the Koei Warriors Retrospective. It’s a series that’s had its fans amidst ambivalent treatment from Capcom to its Western fanbase. And I’ve decided to do a retrospective on this series for some reason, along with an April Fool’s post to go with it.
After having played through all the Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors and Warriors Orochi games for the Koei Warriors Retrospective, a revival of the Rant Series to celebrate its 10th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the franchise, I decided on a whim to look into Sengoku Basara.
Let me get this out of the way first - I’ve only played Sengoku Basara for nearly a year at most, whereas the Koei Warriors Retrospective comes after having played those games for 20 years. I’m not going to have the best research on it and much of what I state in this retrospective comes from the research of others like Profar, The Shonen Otaku Corner and Raindrops and Daydreams. With that being said, let’s dig into this series that’s so obscure it makes Koei Warriors look mainstream by comparison with Sengoku Basara 1.
As Masamune Date would say, “LET’S PARTY!”
Sengoku Basara 1
By the end of 2003, Capcom was heading towards a second fiscal year in a row with a loss in net income, 45 billion yen in the red. Although sales in the West remained strong, financial factors and sluggish growth of the video game market in Japan meant that they would need a miracle to not see another year in the red for the third time in a row.
It was then that in November 2003, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi approached the directors and general managers with a proposal for a new game. The new game was to have a Sengoku-era motif, featuring a main character based on a warlord of the era and targeted at casual players (so as to not cannibalise upon the sales of their other Sengoku-era themed game, Onimusha). Given Capcom’s financial situation at the time, the safe move for them would be to keep creating sequels to hit titles (apparently, they had a policy where 70-80% of new titles had to be sequels), but Kobayashi believed that they would keep sliding downhill if they continued to play it safe, insisting that they needed to take a risk with a new game to increase earnings.
Capcom’s founder and chairman, Kenzō Tsujimoto, decided to take a chance on Kobayashi, agreeing with him that they needed to challenge themselves even in difficult times. Tsujimoto was a man who played a leading role in the Japanese gaming industry and knew talent when he saw it. His approval helped Kobayashi win over the executives in the room and was allowed to develop his idea, which would be known as Sengoku Basara.
Even as Kobayashi’s pitch was approved, there wasn’t much faith for his new project within Capcom. Developers didn’t want to be assigned to Sengoku Basara’s development because they didn’t have much faith in the direction it was taking. What certainly didn’t help things was Koei beating them to the punch with the release of Samurai Warriors in February 2004, a mere three months after that fateful meeting with Capcom executives.
Capcom’s specialty was in action games with advanced techniques requiring the precision command of controller buttons, making them fun only by those passionate and skilled enough to beat them because of their difficulty. That led to them gaining a reputation for being too difficult for beginners. Kobayashi’s intention to appeal to casual players led to him wanting to simplify the gameplay for Sengoku Basara, a move that was even questioned by members of his own team as they asked things like, “What’s so interesting about a game where you can mow through enemies with a push of a button?”
In the hope to make a game that totally wouldn’t become a copycat Dynasty Warriors, Kobayashi thought about what would replace “difficulty” as the appeal for the game. As the team found themselves in conflict over their inability to move forward, in the summer of 2004 Kobayashi decided to replace the director with 9 months left in a project that had been given 18 months to complete. And thus, his fellow game designer, Makoto Yamamoto, who had only joined Capcom two years earlier, was brought onto the project. Despite knowing how the project was being perceived within the company, he was resolved to overcome their obstacles and help the team fight back.
Yamamoto’s idea for a different appeal was the character element; he hoped to give the characters of Sengoku Basara outlandish personalities and presences which would help players immerse themselves into the game. In turn, the battles were kept simple so as to give the team leeway to achieve this appeal. And so the characters were redesigned, taking liberties on historical facts and turning the dial all the way to 1600 - “The Date clan mingled with foreigners and adopted Christianity? Let’s make Masamune speak Engrish!” “Tadakatsu never lost a battle in his life? Let’s make him the strongest character! Wait, Koei already beat us to that idea… Let’s make him a robot controlled by kid Ieyasu!”
Elements from various entertainment and pop culture mediums were incorporated into the characters’ personalities, giving the game a patchwork feel. Their attacks have a Devil May Cry flair (the game being another one that Kobayashi produced which acts as a heavy influence on this game) and the characters were made to be vastly different from one another like Street Fighter II. They were different in their personalities, their weapons, their movesets, the way they rode horses (at least in later games), even in the way they died.
To voice the characters, the team hired A-list seiyuus that totally wouldn’t become dead ringers of characters from the Koei Warriors series, despite the strain that it would put on the budget. By that point, the perception of the project had changed and the staff were pumped for it; they finally understood Kobayashi and Yamamoto’s visions for this game. And so, in July 2005, Sengoku Basara was launched on the PlayStation 2.
So where do I begin with this game? For starters, the opening movie (and the ending credits) would have a theme song, Crosswise, performed by Takanori Nishikawa under his solo project stage name, T.M.Revolution. Barring a few exceptions, Nishikawa would become Sengoku Basara’s go-to singer for the series’ opening themes, whether as T.M.Revolution or with his rock band, abingdon boys school.
The game also features a mix of CG cutscenes produced by Digital Frontier (with support from anima) and anime cutscenes animated by Manglobe. Character illustrations from Makoto Tsuchibayashi were also used in this game, and even though the portrayals aren’t complicated due to the simplicity of the battle lineups, I feel a disconnect with Tsuchibayashi’s character illustrations being used as their portraits in the game when their models are in 3D. It’s like they incorporated the concept art into the game itself. Maybe it’s just coming from me being a fan of Koei Warriors games.
Here are the characters debuting in this game:
Masamune Date
Yukimura Sanada
Nobunaga Oda
Nō
Shingen Takeda
Kenshin Uesugi
Ranmaru Mori
Itsuki
Sarutobi Sasuke
Mitsuhide Akechi
Xavi
Yoshihiro Shimazu
Tadakatsu Honda
Matsu
Kasuga
Toshiie Maeda
These characters also debut in this game as NPCs:
Ujimasa Hōjō
Motonari Mōri
Ieyasu Tokugawa
Motochika Chōsokabe
Yoshimoto Imagawa
Here’s a little overview of some of the characters. Masamune, the poster boy of this franchise, has the ability to wield six swords and incorporates Engrish into his dialogue and attack names. Yukimura, the secondary poster boy, wields two spears instead of one. Kenshin is portrayed androgynously, inspired by the actresses of the Takarazuka Revue theatre troupe who are known for playing male roles in musicals. Mitsuhide is a psychopathic grim reaper who attacks allies and enemies alike (with no damage to the former). Nobunaga, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, serves as the game’s Big Bad in a loosely-connected “story” centred around his famous last stand at Honnōji.
While Samurai Warriors has an original character by the name of Kunoichi (who usually serves under Shingen and Yukimura), Sengoku Basara does have a couple of original characters. Kunoichi’s counterpart in this game instead serves Kenshin Uesugi and is named Kasuga. She orgasms at the sound of his name. Another original character, Itsuki, serves as a representative for the Buddhist peasant rebels (Ikkō-ikki-shū) in the northeast. Xavi may appear as an original character but he is actually based on Saint Francis Xavier, who led the first Christian (Catholic) mission to Japan. Yes, the Christian missionary spreading love with Trojan horses and Aluwakbar suicide bombers. I’ll explain later. All the followers of his sect have English names, which is even seen with some playable characters in later games.
Each clan (and region of Japan) has at least one representative character, with the Oda, Takeda, Uesugi, Tokugawa and Maeda clans having two or three. Each character also has their own four-word kanji introduction along with a particular introduction greeting, such as 推参/見参/参戦, which can be seen in their introduction cutscenes.
Conquest Mode, or Unification Mode if you like, acts like the Koei Warriors Empires games where you occupy neighbouring lands by clearing their stages, eventually becoming the last clan standing and clearing the land. Each clan has at least one battle they fight in, with the Takeda, Uesugi, and Akechi clans having two; the Takeda will retreat to their remaining land after you clear one of their battles, the Uesugi’s second battle is the Takeda attacking the Uesugi at Kawanakajima, and the Akechi’s second battle is the final stage for Oda characters after unifying the land. Sometimes, a random homeland defence (Border Patrol) battle can be triggered, where you just have to hold off the enemies from attacking your castle gates for 5 minutes. Most stages will have bonus objectives that you can achieve for bonus EXP.
The Free Mode (I’ll just call it that for familiarity) works just like it does in Koei Warriors games where you can play any stage with any character, but you can’t play your homeland stages until you clear Conquest Mode with every character.
Unlike Koei Warriors games where stages are big open battlefields, stages in Sengoku Basara are linear battlefields where you start at A and defeat the enemy commander at B. There have been exceptions in both cases, but those rules are usually the norm.
Each stage has their own gimmicks to fit with their bosses’ motifs. The Date stage has you race Masamune to his main camp on horseback, the Takeda Nagashino stage has you defending your main camp from cavalry, the Tokugawa stage has you constantly having to evade Tadakatsu, the Maeda stage needs you to prevent Toshiie and Matsu from meeting with each other (which is damn near impossible) and the Chōsokabe stage has you dealing with the cannon fortress Fugaku.
Aside from the usual sorts of soldiers, some special types include giant soldiers with huge clubs or logs, rockthrowers, ninjas hanging onto kites in the sky, and bombadiers who carry their bombs on their backs and drop them on themselves when they approach you, making them look like suicide bombers. Given their association with Islamic extremist groups (particularly around the time the game was released), you can see why I find it (morbidly) funny that a Catholic/Christian sect like Xavi’s would have Aluwakbar suicide bombers.
The Maeda, Chōsokabe and Xavi stages also feature giant trojan horses that can be destroyed. Be careful not to get hit by the TROJAN HORSE PENIS that is the axe that drops from its underside.
In the Gallery, you can view introductions and illustrations of characters, hear voice samples, view cutscene movies, listen to BGMs and read overviews of the battles used in this game. Interestingly, the Date’s representative battlefield, Suriagehara, was never seen in Samurai Warriors, while the Shimazu’s representative battlefield, Hetsugigawa, was only seen in the spinoff SW Chronicles 3 (with a reused battlefield no less).
Let’s look at Sengoku Basara’s simplified battle mechanics. Characters have an 8-hit Normal Attack string as standard, but the “Charge Attacks” here are implemented differently than in Koei Warriors games. Two Special Attacks can be equipped, which are triggered by pressing Triangle and swapped by pressing L1. Each character starts off with two Special Attacks and when they level up, up to 4-6 of them can be unlocked, with some attacks also being able to be levelled up. Level 19 gives characters a second Basara Gauge (on top of the first one) and Level 20 is the maximum level. Jump Attacks and “Jump Charge Attacks” are also available as standard.
The “Musou Gauge” of this game is the Basara Gauge, and pressing Circle with a filled Basara Gauge activates the Basara Attack, a fixed length “Musou Attack” that doesn’t require you to hold the button down.
Guarding is done by holding R1, with the camera re-centreing done with L2 or R2. You can also step by moving while guarding. For someone like me who’s used to Koei Warriors controls, guarding will always be L1 for me, so I’ve swapped R1 to be my “change Special Attack” button.
The right analog stick is used to maneuvre the camera, but on the default settings the directions seem to be reversed which doesn’t sit right with someone like me who believes left = turn camera left and right = turn camera right, so I’ve changed it to “reversed” in the settings.
Horses are rare sights on the battlefield, but they can be ridden when you find them on select stages. On horseback, you can attack as normal with Square. Pressing Triangle uses a part of your Basara Gauge to speed up, while pressing Circle with a full Basara Gauge uses it up to charge for a period of time. If you take enough damage while on a horse, it will die and you’ll go back on foot. At least in Koei Warriors games it’s just an annoyance to get back on your horse when you have enemies around you.
While playing stages, you can collect treasure boxes that will enable you to unlock weapons and items. Weaker weapons and items are discarded and sold for EXP as new ones are acquired or upgraded. Each character has six weapons that can be upgraded to Level 99; the fourth and fifth weapons can be obtained from Hard difficulty and the sixth weapon can only be obtained on Ultimate difficulty. Depending on the character, 2-3 of the weapons can have an element, either fire, ice, thunder or darkness, which absorbs life from defeated enemies. Some characters’ sixth weapons, namely those for Masamune, Yukimura and Nō, are the same as Dante’s weapons from Devil May Cry.
With items, a maximum of 3 can be equipped into battle. There are some items that come in a set of three that only work when all three in the set are equipped. Items are stat or effect boosts for the most part, but there are some items that are unique to certain characters and they only work when equipped on that particular character. Masamune’s item has him constantly fighting with six swords without using War Dance, Yukimura’s item allows him to summon Shingen for assistance when his health is low, and Tadakatsu’s item allows him to fire plasma bullets in his Attack Mode Special Attack. Different items are unlocked at different difficulties. The Hourglass of Fate (背水の砂時計) can turn a level into a time attack stage where you can gain three more treasure boxes if you successfully clear it, while the Rally Biwa (熱唱びわ) gives you the opening theme, Crosswise, for battle music.
Before going into battle, you can also look at your battle formation, that is, a list of all the allied and enemy officers on the battlefield. The only problem is that you can’t see it again when in battle or locate an officer, but it doesn’t matter because your allied officers barely do anything when you’re not nearby; even when reinforcements arrive on the battlefield they just stand there doing nothing. Everything is on you, the player.
Normal and Hard difficulties are available from the start, with Hard difficulty giving you 1.3 times more EXP than Normal. Ultimate difficulty is unlocked after clearing Conquest Mode once on Hard and it gives you 1.5 times more EXP. After clearing Conquest Mode with all characters (on any difficulty), you’ll unlock the random Omikuji difficulty, which randomises the difficulty of the stage (and is only revealed in the results screen at the end) and the quality of your acquired items based on your luck.
Devil Kings
Devil Kings
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Release dates:
USA: 11 October 2005
Europe: 3 February 2006
As you’ll already know, Sengoku Basara 1 did receive a Western localisation which I “covered” first for April Fool’s. Funnily enough, it actually isn’t called Sengoku Basara, but… Devil Kings.
In May 2005, before the release of Devil Kings in the USA, Kobayashi spoke with IGN about how he adapted Sengoku Basara to make it different for the Western audience. A lot of the Sengoku-era elements were changed to be more dark and fantastical, vaguely connecting it to Devil May Cry while leaving a lot of dead ringers here and there (the Tokyo City opening, anyone?). In other words, they 4Kids’d the game.
It’s said that the team thought that Westerners wouldn’t enjoy a game based on Japanese history, but Kobayashi probably wouldn’t say it out loud; my interpretation is more that they did so because the West loved Devil May Cry and wanted to capitialise on its success by naming Devil Kings after it. This is despite Koei localising Samurai Warriors 1 to the West without any changes.
*whisper whisper whisper* Wait, what? Did he actually say that Sengoku Basara would be difficult to accept in the West because the characters, gags and action are Japanese and therefore can only be understood by them? Huh, I guess the fans did have a point.
All 21 characters have been given goofy fantastical names for this game. In addition to the 5 NPCs from the original game, Mitsuhide, Toshiie, Matsu and Yoshihiro’s counterparts have been made NPCs in the localisation. The only thing I can compliment is that they use the 3D models for character portraits instead of concept art illustrations. Nobunaga, the titular Devil King, becomes the main character of this game.
Some battlefields and armies were changed in the localisation; Yamazaki has become the River Styx with red skies and waters behind a full moon, with the Akechi soldiers becoming demon soldiers with bat wings; Odawara Castle has become the Dark Spire that symbolises the evil of… ANCIENT EGYPT!!!; Anegawa becomes the tribal Faylinn; and at Honnōji- I mean, the High Temple, the Oda’s soldiers become knights in dark armour, like they won’t blend in with the rest of the stage or anything.
The Special Attack system has been changed. Pressing Triangle has one of your Special Attacks “prime” enemies by shocking their life gauges and allowing you to deal multiple hits per attack. It’s also the only way to fill the Basara/Fury Gauge. Special Moves are still unlockable as you level up and are assigned as Boost Attacks, which are triggered by pressing Square or Triangle while holding R1.
This game counts the total number of hits in a chain instead of how many times you hit a single enemy, something that wasn’t implemented in Koei Warriors games until the modern era. As your hit counter goes up, the subtitle shows Double, then it goes to Triple, Quadruple and Immortal Master, multiplying the experience you earn for killing each enemy. The same thing was done in the original game, but it only shows Basara at 100 hits. Unique to the localisation, this game also constantly shows the EXP you gain, with the KO count only appearing as you defeat enemies.
The Normal and Hard difficulties of the original game are renamed to Easy and Normal, but on Easy difficulty, you earn 0.7 times the EXP you would on the original game’s Normal difficulty, and the Normal difficulty yields the same rewards as the same difficulty, in other words Japanese Hard difficulty gives you Japanese Normal rewards in Devil Kings. Ostensibly it’s to make the game harder for Western players like Sengoku Basara wasn’t challenging enough already with their focus on casual players. I don’t think Omikuji difficulty is in there either.
SWSB Comparison
So now, let’s compare Sengoku Basara to its corresponding Samurai Warriors game. Given the similarities between the two games and the timeframes in which both were released, I think it would be good to do a comparison to see which is the better game in each generation.
Character-wise, Sengoku Basara has 16 playable characters and 5 NPCs for a total of 21. As for Samurai Warriors, there are 15 playable characters in vanilla, 4 in Xtreme Legends and 3 NPCs for a total of 22 (discounting Kennyo Honganji, they would actually be level). SW’s characters are focused on central and eastern Honshū with the Oda, Takeda, Uesugi, Tokugawa and Date clans along with some unaffiliated officers with Goemon, Okuni and Magoichi. Basara’s characters are a diverse range of warlords from all over Japan, which also include Motonari Mōri, Motochika Chōsokabe, Yoshihiro Shimazu and Toshiie Maeda, who wouldn’t debut until later SW games.
Stage-wise, Samurai Warriors usually follows the battle campaigns of the various clans, while Sengoku Basara highlights a small selection of those battles and makes them the focus for their characters as everyone else fights in them. SW characters follow a fixed Story Mode of 5 stages (with split paths in SW1) while Basara’s Conquest Mode acts like an Empires game, giving characters 6-8 battles to fight in to unify the land. Basara characters have loosely connected stories that are told in narrations and cutscenes between battles.
Battle-wise, Samurai Warriors has a system of 8 Normal Attacks and 4 triple-tiered Charge Attacks, with the ability to evade, shoot arrows and also ride horses without running out of them because they get killed with enough damage. Sengoku Basara has characters select 2 Special Attacks out of 5-6 to use in battle. Devil Kings does the same thing, but one of the Special Attacks is set to “prime” enemies and the Fury Gauge can only be filled by attacking “primed” enemies.
Gameplay-wise, Samurai Warriors also has Survival Mode, New Officer Mode, Challenge Mode and Versus Mode, with Versus Mode also implying two-player gameplay in Story and Free Modes.
With all this in mind, the point goes to Samurai Warriors. There’s also one more difference I want to point out which you’ll see over the course of this series; while Samurai Warriors strives to immerse players in the battles of the Sengoku era with realism, Sengoku Basara embraces the creative liberties they take to make each game as outlandish as the last. Also, keep in mind that Samurai Warriors came out after 2-3 games of Dynasty Warriors, while Sengoku Basara was the first hack-and-slash game of its kind at Capcom, which was supposed to save the company from another year in the red.
Sengoku Basara 1 is an interesting and challenging game that takes liberties with historical facts to attract players with the eccentricity of the characters. Devil Kings, while still challenging, removes most references to Sengoku-era Japan in an attempt to appeal to Devil May Cry fans, only for it to look weird by comparison and flop as a result.
This game managed to sell around 85,000 units in its first weekend and 167,000 units by the end of 2005, which helped contribute to a 418% increase in profit alongside games including DMC3: Dante’s Awakening, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, Resident Evil 4 and Monster Hunter Portable (Freedom). Even though Sengoku Basara was a fledgling IP compared to those mavericks, a sequel game was greenlit for 2006.
Join me next time as we enter the peak of this franchise with Sengoku Basara 2.
"So, tell me, who are these seven girls I'm accompanying?" In the preparation for the Deadset Tour Kiwami, I had to ingratiate myself in my temporary role as Shouta Katsumichi and familiarise myself with the mission while my resources were being prepared.
"Their basic info is in the files I've given you. These girls can be divided into three levels of kinkiness. Hina Uchigashima and Mariko Ōsawa are kinky, Harumi Sakenobe, Ikumi Shimura and Chika Satomi are mid, and Rika Ujiie and Tazuko Nobesawa are vanilla. Our contact, Natsuta Hanamori, can vouch for them through experience."
"Some of them seem to have partners though. Are you sure it's not a problem?"
"Not at all. LOL-69's very open about casual encounters. They're also open in regards to consent and protection."
"This itinerary, there's a lot of attractions on it."
"Well, you're not travelling with your family now, are you? You're not just eating and shopping this time around. If you're got somewhere you want to recommend to them, I'm sure they'll be open to it."
"Alright, I should be good to go."
"Okay. Because we can't teleport you between destinations, we're going to drop you off at the airport and you'll meet the girls there. You've got your passport, your money bags and your cards. Don't forget the money bags and cards for the girls! All expenses will be covered. And most importantly, we want you guys to have fun, especially you, Shouta."
So like Inspector Shingo Tokihama ordered, I went to the airport, met the girls, handed them their money bags and cards, and then got to know them as we waited for our flight. Although most of my time was spent listening to the girls, they still took their time to get to know me, and I gradually levelled up my social skills.
Like with most other things in the world, the production and airing of Soulbound Series 4 suffered from heavy delays due to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-22, despite it being an imaginary production.
Soulbound Series 4 was originally scheduled to premiere in April 2020, following the end of the Three Kingdoms series, but production was suspended in late-March when the Victorian government announced the suspension of all non-essential services in the leadup to the first lockdown. After a period of stop-start production and premiere dates continually being pushed back, I began aiming for an April 2021 premiere and commissioned two small-scale Christmas Special clipshows just so we could have something for the series in 2020.
The series premiered as planned, but in May, I decided to split the series and air the second half after a 5-week break in June, just as The Final Kamen Rider Chronicle was about to premiere. By that point, the broadcast had caught up to my writing and my transition into adult life had reached its climax as I was about to begin full-time work. Following the production delays that happened with Gokaiger and Decade and to a lesser extent Soulbound Series 3, I decided to break the script and post episodes as they were completed. I hoped to finish the series by October 2021 so I could move onto Kamen Rider Zi-O. It took me until the start of February 2022 to finish it for real.
For all intents and purposes, Soulbound Series 4 was broadcast from April to August 2021, including the 5-week break in June. Once again, like the last series, it has been split into two instalments.
Opening theme: カラノココロ
2020 Christmas Specials
As stated, two Christmas Special clipshows were commissioned in 2020 just to have something for that year. The new footage is filmed in the style of a Zoom/Teams meeting, which was the style at the time.
The Barrier Base crew, along with Metallic and Crestor, find themselves in separate rooms. They manage to make contact with each other with the equipment in the rooms before Antoni joins the meeting, welcoming everyone to the Sendora Vault, a dimensional prison made to house interdimensional aberrants. Eigen deduces that they must have travelled back into the time-locked Parallax War on the one opportunity they had to cross into the Doctor’s universe during the pandemic, and gotten themselves captured. The group decides to send a distress signal to their other comrades, but when they are unable to send it in the normal way, they decide to build one using information on their powers and equipment.
In the first part, the crew shares information about the clans of Ouka, the San’yuan and the Twin Moon Swords, and Metallic adds in information about the Septastar Swords while Crestor talks about his Sonika and Roseka friends. Mogoro sends the signal and their friends receive it, but the signal fades as Antoni reveals that the Sendora Vault has a signal dampener.
In the second part, Mogoro suggests that they can overload the signal dampener by doubling the strength of their distress signal, so everyone talks about the weapons and equipment they haven’t covered yet. With this, they destroy the signal dampener and their friends arrive at the Sendora Vault, but just as they are about to escape, they are confronted by Antoni and his armies. Everyone works together to defeat Antoni and send him flying out before they go their separate ways.
Arc 13: Rising Empire Rivals
It’s now July 2011 (2021 in the Doctor’s universe), 18 months after Alien Venokatto’s defeat. The Doctor’s universe was put into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic and the remaining villains scattered throughout the Parallax to rebuild their forces. SEPTAN was officially integrated into the Shadow Proclamation and the clans of Ouka have merged into the Righteous Yang and Ruthless Yin Clans, not that that would matter much in this series. The Shadow Proclamation of Shinbu’s universe became an army, with Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen as its leaders. Despite the prevention of the Dimensional Merge’s completion in Series 1, the dimensions are still merging at a progressively faster rate than before the merge, causing distortions in space and time along with fluctuations in dimensions.
In the Doctor’s universe, Hiroki becomes bored after spending most of the last year in lockdown and his friends are too busy to hang out with him. He suggests having a battle royale so everyone can catch up and spar with each other, and so this opening two-parter is dedicated to this battle royale.
Amidst the fight scenes, several new heroes and forms make their debut; Kyōya and Kasumi Shinomiya are the new ShinkenRed and ZyuohTiger, Starlight Glimmer makes her debut as Kamen Rider Nadeshiko, and Akari’s cousin Daniel (one of the main villains in Doctor Who Series 9) becomes the new Kamen Rider Drive. OOO uses the new Core Medals featured in the CSM OOO Drive release, Kamen Rider Accel makes his debut and the G3 Unit, led by Kamen Rider G3-X, also make their appearance.
The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews are shocked at seeing all the chaos going on when they arrive in this universe, not helped by Metallic and the other villains intruding in the battles as well. The heroes are assisted by the Ultramen and Space Sheriffs as well. Mogoro and Metallic’s Septastar Swords glow and they are able to perform their own Vortex Buster attacks. Suddenly, Metallic finds that his sword can also perform its other counterpart’s attacks, having unlocked a new ability known as the Septastar Sword Reversi. Mogoro is defeated and Shinbu takes him back to the Barrier Base. The battle royale storyline doesn’t continue after this point, sadly.
Shinbu has a dream of Crestor’s parents telling him that the only people they can rely on is each other because everyone in their community hates them for being who they are. Crestor becomes depressed upon realising that his only purpose in life is to keep his family together, but Sonika reassures Crestor that he still has everyone in Hayasaka rooting for him. Shinbu wakes up just as Crestor’s harem and Sonika’s friends invite them to an orgy.
Shinbu decides to take a small ship and head to New Hayasaka, with Mogoro following him after spotting him while training to master the Septastar Sword Reversi. Mogoro reveals himself to Shinbu upon arriving in New Hayasaka and over breakfast, they talk about how Shinbu still wants to redeem Crestor and understand why he thinks the way he thinks. Upon leaving the restaurant, Shinbu and Mogoro are confronted by Metallic and his forces, who have upgraded Sonika’s friends with power-up’d Mega forms. They are rescued by the rest of the Barrier Base crew as Mogoro says to Shinbu that the best thing he can do for Crestor right now is to leave him be.
As Metallic encourages Crestor to conquer the final obstacles to his dreams, namely his parents, Eigen detects signals coming from Hayasaka and the crew head there to investigate, where they fight more of Sonika’s friends with new Mega forms. Witch Mawashi and Clyde Cash make their appearance on the battlefield, taking back the dark powers they lent Mogoro before fighting Crestor and his forces.
The Barrier Base group are informed that the signal is coming from the mayor’s office so they head there. While more of Crestor’s comrades hold off the crew, Metallic and Crestor return to the mayor’s office and open a direct portal to the Doctor’s universe - the signal’s source was the equipment locking onto the dimensional bridge to facilitate this - and Metallic and Crestor’s army head into the Doctor’s universe. Moreau unleashes the first of his new empire of monsters, the giant Makamou Yamabiko, and the Barrier Base group work together with Mawashi and Clyde to defeat it.
In the Doctor’s universe, Hackbot and HMM are attacking a city when they are confronted by Metallic and his army. Eigen sabotages Metallic’s equipment so it will malfunction when his army tries to return. They then head to the Doctor’s universe in their ships, but they are attacked by Metallic’s army as they approach, throwing them off course and forcing them to land in the nearest safe place. The crews are confronted by Bowser and Doctor Eggman only for Mario and Sonic to arrive and help them defeat the villains.
The crew learns that after the Time War, Mario and Sonic (along with Bowser and Eggman) lost contact with this universe as they were returned to their own universes, but they have found themselves back in the Doctor’s universe recently, one of the effects of the dimensional fluctuations. The group are attacked by Crestor’s counterparts, who have been granted their own power-ups as well thanks to Moreau.
The SEPTAN crew helps hold them off while the Barrier Base crew heads to confront Metallic. Mogoro confronts Metallic atop a park and in their ensuing clash, Mogoro manages to unlock the Septastar Sword Reversi ability. Because of this, both of them are able to combine the Cosmium and Chaotica Vortex Busters to unleash the Septastar Vortex Buster, which causes the villains on the battlefield to be swirled into a tornado thanks to Mogoro’s manipulation. He then forces Metallic and his forces back to New Hayasaka, where they are confronted by Mawashi and Clyde’s armies as their equipment malfunctions.
UNIT was unable to render assistance in the previous battle as they were dealing with their own incident. Akari is trying to look for Hiroki after he left home without telling anyone and making himself untraceable. With Narutaki and Accel in tow, Akari enlists the help of the Doctor and Karen as they work to track Hiroki down. They soon find him with Hikaru in their universe’s Computer World searching through his memories to find clues about the demonic overlord’s effect on his own timeline. They’re taken along for the ride as Hiroki tracks down people from his childhood who have forgotten him in real life to “collect data”, then suddenly, he and Hikaru disappear as they are merely revealed to be puppets. With Hiroki knocking out all communication lines to UNIT, Narutaki calls some people to inform them that Hiroki has “gone loco again” and to activate Operation Pentabrite.
As Decade travels to different areas, he is attacked by Zangetsu Kachidoki Arms, Bravo King Durian Arms, Gridon Lychee Arms and Knuckle Jimber Marron Arms before he is confronted by Akari, who defeats him as Duke Dragon Energy Arms. Hiroki is detransformed as Akari explains that Operation Pentabrite is a sealing stratagem designed to forcibly detransform Decade and temporarily disable his Beltmorpher if he “went loco”. This Hiroki is revealed to be a puppet as well and nobody else can find him.
The Doctor tried to contact Princess Twilight Sparkle to have her locate Hikaru instead, but she isn’t able to detect him, however she mentions that Starlight Glimmer is helping Hikaru investigate the demonic overlord with Sierra Nightingale. Starlight finds Hikaru and defeats him as Nadeshiko, which blocks his ability to shield Hiroki and allows everyone to locate him. Operation Pentabrite finds Hiroki about to deal with a “former friend” and they quickly defeat him, disabling his Beltmorpher. Hiroki confesses that he was compiling a list of old comrades who have forgotten him over the years to “make them answer for their ungratefulness”. Everyone tells him that it’s only natural for people to forget others after some time and that not everyone needs to be his friend. Hiroki apologises and this episode ends.
Lucy and Dangen join the SEPTAN crew as they travel to Minato-Sugaru Island to monitor a dimensional distortion happening there. The Space Sheriffs are there as well and they encourage them to have fun on the island. Jee Gun invites Terumi and Minoru to a tour of the science museum while Lucy goes with the SEPTAN crew to the mall. Lucy follows the girls to the toilet where she waits near the door for them due to being an android. An effeminate man asks Apple Bloom in the next stall for a tampon, but she doesn’t. When the man tries to leave, he is confronted by Lucy at the door who reveals that he has male genitalia. The man tries to assert that he is female though Lucy insists otherwise, so he transforms into the Hercules Zodiarts and a battle ensues. The girls drag the Zodiarts out into the open where Meteor and Gavan join in the battle before the Zodiarts is detransformed and forced to retreat.
Yūki Tachibana informs the group that the self-identified trans-woman, Jasper Yagoda, who was a menace in his homeland, but the police can’t do anything about him because SJWs would decry it as transphobic, to put it simply. The Hercules Zodiarts is found harassing Scootaloo and Sweetie Bello and Meteor and Gavan fight him again, defeating him and breaking his Zodiarts Switch, which is swept up by an incognito cleaner while Jasper is arrested and taken away. Meteor and Gavan join Fourze and the other Space Sheriffs as they deal with Yapool and end the dimensional distortion. After Jasper is released from custody, the cleaner from before introduces herself as Silvia, offering him the chance to fulfill his dreams; when he accepts, Silvia repairs his Zodiarts Switch and returns it to Jasper.
The Barrier Base return to Chikuan to catch up with their old friends. A portal opens in the sky and the group head out to investigate, where they find Metallic there as well. Clyde and Mawashi appear as well and a three-way fight ensues until the portal opens fully and Yapool descends, summoning his Terrible-Monster Baraba. As the villains retreat, there’s a fight between the Barrier Base crew and Yapool before the Ultramen arrive and defeat both him and Baraba, the latter’s sword landing into Chikusui Lake.
Hiroki, Akari and the Doctor join the Barrier Base crew as they meet with Captain Jack Harkness in Mitakihara (this was written and produced before John Barrowman got thrown under the bus over things he already apologised for). Over the past 18 months, there has been an unusual increase in dimensional fluctuations through the Cardiff Rift, causing Torchwood Pleiades and the magical girls to disappear from the universe. Magica and Hibiki are having to fight more enemies than normal as well. Police find Takumi Kamijō and the group rushes over to him; when they get there, they find that he has killed the police officers pursuing him. Takumi asks everyone where his lover, his friends and his comrades are before he transforms into Kamen Rider Serranon (Magica’s secondary Rider) and fights the group before disappearing.
Later, the group find Takumi again at Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff, where he has defeated Gengilas and Che Antara. He attempts to forcibly open the Rift to get back to his friends, but he is hit by a shot out of nowhere (fired by Moreau) and his plan is thwarted. Moreau meets with Takumi and offers him a way back to his friends in exchange for him attacking the city in Galactron MK2. Takumi and the giant robot are defeated and everyone convinces him to use his powers for good while he waits for his friends to return. This storyline is based around the uncertainty of Madoka Magica’s involvement in my personal project due to the announcement of the Walpurgisnacht Rising movie; Takumi being an OC leaves his fate uncertain because we don’t know what it will mean for him.
Hackbot and HMM are given a job by a mysterious individual to disturb the power supply in a township where UNIT are working on some equipment (the Time Mazines, Ziku Drivers and Ridewatches for Zi-O) in a secret base. The disturbance creates a window for the equipment to be stolen. Meanwhile, the SEPTAN crew decide to take a stop on a planet that is exactly like Gechorusa. They encounter the clones of Hackbot and HMM created by Metallic at the end of Series 2, who retired as villains after the Parallax War ended. They also learn of the demise of Professor Zizel’s group before the clone Hackbot and HMM fight their prime versions with the help of the SEPTAN crew.
The power suddenly goes down in all the worlds of Shinbu’s universe. As everyone is scattered throughout the worlds of the Parallax, everyone is lured to a box on each world which turn into portals that suck them in. They then find themselves in Computer World and discover that their Krellicks nests and minion spawn points have evolved to the point that they can just spawn from each world’s power supply. Mogoro, Eigen, Jeopardy and Dangen work on a countervirus program, using Krellicks as the carriers, that will eliminate the Krellicks and minions before they destroy the nests and spawn points with explosives. After their forces are eradicated in all worlds, Metallic joins the Barrier Base crew as they fight Hackbot and HMM in Desert World and defeat them. Metallic steals Hackbot and HMM’s Krellicks and minions before he leaves, letting Mogoro deal with Hackbot and HMM’s shells. After a discussion, the Barrier Base crew decide to repair and reform them.
Arc 14: The Creator’s Hand
After defeating some Yummies in Hiroki’s universe, Firerose sends Hiroki and his group a message to come to Never Land. When Hiroki says to go without him, Kayley goes with Narutaki while Akari stays with Hiroki. Firerose explains to Kayley and Narutaki that the supercomputer housing Fifi Forget-me-not’s data ghost has turned off and won’t turn back on; the ensuing unrest has caused Gurongi to spawn from the ground once again and only Hiroki can stop it. To make things worse, Metallic and Crestor’s army has decided to attack Never Land as well, knocking the Barrier Base out of the way as they approach. Akari tries to convince Hiroki to help them but when he refuses to budge, Drive and some other Riders fly to Never Land as well.
With the Barrier Base crew being forced to deal with a giant Krellick on Ad World (which was merged with its counterpart in the Doctor’s universe and is being recolonised) while repairing the Barrier Base, Hiroki is eventually convinced to go to Never Land. It turns out that he didn’t want to go because the residents worship him as a god and he doesn’t see himself that way anymore, but Akari tells him that he shouldn’t worry about what other people think of him. Back on Ad World, the Barrier Base crew defeats the Krellick and they get to Never Land thanks to the reformed Hackbot and HMM.
Thanks to the help of Decade and the Barrier Base crew, Metallic and Crestor’s army is defeated. Moreau reveals himself to the group as he reveals his intention to bolster his monster empire and conquer the two universes. He offers everyone a chance to join him, and everyone but Metallic refuses. The group investigate the supercomputer and discover that it has been wiped. Violet relays Hiroki’s wish not to be worshipped as a god to the residents of Never Land.
We then get the second tribute to Sea Princesses, which I’ve already covered in #20. Basically it’s the main princesses learning that the girl they met in The New Princess is a descendant of the Barracuda Royal Family and that she is also Kamen Rider Poseidon. Ester reunites with Duante after years and OOO debuts his original Yadopangaru Combo.
After another episode featuring Hiroki and Karen in some timey-wimey shenanigans (see #24), we get to Interdimensional Rhapsody (I haven’t mentioned episode names in these recaps so far), which is one of the more controversial storylines I’ve ever done.
Two weeks ago, Morty Smith took Densei and Rinta to explore the dimensions and the Barrier Base crew haven’t heard back from them. When they confront Metallic on Minato-Sugaru Island, he is wondering where Crestor, Sonika and a few others are because they’ve gone missing for two weeks as well. On top of that, Flash Sentry, Storm Arekawa, Copper Plume and Rally Flag have also been missing for the same amount of time along with others in four US cities, namely Springfield, Langley Falls, Quahog and Seattle (where Rick and Morty is believed to be set). Metallic is also attacked on his space station by Mario and Sonic’s friends and enemies who are also wondering where they have gone.
Both groups arrive in Quahog as they detect a time distortion in the city. Hikaru is there with Starlight and Danny trying to find Spike and Nightie and Rick Sanchez is trying to find Morty. They all arrive at a building in the outskirts of Quahog where the time distortion is originating from. Breaking into the building, they find all the missing people having sex with each other. Silvia arrives and reveals that this scheme was an idea of Jasper’s based on a “National Sex Day” event he created as a marketing stunt. With their operation now blown, the two make their escape as enemy ships approach Quahog, with SEPTAN ships arriving first with reinforcements. On top of that, a government spaceship crosses the dimensional bridge and is approaching Quahog as well.
The battle ensues throughout Quahog as it is also joined by the Space Sheriffs, but the time distortion subsides and the canonically underage characters return to their original ages, much to the shock of Shinbu and the others. The commander of the government forces, Michael O’Brien, aka the Minister of War, confronts them as he reveals that they have come on a tipoff to arrest Densei, Rinta and the others on relation of sexual offences against minors, and that he is also a Dalek puppet.
As the Barrier Base group are chased by the government forces, Michael reveals to Homer SImpson and Peter Griffin et al that their wives are sleeping around, which leads them (and Glenn Quagmire) to join in the chase. There’s even a cameo from Chris Hansen trying to lecture them. With the rest of the crew captured, Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen fight their way back to the Barrier Base and set off to find their friends. We get a bit of a political soapbox from the three about the situation, which is basically a distillation of my thoughts about the whole anti-culture thing in fandom, specifically about canonically underaged characters in Rule 34, particularly in the context of lolicon/shotacon. My position is that “it’s just a drawing” and if you don’t like it, you’re free to scroll past/report/block and move on, however I can recognise that it can be used as a tool to groom children or other predators, hence it is a moral grey area for some people. There’s a religious fervour over protecting children which is justified, and the increasing authoritarianism towards children on the Internet aside, my opinion is that hyperfocusing on fictional characters and fanart potentially allows real-life predators to get away with committing horrible crimes against real-life children, if not worse. I’ll leave it at that and move on.
Silvia and Jasper appear on the rooftops with the Tesseractor, a cube-like device that the former activates, which enlarges as it begins charging. Jeopardy, the SEPTAN crew and the villain commanders see this and confront them. Silvia reveals her origins as a shapeshifting Roseka who hatched in a desert who travelled the Parallax with a woman who raised her as her daughter, but she refuses to reveal her appearance because she was taught that it was rude to impersonate a loved one. Silvia explains that when the Tesseractor is fully charged, it will create a time distortion to age up underaged individuals to legal age and a hypnosis field that will cause everyone to strip down and have sex with the nearest person of the opposite sex. Jeopardy and his group fight Silvia and Jasper while the Ultramen fights some monsters that Moreau summons.
Mogoro finds their friends on a Dalek ship and they rescue them, resulting in Michael ordering a pursuit. Suddenly, everyone’s swords begin to glow and the Barrier Base ends up in the Reading Room. You see? This is why I did the Parallax retrospective first. Anyway, as the crew watch everyone in Quahog seducing each other in the nude, Silvia brings Jasper, Michael and Metallic to the Reading Room before making an offer to everyone; she can wipe out the events of the past two weeks for everyone else outside the reading room, but they will have to live with the guilt of covering up their friends’ sins. The group accepts, but Silvia warns them that she won’t be responsible for any repercussions that happen in future.
So yeah, you can see why this storyline is a bit controversial. I wrote this before Chris-chan was arrested on incest charges so I didn’t include any such elements, but it would have been so funny if I did.
Anyway, after Densei and Rinta reconcile with Lucy and Ryo, Silvia offers her assistance to Moreau, Gengilas and Che. She tells Moreau that in order for him to regain Belial’s power, he needs Belial’s DNA, the Giga Battlenizer and a lot of Devil Splinters, fragments of Belial’s cells that were splintered over the course of his battles. Moreau manages to recover those items and transform into Belial once again, albeit with the appearance of Imit-Ultraman Belial due to the effects of rebuilding his DNA. Belial is defeated and Moreau is killed by Silvia with the repaired Giga Battlenizer, which she takes from him.
There’s more to come in the second half of this series. Oh, I’m just getting started. Everything approaches its end next time in Part 2.
Devil Kings (& Knuckles Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry™ series)
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Release dates:
USA: 11 October 2005
Europe: 3 February 2006
Hello and welcome to Atop the Light Bulb, where bad lamps burn out. You know, cheap Target lamps are good and all, but let me tell you about the EeePeeCee…
Meanwhile, in another universe…
Koei Tecmo is the forefather of the hack-and-slash genre as we know it. The Warriors games, with their 1-vs-100-to-1000 format featuring various characters with individualised weapons, has become a format that other developers strive to emulate.
One of those developers, Capcom, famous for Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, attempted to capitalise on the fame of the Warriors games by creating one of their own hack-and-slash games… and they made it a Devil May Cry spinoff of all things. That’s right, we’re looking at that obscure game called Devil Kings.
Right off the bat, we take a look at the opening where we’re introduced to the main characters and their weapons, backed by imagery that totally isn’t a dead ringer for Samurai Warriors. It is an age of chaos and turmoil as warriors rise to reign the lands of some unknown land that totally isn’t a dead ringer for Japan. The first guy with the sword, Azure Dragon, totally isn’t a dead ringer for Masamune Date, and the second guy with the spears, Scorpio, totally isn’t a dead ringer for Yukimura Sanada as their armies totally aren’t dead ringers of the Date and Takeda.
Then we’ve got Red Minotaur, whose axe totally isn’t a dead ringer of Shingen Takeda’s war fan, being like Thor and summoning tornadoes and fire like he’s Zhang Jiao or something. Next is some gun-toting courtesan chick and Snow White Upsy Daisy with a freaking mallet smashing some totally-not samurai dudes before flying to totally-not Honnōji. Go to sleep, Upsy Daisy. She’s also joined by the three men from the first scene as the Devil King himself leads to the title of this game.
You want to know what’s even funnier? In the Movies section of the Gallery, there’s even a Tokyo City anime opening. It’s like Capcom barely even tried for this game. Is this real life history? Is this supposed to be fantasy? I’m caught in a landslide unsure of what reality this is. So yeah, this “anime opening” shows the characters in actual Japan with actual modern-day Japanese imagery. I could write them off as cosplayers if it weren’t for the totally-not samurai imagery in the rest of the game. The only thing I can give credit for is that they show off more characters in this “opening” than the actual opening of this game. There’s also a bunch of anime cutscenes throughout this game, but I won’t comment on that.
The Conquest Mode of this game is, for lack of a better description, essentially like the Empires games of the Koei Warriors series. There are a total of 21 characters in this game (some of which need to be unlocked) and 9 of them are NPCs. I’d say that’s unfair but given what I’ve got to say about the rest of this game you probably won’t care. Each character has one, sometimes two, stages they can be fought in. You’ll start in your character’s lands and occupy neighbouring characters’ territories as you clear their stages; other characters will do the same and then eventually, you’ll become the last army standing, conquer the entire land and clear the game. There’s also a Free Battle Mode where you can freely play any stage as any character, but you can’t play your homeland stages until you clear Conquest Mode with every character.
Let's take a look at some of the stages. You've got the River Styx with red skies and waters behind a full moon featuring demon soldiers with bat wings; the Dark Spire that symbolises the evil of… ANCIENT EGYPT!!!; the tribal Faylinn; and the High Temple with knights in dark armour like they won’t blend in with the rest of the stage or anything.
Uniquely, there’s a demo video that acts as a tutorial for this game’s battle mechanics in case you threw the manual into a supernova. Characters have a 8-hit Normal Attack string as standard, but the “Charge Attacks” here are implemented differently than in Koei Warriors games. Pressing Triangle “primes” your enemies by shocking their life gauges, which allows you to fill your Fury Gauge and deal multiple hits to enemies per attack. I would say that it would be unfair if this were implemented in Koei Warriors, but with the Charge Attack system the way it is in those games, I wouldn’t mind it. Pressing Circle with a filled Fury Gauge activates the Fury Drive, a fixed length Musou Attack that doesn’t require you to hold the button down. As you level up characters, you’ll be able to unlock Boost Attacks, special moves that can be assigned to the Square or Triangle buttons while holding R1.
This game counts the total number of hits in a chain instead of how many times you hit a single enemy, something that wasn’t implemented in Koei Warriors games until the modern era. As your hit counter goes up, the subtitle shows Double, then it goes to Triple, Quadruple and Immortal Master, multiplying the experience you earn for killing each enemy. Uniquely, this game also constantly shows the EXP you gain, with the KO count only appearing as you defeat enemies.
While playing stages, you can collect treasure boxes that will enable you to unlock weapons and items. Each character has six weapons that can be obtained at different difficulties (Easy, Normal and Hard), the sixth weapon being a “joke weapon” not unlike the DLC weapons of DW7 and 8. Interestingly though, for Azure Dragon, Scorpio and Lady Butterfly (the gun-toting courtesan chick), their joke weapons are the same as Dante’s weapons from Devil May Cry. Despite this game being its spinoff, the only relations to that game come from references to it. Good job, Capcom.
With items, a maximum of 3 can be equipped into battle. There are some items that come in a set of three that only work when all three in the set are equipped. Items are stat or effect boosts for the most part, but there are some items that are unique to certain characters and they only work when equipped on that particular character. Different items are unlocked at different difficulties. The Hourglass of Fate can turn a level into a time attack stage where you can gain three more treasure boxes if you successfully clear it, while the Rally Pipe gives you Lock and Load from Devil May Cry as the battle music.
In the credits, I recognised a few voice actors from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This game’s voiceover was produced by BLT Productions and recorded at Kozmic Sound studios in Vancouver. At least they’re more recognisable than the Quebecois voice actors of Agile Sound for SW2.
Despite the dead ringers to the Sengoku era, Devil Kings is a rather straightforward game. It has the feel and challenge of DW3 so if you’re used to that game, you might adjust to this one quite quickly. I just wish Knuckles was actually in this game and- what? What’s Sengoku Basara? They gave this game a 4Kids fantasy-esque localisation? The dead ringers were real and I wasn’t the only one who noticed them? Well, that changes everything. This game sucks. Thank God for me.
APRIL FOOLS
Sengoku Basara Retrospective coming soon
I can't believe I have to take a replacement bus to Frankston to get my Fuck Konami News fix.
"This is Azuma Yeonchi. I'm currently unavailable at the moment, so please leave a message."
"My lord, this is Shanna. I assume you know that the Lincoln Loud files have been leaked. Hiroki Ichigo is assembling everyone to help deal with the fallout. Alec and I'll meet you at the Shadow Proclamation. See you then!"
You used to smile when I saw you.
You looked so beautiful back then.
I wanted to be with you but you didn't want to be with me, and you never had the guts to say it to my face.
As I smashed that large glass bottle on her head, I wondered how things could have gotten to this point. I wondered what things would have been like if we were together.
I kept smashing and smashing the bottle over her and that boyfriend of hers. Both of them bore the pain as they made their escape.
And then I took out my Zeztz Driver.
CATASTROM!
METZAMERO! METZAMERO! "Mission: Avenge the dream. It's morphin time."
PULVERIZE! RIDER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ! CATASTROM!
I flew out and caught up to the two as I unleashed a deadly attack.
CATASTROM CRUSHER! ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ, ZEZTZ!
Her boyfriend pushed her out of the way. She had no time to grieve as she was forced to run. Summoning my Triple Zeztzer, I fired a few shots at her to trip her up.
I don't remember what she said to me. I don't remember the fear she felt. All I could remember was loading three Capsems into the Triple Zeztzer with malicious intent.
"I will break you. I will break you. I will break you."
I pulled the trigger. I don't know what happened, but suddenly I felt at peace. Until someone's voice dragged me back into reality.
"Azuma? Azuma? Azuma?"
I woke up and I suddenly remember where I am. For the past few weeks, I've been imprisoned in the Shadow Proclamation's prison cells. I was woken from my sleep and brought into an interrogation room; the other guy took so long to arrive that I ended up falling asleep. Now, as I face Inspector Shingo Tokihama of the Shadow Proclamation, I prepare myself for what awaits me.
"Oh, good, you're awake. Well, you made quite a mess in that world, didn't you? Took us a while to clean it all up. And just as we were trying to get your help with the Loud files mess. Talk about coincidences, am I right? Anyway, long and short of it is, you can't head back to your own universe and we can't have you roaming about the multiverses in case one of them tries to tie you to what happened. That means we can't have you join us for the coverup operation. In the meantime, you have a new mission."
The Inspector hands me a file and I take a look at it. There's a page with the photos of seven girls. The next page was an itineary of destinations. Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul- "Oh come on, another holiday? It's only been a year for me and I've barely recovered from it!"
"Well, I'm sorry, but either you take on this mission and complete it or we'll have to exile you in a Void Ship, leaving you to roam until someone finds you in God knows when. Look, it's a fairly easy mission for you. You're familiar with most of those places and you're fluent in Chinese and Japanese."
"But what about Korean? I've never learnt Korean because I've never been interested."
"Well, translation apps and AI are so advanced nowadays, aren't they? It's not gonna be all bad. These girls are from universe LOL-69 and it's a 'honk if you're horny' universe. Who knows? Maybe they'll give you the rehab that you need."
"OK, but what about Hong Kong? I haven't said a lot of political things this past year, but who knows if I've raised any red flags with them?"
"Relax. If you were able to get through last time then that means they don't think you're important or dangerous enough to be a red flag. Still, we'll be giving you a new temporary identity for this mission. Let me know if there's anything that you need, Shouta Katsumichi."
Your next mission: Chaperone the comrades.
Good luck.
*Begin new storyline saga: Deadset Tour Kiwami - running through the Sengoku Basara Retrospective*
Yeah, I’m reusing the image for the last instalment. I’m not going to give out spoilers (or use other people’s art) here.
The second half of Soulbound Series 3 is a major arc that includes tributes to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Equestria Girls, with villains from the former series making appearances as minor villains here. For FiM, this arc is set after The Ending of the End and in place of The Last Problem at the end of Season 9, while for Equestria Girls… yeah, by that point there weren’t any major films or specials left (save for Holidays Unwrapped), so like everything else in Hiroki’s universe it takes place after Gokaiger, Decade and Doctor Who Series 12.
The stakes get even higher as both the Barrier Base crew and Yanagiri set out on their individual goals. Hikaru has regained two-thirds of his original power and now, he needs to reassemble the Rainbow Amulet to restore his original body. Let’s continue with the story.
Please be advised that there is a content warning for suicide in the final arc of this series.
Insert theme: さよならエレジー
Arc 11: The Time of Truth
Yanagiri enters the Pandora Prison to meet with Doctor Wells Moreau, also known as the mad doctor of Keep Away Island. He offers Moreau freedom and power in return for his servitude, which he accepts; he is given the Giga Battlenizer and Fusion Spark to begin his reign of evil. He also goes to Equestria and frees Queen Chrysalis, Lord Tirek and Cozy Glow from their petrification, offering them the Darkevolvers and the opportunity to gain their final revenge against all of Equestria. Discord sees this and tries to stop Yanagiri, but Yanagiri suppresses his magic and forcibly turns Discord to his side by stabbing the Tregear Eye into him. So yeah, after initially deciding that I didn’t want to use Tregear… I said “fuck it” and decided to use him anyway.
Meanwhile, Metallic and his forces continually attack Normal World alongside other aliens and monsters. Shinbu and Eigen ask the transient world Hiroki and Fifi for advice, to which they tell them that while light can overcome the darkness, some darkness cannot be overcome without darkness, and that they and their friends will eventually come into contact with the darkness if they haven’t already. When they report back to their friends on this, the group reflects on times when they were evil; Densei joined the Central Kirin for a time, Lucy was infected with a virus that caused her to turn on the living, and Suirin killed Jokushu and nearly killed Shinbu while under the Chi Disruption.
Yapool sets out in the Terrible-Monster Vakishim and is defeated by Victory Knight. Venokatto confronts Victory and challenges him to fight him as Exceed X, which he does. Venokatto allows himself to be hit by the Exceed X Slash, all according to plan.
Meanwhile, Moreau confronts everyone else on the ground, transforming into Ultraman Belial with the Giga Battlenizer. While Belial fights everyone, Shinbu, Rinta and Ryo freeze up in fear when they are hit by his attacks. Belial enlarges himself as Venokatto retreats and begins fighting X, who transforms into Ginga Strium. After Belial’s Deathcium Beam breaks through Ginga’s Ultra Barrier, he uses the Fusion Spark to FusionLive into Skull Gomora and defeat Ginga.
As everyone withdraws from the battle, Yanagiri approaches a defeated Hikaru and gives him a Fusion Spark and the Ultraman Belial Spark Doll, telling him that light can be mixed with darkness to amplify its power. Mogoro spots some light gathering somewhere and follows it to Witch Mawashi and Clyde Cash, who bestow him with “dark” power that will allow him to summon their minions in battle.
After some chats, the Barrier Base crew heads out to confront Metallic’s army again, Mogoro summoning Jayops, Jemerals and Devil Trolls against him. Yanagiri arrives soon after with Moreau and the rest of the Five Dark Giants in their human forms; Rocky Milton (Tirek, played by his VA Mark Acheson), Christina Willis (Chrysalis, played by Jenna Coleman), Rika Tatsuoka (Cozy Glow, played by someone I won’t name) and Yukio Kirisaki (Discord, played by an original actor). The three Darkevolver users respectively transform into Dark Zagi, Dark Mephisto and Dark Faust. Moreau transforms into Belial Skull Gomora to fight Hikaru as Victory Knight before he transforms into Ginga and uses the Fusion Spark to defeat Skull Gomora with the Sparion Beam and Wrecking Burst. Metallic calls off his invasion and calls a retreat.
It’s mentioned in the episode that Hikaru’s increasing power is powering the darkness as well because “the root of darkness” is inside him. This will be revealed later on.
As covered in #13, we have a joint tribute two-parter with Sea Princesses and Madoka Magica. Yuki Yamaki and Marcela are fighting as Kamen Riders Magica and Hibiki, but also as Ultraman Gaia and Agul when they are attacked by Takumi Kamijō and Homura Akemi. The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews are called to Kamihama City by Kumiko Hayashi, Kyōko Sakura and Sayaka Miki, Kumiko offering them a piece of the Rainbow Amulet if they can save Takumi. While Takumi has been working to centralise magical girl operations in Mitakihara and surrounds, he has become territorial and competitive, likely spurred by the demonic Homura.
An anti-marine exploration protest occurs on the beach when the protesters are attacked by the Salacian Riders. The Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews fight off the Salacian Riders before Takumi and Homura arrive and single-handedly defeat everyone, telling them to bring more warriors to fight them next time. Torchwood Pleiades gathers all the magical girls they could find and they work together with the crews and the Salacian Riders to fight Takumi and Homura when they reappear. The negative emotions and minus energy gathers and the byproducts from Kyubey’s conversion creates the Despair Monster Kanaderos (絶望怪獣 カナデロス). Yuki and Marcela fight Kanaderos as Gaia and Agul before Hikaru joins them as Exceed X. It takes a while, but Kanaderos is eventually defeated.
Kumiko and Takumi give Hikaru their Rainbow Amulet fragments and Yuki and Marcela give him the Gaia and Agul Spark Dolls. The SEPTAN crew are called to a humanitarian mission in a faraway zone so they’ve been written out for the rest of this series. Jeopardy decides to return to the Shadow Proclamation and act as its commander, but he’ll also appear one more time in this arc.
Yapool takes Poko hostage as Ginga fights his Terrible-Monster Aribunta, but Zero’s Spark Doll possesses Hiroki and flies off to fight Yapool. After that, Zero challenges Hikaru to a duel and when the latter wins, he grants him the Ultra Fusion Brace. Kirisaki DarkLives multiple Darklops Zero units and transforms into Tregear as the two Ultras transform to fight them, finishing them off as Ultimate Zero and Ginga Victory.
Hiroki and Akari help the Sleep-‘n’-Play Family fight off Gengilas when they are suddenly teleported to New Hayasaka. At the same time, Shinbu and Suirin find Rinta and Ryo having sex and they put a stop to it, unsure whether they were mature enough or whether they were using protection. Eigen had scanned them recently and discovered that their sex drives have suddenly increased to levels higher than average humans. Jeopardy calls the Barrier Base and asks them to investigate New Hayasaka, and so the two groups end up meeting each other.
As they walk towards the city, Hiroki apologises to the Sleep-‘n’-Play Family for forgetting about them, admitting that it was better to forget about them than face the truth that he had to move on from them. The Sleep-‘n’-Play Family have also made their home town a place where other toys can feel welcomed; they never told Hiroki to move them or give them away because he would be saddened at the prospect of losing his friends.
The main street of Hayasaka has become a red-light district as Sonikas and Rosekas seduce passers-by and each other. Shinbu’s group fights Crestor and his army before an army of clone supersoldiers attack them. Shinbu fights a helmeted assailant that is able to match his swordfighting and when he breaks his helmet, he is surprised to discover that the clone looks like himself. With Yanagiri having Metallic, Moreau and Gengilas off to the side, he has Moreau FusionLive into Thunder Killer. Amidst the battles, Yanagiri teleports everyone to a Smart Baby building in the middle of a forest.
While Hikaru uses the Ultimate Aegis as X to find where everyone has gone to, the rest of the group discovers that the Smart Baby building is a deconstructed Progenitor, using red-light districts in places like New Hayasaka as fronts to gather genetic material for breeding human, Soniko and Roseko supersoldiers. Once they turned 18, their libidos would go haywire and they would begin breeding with each other. Sunako is one such Roseka subject while Rinta and Ryo are also confirmed to have been birthed through this program. Yanagiri and others confirm this and also reveal that the supersoldiers have been augmented with Belial’s power so they can master other powers quickly. Hikaru finds his way into this dimension and fights off Belial while the crew fights off the super-soldiers. Yanagiri activates the building’s self-destruct that will scatter everything through space, time and dimensions, Hikaru gets everyone out as X using the Ultimate Aegis, managing to save a couple of babies that would grow up to become Rinta and Ryo.
The Sleep-‘n’-Play Family is returned to their home, but an attack from Crestor and his comrades kills them. To honour their sacrifice and help them continue their mission in spirit, Mogoro uses his Cosmium Sword to turn their bodies into spirits and scatter them away. Shinbu and Suirin offer to do Rinta and Ryo’s chores for them so they can have an early night; they head back to their room and find a box of condoms that the former two left as a gift.
Yapool recovers Ace Killer’s Spark Doll and upgrades it into Spark Killer, which works just like Victory Killer but is targeted at Hikaru’s three Spark Doll Ultras. Later, Yanagiri DarkLives the Rock Ore Monster Genchira (鉱石怪獣 ゲンチラ) and Marco Wong (of the Gokaigers) gives Hikaru the Ultraman Leo Spark Doll with his fragment of the Rainbow Amulet, allowing him to defeat Genchira with the Strike Boost.
Meanwhile, dark clouds are looming over all cities on Earth. Terry Mizukoshi as Ultraman Cosmos stops a Lidorias from rampaging and defeats a Bugbuzun before suddenly changing back to a form he forgot years ago. Everyone is suddenly called to Yokohama as well when Kyōko Izumi and Kai Hirasawa are also reverted into past forms, the Doctor saying that this is caused by diverging timelines from the past merging together.
Hikaru sees some former officers of the Kikuchi Clan (who he recognises from a flashback he recently had) and blames them for killing him, which is in reference to Storm Dasher’s first story, Paradox Love Revelation. One of those officers transforms into Ultraman Justice and fights Hikaru as Victory until Terry transforms into Cosmos to stop the fight. Soon after, Yapool sends out Spark Killer and FusionLives into Tyrant, while Rocky, Christina and Rika fight Shinbu and the others in their dark Ultra forms. As Hikaru detransforms after nearly being defeated, Yanagiri confronts him and notes that he is starting to regain his memories at a faster rate and people are starting to remember him as well, because an effect of him using the Exceed X Slash on him was tapping into his subconscious desire to regain his memories.
Kyōko, Kai and Terry are given chronal stablisers to revert them to their present forms before Yapool unleashes Tyrant and Spark Killer again. Ginga, Cosmos and Justice work together to fight the two monsters, but Ginga, transforming into Exceed X, fails to use the Exceed X Slash. It is then that the Ultraman and Tiga Spark Dolls come to life to grant him the Beta Spark Armor, allowing him to defeat Spark Killer while Cosmos and Justice combine into Ultraman Legend to defeat Tyrant.
Investigations continue into the deepening darkness covering Earth, which is traced to Gatanothor, standing dormant on an island that appeared out of nowhere in the South Pacific. The Barrier Base crew are sent to investigate, but they are driven away by the Dark Ultras. The warriors of Ad World call the crew to Manchester as they ask them to investigate a man named Zhuge Liang fighting in the Time War even after their place in history has ended. At the same time, Kyōya Shinomiya is holidaying with his sister Kasumi and his friends while Parker Zhou is also there investigating another timeline convergence. Kyōya meets the crew and Kasumi remembers the Rainbow Amulet pieces they have, but in the midst of Parker attempting to send the Koihime girls back to their universe, Metallic’s army attacks and everyone is forced to escape.
Yanagiri FusionLives into King Galactron while the Five Dark Giants FusionLive into Five King. Hikaru is defeated while trying to find them and Jeopardy takes him away to meet back with the others. Soon enough, another conflict arises and the darkness covering Earth reaches its peak as Shinbu, Mogoro, Eigen and Hikaru are turned evil; this is because Shinbu and Eigen using the Twin Moon Swords’ alternate forms amplifies the darkness in their hearts, Mogoro’s ability to summon Mawashi and Clyde’s minions corrupted him with darkness, and the biggest reason - Hikaru has Dark Lugiel sealed inside him in the form of the Dark Spark, which Yanagiri calls “the root of darkness”. When Shinbu fired his Genesis Vortex Buster two times in the last series, those waves crossed into Hiroki’s universe, damaging Ginga and empowering Venokatto. Hikaru transforms into Dark Lugiel and fires a wave of darkness that causes everyone to disappear.
As everyone finds themselves in another dimension, they help Shinbu, Mogoro and Eigen come to their senses, but Hikaru is fully taken over by Dark Lugiel. With the Twin Moon Swords evolving into their final forms, Lugiel is separated from Hikaru as they find themselves back at the Smart Baby building again. Lugiel reappears as a clone of Hikaru and they fight, Hikaru eventually prevailing over Lugiel and proclaiming that he will embrace his own darkness. He absorbs Lugiel (who agrees to it) into the Ginga Spark and Kyōya and Kasumi give the Rainbow Amulet fragments to him, allowing him to complete it.
Meanwhile, Shinbu and the others discover that the Smart Baby building is being used by Moreau to clone Parker Zhou as an alternative to Yanagiri’s method of breeding supersoldiers. Parker Zhou, during his time as a Time Agent, stumbled onto some top-secret information and the Time Agency decided to deal with him, removing two years’ worth of memories before stripping him of his membership and selling his body on the black market. Parker’s body came into Moreau’s possession and he made clones of him, augmented with Belial’s power. His aim was to create a perfect clone of Shinbu, so he sent the first clone he created back in time to before he joined the Eastern Seiryu. The clone ended up on Myokendai in 2002 and would go on to become Shinbu Serizawa. Moreau creates a perfected clone of Shinbu and sets it on everyone. Shinbu, Parker and Zhuge Liang of Ad World work together to defeat the perfected clone before rescuing Parker’s past self. You know, funny story, but in my original plans for this series, Shinbu’s character was literally going to be post-Time Agency Parker with amnesia, then I decided to make him a clone instead because let’s face it, it would be too complicated and his timeline’s complicated enough.
Hikaru decides to deal with Gatanothor himself and he transforms into Ginga to fight it, only for King Galactron and Five King to interfere. The Rainbow Amulet glows and the Ginga, Victory and X Spark Dolls combine into a new Spark Doll, summoning the Generation Spark Sword that allows Ginga to transform into Ginga Generation. The villains are defeated, Gatanothor is destroyed and everything returns to normal, though Venokatto was still able to obtain the Spark Dolls of Dark Lugiel and five Dark Ultras. In the end, it was Belial’s power within Shinbu, Rinta and Ryo that caused them to freeze up in their first fight with Belial. Hikaru has fully regained his power as Ginga and with the Rainbow Amulet complete, he will slowly regain his original body.
The New Key to Time
Between Arcs 11 and 12, I commissioned a Doctor Who special to commemorate 20 years of my version’s premiere. As such, there was a week’s gap between the two arcs to accommodate me writing it.
The alien criminal Madvalis has stolen the Key to Time and is being pursued by the Space Sheriffs. Madvalis pours his own power into the key, which causes him to disappear as it explodes into six pieces. With no other option, the Space Sheriffs decide to call in the Space Squad, with the Barrier Base crew and the Decade Riders replacing much of their former members. They are split into six groups and they head into different battles throughout the Three Kingdoms/Doctor Who timeline, defeating each of the Soulbound villains and gaining a piece of the Key to Time.
As the Key to Time is brought together, the Space Squad comes out of the actual Key, which was in Madvalis’ possession all along as he reveals that their quest was a distraction he created with the Key while he prepared an army to conquer the universe. Everyone teams up to fight Madvalis, then he uses the power of the Key to Time to grow giant, but after gaining extra armour upon his first defeat, they realise that the Key to Time is giving Madvalis too much power and they have to destroy it, which they do.
So now that this special is over with (which I honestly didn’t need to do in hindsight), let’s finish up the last arc of Soulbound Series 3.
Arc 12: The Rainbow at the End of the Storm
After completing the Rainbow Amulet, Hikaru begins having vivid dreams of him as Storm Dasher being with his partner, Rainbow Dash (he’s been getting flashbacks to his past every time he gains a new Spark Doll). The Barrier Base crew deal with some Inves in Cuddlestown, home of the Bananas in Pyjamas, and in doing so they also meet Hayato Kisaichi, who transforms into Ultraman Dyna to help Ginga fight Lunaticks (sent by Yapool) and Grand King Megalos (MonsLived by Yanagiri after Dark Lugiel was neutralised).
Following this encounter, Hikaru remembers that he fought Galberos on Minato-Sugaru Island some years ago in an incident that orphaned both EQG Rainbow Dash and Storm Arekawa (who had regenerated from the local Jee Gun at the same time). On Minato-Sugaru Island, Richard Yang is teaching at Canterlot High while Sunset Shimmer pursues the three Dark Giants, having been warned of them by Princess Twilight Sparkle, in Equestria. When they transform into their Dark Giant forms, Richard and Sunset transform into 80 and Yullian to fight them and so does Hikaru. As Ginga fights Dark Zagi, Princess Twilight and dog Spike watch the battle, the latter noting that Victory’s form seems familiar to him. Rainbow Dash also watches the battle, then when Zagi is defeated, she berates Ginga for not protecting anything because the battle ended up causing some collateral damage (ala Ultraman Mebius episode 1) and it brought up memories of her parents being killed.
The Barrier Base crew investigate potential developments on the island, during which they encounter Richard and Sunset and even Jee Gun. Jee Gun has a couple of spare tickets to see Cheese Sandwich in concert (which is actually just a Big Al concert, go figure) and he invites Hikaru to it along with Yūki Tachibana. Yanagiri has taken Cheese Sandwich under his control as he commands him to MonsLive into King Pandon while Belial and Tregear fight on the ground. Defeating King Pandon and its devolved form Pandon, Hikaru manages to recover the Spark Doll for the former while Yanagiri takes the latter.
As Hikaru helps Richard and Sunset take Cheese back into the city, he is confronted by Storm Arekawa, who identifies him as a fake. Hiroki Ichigo, who was also helping in the fight against Belial, believes that Hikaru is not from this world and his original body isn’t human at all. Sunset meets with Princess Twilight, who has brought Spike and Starlight Glimmer along to investigate a large hole in her memories involving a pony who knew her and her friends back in Equestria, but nopony else seems to have any memory of them.
Amongst the group going to Cheese’s concert are Pinkie Pie, her boyfriend Copper Plume and his friend Rally Flag (who is also Principal Celestia’s lover), marking the first fandom OCs to be introduced into the Kisekae Project. Pinkie managed to secure some backstage passes for the group due to being friends with Cheese when they were younger, so they head to his dressing room to see him. When Copper excuses himself to go to the bathroom, Yanagiri confronts him and makes him suspicious of Pinkie and Cheese’s relationship.
Yanagiri then heads outside and FusionLives into Zeppandon (also including the Maga-Orochi Spark Doll, predicting its inclusion in the fusion before Ultraman Z confirmed it). As Hikaru fights Zeppandon as Zero, he attempts to UltLive into Victory but the Spark Doll gets thrown out upon getting hit, resulting in him transforming into Ginga. It lands near Spike and he touches it, turning him into human form as he remembers that he was Ultraman Victory. He transforms and helps Ginga fight Zeppandon before they are forced to retreat.
Rainbow Dash confronts Hikaru for killing her parents but Sunset tells her that it isn’t the time. We then get a flashback revealing that Storm Dasher was traumatised over failing to save pony Applejack’s parents from Vakishim or human Rainbow Dash’s parents from Galberos. Applejack reassures him that she already knows about her parent’s death and that pony Rainbow Dash would understand his situation because they have met the Doctor.
At the mall the next day, Yanagiri FusionLives into Zeppandon while the Dazzlings DarkLive (I know I said DarkLive here, maybe the MonsLive process isn’t compatible with Ultra Spark Dolls or something) into Ultraman Dark, Ultraseven Dark and Tiga Dark. Sunset and her friends transform into Kamen Riders to fight the Dazzlings while Hikaru and Spike transform to Ultramen to fight Zeppandon. When the Dark Ultras and Dark Giants intervene in the battle, Richard and Sunset transform into 80 and Yullian as well while Zero’s Spark Doll possesses Hiroki again to transform and help them. Yanagiri and co. are defeated.
The Doctor asks the Barrier Base crew to meet them at his universe’s Shadow Proclamation without Hikaru. Densei, Dangen, Lucy and Hiroki stop Hikaru from leaving the island, but when groups of males begin mobbing Sunset and other females across the island, but Kamen Riders Fourze and Meteor help them escape. Richard and Yūki explain that a lot of minus energy was released during the previous battle and Yanagiri used it to influence the males on the island, intensifying their “waifu fantasies”. Eventually, all the men start fighting with each other over the women as well.
Hikaru’s search brings him back to the venue for Cheese’s concert, where he finds him and Pinkie being held hostage by Copper, who Yanagiri had shown a photo of the two in the future to and was determined to take his revenge before it would eventually “come to pass”. He MonsLives into the Sadness Monster Lanadon (悲哀怪獣 ラナドン) and Ginga ReaLives Gomora to fight with him while the men become Riders and monsters to continue harassing women while Richard, Sunset and Hiroki use their Ultra forms to fight the Dazzlings. The Rainbow Amulet causes the Rainbooms to “pony up” and gain an edge on their assailants before Ginga and Gomora defeat Lanadon with a combined Generecium Super Oscillatory Wave.
As Hikaru gains a few more Spark Dolls and Cheese Sandwich heads off for the next destination on his tour, Copper Plume jumps off the Zhongshen Bridge out of guilt for being manipulated by Yanagiri, much to Pinkie’s horror and Hikaru’s rage as his anger causes him to change into his original pony form. It’s about that time that I should talk about the inspiration for this particular plot point. I mentioned at the start that this series was heavily influenced by the leaking of the MLP:FiM finale, which revealed that Pinkie Pie married Cheese Sandwich and had a child, Li’l Cheese (and yet they also said that AppleDash could be up to interpretation, the hypocritical SJW cucks). Copper Plume’s creator, ImperfectXIII, is a prolific commissioner of art featuring his self-insert OC and for the finale, he commissioned a couple of pieces showing Copper accepting this relationship. Honestly if I was in his situation I’d show him Rider Kicking Cheese while saying “I will change my own fate!” ala Ex-Aid.
Meanwhile, the Barrier Base crew is introduced to the Williams siblings as they set off for Equestria to stop Venokatto’s plans there. At the same time, Hikaru goes to Equestria with Princess Twilight’s group and he becomes a blank-flanked Earth pony as the group are greeted by Starlight’s cousin and assistant, Sierra Nightingale aka Nightie. Metallic is leading a fleet of ships to Equestria and he calls Mogoro to tell him not to get in his way, but a number of ships are destroyed by Taro (who has possessed Kobo to bring him there). Discord descends on Silver Shoals to tell retired princesses Celestia and Luna that Equestria’s end is nigh before transforming into Tregear and destroying everything, Celestia and Luna with it.
The Barrier Base crew and Princess Twilight’s group meet, but the former group aren’t aware of Hikaru’s new appearance. UNIT Equestria’s chief scientific officer Night Star reports a dimensional portal opening outside of Canterlot, where Yapool has sent out Verokron. Hikaru and Spike transform into Ginga and Victory (the former revealing his presence to the Barrier Base crew), but they are unable to withstand Verokron’s attacks. Similar to the earlier situation with Spike, Danny finds the X Spark Doll and he joins the battle. Following this, the Rainbow Amulet glows and Hikaru becomes a Pegasus pony.
Night Star alerts everyone to dark presences closing in on the Crystal Empire, where the Spark Dolls of Taro’s parents also are. Venokatto had resurrected Grogar (the actual one this time instead of him being a disguise of Discord’s) and King Sombra to become Zero Darkness and X Darkness. The three Ultras and Taro transform to fight the two before they are assisted by the Father (Ken) and Mother (Marie) of Ultra, who are Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Something is interfering with the Crystal Heart because Grogar and King Sombra shouldn’t have been able to approach it. They attempt to search for the source, during which Belial fights Ginga, Victory and X as Pedanium Zetton, utterly defeating them alongside the two Dark Ultras. As Hikaru gains two more Spark Dolls, he also regains his cutie mark.
Back in Ponyville, a pony version of Jee Gun reveals himself to everyone; this was the remnant original from after his original counterpart regenerated into Storm Dasher. Pony Jee Gun MonsLives into Galactron MK2 and challenges Hikaru into battle, claiming that an “imposter” like him will never live up to his name. After Ginga damages Galactron, Belial defeats the latter before continuing to fight the former as Pedanium Zetton. Ginga transforms into Ginga Generation, which also merges Victory and X into himself, and defeats Pedanium Zetton, making Belial retreat. The Rainbow Amulet glows again and Hikaru becomes an alicorn.
Hikaru spots Jee Gun and asks for someone to get him to hospital, but Jee Gun warns Hikaru to be careful of Night Star. It is revealed that Night Star is working with Crestor and his comrades. A battle ensues between the Barrier Base crew and Crestor’s forces. Night Star fights a shot at Starlight and Twilight but Nightie takes the shot, which kills him.
With Night Star’s cover now being blown, Yanagiri sends Crestor back to Earth and gives Night Star a Spark Doll, which she uses to MonsLive into the Thunder Monster Cherangi (雷霆怪獣 チェーランギ). The Ultras decide to take turns attacking before Celestia and Luna are revealed to have survived the destruction of Silver Shoals as the former transforms into Ultraman King to lend her assistance before passing King’s Spark Doll to Ginga so he can defeat Cherangi, killing Night Star. Later, Hikaru finds Jee Gun contemplating suicide and manages to talk him out of it before entrusting him to Starlight when he is discharged from hospital.
Moreau decides to split from Yanagiri’s group to be with Metallic on Earth. Yanagiri passes Moreau a few Monster Spark Dolls, asking him to destroy Earth so he can focus on destroying Equestria. He also goes to Earth and gives Metallic the Spark Dolls for the five original monsters seen in this series.
Hikaru regains more memories and learns that he is Storm Dasher, the Protector of Equestria, and suddenly flies away in denial. Heading back to Earth, Yapool sends out Doragory and Hikaru fights him as Ultraman Leo, only to be overpowered and defeated even after Living into Ginga. He is met by Yamato Kurosawa, who transforms into Astra, Leo’s younger brother, to challenge Hikaru to fight him without using weapons or beams. Hikaru is defeated and Astra gives him some training to practice jumping kicks. Doragory reappears and Astra gives Hikaru his final test to defeat it as Leo. He does so, Astra transforming to provide his assistance. Hikaru as Leo launches the Leo Kick on Doragory before he and Astra finish it off with the Ultra Double Flasher. Yapool comes out of his dimension to fight the two Ultras, but Hikaru asks Astra to fall back before he fights Yapool as Ginga Generation, defeating him and forcing him to retreat into his dimension. Yamato presents Hikaru with Astra’s Spark Doll before returning to his family.
In a flashback, we learn about how Storm Dasher ended up becoming Hikaru. After receiving an Ultra Sign from Taro and learning of the Land of Light’s destruction at the hands of Venokatto, he leaves some farewell gifts for his friends. They catch onto this and confront Dasher at Canterlot Castle. Spike asks Dasher to give back Victory and X’s Spark Dolls so they can fight together, but Dasher refuses because he doesn’t want to get anyone involved. Rainbow Dash asks Dasher to promise her that he will come back alive, which he does. He then goes to retrieve the Dark Spark from limbo before heading to Nebula M78.
Meanwhile, the remaining Dark Giants and Dark Ultras gather the Spark Dolls for Greeza, Magatano Orochi, Zegun and Leugocyte by overloading them with their dark power. To replace Belial’s place in the Five Dark Giants, Venokatto resurrects the Storm King as Ultra Dark-Killer. Metallic begins his invasion of Earth and Moreau transforms into Belial to fight Kobo and Hiroki as Taro and Zero. Ginga joins the fight, merging with Taro into Ginga Strium, and the Ultras gain the edge against Belial, leading to him FusionLiving into Chimeraberus and defeating them.
Minus energy manipulations in Equestria lead to stallions chasing mares and fighting each other over them. As the Mane Six, Young Six and the Pillars of Old Equestria gather at Canterlot Castle with the other princesses and some other allies, the manipulations suddenly stop as Yanagiri and his allies reveal themselves to everycreature inside before they begin their attack from the outer regions of Equestria in an attempt to lure Hikaru back.
Back on Earth, Ginga, Taro and Zero fight Chimeraberus again and finish him off. Venokatto appears in the sky to confront everyone with the truth of his initial battle with Ginga. After freezing the Land of Light and turning all Ultras into Spark Dolls, Venokatto is confronted by Ginga, who stabs the Dark Spark into himself, combining the power of light and darkness to fight Venokatto. During the fight, Ginga is hit by two stray waves from when Shinbu used the Genesis Vortex Buster on Banko and Seima. This, combined with his brutal defeat, caused Dasher to lose his memories as Ginga put a mental lock on them, concealing them for everyone including himself. Venokatto shows Hikaru the situation on Equestria and gives him a choice on which planet to save; Mogoro tells Hikaru to head back to Equestria since they can handle everything else.
Hikaru transforms into Ginga and flies back to Equestria to confront Venokatto as he fights Victory and X, but he tells him that he won’t be the only one fighting him as he, the Dark Ultras and the Five Dark Giants FusionLive the Vict Lugiel, Greeza (Third Form), Magatano Orochi, Zegun and Leugocyte Spark Dolls into the powerful and gigantic Ultimate Fusion Monster Sevatchi (究極合体怪獣 セバッチー). Even after combining into Ginga Generation, Sevatchi is no match for the combined Ultra’s attacks; when it fires its chest cannon and it gets deflected, it devastates the Everfree Forest, Ponyville and much of southern Equestria. It then attempts to destroy Canterlot, but Ginga Generation flies up and takes the cannon shot directly, killing Hikaru, Spike and Danny. This also unlocks the last of Hikaru’s memories, making everyone realise that Hikaru was Storm Dasher all along.
Meanwhile, Moreau FusionLives into Ultraman Belial Atrocious as he charges with Metallic and his army. Taro and Zero face off with Belial once again, but due to them being weakened from the last battle, they are easily defeated. The Barrier Base crew begins to work on a new strategy to attack Belial in small groups with the objective of destroying his Fusion Spark and Giga Battlenizer. Their plan goes well, but when Belial enlarges himself again, Zero manages to weaken Belial before Taro reaches into his Colour Timer to take the Fusion Spark from Moreau and destroy it. Zero then transforms into Shining Ultraman Zero and finishes off Belial Atrocius with the Shining Emerium Slash. In hindsight, I should have had him use the Ultimate Aegis and introduce Shining Ultimate Zero before Tsuburaya did it a year later, but it is what it is.
Father of Ultra and Ultraman King’s Spark Dolls come to life, enlarging themselves to hold back Sevatchi by putting up a forcefield around them while bringing Hikaru, Spike and Danny to Canterlot Castle. Princess Twilight suggests that they can resurrect them by routing light energy through the Ultras’ equipment, but since they can’t get enough energy in such a short amount of time, they will have to use their magic instead. However, the amount of magic they would need is far greater than what Tirek stole during his initial attack on Equestria, meaning that every remaining creature would need to sacrifice their lives to become light.
With no other option, Twilight executes the plan and the scene fades to white. We then get a scene where Dasher, Spike and Danny are revived in cryogenic chambers 50 human years into the future; Twilight gathered half of everycreature’s life energy, which was enough to defeat Sevatchi without reviving the three, then went back to her original plan of collecting light energy to revive the three. Because it took her that long to revive them, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Megan Williams are on their deathbeds, making Dasher, Spike and Danny regret not being there for them. After staying by their side as they pass away, Dasher suggests that they go back to the past. Twilight tells the three to get back into the cryogenic chambers as she reactivates them, hoping that they can find their way to true happiness before telling them frantically that the fate of Equestria is in their hands…
…and that scene was all a dream as the Equestrians are converted into light to revive Dasher, Spike and Danny. Before they are able to realise what happened, the forcefield holding Sevatchi in fails and the three transform into Ultramen once more as the Father of Ultra and Ultraman King are defeated. Now empowered beyond all limits, the three Ultras manage to deal great damage to Sevatchi before combining into Ginga Generation and performing the Generecium Ultima Dynamite to destroy Sevatchi.
Dasher, Spike and Danny pick up the Ultra Key, Ultra Bell and the remains of the Plasma Spark and Dasher uses the Rainbow Amulet to perform… DEUS EX MACHINA NO JUTSU! With this, the Land of Light, Equestria and Earth are restored, with Copper Plume and Nightie being resurrected as well. But just as everyone is about to celebrate, the villains rise again for a final shot at revenge, MonsLiving and DarkLiving various monsters. Hikaru’s Spark Dolls rise into space and each of them splits in two, with one half going to their previous hosts and the other half going to the Mane Six, Young Six and their close allies as they all UltLive into the various Ultras. On top of that, the power of light enables everyone to become light and join the Ultras in their inner spaces as they fight, ala the Tiga finale. Most of the Dark Ultras and Dark Giants on Equestria are killed, Belial’s essence is purged from Moreau as the Giga Battlenizer is destroyed and Metallic retreats with his allies. The Ultras separate from their hosts and return to the Land of Light and everyone else returns home.
Soon after, Pony Jee Gun enrols in the School of Friendship and Storm Dasher and Rainbow Dash get married (in defiance to hypocritical interpretations). Dasher, as Hikaru, joins the Barrier Base crew for Christmas dinner before he and Rainbow Dash go off to Mount Aris for their honeymoon.
If you thought Soulbound Series 3 focused more on Hikaru/Storm Dasher than the Barrier Base crew, you would be correct, because I wasn’t lying when I said the MLP:FiM finale heavily influenced his storyline in this series. This was on top of an already bloated cast that I was struggling to juggle, hence why I elected to write out Jeopardy and the SEPTAN crew in the second half of the series.
After Series 3, Soulbound would go on a little break so that Three Kingdoms would have its final series. The production of Kamen Rider Zi-O was teased early in this series and Soulbound Series 4 would be dedicated to connecting Hiroki’s storyline to it while also shifting the focus back to the main characters, but the coronavirus pandemic and my transition into adult life put serious delays into things, leaving me wondering when I would ever get to begin Zi-O so I could end my personal project for good.
Let’s explore the impact of the pandemic next time when I cover Soulbound Series 4.
