To see where Kessen II builds on the first game, you have to pull back and take the long view. There are perhaps more troop types, and the new barbarian elephant cavalry look amazing (Whee! Elephants!), but again, the details haven't improved considerably.
The realtime character models of troops and officers are comparable in terms of polygon and texture detail, and there hasn't been a substantial increase in background detail (which was one of the visual failings of the first game). Just to get the issue out of the way quickly, the pre-rendered cutscenes are still flat-out gorgeous, Koei having somehow managed to build a first-rate team of 3D artists at the drop of a hat. Graphics Viewed up close, Kessen II looks substantially similar to its predecessor.
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Of course, those who actually liked all the logistics and political skullduggery that got thrown out with the bathwater have our condolences, but there are plenty of games on the PC catering to more conservative tastes. The 3D terrain and individual troop representation do an excellent job of letting the player intuitively grasp terrain and positioning issues. Like Konami's Ring of Red (also a fine piece of work), Kessen integrates realtime elements into its combat without completely embracing the skirmishy Blizzard/Westwood style, and it manages to move far faster and more smoothly the RoR ever did. The long and the short of it, meanwhile, is that this is another excellent effort at bringing the strategy genre kicking and screaming into the next generation. The same goes for the introduction of magical attacks into the game, as befits the presence of characters like Zhuge Liang in the story. This isn't a major factor - use of an officer in this way appears to only affect enemy morale, not their actual troop numbers - but it's definitely a step in a more action-oriented direction. Certain special attacks (such as Raid) also now involve just a touch of twitchy control. The spaces between battles are occupied with cinematic interludes and very simple options for army and officer development, while combat itself occurs in real time (albeit still on a massive scale - no skirmishes here), and heavily emphasizes the involvement of individual personalities.įor example, you can now take direct control of an officer, running about Dynasty Warriors-style and whacking the enemy troops. Kessen II's character design is strongly reminiscent of Dynasty Warriors' glorious excess, and like the Kessen before it, all but the most rudimentary issues of logistics, politics, and government are long gone.
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The Kessen series takes the historical setting of the classic games, pumps it up with a strong infusion of the fantastic, and strips down the gameplay into something a little more user-friendly. Old-school Koei strategy demands a serious commitment just to contemplate success - winning those games is an effort requiring dozens of hours. The Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms games were always excellent efforts, but their appeal gradually grew limited to a small audience of die-hard fans. For fifteen years or more, the company's bread and butter has been complex historical strategy sims, heavy on the political and logistic elements to complement the business of actual conquest. Gameplay Kessen, as you know if you played the first game (released here via EA), is Koei strategy for people who hate Koei strategy. It's an unusual synergy between presentation and gameplay, and it works to enhance what is already a solid strategy game. For now, though, it's the Three Kingdoms world that makes the game - the new emphasis on powerful magic and the use of heroic characters is perfectly in keeping with the theme of the story. Now that Kessen II has covered the Romance of the Three Kingdoms milieu (the fantastic version of third-century China portrayed in the famous historical novel and many Koei strategy games past), Koei will presumably go beyond its traditional stomping grounds in search of a new setting.
It's interesting to wonder where it will go in the promised next installment, though.
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