Once upon a time in China two warriors, Liu Bei and Cao Cao, made a pact to take down the evil Han empire. Unfortunately, C. Cao went all Dark Side on Liu and the two ended up fighting each other. Their epic struggle is the stuff of Chinese legend and is recorded in a famous tome called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Veteran strategy gamers know that Koei and RTK are practically joined at the hip. So it’s no surprise that after launching Kessen last year with an ancient Japanese scenario, Koei’s returned to familiar territory for Kessen II. This historical PlayStation 2 strategy game’s more show than go…but what a show! Liu Bei Watch Kessen II’s visuals are primarily a spectacular display of computer-generated cinematics. You witness titanic clashes between armies, awesome elemental magic attacks, stunning ninja fights, and ingenious Asian instruments of war. It’s like watching the trailer for some awesome anime DVD! However, things trail off dramatically once you get into the gameplay. The workmanlike controls don’t ask you to do much, but they enable you to adequately oversee 30 campaigns. You can easily select battle units and painstakingly move them into position with the overhead view contour map. The pacing here is very slow as you select and then move multiple units. It also takes several minutes for units to reach their positions, but at least you can watch some great movies as they charge forward. Battles are mostly won and lost from this vantage point. You spend a lot of time just watching, but you also have the option of affecting the outcome by quickly zooming in on a particular battle to control an individual commander. A few simple button presses enable you to bust magic attacks and you can jam buttons to fight with weapons, but moving around with the joysticks is slow and imprecise. Strategically Speaking Kessen II gets pop from nicely synched music and dramatic dialogue that you must hear to advance through the game. However, since it’s translated from Japanese and is so movie-like in its presentation, it occasionally suffers from stereotypically wacky dubbing. Some dialogue doesn’t match lip movement and a few voices don’t fit the look and feel of the characters—you hear ancient Chinese warriors talk with the hint of irritating Valley girl accent or a little stoner dude drawl. It’s humorous and entertaining but probably unintentionally so. This campaign comes off as unbalanced. It’s a decent battlefield challenge that marches steadily along surrounded by major cinematic fireworks. But the difference between the sheer energy in the cinemas and the painstaking gameplay is so striking that it feels like you’re fighting battles less to win them than to see the next visual treat.
