Break out those umbrellas because its about it get gushy again! There is so much awesome in this game that it cannot be contained. THIS is the reason why coin-op in Japan is so popular, the innovation and the ideas that you get with these kind of games is something that you can't really do as well with a console or PC game.
So what is this thing? This is an arcade RTS game based in the warring states period of Japanese history. If you are into your history stuff, then you'll like this game. I personally never learnt anything about this era of Japanese history, but I had a friend who did and he got a colossal history boner for this game.
Well, apart from being an arcade game, what makes this different from any other RTS game out there? Well let me show you
Well straight away you can see it already looks a ton different from any other arcade machine you have probably seen. Well let me show you yet another thing.
Those are cards! That's right! this is a trading card game as well as being an RTS! Each card represents a general and his or her unit of troops. Each card is then split into one of many types such as gunners, spear men, archers, cavalry etc. You then place these cards on the machine, and where they are on the machine dictates where they are in game. So to move a unit, you simply slide the card across the playing field. I have a video of this which will be shown at the bottom. Basically it's fuckin' AWESOME and it makes the game very fast. You have a lot of decisions to make very quickly and correct positioning is key to winning.
There is also a lot of depth here too. Each card has a sort of points value. You can only take 8 or 9 points worth of generals into a game, so you have to try and choose units that complement each other. On top of that, they are all split into their various armies, so you get a bonus for choosing all generals from the same type of army. The next thing to consider is that each general has a special ability that you can activate mid battle, so choosing abilities that go well with your play style is another thing you have to worry about. Then FINALLY you have these in game magic type items that have various effects such as increasing strength or lowering the death timer on a fallen unit, so you really have to put a lot of planning into how your going to tackle a battle.
Example of a prep screen
There are also a few different modes to chose from when you fire up the game.
So, going from left to right. First you have the local battle mode, where you and a friend on the same bank of machines can play against each other. Next you have the world battle mode. Each machine is hooked up to the Internet, and it will search all of Japan to hook you up with an online game to play. The standard here is pretty high so you might wanna try and get some good cards before trying this one. Then there is the story mode, where you can pick an army and play through their campaign, the battles here aren't TOO easy, but they won't kick your ass like a human opponent will. Finally is the tutorial mode for all the newbies out there.
So you maybe thinking now "but if the standard of play is so high, I'm going to have to drop loads of money on boosters right?" WRONG! The absolute best thing about this game, is that when you finish, the machine spits new cards at you as a reward for playing, win or lose. 1 credit is one card, and you get discounts of playing 3 consecutive times, so each session, while maybe a little pricy for a standard arcade game, at least you get a lot out of it. The final thing to mention in this overview is that each card levels up independently. In order to play the game, you need something called an Aime card.
This is a stat card used for a few games, but in this case it tracks your player data, army experience and what items you have as well as your online records. You can't play without one, but it's cheap anyway.
One thing I just realised I forgot to mention was this thing
You will see this thing near every bank of Sengoku Taisen machines, and when they aren't showing adverts like in my photo, they are usually running replays of online matches from the top ranking players. So you can even get some tips from the best by watching this thing for a while.
If you find yourself in Japan and you have time to give this a whirl, DO IT! It's a little bit pricy but it's so much fun, worth every single goddamn yen.
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