Take Koei's Samurai Warriors, mix it with Devil May Cry's flashiness and over the top action, then sprinkle a bit of funkiness and you got Capcom's Sengoku Basara.
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes is actually the 3rd game in the series. While this may be the first time you've heard of this game, it's actually very popular in Japan. Perhaps you may have heard of the first entry, Sengoku Basara, also known as Devil Kings. The second entry, Sengoku Basara 2 and its expansion, Heroes, never left Japan. There were also a couple other games, one for PSP (SB: Battle Heroes) and one was an arcade fighter named Sengoku Basara X.
The great thing about Basara is its gameplay. Compare to Samurai Warriors series, the gameplay in Basara is way, way better. It's faster, flashier and funkier. All the characters are unique, some even have their own gimmicks. For example, Masamune usually use one katana, but you can activate ‘War Dance’ and he'll take out all six katana, 3 in each hand!
While it may have great gameplay, there isn't a lot things you can do, the game's pretty similar to a sidescroller. Unlike Samurai Warriors where you can wonder around the battlefield doing whatever you want, this game doesn't offer you that much freedom. Most of the stages are pre-set courses with a bunch of gates guarded by a general. Once in a while there might be hidden objectives or paths you can choose, but it doesn't offer you much more freedom.
If this will be your first Basara game, you would probably be a bit lost with the storyline. The game's settings take place around the Sekigahara period, this means Nobunaga and Hideyoshi are already gone. This leads to the greatest disappointment about this game, the number of playable characters. Capcom somehow decided to remove nearly half of the playable characters in the previous game and make them unique A.I officers. While they did add quite a few new characters in to fill the gap, the majority of the characters they removed were just too awesome, in term of gameplay and personality.
Another minor disappointment is the lack of an option for the Japanese language track. The English cast did a great job with the voices, but this is one of those games where Japanese is an instant win. After all, it is a game with historical Japanese figures. I felt kinda weird when I play the game in English after listening to Japanese in the second game.
For all the people who are interested in buying this game, if you have never played this series before but love SW, DW, Devil May Cry or other hack n slash games, give it a try. If you have played Devil Kings and liked it, buy this because you will absolutely love it.