Sengoku (Arcade) CO-OP Playthrough/ It was definitely a wild and crazy ride full of good cheesiness.
2Sengoku (1991) by SNK is an exceptionally interesting example of a beat'em up who tries his best to distinguish himself from the classic representatives of the genre. Only has it succeeded in doing so ? In a nutshell, yes, due to the unusual gameplay solutions and the rather chaotic passage through the world created for the game.
In the game we play as two descendants of once great warriors, who tamed the tyrannical inclinations of a mad warlord. He has sworn vengeance and a return to the world of the living to carry out his early intentions. And with that, we play Claude Yamamoto clad in a red jacket and Jack Stone wearing a cowboy hat.
The pair of characters presented here do not fit in well with the world created by the creators, but that's how games were made in the 80~90s, full of cheese and absurdities.
Graphically, although the animations are quite simple, you have to admit that the backgrounds and sprites are very nice and rich in detail. We must admit that the world of Sengoku is one of the most interesting presented in the entire genre. This mix of post-apocalyptic ruins of the present combined with mystical/baithic Asian atmosphere does a good job.
The music is very peculiar and is based more on typical Far Eastern battle rhythms based on drums and flute, which we just happened to like. We somewhat associated it with some tracks from Golden Axe 2.
Gameplay-wise, it's rather very standard here. Characters have their basic combo of jump and ranged attack. But fortunately, this system has been enriched with various bonuses like different-colored orbs, thanks to which we can, for example, gain life or summon one of the three available weapons, or even continuously spam a ranged attack for a short time. On top of that, there are also temporary transformations, acquired after stronger opponents. Three are available, the first is a slow powerful samurai with two swords, the second is a fast but weak fighting dog and the third is a ninja which is a balance between the previous two. Although the gameplay is really simple, thanks to these variations it is not monotonous and guarantees an entertaining crossing from beginning to end.
All this, however, pales in comparison to how the gameplay has been handled here. It's really chaotic, once we're on some ransacked highway to immediately move to the clouds full of ghosts, up to a flying pagoda filled with assassins. Literally crazy and probably the most interesting idea in the whole game.
But be warned that the difficulty level here is quite high and the game can seem unfair in many places. This is due to the fact that our characters are quite slow, which makes it difficult to reduce the distance to the opponents in order to perform a successful combo.
The opponents here, unfortunately, in many cases have a greater range of blows than us or simply have an instant reflex once we are in their range . It is really frustrating and requires our full concentration, although even then we will die frequently.
Sengoku is a piece of good and addictive game, which, despite its simplicity, managed to stand out quite significantly from the classic representatives of the genre. It is worth at least once to run this game to see for yourself what the developers decided to serve us.A true classic and a must-play title.
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"Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"