Kessen III

Kessen III is a must buy for every RTS fan. Pros: Interesting story set in Feudal Japan based on historical facts with a couple of twists. Wide variety of entertaining and memorable characters. Fun and solid gameplay. Combat is engaging and the difficulty ramps up perfectly as you progress. Lots of character customization. New game + that's actually worth playing. Solid graphics. Great soundtrack and voice acting. Provides actual historical information about pretty much everyone you see on screen. Cons: Combat might get repetitive after awhile. This due to the more action oriented approach in comparison to the previous, more tactical Kessen games. Optional recruitable officers tend to look similar to each other.

Koei have a tendancy to bring out some rather impressive games and Kessen III is one of them, I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game and have done a number of times trying out different generals and combinations as well as replaying to find the generals who you need to go out of your way to find and recruit to your cause. The game has an actiony-rts kind of feel to it forsaking the usual aerial view and mouse controls for more action orientated commands made for a controller. With the ability to control your units and attach support units such as stone-throwers and archers to co-ordinate attacks with. It lacks the military strategy depth of games like Total War but in that it makes the game very accessible. The plot is an interesting adaptation of the tale of Nobunaga Oda, refreshingly painting him as a heroic character as opposed to the Demon King most fan are used to. The story follows his rise in an attempt to unify Japan along with his good friends and generals. The game includes notable battles for the Sengoku Era which you must overcome to advance in the story. A wealth of interesting characters both allied and enemies make scenes and encounters varied, the gameplay at times can feel a bit repetitive but the experience and variety of landscapes and findable items/treasures can make up for that. A very good game from Koei and in my opinion it is probably the best entry in the Kessen series for the experience and atmosphere alone.

Not nearly as good as the first two Kessen games. The biggest issue is the shift from RTS to generic Dynasty Warriors-clone. Things like RNG, combos and spells matter far more than strategy. The brain dead AI easy to cheese, which becomes essential by the end, as the difficulty ramps up considerably. But it makes the whole experience very tedious.