sengoku basara is one of the most impactful and influential games of its generation, i would very much argue on the same level as titles like devil may cry, dynasty warriors 2 and resident evil 4, not necessarly on game design like those games did, though it did certainly have its influences on other games, i mean on the culture of the time, specificially in the space of josei media, a lot of this has been ignored in the west, the series more or less a footnote to most people as "huh? capcom did a dynasty warriors?" but the reality is in it's hayday it was bigger than any other musou, inspiring a boom in tourism, anime, manga, a whole 2 magazines and so much more, but we'll get there.

first an introduction. sengoku basara first started as a pretty simple ps2 game released in 2005 in japan, with an, uh, interesting localisation released in the west later that year, it had two sequels on the ps2, sengoku basara 2 which was an all around big improvement, adding a ton of fan favourites like keiji maeda to the mix and improving the gameplay, it also had its own expanded version, similar to a dyasty warriors XL expansion in the form of sengoku basara 2 heroes which inluded it's own share of new additions like oichi and azai. 2 heroes is the definitive version of this era of sengoku basara and the main one i would reccomend to people, these games also had an HD re-release on the ps3 with improved graphical fidelity and a new theme song by T.M revolution, a mainstay artist for the series. after this would be a couple of spinoffs, first the ark system works developed sengoku basara X, a 2D fighter in the vein of guilty gear and the studios other recent licenced fighter, hokuto no ken, this proved to be a fantastic game and one well worth seeking out. the other is sengoku basara battle heroes, a psp spinoff which tried to fit the mainline gameplay onto a portable, though comprimises in enemy count and a lock-on based system make it feel closer to a more traditional action game than a musou.

the next mainline game would be a major leap in terms of things, a new engine was in place which gave the game a new combat system, less arcady but with a lot more depth, feeling like a cross between a musou and a more stylish character action system, it has a ton more depth now but with this comes sacrifices as the content and playable characters got cut massively, with many mainstays being cut and some never coming back again like noe and ranaru, though both had replacements for movesets in the form of magoichi saika (my favourite sengoku basara character) and tsuruhime, this game was also localised, albiet much more faithfully and is the best and easiest way to get into the series in english. around this time we also got the series first mobile game called, well, sengoku basara mobile. this was a flip phone strategy multiplayer rhythm game where you picked a warlord and fought your friends for control over japan, this is sadly discontinued and as far as i can find, unplayable. 2011 also gave us a sequel to battle heroes in the form of sengoku basara chronicle heroes, an expanded version based on 3's character pool and it's just an all over better, though similar experiance. we also got in this year sengoku basara 3 utage, an expanded version of 3 with a lot f playable npc's and favourites from 2 making a return as well as the retuning unification mode and a new tag team system, letting you play as multiple characters in one level, making it the definitive version of 3, though it would not get localised. there was also a card battle game released shortly after, marking the first smartphone senbas game and it was moderately successful, recieving multiple crossovers. the series would take a little break from here, only really giving us the before mentioned HD collection until 2014 when the series hit its big next mainline entry with sengoku basara 4. 4 was more interative than 3 was, adding things like the army formation system for enemies and having your tag partner follow you around as an NPC, but it improved the mechanics and added some fantastic new characters like li and shima, it would also be expanded with its own extra version with sengoku basara 4 sumeragi, the last real mainline game, this added new characters, had a more light hearted theme and a cool roulette mechanic to spice up the gameplay,it is the definitive game of it's respective era in the same way heroes was for the ps2. the last real console game for senbas was the much maligned sengoku basara yukimura-den, a spinoff that was very badly mishandled. the story focuses on yukimura and it does it quite well, even adding some new characters and forms for yukimura and date, but at the expense of the rest of the cast with most of them being only playable in a one room survival mode and not having stages, leaving the game with even less content compared to samurai heroes, it's a good game but a dissapointment. the last time the series would be seen is in the form of the 2019 mobile game, sengoku basara party, a fairly standard turn based gatcha for mobile. this brings us to today with the series being mostly forgotten by capcom, no new games in sight, but i think there's something to be gained from looking at the impact these games had in the past.

during the height of its popularity it would also see just, an absurd amount of other things in media, you had the anime which by all rights may actually be even bigger than the games, there were 3 straight adaptations starting from 2009's "sengoku basara" and ending at "sengoku basara JUDGE END" as well as a spinoff anime focused on the cast in a school setting, caled "gakuen basara" in 2018, a series that is still getting merch even now. there was also a full on movie that ended the first two series called "sengoku basara: the last party" which had a theatrical run in 2011. there were even a ton of manga projects, ranging from straight adaptations to the gakuen basara series that would be adapted to anime. the series also had a huge stage presance including a musical by Takarazuka Revue, a crossover stageplay with the devil may cry series (god i hope its canon) and a very successful adaptation stageplay series on the games, totaling at 17 just on its own not including the musical or the crossover over the course of its full run, these werent even the only live action versions as in 2012 there would be a full tv drama adaptation in the form of "sengoku basara moonlight party". naturally there were audio adaptations too with a series of 4 audio cd volumes worth, oh and did i mention the magazine? because it had two entire runs, firstly the BASARA style series, running during the ps2 outings, and sengoku basara magazine, running during the third and fourth games release time, now of course, it wasn't the only print media available in magazine form, we also have what may be the most prevelant form of senbas media, the doujins. yeah like with any series with hot guys, it's got a lot of doujins, the series right from the get-go had mega BL potential and people saw that fast, with the first doujins being found within the year, mostly date x sanada which would remian as the big ship for the series entire lifespan, believe me from experiance, you cannot go through a doujin store, no matter a BL store without finding a plethora of sanadate doujins, it was that big, ubiquitous even and i think this did play a hand in just why it was so popular, people latched onto the ships super hard and the series had tons of them, from the main duo to keiji and well almost anyone to ieyasu and mitsunaru (a personal favourite of mine) and it is still to this day a staple of shipping circles and BL doujin spaces , in short...do not underestimate us fujoshi. it's safe to say the series had...presance in japan and this resulted in a ton of different influences and campaigns.

the thing the series can mostly be known and credited for is the history boom, both in media and irl, senbas is credited for spiking history related tourism in japan to a point where it became really popular among women to do historical tourism, with gender ratios being spiked to the point where even now it's still has effects on tourism despite the series not having had a game in several years, wakayama prefecture even used yukimura sanada to promote tourism there during the release of the final console release of the series in 2016, before sengoku basara historical tourism was often mostly focused on much older audiances and men specifically but with sengoku basara and many of the series that it inspired, the likes of hakuoki and touken ranbu (which would have its own tourism boom with sword related tourism) had very much shifted that to a much younger audiance of women specifically when before this was not seen as nearly as normalised and interest in such things was seen as a much more masculine thing, where now in a post-senbas world it was actually seen as much more of an in thing, trendy even. the series's characters, date masamune specifically, were even used for other things like a "rock the vote" campaign in 2009 around the release of the third game with posters and even commercials airing to try and get younger people more interested in voting, though it would not be the only one, with motochika being used in a 2015 campaign in kochi prefecture. the sheer popularity of the series also helped open more gateways into different genres among josei audiances, while historical josei and shoujo had been a thing before with manga like fushigi yugi, but the rise of senbas showed just how much interest there was for this style and setting, making for much more action and historical based anime targeted at josei audiances, with touken ranbu getting its own action based anime and hakuoki getting an action packed adaptation as well, both of which were wildly popular, but moreso it had an effect on video games.

sengoku basara, as i said before is easily one of capcoms most influencial games, sengoku basara was for a large audiance of people, their first real action game, it opened up a lot of doors with it's easy to grasp gameplay and systems, fun story and super iconic characters, it doesn't take more than a glance at the games art to see cool designs and graphics that were really good looking at the time, and it was those designs and the interactions between characters that helped endeer and attract the josei audiance, senbas in its design stages most likely did not have a primarily female audiance in mind but it very quickly found itself with one, in 2010 it was found that over 90% of the attendees to sengoku basara events were women, in part because capcom actually respected the audiance instead of shying away from them like many other developers, and indeed MANGA UK when they had refused to localise a later sengoku basara anime as they had just decided to not even try and advertise it to women and simply gave up as it was not selling well with men, where capcom embraced this and went all in on it, making designs and merch specificaly catered to the audiance that it had garnered, rather than a hypothetical one they assumed it could otherwise have. the success had consequences for the games industry, while it was not otomate's first otome, hakuoki would prove to be one of, if not their biggest series and would be a help in getting them to be one of, if not the biggest name in the genre, garnering countless ports, sequels and spinoffs, including a sengoku-basara style action game with 2012's hakuoki: warriors of the shinsengumi.

sengoku basara would also inspire the mobile game touken ranbu,a sci-fi inspired historical take that focuses on the swords used by famous historical figures personified as hot anime men which would have, on top of anime and manga adaptations have its own musou game in 2021's touken ranbu warriors a game that resulted from touken winning a poll for musou adaptations in 2016, with the neo romance otome series also appearing on the poll both of which had gotten spots ahead of series like final fantasy, tales of and persona, showing just how much women loved the style of game, which touken musou was for sure inspired by senbas, instead of the large battlefields typified by most musou games, was a linier, objective driven musou much closer to sengoku basara than koei's own games which would actually be other otome developer ruby party's first localised game, something that could open the door for future localisations from the developer, koei's own samurai series, samurai warriors would also see some spillover from the success of sengoku basara, while for sure not being as focused on the josei audiance as sengoku basara it had its own anime adaptation in 2014 with a movie and 2015 with a full on anime by TYO productions, the studio behind many of koei's otome adaptations as well as shoujo anime like, my personal favourite shoujo, black prince and wolf girl and it would end up acrewing a fairly sizable audiance, though not anywhere near sengoku basara's at its peak and koei would reportedly stop focusing on this audiance as much when it came to the newest game, samurai warriors 5, it is also worth noting that koei's WARRIORS ALL STARS would actually feature several playable characters from the developers otome lineup, something that was some of the best fanservice seen from the company. sengoku basara's sheer popularity also played a hand in just how prolific the musou genre is among adaptations, these days if an anime is adapted, it's either an anime fighter or a musou game, with brands like bleach, naruto, one piece and even arslan having their own musou games, though the genre for sure had its start with dynasty warriors 2, i think sengoku basara is the reason why it's as big as it is now.

now the question some might be asking is, why did it get so popular, and the answer is pretty simple, it's just good, yeah sorry to be that blunt, when something is good women will get interested in it, it's not some special thing, senbas just had a ton going for it, from its accessable gameplay that can stand apart from other musou games with it's extensive depth and DMC style combo mechanics, an extensive and popular cast of seiyuu, fantastic designs and fun characters, the massive variety in stages, amazing music and it's not-to serious tone made it easy to get into, it's funny, emotional, hype and morso than any of that, it's just fun, weather it's uniting japan with your own two hands or weather you're watching sanada and date homo-erotically squabble, yeah the BL played a hand in it like i said. the series in recent years has seen a decline though, capcom seeminly just don't care anymore, we havent had a mainline game since yukimura-den, the last phone game is dead and we havent had an anime since gakuen basara, but i have hope, capcom is super single minded right now, with them really only caring about MH, resi and street fighter with an occasional megaman port thrown in, but this won't be forever and i do believe that a sengoku basara 5 will come one day and i hope it has just as much of an influence on the space as those early games and anime did.