Kenseiden

[anagrama]

Yeah, I've been having the same problem - once I sat down and gave it a good shot it's easy to see why it gets rated but I've yet to get past the second boss

[Stan]

You can control your in air jumps somewhat. I actually never had a problem with it. And I figured out the trick for the second boss. Here's what you do. Approach him, when he goes to swing (he gives a little twitch type movement before he does), back up just a bit and right after he swings, attack at his waist (don't have to jump or anything). You seem to hit every time. Keep it up. When you have him in the corner, back up so he approaches you or you won't be able to attack right.

[grolt]

I've been playing through this game all week. I really like it but find it frustrating, as you can sometimes get stuck into a corner if you haven't upgraded enough before tackling a boss. The second boss is really poorly designed as there isn't really much or a strategy other than hacking and hoping you get them stuck in a programming corner. I love it when you pass though:

"You have learned how to hack your sord."

[grolt]

Finished it tonight, finally! What a great game. Definitely one of the Master System's best. It's one of those games that is very open - you can approach it a number of different ways if you'd like, and it rewards you all just the same. I love games like that, compared to the clunky "go here, do this" prison of games like Lord of the Sword. The bosses all have variety, and learning a new technique makes each new level fresh. It's really quite the gameplay feat to do that sort of thing, where suddenly down attack does something when before it did nothing. That would certainly provide variety enough, but the addition of those training levels to build up your life meter is even better.

With this one SEGA really looked at the hack and slash and pushed it to the limit, adding depth without resorting to the cliche like a monetary system or bogged down text. It really is in a class of its own. It's a super challenging game - you really have to work at it. Yet, it rewards practice. It's not like Cloud Master, where you just have to hope some of those stray bullets don't hit you at the end and you can keep your powerups for the boss. None of that. I had to play through this a number of times to figure it out, and eventually I drew a map so I'd be able to really know what I was doing. Once I figured it out though, it was a total breeze, I passed every level, including the four trading stages, made it to the final boss and never died once. I had to use my medikit though, but I was still kickin' it with 9 lives and the diary. A mere few hours before and I was dying left and right and always getting stuck on a boss to the point where I'd lose all my lives, so to award perseverance like that is a major feat of the game's design.

I think three of the levels repeat, but they do so in a clever way, adding not only screens to elongate it and obstacles to make it more challenging, but also a number of new creatures. There are a ton of baddies in this game, and it's not palette swaps or anything, each animal's attack pattern is totally different. Some fly down in balls, some hop, some lunge when you are near and some loop down from the sky. Considering each direction requires a different attack, you're not just button mashing. You really have to know the patterns and which of your attacks work best. Again, great game design.

It's also nice that you can non-linearly head backwards if you so wish. I left the medikit on that third cave level untouched, thinking that if I blew it on a later level I could go back and get it. I never needed to, but I did do some back tracking just for the hell of it, and it's great to know that the levels where you defeated the boss already take only a few seconds to travel through. Yet another example of thoughtful design.

One of the only flaws I can identify, and it's been pointed out here already, is the second boss, which really doesn't have any sort of decipherable pattern. I've played the toga guy a ton of times over the last week, and while a few rounds have turned out similar, he's always an enigma, and it's always luck that propels me through without dying. Basically, my strategy became button mash and get him as far right as possible. Eventually he would just keep walking into my swing and would shoot back and repeat until he finally perished. Sometimes that attack wouldn't work though, and he'd go right through and club me. It really was the luck of the draw there, and that's unfortunate considering all the other bosses are very responsive and strategic to defeat.

The music I initially found a little on the annoying and repetetive side - it just sounded really harsh on a regular SMS. When I played it this time using the FM chip though, the score was actually quite good. I like how new sword sound effects would also be added to supplement your new moves - another nice touch.

Up until I basically beat it, I thought that the lack of continues was way harsh, but again - stick with it. Once you figure out the tricks, it really is a breeze. Well, a stressful, calculated and memory intensive breeze, that is. ;D But you can easily make it through without dying once you get a hang of it.

One sorta cheat I found out was at the start of one of the later levels outside a temple. There'd be a guy who charges and then five skulls that come at you. They are easy to defeat with all the new moves, and for some reason they also respawn with hardly any movement. Just move back two steps and they are back. I used this to max up my lives before heading onto the final levels, thinking I was really going to need it. I didn't, but if you're having trouble, that's the best way to assure you'll have enough lives. Every time you get 20,000 points, you get another life. It maxes out at 9.

Again, I just want to emphasize how great this game really is. I rank it alongside Wonder Boy III and Golden Axe Warrior as one of the most innovative and rewarding gaming experiences on the Master System. Like those other games, I felt like my character was growing with me and that the developers really had a clear plan for the whole of the game, rather than just piecing together levels like is usual with such a game. Wonder Boy III is still genius because of the way you can replay levels anew with new forms, and Kenseiden operates on a very similar creativity.

It doesn't look like a whole heck of a lot upon first play, but I urge you - stick it out with this one...you'll be rewarded.


I wanted to mention the ending too, so if you want to be surprised then read no further. There's a nice final animation to close it off, but man, the text scroll is so bizarrely awesome. I wanted to write it down, but it went too fast and I didn't have my camera handy. Basically, it starts out: "Unbeknownst to anyone thou hast killed the monster..." I mean, that's great. What a way to totally slight everything you've done. They may as well have written "Nobody cares what you've done, they were busy watching football." This sort of slighting keeps up throughout the scrawl, including a finale boasting: "You journey to a place unknown, and nobody knows your deepest thoughts." Like, talk about ambiguity here. Suddenly, this whole ending becomes like a testament to Alzheimer's or something. In a game this good, I guess not even the ending can be conventional.

Long live Kenseiden!