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KOEI at its best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

WOW! has Koei ever done an awsome job at making Kessen 2. Unlike Dynasty Warriors two Kessen 2 takes you into the REAL deal behind the Romance of the Three Kingdoms saga. In this sweet game you can command your multiple armies, use special magic abilities and even give your armies multiple formations! If you like this game some others are Dynasty warriors 2+3, Kessen 1 and The Romance of the Three Kingdom games 1-7.

GREAT GRAPHICS, GREAT GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When i bought this game and played it for a few minutes, i really didn't think much of it (Ater all this is the only koei game i've played besides dw 2 and 3). About after the second level, I LOVED IT. the graphics are great, action is fun, and the sound rocks. The one put down (the only one i assure you), is that everyones invulnerable. I mean the morale is life, if morale winds to 0 the the whole group you were fighting vanishes. The elemental spells i love. In the battle of Chi Bi(for dynasty warriors players, you know what i'm talking about), wth the right spell i made a warrior and his horse fly off the boat and drown (thats the only way you can make guys die, this works with fissure too)Over all i rate this game a 5, can't wait for dynasty tactics, it sounds good.

Inspired by RoTK Beautifully....more so than "Based Upon"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

But for a game of this technical and imaginative level, I say "who cares?!" Sure, the gameplay is definately imperfect, but ask yourself this: how many RTS games on a console have played anywhere as nicely as this one? Answer: none. Starcraft 64, eat your heart out.

Firstly, the game utalizes simple commands to execute larger-scale movements. When forces are in thousands of soldiers in size, in real life you'd probably lose immediate and fast control over them all pretty quickly too....this game as such seemed to be more realistic in that fashion. There're really only three unrealistic aspects to the gameplay: 1) you can command a force that's miles away from you instantly; 2) there is lots of sorcery; and 3) how do you get so many legions of men to fight the corrupt?

Secondly, the graphics are amazing. Full of color and activity. Seeing 500 troops with only partial slowdown is very nice, and the fact that you can control an officer to get involved in the combat to see it up close. When you're not in control, an automatic camera changes perspective of your troops, be they running or battling (something the original Kessen lacked graphically, putting me to sleep, personally). The game is also full of great special effects (and I'm not even brushing upon the SFX in the FMV, or the FMV itself yet!). When dueling, sparks fly, and energy is shot out from these heroes' combatting, and the spell effects are simply huge in scale, and destruction.

Thirdly, the music is worthy of purchasing the soundtrack even if you haven't played the game. It's fully symphonized, somewhat catchy, easy to listen to, and full of emotion. True, the voice work here and there cries out: "I'm a good actor, but I don't know what I'm doing!" However, they still tell the story well enough for the most part...good during the important moments at least.

Finally, cinematically and emotionally, this game is incredible. FMV drives the story like one would not believe. Kessen II truly has about 3x as much FMV as Final Fantasy X, and for a game only about 8 hours long, that's far beyond amazing!! I sometimes still watch the FMV at the begining because it's so amazingly full of emotion, and beautifully photographed; being a film major, the lighting, scenery, item placement and art direction is important to me greatly, and I am fully satisfied here! When people tell me that games like this and Final Fantasy X and Xenosaga are too cinematic, frankly I get very aggrivated...instead I ask: "why can't all movies be as deep and engaging as these games?" GAMES!! Why is Hollywood, save a few nice epics, falling behind what was once Pong?!

All in all, if you like epic stories with high production values, and also like to play the head of war, then you need to get this game! Just expect a bunch of historical references, rather than any kind of historical lessons...whatsoever.

Fun, fun, fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: November 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

if you liked the first one then get this one its way better and funner

STEP UP FROM FIRST.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: October 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

START PLAY ON BEGING LEVEL AS LIU-BEI-WHO IS FIGHTING,TOO RESCUE HIS LOVE.THIS GAME ALLOWS YOU TOO MAKE CHOICE THAT WILL DECIDE ARMIES MAN POWER,MORAL ,COURSE OF ACTION DURING COMBAT.ONCE YOU BEAT THE GAME YOU SWITCH SIDES,AND FIGHT FOR CAO-CAO,AND FOR CONTROLL OFTHE WORLD.
I GIVE THIS GAME 4.5 STARS.ITS NICE ANIMATION,GRAPHICS ECT.THE USE OF MAGIC,AND OTHER ABILTIES MAKE IT A STEP UP FROM THE ORGINAL(i'd give that one a 4),BOTH FUN REPLAY VALUE.THE DUEL SEQUENCE ARE AMONG THE THE MOST INTERESTING(trick too duels make sure your armies zeal bar is higher then the computers or you'll loss).I WON WITH ONLY ONE CONTINUE ON CAO-CAO HARDEST LEVEL.
THIS GAME ALLOWS YOU TOO BE A BIT LAZY -IT WILL PLAY IT SELF JUST FINE.THAT IS THE DRAW BACK.

This game ROCKS!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: October 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of the best games I have ever played its better than the first, which I really loved also.

fun, and best graphics out of all ps2 games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 23, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is the best game I've ever played, it's really fun. You get to control a whole bunch of officer's, and each officer has it's own army. It's also fun to watch the storys in the game, it's like watching a movie. It has really good graphics. It's worth buying because it is a pretty long game, long games are better to buy cause you don't beat them so fast.

An exciting game but....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because it featured characters from the romance of the three kingdoms series. That, and the fact that it was cheap. I got it on sale because it was used. Sometimes when I buy used games I take a moment and wonder why the individual sold it. I may never know for certain why the previous owner sold it but I think it may have something to do with the characters. All the characters look kinda, I don't know, off. It was like the designers wanted the characters to stand out and they do but not in a good way. Zhang Liao is wearing antlers on his head for goodness sake! Zhou Yu looks like a character from a Mercedes Lackey novel. Why does Liu Bei not have a beard? Why is he clean shaven? Why does he keep whining about Diao Chan? Zhang Fei is a drunken bufoon. Also, the voice acting is pretty weird with some hilariously bad lip synching. Watch Zhao Yun in particular.
But enough about the characters. Let's move on to the gameplay. This game is somewhere between Dynasty tactics and Dynasty warriors. There is some action involved. You basically ride around on your horse, whacking people upside the head with your weapon and occasionally you use special attacks that wipe out a whole bunch of people at once. The strategy isn't very deep. You basically have to find the quickest way to get your army to the enemy's commander and defeat him. It's too bad that you can't decide who to attack and when, although you sometimes
are allowed to choose between targets. Probably the best thing about this game are the cinematics. It is fun to unlock the various movies and what not. But the biggest downer is that you can't play as Sun Quan. As one of the rulers of the three kingdoms you would have though they could find a place in the story for him but he only has a small role to play. Think of all the potential that was missed? There could have been a scenario involving Sun Quan having to get Zhou Yu to stop hanging out with Firesong so he could plan out a decent strategy and if you didn't understand that one then I envy you.

Solid Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I got Kessen 2 for christmas a long time ago, around when it came out. Since then it has kept me entertained. I dont play this game constantly, every once in a while I'll see it in my gaming library and decide to pick it up again. After you beat the game as Lui Bei, you can play through as Cao Cao and select the difficulty level for either campaign. This gives the game some replay value. Yet I don't feel that I need to think that much with this game. I just pick one of the battle plans, and follow it. And bassically units trimuph in battle because of the commander using a special ability that can cut a unit in half in 10 seconds. yet there is some thinking involved. Lately ive reliazed that Calvary advances faster than foot soliders, and that certain types of troops do better against certain other kinds of troops. So there is a little depth here but not much. But why three stars? Even though it has those features that i just listed, its still very simplistic. If they had made it a little more satergy based, i would have give it five stars, but its not. So if you want a game that will keep you entertained for a long time, check out Kessen 2. Excuse me, I have to go conquer China.

very fun, but extremely historically inaccurate

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

just like the title says, there are many historical errors in this game. there is no record of Zhang Fei ever having daughters, Cao Cao and Liu Bei were most certainly not brothers (just look at their surnames Cao and Liu). There is no historical record of Liu Bei ever even meeting Diao Chan. There is no record of Cao Cao being a mama's boy. Cao Cao's army never consisted of Himiko. Sun Li was not the name of Liu Bei's wife (It was Lady Sun or SunShangXiang, the adopted daughter of Sun Jian). The list goes on and on, but the biggest flaw is a part where Liu Bei cares nothing about the restoration of the Han Empire. Read the book Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong and you'll understand. Another bad part about this game is that battles take forever. It took me about 2 and a half hours to do the last battle in Liu Bei's campaign.

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