Well, the basic thing is that, Kobyashi (Producer of both this series, as well as DMC), has stated that they are going to make it a BIT more historical this time around. So, in essence, every character’s storyline will likely have to deal with certain things that have already transpired. For most characters, that means:
a) Nobunaga and his crew are gone, because of the Honnouji Incident, caused by Mitsuhide. Mitsuhide is also gone, because it’s alluded to that Hideyoshi was the one who punched him in the face soon afterward.
b) The Toyotomi have also been defeated and suppressed, thanks to Ieyasu and the Tokugawa. Whether this is also supposed to imply that my boy, Hideyoshi, and his BFF Hanbei are supposed to be “dead”, too, that’s left to be determined.
Now, before we start all worrying about whether we’ve heard Wakamoto-Nobunaga utter his last laugh, I’m thinking that there’s still no reason for them to fully get rid of characters, especially ones that are still well liked (Nobunaga, Oichi, Hideyoshi ,Hanbei and the Motos, certainly). What’s more likely is that, a la the Musou/Warriors series, a lot of characters are probably not going to be AS important as they were before.
So at worst, some characters may only be “Free/Conquer” Mode only characters, like Musashi and dem last time. But I’d like to think that, instead, older characters will likely be just stuck with “What If…?” storylines, such as if Nobunaga and his crew survived the Honnouji incident, and then lived on to cause trouble in the 1600 era. Then there’s characters like Hisahide, who as of yet, has not been playable at all. That should also be changed by this third game!
Besides, if nothing else, the anime has turned a whole new slew of people into BASARA fans. People who joined the party with the anime, are likely going to be disappointed if they see the anime, and some cool character(s) that they liked…only to not be able to play as those characters by the 3rd game (which would be out by the time of 2nd season).
So, we’ll see. But this one instance where I’m going to be cautiously optimistic.
Yeah, it’s a shame that they went and killed off so many characters so quickly. If they wanted to turn BASARA into a full-fledged series soon afterward, they shot themselves in the foot.
But in any case, Season 2 is likely going to be as much of a SB2 + SB3 mish-mash, as much as Season 1 was a SB1 + SB2 mish-mash.
Expect “Grown-ass man!” Ieyasu and Mitsunari to make an appearance. Maybe even some of the other new generals that will appear in SB3. It’s pretty much the only thing I could see, seeing how so many possibilities are cut off, already.
On the other hand, since the anime actually made it so Ranmaru survived and set up with Itsuki, I wonder if that might roll over into the game, some how…
Oh, and finally…the official site. Check out some more shots there.
http://www.capcom.co.jp/basara3/main.html
The new track playing on that site is awesome. As BASARA music should be. :wgrin:
