The final problem is one that has plagued the gameplay in this series for a long time—the pure sameness of everything. Yes, you get to play a little RPG-lite with the characters you choose to use, but the actual fighting gameplay and setup/story itself has changed little over all these years. Obviously these games have an ingrown fan base that will eat up anything Koei brings out, but honestly this game doesn’t bring much different to the table.

There are other options available for the first time here as well, most of which revolve around playing with another player. There is a versus mode where you face off against your opponent in a battle, a Steeple Chase that has you racing against someone on horses through a track and a Tower mode where you knock opponents off…a tower. Along with these there is also a Suvival mode where you face off against unending waves of enemies and Dream mode where characters are mixed up and go through 28 special stages. These extras are neat and all, but many of them require someone else to be there to play.

In the end, this is just more of the same. Koei needs to think about re-working these games in order to attract new fans but with an established fan base that will buy the game sight unseen you have to wonder if that will ever happen. .

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