The three kingdoms still strike
In line with its spin-off nature, Godseekers proposes a variation on the abusive theme of the Three Kingdoms, the medieval Chinese historical period, in which Koei has set up almost all of its strategic products since the days of Super Nintendo.
If the protagonist, Zhao Yun, is not exactly a new face, her childhood friend Lei Bin and many other protagonists are completely unpublished, and nevertheless, the narrative canvas buries its roots in the substrate that the Dynasty Warriors series created, episode after episode.
The story begins when the two friends come across the mysterious Li Xia, a shocking, pink-haired girl in a block of ice. When she wakes up, the two take care of her security, and after she has been saved from a handful of soldiers with obscure intentions, fulfilling their demands, embarking on a long journey that will lead them to explore much of the fiefs of the Three Kingdo
ms, between accurate historical and imaginative, supernatural turnovers.
As can be seen from the subtitle, the story behind the title moves on known tracks, but introduces a good number of new faces both among the travel companions of the two heroes as among the antagonists, and departs from the usual narrative of musou made in Tecmo Koei for a series of mystical and fantastic elements, however rooted in the Chinese mythology of the time.
The result, though without being overwhelmed, is pleasing to the whole, and brings a breath of fresh air into a setting and a series of plot too similar to each other, which were quickly leading to exhaustion of the rich historical / social layout of the Middle Ages.
The only problem, inherited from some of the main series of episodes, is the logorrhea that seems to capture, at certain times, some of the characters who, especially in the briefing of the missions, continue to repeat already clear concepts and to dwell on details of scarce importance.
We’ve tested the PS4 version, but especially on Life, when the user does not have fifteen minutes of actual gaming, it’s best to get the button mashing as in the titles of the motherboard to jump at some of these steps.
Accessibility first of all
Like the mainstream titles, Godseekers puts accessibility to the top of its list of priorities, proposing a fairly simplified approach to a gender, that of shift strategists, sadly known to be complicated by approaching neophytes.
The price to pay, as we feare
d, is represented by the limited range of strategic options available and the average difficulty being consistently lower than other congeners; Nevertheless, the development team can propose a model that combines sufficiently deep depth an
d simplicity and which could be appreciated by both musou fans and SRPG enthusiasts under certain conditions.
The main battles needed to advance along the storyline play a number of optional challenges, useful not only to wrap up funds to better e
quip the troops, but also to recruit other generals to our cause, thus expanding the roster of deployable characters in the battle: if the former offer multi-mission missions, with ambushes or enemy enrichments, the latter are much more linear, and typically serv
e to grind so as to gain experience points and loot.
To advance without encountering too much resistance during the campaign (which can be completed in a fortnight of abundant hours), it is enou
gh to dedicate at least some of these optional battles: forget more complex concepts such as the permanent death of fallen units or a turnaround limit within which achieve the goal, because almost all of the major missions will be resolved in the old way, rel
ying more on brute force than on an end military strategy.
Exactly as it often happens in the musou of the same developer, in Godseekers itoften happens to feel too much superior to the opponents, survivi
ng the evaluation mistakes that in any Fire Emblem would have forced to reboot the whole map and solving situations of overwhelming numerical inferiority simply by resorting to one of the two special attacks available, called Musou and Sync respectively.
The first is a self-explanatory attack, which recalls those seen in the titles of the saga from whose branch this title is born, able to vaporize even the most ruthless opponents, while the second also involves other members of the party, and, when filling a bar displayed at the top of the game screen, allows you to take advantage of an extra attack turn to vomit a large amount of damage to your defective enemies.
