Capcom stated in an interview back in 2017 that it was planning to revive the underrated Sengoku Basara series. Now, two years later, it seems the time for that revival has finally come, though probably not in the form fans would have liked — a mobile game.
Titled Sengoku Basara: Battle Party, the game is described as a “Sengoku heroes training team battle” where players are tasked with forming their own team of military commanders from the series for the purpose of uniting Japan under a single banner.
Though it might a bit too early to write this off as a failure waiting to happen, such pessimism isn’t necessarily unwarranted.
First off, Capcom isn’t well-known for its mobile titles. It might be killing it in the console department, but its performance in the mobile market doesn’t measure up. Many JRPG fans are still sore from the ill-fated Breathe of Fire 6 whose online operations lasted for a little over a year, while it’s most recent high profile venture, Puzzle Fighter, died off in an even shorter period of time. That isn’t to say it’s mobile operations is an abject failure, but its track record over the years doesn’t inspire much confidence.
Meanwhile, though Sengoku Basara is reasonably popular in Japan (it’s had at least one stage play adaptation every year since 2009), Capcom has neglected it as far as the core series is concerned. The West hasn’t seen a new entry in nearly a decade, with Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes arriving in 2010, while Japan hasn’t received a new entry since 2016 following the arrival of Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-Den. After such a long wait, and the promise of a revival, it’s unlikely that fans expected the new game to be a mobile one.
Either of these factors don’t mean much individually, but we’re left with something of a nightmare scenario when they’re combined: a highly anticipated title debuting on a platform that its developer has a shaky track record of making quality games for.
Of course, none of this necessarily means that Sengoku Basara: Battle Party will be a bad game, it could turn out to be rather decent. And it’s still a new Sengoku Basara title, so it’s better than nothing. Who knows? Maybe it will do well enough to spark the actual revival fans have been hoping for.
