Riding Through Sengoku Era Japan on My Harley Davidson Horse

Let's Party!

Author

Stephanie Liu
July 31, 2026

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Speak Up Sesh

Ah, July. The time for pool parties, BBQ, and Sengoku Basara.

“Wait, Sengoku Basara?” you may be saying.

Yes! Sengoku Basara! I didn’t realize this myself, since it’s been years since Capcom made a new one, but apparently pretty much all the Sengoku Basara games came out in July! What a fun coincidence. The first game came out on July 21, 2005. Basara 4 Sumeragi came out on July 23, 2015, and Basara 2 came out on July 27, 2006. I haven’t seen Tweets yet as of the time of writing, but Basara 3 came out on July 29, 2010, and Chronicle Heroes came out on July 21, 2011. I have no idea if Capcom intended for July to just be the month of Sengoku Basara, or if it was a coincidence.

To commemorate the occasion (as well as the 20th anniversary of Basara 2), I thought I could use this month’s newsletter to promote it. Capcom isn’t paying me or anything. I just really like Sengoku Basara, and it makes me sad that the lack of new content for it (and the lack of references to it in popular media) has erased it from general Japanese media cultural knowledge. I even saw a director or someone who had worked on Basara thank someone for remembering the version of Ieyasu from this series!

Let’s start from the beginning: What is Sengoku Basara? It’s Capcom’s answer to Koei Tecmo’s Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors. Like Samurai Warriors, it is an action-packed hack ‘n’ slash that’s based on the Sengoku Period of Japanese history. That’s kind of where the similarities end… Koei Tecmo took some creative liberties with their story and characters, but Samurai Warriors looks like non-fiction next to Sengoku Basara’s bombastic take on feudal Japan.

Date Masamune is a famous warlord. In Basara, he’s essentially the leader of a biker gang, with wheels and gas exhausts on his horse. He fights with six swords, and he speaks in English. Honda Tadakatsu was one of the best warriors of this era, and his spear, the Tonbokiri, is one of the three legendary spears of Japan. In Basara, Honda is a Gundam (nicknamed Hondam by the fandom) who cannot speak save for machine-like whirs, and the Tonbokiri is a giant drill. You get the idea.

It’s definitely not the kind of game you play because you want to live through the heroics of past warlords or trace a character’s historical journey. It’s more the game you pick up when you want to see soldiers dramatically flying through the air and utter nonsense fill your screen every few minutes. That’s not to say that Basara can’t take itself seriously. The third game had a darker tone to its story, as it covered the Battle of Sekigahara.

I personally really recommend the games, since I find the sound design and physics to be more satisfying than Koei Tecmo’s games in the same genre. But I’m aware that these older titles would be difficult to find. That’s not even getting into games like Sumeragi, which never had an English localization or Western release. For those who are intrigued anyway, there’s the anime adaptation to watch. It features an original story, so it’s definitely worth checking it out, even if you’ve already played the games before!

It’s also a chance to hear T.M. Revolution’s cool songs. Did you know that some newer Japanese media fans didn’t even recognize him when he performed Hot Limit on The First Take? We’re losing the ancient texts… That’s why I think these little jaunts through memory lane are so fun and valuable. Not only can we reminisce on old franchises and blow the dust off them, but there’s even the potential of introducing newcomers to their future favorite series.

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