Video Game / Kengo

The first game's cover

Kengo is a series of fighting games for Play Station developed by Genki. They are considered a spiritual successor to Bushido Blade

All the games revolves around the Kenjutsu, the traditional Japanese sword technique: you will play as a young swordsman practicing his art by challening opponents or even Dojos to improve his skills, reach fame and eventually partecipate to a tournament organized by the Shogun, which will grant them the title of master swordsman. The player can fight enemies, usually in one-on-one matches, using many different stances to attack the opponent, defend himself or even counterattack. The fights employ either wooden swords (non-lethal) or real swords, which can kill an opponent in a single strike or cause deadly bleeding. Real swords can be obtained in game and, depending on the title, can bestow upgrades and benefits to the user.

The series has four games: Kengo: Master of Bushido, Kengo 2 (Localized in Europe as Sword of the Samurai), Kengo 3 (Japan-only release) and the final and more divergent game Kengo: Legend of the 9 (Kengo Zero in Japan and Europe), which features ten playable characters, each of them being a Historical Domain Character tied to the world of Kenjutsu like Miyamoto Musashi or Yagyu Jubei or even The Shinsengumi.

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This game contains examples of:

• Above Good and Evil: The playable character's actually morality is never brought in question: he takes both assassination and protection missions without much fanfare, nothing really changes.
• Anachronism Stew: Many of the historical swordsmen you can encounter come from different moments of the Edo period: you have the Bakumatsu period Shinsengumi such as Isami Kondo and Soji Okita at the same time as guys from the early Edo such as Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Most of your standard opponents in open day challenges only know rudimentary skills and even if they can use Tai or Ken, they only use the latter to parry your blows without delivering the counter attack.
  • Even when your scores are low, the game allows you to regenerate a little health when you pass from one match to the next one, so that you may have a bigger chance to survive. In bandit hunts, the same happens upon reaching the boss.
• Action Girl: Starting from the second game, there's also one female character you can use. She's no less capable than male swordsmen and nobody even question her being a swordswoman.
• Asshole Victim: If you undertake an Assassination mission, the taskman will usually mention that the victim "won't be missed by anyone in any case".
• Attack Its Weak Point: Hitting an opponent whenever he's on the ground or defenseless (has his back turned or the sword sheathed) will deal much more damage, sometimes being a decisive K.O. strike.
• Awesome, but Impractical: While Ga-Ryu style in 2 is cruder, you can pretty much shape it into anything you desire. If you join one of the three famed Ryu of Edo you'll automatically get stuck with that school's unique stances, Ko, Tai and Ken techniques, but you're unable to switch them for your old style. Being in a Dojo also severely limits your freetime options, as you can disgrace your school by going to illegal duels and doing shady missions.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: When you fight an opponent, you can learn new techniques by seeing them being performed. It may take more than one attempt though, while techniques from the three famous schools of Edo are harder to learn by experience alone.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: Notable aversion: none of the Tai techniques involve this: the closest thing you have is the Tai for standard high-stance attacks, which involves grabbing the attacker's wrists while still holding your sword, then fall on your back and use a judo throw kick to launch the victim over your head and behind you, leaving them wide open for a while.
• The Bet: In the second game, you can obtain new swords by betting having a duel with a precious sword at stake. If you lose though you lose your sword too.
• Blade Lock: It's the basis of the Kumitachi mechanic in Legend of the Nine, which substitutes Kengo 2-3's Grab attacks. Both swordsmen can control to an extent where to push, pull and/or throw their opponent (or cancel it to directly slash the opponent), but if one of the two has no stamina meter left and gets thrown to a wall, it's an One-Hit Kill.
• Blade Spam: Most techniques are controlled and only use precise strikes. The standard central-stance Ko "Gouging Lightning" consist in suddenly stabbing the enemy with a quick series of thrusts in rapid succession: deadly with a wooden sword, is a guarantee kill with real sword... just hope your enemy doesn't have a center-stance Ken ready...
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Tai exist for this reason after all. However, it must be a Tai suitable for the situation and the enemy stance: a low-stance Tai may fail to properly block a high Ko attack.
• Boring, but Practical: Many of the techniques of the Ga-Ryu style in 2 are simple and user-friendly in combat, especially when you have to deal with thugs. However, overspecializing on the same techniques can be counterproductive in the long run, forcing the player to mix his techniques or even learn the more difficult but unique techniques of the official schools.
• Character Customization: You can make your own character mixing and matching the different heads and bodies of the fighters you've met and fought.
• Cool Sword: Winning local tournaments in 2 allows you to move to Edo and nets you a unique, famous katana. If you equip it, the sword will grant you many passive benefits.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In the second game, there are three techniques divived in Attack (Ko), Defense (Tai) and Counter-attack (Ken). They are distinguished by color, being respectively red, blue and pink.
• Confusion Fu: A few of the techniques can be extravagant but also hard to predict and counter if done correctly: one of the lower stances Ko involves rolling forward and deliver a sudden sword strike multiple times in a row, trying to encircle the enemy.
• Counter-Attack: All stances have at least one form of Counter-Attack called "Ken": they are riskier to pull off than the Tai techniques, but will allow you to land a hit on your opponent as part of the attack. Be warned though that Ken aren't universal but can only counter specific attacks: knowing in advance which Ken works with which technique greatly helps you in preparing yourself against an opponent.
• Early Instalment Weirdness: The first game had a "Ki Bar" which slowly filled during combat if you did well and allowed you to use a special "secret technique" with your sword. Later games drops this feature.
• Escort Mission: Subverted, escorting an important merchant or noble and protecting him from armed ruffians is merely a context: the mission plays exactly as usual and the attackers will leave the palanquin alone and focus on you first. The closest thing they have is house protection missions, where you need to defeat all enemies before they reach the inner chambers and murder your escortee.
• Dueling Player Characters: If you manage to complete the game with a new character and start a new one, the character you used will regularly appears in tournaments as one of the challengers.
• Finishing Move: In the form of a quick stabbing attack to fallen enemies that istantly empties their life bar.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Yagyu Jubei and Miyamoto Musashi can be encountered in game: they were both immortalized by their use of two blades at once and Musashi himself even encouraged the simultaneous wielding of tachi (the longer, older counterpart of uchigatana) and uchigatana. In game, they both use one sword due to limitation.
• Graceful Loser: Some of the Dojo owners you defeat will still compliment your victory and expect a rematch any time.
• Grapple Move: A few Tai techniques allow you to briefly grapple with your opponent to force them to move in an unfavourable position, leaving them open to an attack (for example, a rather simple one has you grabbing the opponent by the arm, physically drag him forward while you move past him and knock him on the back while he's trying to recover his balance).
• Healing Factor: As you do more and more battle, you can improve your recovery rate and gain back a portion of health at the start of each battle. This can lead to you starting a friendly duel with only little health but have a string of victories that makes you recover your health entirely. If it's trained enough, you can even stand still to recover stamina during a duel... just keep an eye on the opponent.
• High-Pressure Blood: Scoring a fatal hit with real swords will often results in a thing jet of blood sprayed high upwards from the victim's body.
• Historical Domain Character: All the illustrious swordsmen you can encounter are famous masters of the sword from the Edo period, though apparently all cramped in the same timeline for simplicity's sake.
• Hit Points: Displayed as a blue bar in non-lethal combat, red in potentially lethal ones.
• Iaijutsu Practitioner: The standard Ga-Ryu Setting has exactly one Iaido attack, which is pretty simple but effective. Joining one of Edo's Schools will allow you to learn better techniques. It's very dangerous to do in a fight, as you have to put the sword back into the scabbard, leaving you vulnerable.
• Mooks: Most missions will pit you against weaker swordsmen (usually bandits, bodyguards or assassins) that, while armed with real swords, have poor technique and are easy to dispatch. They rarely use Tai, let alone Ken.
• Multi-Mook Melee: Duels, tournaments and bandit hunts usually features one-on-one duels (during the hunts you may, at most, run into two opponents in the same area, but that's it). Protection, escort or assassination missions will always have the character fight against several opponents at the same time. Luckily Mook Chivalry is applied, so they won't rush at you all at once.
• Named Weapons: All the katana you can collect have names, usually the one of the blacksmith.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: the standard way to end a match. If you suffer one, you'll need to rest back home to recover some strength.
• One-Hit Kill: Getting hit by a real blade and staying alive is rare and requires a lot of health and luck to pull off: most of the time you either die in one strike or bleed to death after a grievous wound. In the second game, all Ken techniques done with a real sword are guarantee to slay the unfortunate victim.
• Only Six Faces: The enemy swordsmen are all identical and always use the same 4/5 models.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Many bandit-hunting sidequests have you slice and dice through either ruthless pillagers or even kidnappers of women or important people.
• Replay Value: It's impossible to meet all the famous swordsmen in one go and there are hundreds of possible comboes to learn and use, encouraging you to replay the game time and time again while trying out different things each time.
• Sore Loser: Not all rivals are good natured and sportsman-like: a few of them will blame the cause of their loss to you to bad luck, will get angrier and angrier if you manage to win against them again and will eventually challenge you to a Duel to the Death with real swords just to get satisfaction.
• Stance System: The most elaborate is in the second game: not only the player has access to pretty much all the nine stances based on the position of the sword (high, upper right, right, lower right, low, lower left, left, upper left, center) but the martial schools of Edo will have their own personal variation of these stances, while some of the illustrious swordsmen will have their personal stances. What type of stance you adopt determines which Ko, Ken and Tai techniques you can use in combat. The more you practice with a stance, the more points you'll gain to add techniques to said stance, with certain techniques requiring more points than others.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Dueling with real swords is just as lethal as it would be: it doesn't matter how many months you trained, even a low bandit with a lucky strike can cut open your artery and make you bleed to death.
  • In the second game, you can go and meet famous swordsmen: most of the time, unless you're really famous, they won't have time to spare for you and will simply dismiss you without a fight.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Starting from Kengo 2, the combat would take heavy inspiration from the Dead or Alive series: Parry beats Attack, Block-Counter beats Parry, Grab beats Block, and Attack beats Grab. Kengo 3 addins an extra Dodge button that can be used after any Attack/Parry/Grab: it works as a high-risk/high-reward move that can seamlessy dodge an attack or counter a Grab — or make the user fall right into the enemy's slashes.
• Timed Mission: The Mansion Guard sidequests in 2 have you fight off a group of hostile swordsmen trying to assassinate your protegé: the fight starts in the courtyard and, if you're unable to slay all the assailants in time, they'll call for backup and run further into the mansion. If that happens a second time, the lord will be assassinated.
• To Be a Master: The goal of the first two games is become strong and skilled enough to compete in the Shogun's tournament and win the competition.
• Training Stage: In the second game, if you lose your very first duel (not unlikely, since you're fresh and lacking in techniques or stances) you're invited by the local dojo owner to visit his place: there you can train and learn the basis of combat.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: Subverted by a few low-stance Ko which have the user roll to the side of the opponent and end the rolling with a strike, technique which can apparently be executed several times in a row to move out of the opponent's way or to avoid counter attacks.
• Upper-Class Twit: The owner of the Onoha-Itto (a real school sword founded by Ono Tadaaki, the other Shogunate sword instructor alongside Yagyuu Munenori) is just as arrogant as the other three and wears a fancy kimono and powder on his face. His style though is no less efficient than the others' so be on your guard.
• Worthy Opponent: If your reputation is high enough, you can catch the eye of an illustrious swordsman when you go to meet him in person and he may even accept to duel with you. Most characters are affable and honorable, though a couple will find you odious and eventually try to kill you in a duel with real blades.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The Chidori is a low-stance Ken that is performed by having the player suddenly wobble in an half-crouched position, as if in pain: if the enemy falls for it, the actual attack comes in the form of a sudden low slash aimed at the ankles.
• Wooden Katanas Are Even Better: Most of the time, you'll fight with a wooden sword in day challenges and legal tournaments: he "even better" part doesn't stem from the efficiency of the bokuto, but rather on the fact that these battles are non-lethal, so that even if you're curbstomped you can still return home and rest.