While releasing
Sengoku Basara, Capcom attempted to appeal to the western audience, by removing all Sengoku and Japanese references in favor of a generic
fantasy story vaguely connected with Capcom's hit franchise
Devil May Cry (a
DMC-type font was even used for the cover title of
Devil Kings). An extract from
IGN interview with the game's producer
Hiroyuki Kobayashi: :''Kobayashi: In Japan, Devil Kings is called Sengoku Basara, and it focuses on Japanese history but with a Capcom style, a Capcom flair to it. When we were making the game, we told ourselves, "What can we do to differentiate this to make this different from other hack and slash games?" And we decided the secret maybe lay in some other games Capcom has done. We said, "Let's give the characters a kind of Devil May Cry flair -- some really cool moves, like the kind of things you might see in Devil May Cry. Let's make the characters all vastly and distinctly different from one another, like in
Street Fighter II." That's the Japanese version. Then, we said, "Okay, let's release it in North America and Europe -- what can we do to make it different again? What can we do to make it appeal to North American and European audiences?" After a few discussions, we decided not to have a game with samurais and ninjas in feudal Japan, but instead a game that was dark, slightly devilish, and had a fantasy setting to it, a game with a huge Devil May Cry feel to it. So then we said, "Okay, we'll make it dark." Call it Devil Kings. The main character will be a villain. We'll darken up the background, give more moves, more ability to power your character up, and things like that for the North American and European markets.'' :''IGN: Plus it's not historically accurate?'' :''Kobayashi: The Japanese version of the game is based on Japanese history. There are some fantasy elements that didn't actually happen, of course, but enough of it is there. With the North American and European versions, we've taken that element out entirely. Some of the backgrounds may retain that Japanese flair. Many of them don't and are brand new; many of the enemies are brand new; and it's no longer based around the idea of feudal Japan at all. That part of the game has now been changed to be darker.'' These alterations were regarded as unpopular, as the
Devil Kings version was a critical and commercial failure, and no more
Sengoku Basara games were brought to North America and Europe until the release of
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes in the fall of 2010. ==Reception==