The latest Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-den news from Weekly Famitsu magazine

The 4th August 2016 issue of Weekly Famitsu is now out in Japan, and here's a summary of the latest Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura-den information from within its pages.

Story Mode

The article opened up with a summary of the next few chapters of story mode.

Chapter 6 - The Second Ueda Conflict: The Path To Sekigahara
Characters: Yukimura, Masayuki
Objectives: Control both Yukimura and Masayuki, and defend the Sanada water well!
Description: After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the confrontation between Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu divides the whole country in two for the Battle of Sekigahara. While Yukimura and his father Masayuki support the Western Army led by Mitsunari, Nobuyuki stands in their way as a warrior of Ieyasu's Eastern Army. As both sides press on, they ask themselves about the true 'Path of the Sanada'.

Notes on the page explain that you have to use both characters strategically. For the benefit of those who don't already know, the Sanada well is a famous landmark in Ueda Castle which is said to have a secret passage hidden within it.

Characters: Sarutobi Sasuke
Objectives: Take control of Sasuke and intercept the Tokugawa Army!
Description: Right in the middle of battle with Ieyasu's troops, Kuroda Kanbee loses his way on the battlefield...

There's some kind of shooting game mechanic where Sasuke has to fire shuriken and exploding kunai at the invaders to defend the well.

Chapter 7 - Kudoyama Imprisonment
Characters: Yukimura
Objectives: ???
Description: At Kudoyama, Yukimura and Masayuki clash in a life and death battle. But why would Yukimura be confronting his revered father? Furthermore, there's even a scene where the Sanada Clan's dead former lord Takeda Shingen exchanges blows with Yukimura. What's the true nature of this 'Shingen'? The circumstances behind the usual Sengoku Basara punching match are cause for concern.

There isn't much information about this chapter, sorry! I expect the gaming press will fill in the gaps over the next few days.

Moveset Information

Yukimura's moveset gets stronger as he grows up and progresses through the story. We've seen his special move 風林火山 ('Fuurinkazan') in screenshots - I've been calling it his R2 move because that seems likely - and for the first time it's actually referenced in this article, which says it's one of several of these special moves in the game. When Yukimura uses Fuurinkazan he performs a flurry of chained attacks then finishes up with a Shingen-style uppercut.

The information is placed right next to the screenshot of Shingen on the page, so it's possible Yukimura learns the move at a set point in the story. However, he's also shown as already having it equipped in the Chapter 6 screenshots. Perhaps it's entirely based on character level as usual.

Six Coin Challenges

We've seen these popping up in screenshots quite a few times now and they're finally explained in this article. Each stage in the main story mode contains six special optional objectives called Six Coin Challenges, and completing them awards the Monsen Coins you need to power up your characters. Completing all of the challenges also unlocks the ultimate difficulty level.

A screenshot shows the six challenges in Chapter 3 of the story (I'm guessing this screen appears at the end of a stage):

Reach FEVER status (900 Monsen Coins)
Defeat Fuuma Kotarou with a Basara technique (900 Monsen Coins)
Defeat five fake Eiraku Tsuuhou (??? Monsen Coins)
Defeat Eiraku Tsuuhou in Bushin Denshin (Telepathy) mode (??? Monsen Coins)
Collect 1,000 Monsen Coins (??? Monsen Coins)
Clear Chapter 3 (900 Monsen Coins)

In context the Eiraku Tsuuhou refers to the flags you're supposed to capture in this stage since they have coins on them. I'll start recording the challenges in my reference materials post later tonight.

Rainbow Chance

There are special enemy NPCs with large rainbow-coloured fans on their back called the 'Seven Rainbows'. If you attack them, a 'Rainbow Chance' challenge will pop up with a special objective such as getting a certain combo, defeating enemies, dodging attacks or performing parries. If you manage to complete the challenge within the time limit you'll be rewarded with a substantial number of Monsen Coins. It's well worth looking out for the Seven Rainbows when you're trying to gather coins.

Difficulty Levels

The standard difficulty levels you can select are Standard and Hard. However, once you have completed all of the Six Coin Challenges on all of the chapters, you unlock a brand new ultimate difficulty level: Sanzu River. When you select this, enemy attack power increases and their attacks drain your Bushin level - which in turn lowers your combat power.

Save Data Import

If you import your Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi save data when you start the game, you'll receive a reward as usual. This time, the reward is pretty simple; simply having a Sumeragi save file will give you a flat bonus of 5,000 Monsen Coins when you start Sanada Yukimura-den for the first time.

Collaboration Costumes

This is sneaky as they promised several collaboration costumes but the article only actually 'reveals' the NJPW Gotou Hirooki Ver outfit for Masamune which was shown earlier in the week. As previously explained, that new costume is going to be paid DLC for Sanada Yukimura-den.

The rest of the section about costumes explains that a bunch of the DLC costumes from Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi will be returning for the new game and they'll be included right from the start. The list includes all of the Biohazard (Resident Evil), Street Fighter IV, Devil May Cry and Monster Hunter costumes, Muneshige's Jumbo Xavi-kun outfit and the seven preorder costumes from Sengoku Basara 4.

It was also explained that the costumes will be available in modes such as survival mode (Sanada Trials). Unless they only mean that Yukimura and Masamune can wear their costumes in story mode, this implies to me that there will be additional modes where the old characters can be used too - probably even better news than everything else in the entire article!