Graphics-wise, there’s nothing different. It’s still the same engine and you won’t notice anything different other than the new menu and characters. The same goes for the audio side of things (again, refer to the Saisen review for details).
Content-wise, there are tons of welcome changes. The roster was already decent for a fighting game in the previous game, but now they’ve added several more without removing any of the previous playable characters.
The new additions include some odd choices, like Okita Souji, who only appeared in the series during a flashback. There are also some characters added from the Reflection OVA, such as Kenshi’s estranged son Kenji and the teenaged version of Yahiko. As expected, you have to unlock most of the characters first. If you have a savefile from Saisen, you’ll automatically unlock some of the old hidden characters as well as get a certain amount for upgrading the weapons.
There are also new stages, and some of the modes were improved – for instance, many of the minigames that used to be playable only for specific characters can now be played while using any of the unlocked characters.
Gameplay-wise, most people won’t notice any changes but there are subtle tweaks under the hood that make Kansen a significant improvement over Saisen. The roster has been balanced a bit, in the sense that there are no longer any useless characters. There are still some that are not novice-friendly like Chou and Anji, but they’ve been tweaked a little bit so that they won’t be horribly disadvantaged in competitive play against some of the better characters (particularly when both players are of similar skill.)
The slow-motion mechanic is still there and it’s still annoying. Thankfully, they seem to have noticed how much it ruined the flow of the game so they shortened the duration a little bit. It’s a minor tweak but improved the experience greatly, although it would have been better if they removed it completely.
As mentioned above, the amount of changes in Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan Kansen make it a significantly better game when compared to its predecessor, but it’s not enough to justify the price of a new game if you already have Saisen. Get Kansen only if you don’t have Saisen yet or if you are a really big fan of Rurouni Kenshin and must simply have every single game in the franchise.
