I did already get spoiled to the final boss of MoD (not the context of that boss though) so those last few combat chapters of Zan hopefully won't spoil much anyways since I skip cutscenes. After that we can focus all in on side modes and hard difficulty for completion!

Zan is noticeably small scale, not super low budget but definitely not mainline Koei-musou scale, and I think that benefits it a lot. Just enough enemy variety to support the relatively low mission count, just enough characters for none to get old nor untested. It works creatively with what it has!

Moment-to-moment combat for even the best characters is kinda average at best, but I think the developers acknowledged that and instead designed most of Zan around challenges that don't solely focus on skillful button-mashing; character-unique abilities and teambuilding are way more important here.

"Battle Arena" is definitely the best case of this, it's a short mode with only 1 mission per character, but each of those missions is very intentionally designed to make use of that particular character's kit: Kiwru's is a stationary ranged survival test, Jachdwalt's is a counter-focused duel, etc.

I think what makes me like it most is the focus on varying mission objectives, not everything is "defeat 50 enemies" or "defeat 1 large opponent". Those definitely still exist but they're paced out so much better than other musous with extra unorthodox objectives.

I definitely need to plan out more non-musou games to play on stream for situations like this, I may have burned through every Classicvania too quickly...
If anyone has any good stream game suggestions please tell me, I'm out of ideas ;-; (preferably games that can be finished in 5 streams or less)

Simultaneously went too far and not far enough 😔
I am so glad that I chose to always try to stay ahead of Zan's story in Mask of Deception, because while Zan is a great game to play, it does not adapt MoD's fantastic story very well at all. Not unexpected for a condensed retelling, still unforchies

I think if the developers were fine with adding some extra fights that didn't exist in MoD and diminish the story somewhat they should've done it more; maybe a Munechika fight in chapter 8, or a sparring match with Ukon early on! They wouldn't make sense, but neither does the combat in chapter 9.

I get why they added some fights that weren't in the original, embellishment for the sake of creating a more fun hack & slash game, and I do think they succeeded at that, chapter 9 *is* fun, but it's odd that Zan's story usually follows MoD's major beats super closely, yet chose not to here.

Most of Zan's story is a direct summary of MoD, but some chapters, namely chapter 9, are told way differently than in the original story. Chapter 9 in Zan includes multiple battles with characters/giant bugs that aren't in the VN, instead the protagonists escape the ship with almost no conflict.

This isn't surprising, it's a musou adaptation with a much more brisk story, more a summary than a direct retelling but still kinda surprising how much is cut.
I could probably skip cutscenes in Zan and play the rest relatively spoiler-free but I don't wanna take the chance. I like Utawarerumono :)

Now that I think about it, I don't remember if Nosuri was introduced earlier in Zan at the same point she is in the VN either, I know she's playable so she won't stay un-introduced forever, but that's 2 major characters that are pushed to the side for the early parts of Zan's version.

Between chapters 5 and 6 in Zan there's like 6 hours worth of reading in MoD that's just completely ignored. That stuff is arguably mostly filler, it's largely character development and there isn't a single combat stage, but a major character is introduced and she's barely mentioned so far in Zan.

Obviously I'm only 4 hours in, and this will likely end up being a 20-30 hour 100% completion so my opinion could change, but as of now I really like Utawarerumono Zan it's super fun :D
I need to read more of Mask of Deception before next stream tho so I can progress Story Mode past Chapter 7 ;-;

It's not impossible to get other real players to join a lobby (even on stream I had 1 person join my co-op lobby) but this is an obscure musou and even on day 1 of the PC release there were no other public lobbies, you're gonna have to find a way to solo co-op stages so helpful CPU allies is great

This is especially the case in co-op, this is one of the rare musous that not only have a co-op mode, but it's actually substantial and not just Free Mode quests with friends, it's high-difficulty content that requires either playing with others (not happening) or building a team with good support.

There's a much greater focus on team-building in Zan, your allies *are* actually helpful unlike most musous, not necessarily for combat, you're still putting in most of the work there, but characters can equip support abilities, buffs, heals, and they do actually use those occasionally!

This is adapted from VN/Tactics RPG hybrid, so it does carry over a lot of those RPG elements into the musou context: manual stat distribution, a variety of ability equips, timed chain attacks, it converts it all very well into a musou context, and it adds a lot more variety to builds.

This is still a fairly traditional musou, hordes of enemies everywhere, simple string-based attacks, it's not something like The Ochimusha where it's debatable whether it even qualifies in the genre, no it's absolutely a musou, but the focus isn't solely mowing down enemies nonstop.