Samurai Battle Warriors War

In the Samurai Battle Warriors War series, you pick from one of 19 garishly dressed warrior from ancient feudal Japan and set forth on a quest to conquer Japan's various territories and clans while representing one of the clans.
The storylines in the console versions are done with CG cutscenes and some fairly cheesy voice acting with even more cheesily melodramatic writing,
but on the PSP, the stories are told exclusively with slides of talking heads and text.
While the absence of the slickly produced cutscenes is unfortunate (but understandable),
the lack of voice acting isn't a detriment by any stretch of the imagination, though the lack of the high-energy,
wailing guitar soundtrack from the Warriors Fighting is a bit of a bummer.
Of course, you do all of that simply by engaging in exceedingly brief battles.
What kind of battle you enter into depends on what sort of terrain you're taking on.
If it's just flat land, all you usually need to do is bust through a bunch of grunt soldiers.
If you go after a stronghold, you'll have to take down some defense captains.
If you go up against unit leaders, you'll have to fight off at least one of the major featured warrior in the game.
Winning battles will often yield charms, which you can use while on the main grid screen.
Certain charms can be used to stifle or attack enemies via the grid, while others can be used to heal or boost your side.
Really though, these charms amount to only a minor addition to the overall scheme of a battle, and victory pretty much rests on your ability to mash on the triangle and square buttons alternately.
As has been the case with all Warrior games of recent memory, Samurai Warriors: State War action is completely brainless.
The artificial intelligence of the opponent soldiers is practically nonexistent--they'll just stand around, waiting to get stabbed.
Higher-ranking officers are better, but it's still way too easy to bowl over just about every enemy in the game that isn't the last guy in the enemy military chain.
And there's just no variety to the action.
There are a few combos and special attacks, but all of them revolve around mashing on two buttons for a few minutes at a time.
It gets very old, very quickly.