In Sanada Jūyūshi the player controls Sanada Yukimura, a famous warlord during the Japanese Sengoku period. Sanada Yukimura gets send out by his father to find ten powerful warriors, which according to a popular Japanese legend would come to be known as the “Sanada Ten Braves” (“Sanada Jūyūshi”), to support him in the war.
The game differs a bit from being a typical “Dragon Quest” clone by featuring a unique combat system. Instead of HP, Sanada Yukimura recruits troops by talking to enemies and persuading them to fight for him by offering the rations and weapons. Once he finds one of the ten special warriors, they join his party and become troop leaders as well. It is important to use the right unit type against enemies, because they all are strong or weak against certain enemy types. A samurai for example is strong against swordsmen, but weak against thieves.
All members of the ten braves have special abilities which are crucial to progress in the game. One character can move boulders and trees, another one allows the party to sail with a ship and yet another one can be send out to retrieve important information, which is needed to trigger certain events to progress in the story and so on.
Most of the time the party will move around the overworld to walk from one town to the next. Townspeople provide information. Towns are also needed to stock up with rations and weapons in shops. They also often feature a gambling house, where there is the possibility to bet money on the outcome of a cast of dice. Dungeons in the form of caves or underground passages are also present, but not as numerous or dominant as in many other Famicom RPGs of that era.
