I haven't started Sakura Wars yet. Probably gonna jump into it next week. My package of it from Rosenqueen.com came in last weekend while I was at my anime convention.
The pre-order package is gorgeous. It came with a nice hardcover art book, and the game comes in a collector's box with a large instruction booklet and additional fan book. I'm waiting for a day where I'll have more then a few hours of free time so I can get a good start on it and really immerse myself in it. I'd say I'm a pretty big Sakura Wars fan but I've never been able to play one of the games.
However I have all of the Sakura Wars anime that came to the US.
I first got into the series when I saw an ad for the anime in a Gamepro from 1998. lol I bought The first Sakura Wars OVA on 2 VHS tapes that I still have today.
On DVD I also have....
All of Sakura Wars TV
the 2nd OVA series
The Sumire OVA Special
and Sakura Wars: The Movie
My favorites are probably the original OVA and the Movie. The original OVA had the best English dub of all of them.
On a side note my favorite characters are Maria and Iris.
lol, sorry I nerded out big time there. How is the Sakura Wars game fireball? Also did you get the PS2 or Wii version? I got the PS2 one and I'm looking forward to playing it soon.
How's Red Steel 2 fireball? I got the first game a while back and I was quite disappointed with the clunky sword/gunplay and the story was relatively uninteresting. But the second one looks like that the gameplay was corrected (probably thanks to that MotionPlus adapter) and looks fun and interesting to play.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Wii version, PS2 version would be preferable if i had a PS2, but I don't. Game plays alright, the amount of text commitment on each chapter is pretty massive (I'd say I spend more time reading text then I ever do in the strategy mode, it's almost certainly more of the game unless the later missions get really hard (in addition to being fairly sizable)), especially if you want to be a perfectionist... which I do... so I'm cheating by using a walkthrough (no spoilers, just multiple choice answers, and enough info to figure out the best paths, I'm a cheater, but atleast I should be able to see all the endings but one on a single play through, and yes I have no regrets to cheating, I play games how I feel will be most enjoyable to me, and I've found such tactics for strategy games doesn't hurt my enjoyment, though it'll probably make the strategy segments alot easier in end game, perhaps sometime I'll punish myself by doing a fresh start complete rudeness run, and see how well I can do with everyone hating me) to get me through my first playthrough, and get me to the slightly modified game plays and decide what I want to do, the battle itself is quite fun, though I somehow doubt that there will be nearly enough of it.
Story is entertaining, and get's better when the amount of battle increases over time (first battle is really small, and the first chapter may be the longest text wise)... characters are decent if not a tad cliche as well (and that doesn't bother me anyway).
Battle isn't as good as VC in my opinion (and they're somewhat related), but it's still pretty good, no cover fire or anything like that, and it feels a tad more square based (especially with things like you can regain movement by walking back twords your starting space, despite the actual location being blocked, so you can walk around a large wall, back twords where you are without sacrificing sp, it basically means you can walk around and think of what you're doing eternally, and fine tune every little thing). Regular maps are gimmicky and I like it, bosses are fun (and also gimmicky) and there's one for all 7 chapters it seems.
I don't know, in the end I like it better then I thought I might, though I'm going to need to find another game to play between chapters, as I just beat red steel and without something between chapters the text can get a little bet crazy (Every chapter seems to be atleast an hour in text alone..., and I'm still early into the game, so battles will start taking forever I theorize...), so it was certainly worthwhile... and it might get a replay or two over time!
Though if I get a ps3 soon which I might, playing threw and finally finishing VC will be priority.
Sorry my review is so ranty, good luck with it, I'm really quite enjoying it though.
--edit-- And redsteel 2, which I just beat, sword play feels fantastic, still based on prehashed motions, but they all come off well and if I don't do what I want it's because I'm actually doing the wrong motion entirely (I do stabs instead of top down swings due to similarities in the appearance of the logo too often). It's really quite fun though, due to nice smooth controls that rely on you putting movement into it. Environment is decent, I always liked western-samuri crossovers, story is pretty bad and uninteresting, people killed your clan, you kill their clan, something about a sword.
--double edit--
One last random note, the main protagonist of Sakura Wars (V) is Shinjiro (Taiga), the final boss and main antagonist of Red Steel 2 is also a Shinjiro... though of course no full name. Yay for random!
Last edited by fireball87 on Sun Apr 11, 2010 12:50 am
And redsteel 2, which I just beat, sword play feels fantastic, still based on prehashed motions, but they all come off well and if I don't do what I want it's because I'm actually doing the wrong motion entirely (I do stabs instead of top down swings due to similarities in the appearance of the logo too often). It's really quite fun though, due to nice smooth controls that rely on you putting movement into it. Environment is decent, I always liked western-samuri crossovers, story is pretty bad and uninteresting, people killed your clan, you kill their clan, something about a sword.
Sounds pretty good. I'm the type whose top priority is gameplay first with story a nearby second, so I'd probably enjoy the game if I ever got it as long as the gameplay's fun.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Sounds good Fireball. I like games that are text heavy with a good storyline and character development. I don't like games that are constant battling. I do like battles but I don't want most of the game to consist of them.
I'd say there's not really anything wrong with cheating if you aren't spoiling the game for yourself and don't want to replay it over and over to see new things. I don't usually use walkthroughs and stuff unless I'm really stumped on what to do.
Usually in these types of games I just play favorites with one or two of the girls and see how it ends up. lol
Sounds good Fireball. I like games that are text heavy with a good storyline and character development. I don't like games that are constant battling. I do like battles but I don't want most of the game to consist of them.
I'd say there's not really anything wrong with cheating if you aren't spoiling the game for yourself and don't want to replay it over and over to see new things. I don't usually use walkthroughs and stuff unless I'm really stumped on what to do.
Usually in these types of games I just play favorites with one or two of the girls and see how it ends up. lol
Yeah, do note they're alot harder to predict then most "dating sim" girls, you have to do a bit more prediction then just being nice. Plus you can't really pick which girls to favor in this case, as in the places you actually get a choice in who to talk to, there's no information on who will be where most of the time, and you have very limited time so you can't just go everywhere. As far as that goes, walk-through tells me who is where and how much I can gain from what, so I'm more or less getting by with the best possible choice and will come off pretty close to perfect in the end... though in reality I'm not sure if I won't hit the perfect wall for my early characters before then, my late characters I'm not even sure if there will be enough time.
Yeah Sakura Wars seems like more of a regular game and your not purposely pursuing one girl for a specific ending with 1 love interest. It's more about building a good relationship with your teammates to help win battles and such.
I'll just be playing favorites in hopes of seeing more scenes with whichever characters i like. Since I enjoy the character development. From the character designs alone that I've seen in the art book I'd have to say I'm most interested in Gemini and Rikaritta with Subaru being a close 3rd. I'll make a more solid decision when I start seeing what their personalities are like in game.
I'll probably be starting the game this Tuesday so I'll let you know what I think of it and how it's coming along.
Recently got Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker along with my new PSP. I'm really liking it so far. Boss fights are a bit tedious, but it just adds more challenge, am I right?
Been playing Dissidia and PSO lately too. Also been working on a project on Sim RPG Maker again with my bro. Not much else to report.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Currently I'm thinking of Deadly Creatures, Monster Hunter Tri, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Pokemon Black and White, Ocarina of Time, Paper Mario, and possibly another copy of Turok Evolution since I miss doing Multiplayer on that game and the disc I have is almost completely destroyed.
Edit: And maybe also Sonic Adventure DX. Before Sonic lost his touch Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2 were among the best games I've seen (Though I honestly prefer the first game due to the adventure mode).
The first Sonic Adventure was probably my favorite of the 3D offerings.
Though I could argue Sonic R was better in my memory for that awesome soundtrack and how much time i spent fooling around with it. All i did with Sonic adventure 1 was Sonic's story and Gamma's story then I was finished with it.
Sonic Adventure was definitely one of Sonic's last good games, imho. Took me a long time to finish it (mostly because of Big the Cat, his stages sucked), but the end product was good (I played both the original Dreamcast release and the Gamecube re-release, btw).
From Sonic Adventure on, it was slowly but surely declining. Sonic Adventure 2, although by no means a disaster of a game, it simply wasn't as good as Sonic Adventure. Being able to play as Robotnik was awesome, but I strongly disliked how Tails was the same thing. Also didn't like how the game forced you to play the three playing styles in each story. And there was Shadow, yet another Sonic rival, which seems to have started the trend of introducing another new one in each game.
By the time I played (and finished) that mess that I called Sonic Zeroes, that was when I said "no more new Sonic games until I've been proven that they can be good again." Haven't bought a new Sonic game since. Although I rented Shadow the Hedgehog to test it a while back, I hated that one more then Zeroes and haven't even bothered to play any of the new games since then.
TL;DR
Since Sonic Adventure 2, new Sonic games have been sucking.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Yeah, I found sonic adventure to be the last good sonic game. I would've likely beat SA2 if it weren't for one simple fact.
Knuckles Treasure Hunting is about the worst gameplay element ever. In SA1 the levels were both smaller and skippable.
In SA2... it just wasn't ever going to happen.
Which is sad too, as SA1 as far as 3d conversions of old series's go was remarkably good.
(shadow sucked too, but atleast his gameplay element (as in sonics gameplay element from the first game, was decent)... tails/eggman was inferior to SA1's e102 as well, and you lost out on the other styles completely, dispite the game trying to act like it was more diverse, despite adding near nothing. The best thing about SA2 was quite possibly the unlockable green hill stage... which also wasn't all that great)
Yeah, I found sonic adventure to be the last good sonic game. I would've likely beat SA2 if it weren't for one simple fact.
Knuckles Treasure Hunting is about the worst gameplay element ever. In SA1 the levels were both smaller and skippable.
In SA2... it just wasn't ever going to happen.
Which is sad too, as SA1 as far as 3d conversions of old series's go was remarkably good.
Nah, Big has the worst gameplay by far. But I can see where you're coming from regarding this. Knuckles/Rouge stages weren't exactly my favorite either, but amusingly I found that they had some of the catchiest songs in the game. Probably why I was able to tolerate them at all.
fireball87 wrote:
(shadow sucked too, but atleast his gameplay element (as in sonics gameplay element from the first game, was decent)... tails/eggman was inferior to SA1's e102 as well, and you lost out on the other styles completely, dispite the game trying to act like it was more diverse, despite adding near nothing. The best thing about SA2 was quite possibly the unlockable green hill stage... which also wasn't all that great)
Yeah, I disliked Shadow in the game. I hated him even more when Sega pulled a Zero with the character in Sonic Zeroes.
Even if it pretty was a watered down version of Gamma's game, I personally think if it was just Robotnik who played that way, I'd be okay with it. Heck, I thought it was awesome when you started the Dark story as Robotnik infiltrating the G.U.N. facility. But having Tails play in the same manner annoyed me, since Tails had not once in any of the other games piloted a machine equipped with weapons.
Not to mention that Green Hill Zone is practically impossible to get via legitimate means. I used a cheat save just to see what it's all about. No way in hell was I ever going to get all of the S rank emblems to play a 3D remake of a nostalgic stage.
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
lol. Whenever I want some Green hill nostalgia it's time to power up the Genesis.
Blast Processing baby!
Indeed.
lol I love Sega's propaganda campaign back in the day. Saying impressive sounding stuff that really didn't mean anything (seriously, what the heck does "blast processing" even mean?).
_________________ The Local Video Gaming Lunatic
Recent stuff I'm into:
Watching: A Certain Scientific Railgun (ep.14, stalled), Hoshi no Kirby (ep. 71, stalled), Nazo No Kanojo X (ep. 8), Acchi Kocchi (ep. 8)
Reading: nothing
Yeah, I like the blast processing stuff, as it doesn't really refer to much of anything. Worse yet when you consider the only commercial I actually remember http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWiOrlTUY_A .
Note something here, you're comparing something which doesn't use any special hardware features (Depending on the debatable meaning of blast processing, it either uses it, but so does many nintendo games, doesn't use it, nor does any gen games, or it's referring to nothing really in specific, according to some slight research...) to something using mode 7, a hardware feature that the snes had no hardware to reproduce.
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