• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Official hype thread: This is Sakura Wars, and this is why YOU should be excited!!

androvsky

Member
XiaNaphryz said:
Blatantly stolen from the equivalent forum thread over at Penny-Arcade:

I just realized I never really looked at the list of girls in the troupe before.
...
...

Well, I went for Maria and Lobellia in the other games, so looks like Sagitta for me. Bonus points for the probably unintended Johnathon Colton song reference in the dub version of her name. :)

Damn, I'm really missing the girls from the first three now. ;_;
 
Heads up, in the latest Nintendo Power, the one with NBA JAM on the cover, there's a page about the game with two definite Wii shots, because they actually show Wii button icons.

I don't have the issue on me, I just glanced through it at a local store, the graphics didn't seem much different, maybe better lighting but that might've been an attack effect. They were in 4:3 by the way.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Hero of Legend said:
Heads up, in the latest Nintendo Power, the one with NBA JAM on the cover, there's a page about the game with two definite Wii shots, because they actually show Wii button icons.

I don't have the issue on me, I just glanced through it at a local store, the graphics didn't seem much different, maybe better lighting but that might've been an attack effect. They were in 4:3 by the way.

Good to know, I'll definitely have to pick up the issue!
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Impressions from RPGamer.com are up!

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/sakura/sakura5/sakura5imp.html

RPGamer.com said:
The Sakura Wars series is like nothing North America has seen before. While other games try to cross dating sim mechanics with RPG gameplay, nothing completes this merging like Sakura Wars. The only concern I have is the pacing could be too slow for the attention span of today's gamer, but time will tell as the release of Sakura Wars ~So Love, My Love~ nears.

I spent nearly eleven hours in this game and managed to complete only three chapters. Each chapter consists of an exploration and a battle phase, each taking well over an hour to complete. During the exploration, I'm given a specific task and no direction on how to complete it. Need to get somewhere? I must pick one of the female teammates to show me the way. With a series of questions and controller gimmicks called LIPS, I interact with my companion, building a relationship with her and the others, for better or for worse. Discovering the personality of the girl in question is vital, and since they don't like me much at the beginning, things get off to a rocky start.

To begin, I jumped into the role of Lieutenant Shinjiro Taiga, fresh from the Japanese Navy, brought to the US to assist the New York Combat Revue. The only problem is that they requested my uncle, not me. They find my arrival as a mistake, or worse, some cruel joke from the higher ups in Japan. I need to prove that I can be part of the team before they can finish the paperwork to send me back to Japan. I cannot fail.

Once convinced, girls come around and even decide to follow me in battle. Battle is fairly simple. Each person is inside a mech. They have a specific amount of Mobility, which is used for movement, attack, special powers, and defending. There is no grid, allowing free-form movement. Exploration is also allowed, as the overall movement cost is based entirely on the end distance from the starting point, not how much the character moved around the map. This can be exploited sometimes, because it measures distance in three dimensions, so going up the side stairs and coming back close to where the turn started, but one floor up, uses very little movement at all. It has to measure in three dimensions because each mech transforms into flying mode, which is used for fighting bosses.

How much each girl likes Shinjiro affects how well they perform. While the game mentions this is only true for bonding attacks (a linked attack using more than one person's spirit energy), I've found that they perform drastically different with each level of devotion. Just one devotion level difference dramatically improved one girl's attack, defense, and energy on the field compared to the others. This is limiting, as some girls are just harder to figure out than others. Also, if they fall in battle, they dislike me even more, pushing the girl's devotion downward. I can't find a way to save them all, can I? It's the playboy way.

Despite its slow pace, the game has engrossed me. I passed the ten hour mark with ease, barely noticing the time I spent. The girls are all interesting in their own ways, though some of the LIPS systems I could live without. Since they are timed, I need to be quick with my reactions, which for an otherwise slow-paced, casual play style, caught me completely off guard at times. Even so, I look forward to this game's release next month. Finally, North America can enjoy the long overdue arrival of the Sakura Wars series.
 

androvsky

Member
RurouniZel said:
Well, it's pretty over the top in Japanese as well. Hell if it weren't over the top it wouldn't be Sakura Wars.

I'll pluck in the English disc in after I finish the Japanese version and see what it brings to the table.

Yeah, reminds me of how Kohran, the Chinese girl in the first couple of games, had a strong Osaka accent. :)
 
Any idea whats up with Amazon? I just checked my order information for the game (I have had it preordered for a month or so) and it is saying that the release date is 3/31/10 and has a delivery estimate of 4/5/10.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Big Papa Husker said:
Any idea whats up with Amazon? I just checked my order information for the game (I have had it preordered for a month or so) and it is saying that the release date is 3/31/10 and has a delivery estimate of 4/5/10.

Hm, that's odd. Last I checked it's a go for March 23rd. Maybe it's a error in Amazon's system?
 

Volcynika

Member
Date Changed a week later

DATE CHANGE: SAKURA WARS COMING MARCH 30, 2010

Santa Ana, Calif. (Mar 2, 2010) – NIS America announced today that Sakura Wars forboth PlayStation®2 and Wii™ has been rescheduled to 3/30/2010.

For long time fans of Sakura Wars and SRPG fans, the PS2 version will include a special art book, poster, and a collector’s item outer cover. The PS2 version will also come with a double dual layered disc, each featuring the respective voiceovers of either English or Japanese. If you are looking for a killer bargain though, the Wii version will be a single dual layered disc with English voiceovers. This version does not contain the bonus items, but will be offered at an attractive price point.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
Volcynika said:
Date Changed a week later

Thanks for the info! Very important!

Change your calendars dudes and dudettes! One more week won't kill us! (and it's an extra week to allocate my funds XD)
 

InfiniteNine

Rolling Girl
I have this pre-ordered on RosenQueen and looking forward to it! Hoping it will work on a BC PS3 just fine. :lol Going to enter the banner contest as well once I can get some shut eye.
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
AnimeNewsNetwork.com has posted their preview of Sakura Wars: So Long My Love!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the-x-button/2010-03-03

AnimeNewsNetwork.com said:
The Sakura Wars series was once perfect proof that Japan's gaming market was radically different from North America's. In Japan, players thronged around a line of strategy-RPGs with a 1920s setting and copious character interaction. In North America, only a fringe of dedicated fans would want such a thing. So it went for years after the 1996 debut of Sakura Wars, with even ardent RPG experts admitting that there was no chance of U.S publishers translating a niche title so heavy on text, voice acting, and anime overtures. Then things changed. In the past few years, Americans started buying RPGs with dating-simulator elements, from the cult hit Persona titles to Mana Khemia and Ar Tonelico. And just when Sakura Wars was fading in popularity in Japan, NIS America brought Sakura Wars V over here.

Why Sakura Wars V? Well, it's the most recent main Sakura Wars, and it's set in America; New York, to be precise. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, as it's known in North America, also doesn't demand much knowledge of the previous titles, though it opens with Japanese naval ensign Shinjiro Taiga meeting with series heroine Sakura Shinguji and hero Ichiro Ogami (in a Disney-like arrangement, Shinjiro is actually Ogami's nephew). Since this is an alternate version of the 1920s, Japan's military is battling a race of otherworldly creatures instead of brutally subjugating other countries, and Shinjiro is dispatched to join the New York Combat Revue. Like the casts of the first four Sakura Wars games, the New York branch sends transforming steam-powered mecha into battle, and all of the pilots are also actresses at the troupe's theatrical base of operations, the Little Lip Theater.

That name should be warning enough to anyone who cringes at overtly anime-influenced RPGs. If the high-school drama of Persona 4 left you embarrassed, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love will send you shrieking into the street. The series is often described as a mix of dating simulator and strategy-RPG, though it goes well beyond the usual static, pandering stuff of dating sims. It comes closer to an actual anime series in RPG form, with its own story arcs, next-episode previews, and silly, silly melodrama. Of course, it's still driven by conversations with a cast that's mostly women, and Shinjiro can play the flirt as much as the player wants.

And it's the cast that really drives a genre hybrid like this. Introduced to a combat team that was really expecting his more experienced uncle, Shinjiro is initially patronized by his commanders, the vaguely troubled blonde Rachet Altair and the eccentric Mr. Sunnyside. The rest of the team welcomes him in varying ways: Japanese fan-wielder Subaru Kujo is aloof, sickly Diana Caprice is politely supportive, lawyer Cheiron Archer shoves Shinjiro around at every opportunity, café-running hostess Cherry Crocker teases him, and the shy Japanese-American clerk Anri Yoshino seems afraid of him (as though she thinks she's in a much more adult sort of adventure game). Naturally, Shinjiro proves himself by the end of the game's first episode, emerging in command of a bunch of more qualified pilots.

Yet it's samurai cowgirl Gemini Sunrise who carries the game from the start. The obvious main character, she's an endearing example of the cultural mishmash that makes Sakura Wars so guiltily fun. As the first friend Shinjiro makes in the city, she's a whirl of cornball talents and country-girl enthusiasm. This is a game for modern anime fans, however, and so Gemini is also sometimes clumsy and dependent on our hero. Still, she's the most likeable character in the bunch, and it's hard to see any other cast member being the right match for Shinjiro.

Of course, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love lets the player build a relationship with any of the game's six principal mecha pilots, including an apparently platonic one with underage gunfighter Rosarita Aries. Conversations are guided by Shinjiro's player-chosen responses, with the selections being distant, friendly, or crude. Players can also gauge just how forcefully Shinjiro speaks, and that also affects how other characters see him. Forge stable bonds with his fellow pilots, and they'll all improve in battle. To the game's credit, Shinjiro isn't a complete blank for players to control. While his dialogue is rarely voiced, the script tries to define him as an earnest kid out to prove himself, with his minor personality quirks left up to the player.

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love also offers the chance to see 1920s America through the deliberately skewed perspectives of series creator Hiroi Ohji and writer Satoru Akahori (who's done some of his best work on Sakura Wars, though that's not saying too much). While not as hilariously warped as the America of Ohji's Tengai Makyo IV, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love shows a New York that never quite was, and it's fun to see just how it defies history or, in rarer cases, stays true to it. There's a weird appeal to the whole thing, like a Prohibition-era Phoenix Wright game where the legal battles and item searches are less frequent and the innuendo is mostly heterosexual.

There's a strategy-RPG in the middle of all of this, too. The original Sakura Wars was a basic affair, but So Long, My Love loses the grids of the older games in favor of a battlefield where 1920s steam-mecha roam freely. It's still a broadly painted combat system: an energy meter governs movement and actions, though it allows players plenty of chances to take back their decisions. Characters use special attacks based on the specific weapons they wield, and team-up moves require two party members to corner an enemy inside their shared range. It's hardly competition for the latest tactical RPG or real-time strategy title, but it's solid enough. And Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love lets characters transform their robot armor and fight aerial battles. Let's see Final Fantasy Tactics do that.

NIS America rolled out a Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love trailer draped in corny faux-Texan narration last year, causing some fans to vow they'd switch the game over to its Japanese language track. Yet the localization seems an excellent fit for the absurdity of stage actresses piloting Model-T robots through Manhattan. Gemini's voice isn't quite as overblown as it is in the trailer, but it's still peppered with old-fashioned twang and played to amusing extremes by her actress (who seems to be Laura Bailey). The rest of the voices heard in the first few hours past muster, though Cheiron's actress seems to have trouble with a character who's constantly pissed off. The only possible weak part might be Rosarita's, as the few voice clips I've heard (by accident) sound really shrill. At any rate, there'll be a Japanese track in the PlayStation 2 version, with the Wii version featuring only the English voices.

There's another troubling question: will Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love find an audience? It's several years old, and its approach to relationship-based gameplay lags behind the detail and restraint of Persona 3 and 4. Moreover, it's arriving in a month with at least two high-profile console RPGs. Yet there's really nothing like the Sakura Wars brand of alternate history and operatic drama, and it's acutely tailored for the anime-fan crowd. If nothing else, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love will end the PlayStation 2's lifespan on a stylish note.
 

androvsky

Member
Ah, slightly less than a month to go! Then I can go back to bugging NISA about the first four games. :D Okay, so I'm sure I'll really enjoy playing this one too. I have to admit, I've been surprised at how positive a lot of the previews are, even with the caveats of the game being aimed at a very narrow audience.

Btw, is there really still no word about the Wii version getting released in Japan? Makes me wonder if Red somehow wound up with just the overseas rights to the series, since it was Red that approached Working Designs about the original (curse you Bernie Stohlar!).
 

RurouniZel

Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
androvsky said:
Ah, slightly less than a month to go! Then I can go back to bugging NISA about the first four games. :D Okay, so I'm sure I'll really enjoy playing this one too. I have to admit, I've been surprised at how positive a lot of the previews are, even with the caveats of the game being aimed at a very narrow audience.

Btw, is there really still no word about the Wii version getting released in Japan? Makes me wonder if Red somehow wound up with just the overseas rights to the series, since it was Red that approached Working Designs about the original (curse you Bernie Stohlar!).

I get the impression that the reason Red commissioned Idea Factory to port it to the Wii was for the sole purpose of giving it a shot in the West. Japan never played a factor in the decision I think.
 

Edgeward

Member
So how is the difficulty in this? I hope it isn't too hard, especially if I don't get in good standing with most the girls as I'm more interested in the dialogue choices and getting to know the characters side of things, while occasionally feeling like a mech piloting bad-ass.


Great OP, I'm now highly interested in this.
 
Didn't see this posted in this thread, from GameStop.com a picture of the PS2 deluxe version.

2akahcm.jpg


I guess that thing on the far right is the artbook, I was kind of wondering if there was actually going to be an artbook packaged with the game, the official website redirects the artbook to info about the Rosenqueen artbook. Anyways I finally broke down and preordered the PS2 game plus artbook from Rosenqueen. Makes me sad to think this may be the last new PS2 RPG in the US.
 

kiryogi

Banned
rainking187 said:
Didn't see this posted in this thread, from GameStop.com a picture of the PS2 deluxe version.

2akahcm.jpg


I guess that thing on the far right is the artbook, I was kind of wondering if there was actually going to be an artbook packaged with the game, the official website redirects the artbook to info about the Rosenqueen artbook. Anyways I finally broke down and preordered the PS2 game plus artbook from Rosenqueen. Makes me sad to think this may be the last new PS2 RPG in the US.

Wonder if its really an art book. It looks exactly like the theater pamphlet that came with the Japanese limited edition
 
Mandoric said:
I'm not familiar with the actress, but in dubbing Japanese "southern drawl" is usually shorthand for "director can't direct his way out of a wet paper bag with the jaws of life". Especially for energetic characters.

Yeah but it's Gemini Sunrise... I don't think it would make sense for her NOT to speak that way.
 

Koren

Member
kiryogi said:
Wonder if its really an art book. It looks exactly like the theater pamphlet that came with the Japanese limited edition
Yes, that's definitively that... or I would be really surprised.

The pamphlet was really really nice, though. The kind of pamphlet you would truly expect from a broadway theater, even if it's far too "modern" for 1928.
 

Koren

Member
Edgeward said:
So how is the difficulty in this? I hope it isn't too hard, especially if I don't get in good standing with most the girls as I'm more interested in the dialogue choices and getting to know the characters side of things, while occasionally feeling like a mech piloting bad-ass.
I usually find Sakura Taisen being really on the easy side. I know people playing the games without understanding japanese being able to win easily with random answers, and I finished some games using the worse (often also the funnier) answers in the choices.

I think that if you are really not friend with any girls, you may find the game becoming a bit more difficult (depending your familiarity with this kind of SRPG battles), but nothing near to impossible, you'll just need to be cautions, and you won't see the specials attacks.

I'd say that, if it's your first playthrough, try to stay friendly with one or two girls at least, just to avoid too complex situations for battle, and feel free to answer what you want with others.

The game is often giving so funny answers that it can't expect you to always be serious. The battles are nice, but I really feel it as a bonus, they aren't really challenging. I don't remember any game over in ST V (this one).

androvsky said:
Speaking of contests, NISA has another one up: This time, it's a comic contest.

Looks easy at first, given the pictures [...]
Also, I find it a bit on the spoiler side... I think they all come from the game, since I remember many of them.
 

vazel

Banned
Anyone know if more PS2 copies are going to be printed? Fuck I knew I should've gotten this day one.

suicide.gif


Edit: Dammit I thought this was the official thread.

Edit2: Oh thank goodness Gamestop.com still has them in stock. Never thought I'd be grateful to that place.
 
Holy fuck, that Texas accent is AWFUL. I was thinking about picking this up on the Wii (begrudgingly; I'd rather get the PS2 version because I'd rather have a proper controller for an RPG, but they're only releasing the Wii version here), but now I'm not sure I'll bother at all, as that makes my ears bleed.
 

androvsky

Member
vazel said:
Anyone know if more PS2 copies are going to be printed? Fuck I knew I should've gotten this day one.

suicide.gif


Edit: Dammit I thought this was the official thread.

Edit2: Oh thank goodness Gamestop.com still has them in stock. Never thought I'd be grateful to that place.

There might be another PS2 print run, but it'll be without the Japanese disc and other extras. Good thing Gamestop still has some!
Holy fuck, that Texas accent is AWFUL. I was thinking about picking this up on the Wii (begrudgingly; I'd rather get the PS2 version because I'd rather have a proper controller for an RPG, but they're only releasing the Wii version here), but now I'm not sure I'll bother at all, as that makes my ears bleed.
Are you judging from the trailer? Try a gameplay clip, she sounds a lot better in the game. As a die-hard sub-only fan, I'm finding the dub is actually pretty good, at least as of the first chapter.
 

androvsky

Member
Ben2749 said:
Ah, well, that's good to know. Is the voice in that trailer that of a different person altogether?
No, same person, but she's not nearly as over-the-top, at least not early in the game. The voice actress, Laura Bailey, is a Texas native, but she doesn't normally have an accent in her other roles. I'm having trouble finding clips of her character in the actual game though.

edit: Yay, I found a good clip: http://www.youtube.com/user/otakuxgamer#p/c/6F66595C86472EE1/2/tnQaJq0vdpc

She's still very Texas, but... more realistic? Hard to explain. Anyway, if that's still too much for you, there's not much to say except at least it's not some of the Japanese voice actors speaking English. >_< I almost prefer the dub just for Kayama... but at least his is a small role.
 
Top Bottom