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I finally had a chance to sit down and properly play the next game in the SRW series, although I say that with a pinch of salt since, as well as not being developed by banpresto, the game has almost no connection to any of the other SRW games aside from a few character names and some plot threads.
Most people who know of this game have probably purchased it already but if you are one of those on the fence, I would say rent first, else give it a miss.
Bit harsh but I was rather disappointed with it when I played it.
The good/neutral
- Nice graphics. Plus lots of fanservice in the battle animations
- Voice acting!!! Lots of Engrish!!! YAY!!!
- Battle themes and dungeon music are all remixed versions of popular SRW tracks.
- This game doesn’t use any touch screen features at all!!! Kudos to the developers for not using a feature just because it’s there!
The bad
- This game is a 100% traditional JPRG. That means wandering about on a map with random battle encounters. Not exactly a game breaking problem but I wish they did something different. A valkyrie profile system for the map would have been good (but then, i say that about a lot of games since VP is all kinds of fantastic). But even a simple system where you could see the enemies would have been preferred.
- The combat system! This is where I get the daggers out. Endless frontier was co-developed by monolithsoft, who are famous for their Xenosaga series but they also made Namco X Capcom, a game which, while severely flawed was great fun and tried to do something different with the combat methods by getting the player to interact during the actual fighting. While some of their idea does come out in endless frontier, the execution is sorely lacking. And a good combat system is the basis of a good rpg. If the combat is rubbish, nobody wants to slog it out for the whole game!!
I’m sure that the world is pretty well aquainted with the fact that Europe is pretty much considered the toilet of the video game world. We usually get things much later than everyone else, we get charged more than any other region and ports were, until recently, pretty damn shoddy.
You would have thought that things would change eventually, with the big companies admitting that Europe is becoming more and more important in terms of global sales. But then there came the announcement for Rock Band.
For those of you who don’t know, in the UK, the game is still yet to be released even though the game has been released in the US for ages. Not only that, the game will initially be a 360 exclusive with wii and PS3 versions being released “later in the summer,” code for “September, if you’re lucky!” Coupled with this is the RRP. £50 for the game on it’s own and £130 for the instrument set, with no bundle for the 2 together!!! So thats £180 for the whole thing while over in the US, the full set costs around £85.
Luckily, even the retailers realise that this is a really dumb idea and have created their own bundles and lowered the prices themselves. I mean, Who the hell would want to buy a game which costs more than a freaking console? But the main kicker for me was the “summer” release date for the PS3 version. Having seen the 360 version fail numerous times at the play.com live event last month, I was not willing to risk purchasing gear which could mess up anytime in the middle of a song. Add to that, the RRP and I decided to import a PS3 version as a big F*** you to EA europe and Harmonix for thinking they could get away with that kind of pricing. 3 extra songs don’t come even close to compensation.
And I got it yesterday!!!
Yes it’s awesome. And yes, I didn’t save much in terms of overall costs when compared to some UK deals (in fact I paid a bit more at £160. mostly on shipping) but it was the principle of the whole thing!!
I spent a little more and got (arguably) the superior version, or at least, the most reliable one, several months before release and EA Europe won’t see a single penny from me!! It’s chump Change I know, but I wish that other buyers would rise up and kick them where it hurts them most, their wallets and send out the message that they took things WAAAY too far this time!
They claim that the price is fair due to VAT (17.5%), and manufacturing and delivery costs. If that’s true, then give us a break down and let us decide if it’s fair. As it stands, it looks to the consumer that they’re taking rip-off to a whole new level.
For now, I have rock band, the whole set faster and cheaper than the UK RRP and can buy DLC from the US site. I’d say that’s pretty damn good. so I’ll say this one more time just to make myself feel better…
F**K YOU EA!!!
*rant over*
Bit of a mixed couple of days. As noted on several blogs already, it seems that the last 6 minutes of the next installment of Code Geass was leaked to the public.
According to bandai, it was an error which occurred while they were testing out a part of their bandai channel streaming system. Luckily, for all the Geass fans, it doesn’t seem that it has affected the broadcast schedule so ep 3 will still air this weekend, with only a few minor things spoiled. For example, Rollos Geass is time freeze.
Aside from being a pretty big hax, I expected something like that since watching Ep2. Afterall, a geass does not affect the actual user but allows them to influence others. A geass also doesn’t have any effect on anything mechanical so when the Vincent showed off it’s “teleport” maneuver, the first thing I thought of was “The World,” The stand of the main antagonist in Jojo’s bizarre adventure.
Afterall, it makes more sense that a geass could affect a person and cause him to stop moving temporarily as opposed to a whole knightmare frame teleporting to a safe distance.
And in other news, the next Super Robot Wars game has been announced!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!
Dubbed Super Robot Wars Z (no word if it stands for the last letter of the western alphabet or zeta yet), The game will most likely be the last game for the PS2. Rather fitting considering SRW alpha gaiden was also one of the very last PS1 games to be released.
I’m also glad that they stuck with the PS2 as I would be rather annoyed if they jumped on the wii bandwagon purely because it was the “in thing” like some other franchise (yeah I know they cited high development costs as the reason for jumping ship but then please explain to me why they would start developing a heavily online focused game like monster hunter for a console with by far the worst online system?).
Series confirmed for this outing are:
Overman King Gainer (karaoke, standby!)
The Big O (Woo!!)
The Big O Second Season
Zambot 3
Daitarn 3
Xabungle
MS Z Gundam
Char’s Counter Attack
Gundam X (YES!!!)
Turn A Gundam
MS Gundam SEED Destiny
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger
Getter Robo G
UFO Robo Grendizer
GOD Sigma
Sousei no Aquarion
Eureka Seven
Orgus
Baldios
Gravion
Gravion Zwei
I’m probably in the minority here, but I’m looking forward to beating Shinn to hell and back. I don’t have any love for Kira Yamato but damn I hated Shinn…
And, unless realize comes back as the theme for the seed units, the King Gainer theme is going to be played on a loop while I play!! I mean, come on!!! It’s one of the greatest OPs ever!! It did the “dancing anime characters” bit long before it was considered “cool” in shows like Haruhi and lucky star.
More screens can be found
The release of Triggerheart Exelica on Xbox Live has now been set for tomorrow!!! YAY!!!
It was initially announced last year alongside many of the other shmups, But, for myself, I say you cam keep your Omega five (which was sorely lacking IMO), your Ikarugas and even your Rez. For me , Exelica is where it’s at. I don’t care that it’s been announced for the Japanese Live arcade thus far. That won’t stop me from getting it!
I have a copy of the Dreamcast version and I love it to bits. I suck badly (can only get to stage 4 of 5 before losing all my lives in the space of a few minutes) but damn it’s fun. Music is awesome too. I hope they keep the Dreamcast remixes in there. Gamplay footage from youtube for those interested. Me, I’m just going to download it as soon as I can and see just how much my skill has dropped since I last played this gem!
Way back in 1996, Sonic team released a peculiar game on the now defunct Sega Saturn. That game was Nights into Dreams.
The game centered around 3 characters, the titular nights, Claris Sinclair and Elliot Edwards and revolved around a fairly simple premise of collecting blue orbs in the stage in order to free a captured orb called an Ideya and bring it back to the start of the stage. The game was on rails and played on a 2d plane in a 3d world.
Capable of dividing opinions quite strongly, the game encouraged repeat play and high score collecting in order to improve and progress (the final stage was only unlocked when the played obtained at least c grades on the preceding levels). Nevertheless, the game, like many Saturn classics, has many loyal fans who hoped for a sequel someday. That sequel is Nights: Journey of Dreams.
Although I was very slow on the pickup for the first game (I initially hated it), after a few plays I began to understand why it was so highly regarded in some circles so the news of a sequel of the original for the nintendo wii was met with (mildly cautious) joy. It would not be a stretch to say that the announcement of this game was a major factor in my decision to get a wii in the first place. So how does it fare?
Not too well…
A while back, it was announced that a new Super robot wars game was in development. Dubbed Endless frontier: super robot wars saga, it was going to be unlike any SRW game before it. It was going to be a more traditional RPG like game using characters from the Original Generation universe (or rather, the originals from the SRW compact series) but in a completely different universe. No mecha piloting (although some will be present as allies or enemies). Oh, and there’s some genderbending going on too as the Exellen character is now male and Kyosuke is female.
So far so Meh. but then we found out that Monolith was developing. Those who made Xenosaga and NamcoxCapcom? So what does this mean?
Yup, we get KOSMOS and the 2 original NamcoxCapcom characters Reiji and Xiaumu in the game. Now it’s gone from “meh” to “sort of want.”It hasn’t totally convinced me yet but I think I’ll be keeping a closer eye on this game from now on.
Unfortunately, with the addition of KOSMOS, it seems unlikely that this game will see a western release now as the Xenosaga series are the property of BandaiNamco, so any Western publisher who wants to release the game will need to pony up more cash to get permission. Unless, BandaiNamco decide to release the game, but they didn’t bother with the SRW: OG games, we had to rely on Atlus!!
Japanese import sites ahoy!
Really old news but I completely forgot about this little tidbit of info…
A second promo video for OG gaiden has now been released. The game is still currently penciled in for a late December release, but this is Super robot wars we are talking about…
I’m not sure why, but I’m finding it quite hard to get worked up about this release. Maybe it’s because I have STILL yet to fully complete OGS but gaiden really hasn’t really shown up on my radar. Having said that, the last SRW game to really grab my attention was Alpha 3. But seeing as this is almost certain to be the last PS2 super robot wars game, we’ll see if there are any surprises in store, other than General Dynamic, which I still think is just wrong.
And I did really like the new twin bird stike animation but then i’ve always been a sucker for the wild series.
I sooo need to play this!!
But I get the feeling that a home conversion is a little out of order
http://stage6.divx.com/user/AkihabaraNews/video/1752113/Snejo-no-Kizuna—Banpresto—Gundam
Normally I wouldn’t post something like this…
But this is just INSANE!!!! Check out the final minute and 30 seconds. Words fail me…
Wee!! Super robot wars OGs finally arrived! Actually it arrived a few weeks ago but I wanted to play it a bit before posting about it.
I had actually forgotten about the game since I preordered it last year, when the release date was penciled in for early January after a lengthy delay. It was then delayed once again and left alone until it arrived in the post!
Since SRW games are known for delays, you’d think that I would learn…
In any case, back to the game. For those of you who do not know, the Original generation branch of Super robot wars games is a separate series which have only mecha designed by banpresto, the makers of the game. Each SRW game has at least 1 original unit so they decided to make a game using just those! The original GBA versions are also the only SRW games to be released outside of asia.
But enough of the history lesson, mini review!!!
So, I have joined the ranks of (not so) proud Xbox 360 owners and within 2 weeks, I have also joined the ranks of 360 owners who needed to get their system replaced…
Yay for Microsoft and their shoddy manufacturing. Looks like i’ll need to go back to the retailers to get a replacement but at least I got off light with just 1 console and a disk scratching issue.
Spare some thought for this poor sap who has gone through 12 Systems since it’s release a year and a half ago!!!
The wierdest thing is, the guy says he’s STILL a fan of the system. Now that is something…
suddenly the PS3 looks so much more enticing.
Oh, and for those mildly interested, yes, I will still be sticking with the 360 for a little while longer. My Xbox live gamertag is “gundamjehutykai”
Feel free to try and find me and add me to your friend list. I suck but I’ll be more than willing to go a few rounds with ppl.
