In the immortal words of Paul Phoenix…

Bring it on, ya aliens! (also, be careful; the embiggened screenshots may have mid-game thpoilerth)

I’m about ready to wrap up my first* playthrough of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and you’ll be happy to know that Earth has been saved from the alien menace.

This time.

Firaxis’s update makes XCOM play a lot like Valkyria Chronicles;** your soldiers can move and then shoot/defend/item/grenade/etc. Different classes (assault, heavy, sniper, medic) use different weapons and have different special abilities. This makes it a lot easier to keep track of who does what – in X-COM, I had to change the characters’ names to indicate what they were best at, which led to soldiers like Col. Wolfgang Krauser 70TU 80AIM.***

The red armor is three times faster than the usual armor.

The strategic layer is more streamlined, too. I would have preferred being able to have multiple available teams (if you build multiple Skyrangers) so that you don’t have to choose between missions. More UFO attacks wouldn’t hurt, either. As the game progresses, it seems like you do a lot of waiting at the geoscape for something to happen (whether it’s an abduction, a terror mission, a council mission, or a UFO). In the original X-COM, the longer the game went on, the more frequent the UFO attacks became, until you ended up getting overwhelmed.

I know 1994 was a different gaming era, but I think that really added to the tension.

Taken as a whole, the updates are generally good. The game is still hard, the aliens are still unforgiving, and your soldiers still die heroic (and sometimes, unheroic) deaths. I’ll probably play Classic next, and then I might even give Impossible a try.

I let a third of the civilians die and it rates my performance as “Good.” Yeah, this is X-COM.

You know, when I have copious free time (which means I can pencil it in for December, I guess).

*For certain values of “first.” I restarted my Classic difficulty Ironman game several times while trying and failing to get a grip on the changed systems, before finally caving in and dropping the difficulty back to Normal (though still Ironman).

**Which played a lot like Sakura Taisen, which in turn played a lot like X-COM: UFO Defense. The circle is now complete!

***Yes, I know Wolfgang Krauser is an SNK character. It seemed like most of the random soldiers I got ended up being German with random German names, and this was all I could think of.

I really should stop doing these tab clearing posts

But they’re great for when I don’t really want to devote a whole post to any one thing (and for when I can’t come up with a substantial post on a real topic!).

Thinkgeek is selling an Aperture Science 1970s era coffee mug. Right down to the retro form factor!

Bill Amend has put together a few Foxtrot collections formatted for the iPad.

The Japanese have gone and made an anime series about a moe anthropomorphization of Nyarlathotep. Because nothing says eldritch horror like taking the Crawling Chaos and turning it into this.

Nihon Falcom has added more details to the Nayuta no Kiseki official site. They’re marketing it as an action story RPG (whatever that is), and have posted character profiles and some battle screenshots.

Sega, Capcom, and Namco are collaborating on a Super Robot Wars style crossover mashup SRPG, Project X Zone. It’ll have Ryu and Ken (Street Fighter), Shinguji Sakura and Ohgami Ichiro (Sakura Wars), Kurt and Riela (Valkyria Chronicles 3), Jin and Xiaoyu (Tekken), KOS-MOS and T-elos (Xenosaga), and Yuri and Estelle (Tales of Vesperia). And that’s not even an exhaustive list!

And finally, Looper comes out this fall, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in an action-packed SF time travel flick. The trailer looks pretty good:

Okay, I’m sold on XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Look at it (part 2 here)!

It looks a lot like Valkyria Chronicles, to be honest (gameplay wise; space marines vs. aliens is about as far from anime WWII as you can get).

Characters have different classes (sniper, assault, heavy weapons), and have different strengths and weaknesses. I was cautiously optimistic before, but now I’m convinced.

Firaxis’ X-COM remake looks like it’s the real deal.

Update: Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a three-part interview with one of the developers; he addresses a lot of the concerns with updating an 18 year old game for today’s market. It’s an interesting look into how Firaxis is updating the series and how they’re changing some of the mechanics.

Valkyria Chronicles 2: portable squad-based tactical gaming at its finest!

I’ve only played through about 20% of the game so far, and I’m enjoying it immensely; when Valkyria Chronicles 2 was first announced, I was thrilled.

Then SEGA announced it would be on the PSP instead of the PS3, and I was disappointed. I was further disappointed when they revealed that the setting would be a military academy, and the focus would be on a class attending said academy.

The gameplay, though, is just as good as the original’s. In each mission, you command a squad of up to 6 characters (including a tank or armored personell carrier) as they fight against fellow students (in training missions and inter-class rivalry matches) and against the Gallian Revolutionary Army that has split the country into three parts in its bid to overthrow Cordelia.

The plot so far hasn’t been that impressive; it mostly serves as a skeleton on which to hang the meat of the game’s real draw: the missions. I’ve completed more than forty, which means I only have another 160+ missions to go before I’ve finally finished the game. By that time, my copy of the third game will have hopefully arrived on the slow boat from Japan.

While for the most part I think the game is great, there are a couple things that bother me.

The first is the small squad size; in the first game, you could have much larger groups of soldiers, and the battlefields themselves were larger. In Valkyria Chronicles 2, you’re limited to a total of six squad members, and can only have five in the same sub-area of the map. I’m sure this was done because of the difference in hardware capabilities, but it’s still annoying to have to transition from one sub-area to another; I preferred the size of the levels in the PS3 game.

The second is the non-mission gameplay; I don’t have a problem with selecting destinations at the academy from the map, but the portraits used to show characters talking are very limited. I think each character has a handful. The voice acting is also greatly reduced from the first game; aside from story related scenes (and battle voices), not much else is voiced.

Finally, I’m annoyed at having to back out the mission select screen to adjust the equipment on my tank (unless there’s some way to adjust it from that menu that I haven’t found). The tank can be equipped with a lantern (for night missions) or a heater (for snow missions), but you only see what the local conditions are after you’ve entered the briefing proper; to equip your tank for the conditions on the ground, you have to back out, change the equipment, and then re-enter the briefing.

The difficulty is fairly consistent, though some of the story missions are harder than they ought to be for their place in the game.

Those problems aren’t enough to detract (too much) from the experience, though. If you liked the first game, this is a credible sequel. If you never played the first game, then it might take a few battles to get used to the system, but even then you should be enjoying yourself before too long.

Decisive Battle

Just because I haven’t finished Valkyria Chronicles 2 doesn’t mean that I can’t listen to the music! The sequel builds on the quality strategy franchise the first game established, with changes made to accomodate the portable console; maps are smaller, and the graphics aren’t quite as nice.

SEGA also added in the ability to specialize your troops; instead of just the four classes in the original (scouts, shock troops, lancers, and engineers), you can customize your soldiers to better fit your command style.

Two years after the events in Valkyria Chronicles, the Principality of Gallia is still reeling from the war with the Empire. A rebel army has begun purging the small country of anyone with Darcsen blood, and it eventually falls to the main character and his classmates at the Royal Gallian Military Academy to defend the country against the new threat.

Sakimoto continues to compose suitably martial tracks for the series; while he might not be a great fit for Final Fantasy, he definitely has a gift for military-style music.

In spite of the hype and fanfare

I have not yet bought a 3DS. I’m planning on stopping by Best Buy tomorrow; if they’ve got a demo unit set up, I’ll give it a whirl. Unless it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, I don’t see myself buying one.

Even if, as Kotaku claims, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is X-COM: UFO Defense (minus the aliens, of course). Initially I didn’t think that any of the launch games sounded interesting, but a real X-COM game (as opposed to the horrible, horrible FPS update that’s in the works) gets my squad combat strategy juices going. Fantasy SRPGs are fun and all, but opportunity fire and cover are even better (for a console strategy game with both of those, I recommend Valkyria Chronicles; if you can put up with the anime-style art and character-driven story, the gameplay will not disappoint).

I get the feeling that a lot of the games are going to depend on gimmicks; the DS was the same way when it was first released. In Steel Diver, if the player spins in a circle (like in a swivel chair), the submarine’s periscope will rotate. Since the game was originally a tech demo at E3 in 2004, I doubt that it pushes the 3DS envelope; it’s probably been just updated enough to release as a full game, a la Luigi’s Mansion.

Super Street Fighter IV is supposed to be the best example of what the 3DS can do, but even it has problems; the backgrounds are static and lifeless, and the over-the-shoulder angle (as opposed to the traditional side-on camera angle) makes judging distance impossible.

I also have it on good authority that Pilotwings Resort is fun; my friend and newly christened fly-jin Dan has been playing the Japanese release on his Japan-region 3DS, and claims that it’s great.

I don’t know that I’ll get a 3DS any time soon, but it’s a pretty sure bet that I’ll get one eventually; I assure you, gentle reader, that I didn’t make this post and fill it with Amazon affiliate links in a blatant attempt to capitalize on inevitable launch day traffic. Why, the very idea is absurd! Such blatant shilling would be completely out of in character!

Er.

So, how about that weather?

Update: After playing around with Best Buy’s demo unit for a few minutes, I can definitely say that the 3D is impressive. On the other hand, I was decidedly less impressed with Pilotwings Resort; it’s basically a 3D handheld port of the plane flying games (it’s no flight simulator, trust me) included in Wii Sports Resort. They only had the one demo unit, and it only had the one game, so I don’t know if any of the other games are any good. If you’re curious, head to a Best Buy (I imagine Gamestops will have demo units set up, but I haven’t seen for myself) and try it out.

Main Theme

Valkyria Chronicles marked a return (in spirit, at least) to the dramatic strategy gameplay that SEGA did so well in the Sakura Wars games; this time on the PS3.

We follow Welkin Gunther, a young man called up into militia service when the neighboring empire invades his country, the Principality of Gallia, to kick off an alternate European War in an alternate 1935.

Welkin is given command of a small force (his father was a famous general in the first European War), and adeptly uses his scouts, assault troops, lancers, and his tank to win victory after victory.

Of course, this being a video game, that’s not all that’s going on; there are plots within plots, and ancient races with magic powers face off against tanks the size of battleships.

All the while, martial music plays…

Namco doesn’t need the US market

Not when Japanese fans will fork over ¥400 per Tales of Graces F downloadable character costume.

They probably have some underpaid flunky code those up in an afternoon, and then sell the full set for half the price of the actual game; when they finally finished making costumes (I think they’ve finished, anyway) for the PS3 port of Tales of Vesperia, I think the cost of the costumes was more than the cost of the game.

Namco has done this before; the DLC for the PSP iDOLM@STER releases totaled more than the cost of the actual game.  I think the cost discrepancy was even more glaring with the 360 edition.

It makes sense that they would focus their efforts on nickel and diming their Japanese fan base with DLC instead of localizing the Tales games for foreign release; I don’t think the series has ever done as well outside Japan.  Their focus on DLC gets them a good return on a minimal investment, whereas localizing the games for release abroad could prove chancy should they not be well-received.

Of course, that’s not what non-Japanese fans want to hear.  Unfortunately, the poor reception of Tales in the US (relative to Japan) has made it less likely for future games to be released here; those that do get released will probably continue to under preform versus the Japanese releases, making it even less likely that the next game will be localized, and so on.

There really isn’t any way I can see to improve the situation; I bought the US release of Tales of Vesperia when it was released, and the Japanese PS3 rerelease.  I had hoped that the PS3 edition would make the jump across the Pacific, but it was not in the cards (a shame, since many people only have one major console, and I imagine many JRPG fans gambled on the PS3 over the 360, given its track record in the previous two console generations).

Tales of Graces hasn’t even been mentioned for prospective release in the US (in either the PS3 update or the original buggy Wii edition); since Tales of Xillia is initially being released on the PS3 (instead of first on one of the other two consoles, with a “complete” edition on the PS3 to follow), it’s marginally more likely that it will be localized for sale in other regions than Japan.  If it does, I’ll probably pick up a copy (not that any foreign release will be any time soon; the Japanese release doesn’t have a date beyond 2011 at this point, so I’d imagine the soonest any English version could be released is 2012) if only pour encourager les autres (I did the same with the Japanese and English releases of Valkyria Chronicles).

In the mean time, though, I’ll try to maintain my Japanese skills; after all, it’s one thing to be optimistic regarding an English release, but we would do well to prepare for the worst.

Again, SEGA? Really?

Do you hate your fans that much?  I mean, sure, making Valkyria Chronicles into a PSP series is one thing, but giving up consoles completely and going to a browser based experience for the next Sakura Taisen game?

Did your dog die and are you taking it out on us?

I mean, sure, Kimi Aru ga Tame was terrible, but at least it was still on a console.  And it’s not like no one wants a real Sakura Taisen game; in a Famitsu poll from last year, it topped the list of games people want sequels for.

The offshoot games (Mysterious Paris and Kimi Aru ga Tame, mainly) haven’t done as well as the main titles do; they’re practically completely different games, and if they keep making niche titles instead of a real Sakura Taisen VI, then SEGA will be killing the franchise with the death of a thousand cuts.

On the other hand, given what they’ve done to Sonic the Hedgehog, maybe they *want* to kill their beloved franchises.

More Tokyo Game Show stuff

Like the trailer for Studio Ghibli’s (with Level 5) PS3 RPG Ni no Kuni!

The trailer for Valkyria Chronicles 3: Unrecorded Chronicles is intriguing, too; they’re taking a darker look at the world this time (though just about anything would have been darker than making another academy story like the second game was).  I’ll have to go back and watch it a couple more times to be sure, but I think this game is taking place concurrently with the first game, and isn’t actually a true sequel.

The splash at the start of the video says that they’re expecting the game to hit retailers in Japan on January 27th of next year.  I’m surprised they kept the lid on it this long, if the projected release date is only four months away.