Personal

A few games that are scheduled to come out this year that I've had a chance to get some information on this month.

蒼き革命のヴァルキリア

The newest game in the 戦場のヴァルキリア series. I really enjoyed the first and third games (the second was too grindy for my tastes). There's a video available which shows an hour of gameplay, and... wtf. Seriously? This is what's happened to a game that was about tactical gameplay? Something more like, but not quite like, the 無双 games (known in the US as the Dynasty Warrior games)? It just looks... really weird for somebody who was expecting a tactical game. Although I do have to admit that it's pretty, for what it's worth. And to think that I was going to purchase a PlayStation 4 for this game.

逆転裁判6

I actually didn't find out about this game this month, but... whatever! I'm rather excited about this game. And surprised, to be honest, since for the first time, a 逆転裁判 game (大逆転裁判) ended on a cliffhanger, so I was expecting another entry in the spinoff before the main series. But it looks like they're continuing to play around with some of the mechanics. There's no indication that 成歩堂龍一 has access to his mystic abilities from previous games, but 希月心音 has her ココロスコープ, and 王泥喜法介 is still wearing his bracelet for みぬく. Admittedly, one of the real questions is: will 綾里真宵 finally show up, seeing as her cousin 綾里春美 showed up in 5? Still, a day 1 purchase for me!

Baldr Heart [WARNING: 18+ content]

The next 戯画 Team Baldrhead game! True, they're still keeping a lot of the patterns that they've developed (down to the main character having a very human-looking simulacrum [WARNING: 18+ content], but it could still be promising. They're opting for the school setting this time (which they only did part-time in Baldr Sky), although they're still sticking with the (ex-)mercenary past, so we'll see how that plays out. I'm hoping that they can reclaim the arcadiness they lost in Baldr Sky Zero (which reminds me that I should finish that game and BSZ2), just to see how the stories interplay with each other. Still manages to be a day 1 purchase for me, though, if only because of what they managed to pull off with their previous games!

Within the next few weeks, I expect that I'll be back on iOS. It's been a while since I've used it, but I've had experience with a number of different mobile operating systems at this point:

• Android (up through 4.2)
• DangerOS
• iOS (up through 5, occasional exposure up through 7)
• Windows Phone (7)
• Windows Mobile (up through 6.5)

Up until now, I've been using Android on a Samsung Note II. Which has gone reasonably well, but a few things have caused me to give up on Android:

• Replacing the home screen with Google Now.
• My device has been relatively stable... except for the past couple of months, it's been hard-locking repeatedly. Sometimes several times a day.
• I looked at a Note II because it was an attempt at trying something different with a mobile device. Unfortunately, several of the unique aspects just haven't worked out:
  • Stylus: I've barely used it.
  • Screen size: Larger than most phones, but not big enough to use for couch browsing.
  • Popup browser: Although active in Android 4.0, it was disabled in Android 4.2. Unfortunately, one of the things I liked.

In general, though, I've concluded that Android, at least at this point in time, isn't for me. At least some chunk of that is due to Google's business practices (Android is open... except when it's not). So back to a different walled garden for me - but at least it's one that doesn't pretend otherwise.

Hey, look, Baldr Sky Zero 2 [WARNING: 18+ content], which will at least address one of my complaints about the first game by having Meryl as a winnable character. Interesting that they decided to have Shizel as the other winnable character, though - I guess she was a lot more popular in Baldr Sky than I knew? Interesting how they're declaring that this will "complete" Baldr Sky Zero, though, something they didn't state in the runup to the previous game (unlike Dive1, which by the nature of the name, was clear about what was happening).

As if I weren't distracted enough already, there are a few more things I'm keeping an eye out for.

Distraction #3

I'm a Nihon Falcom fan, particularly of their 英雄伝説軌跡 (Legend of Heroes Kiseki) series. The newest installment in the series, 閃の軌跡 (Sen no Kiseki) is coming out at the end of the month (September 26th), and I'm picking up the PS3 copy.

For the most part, from a combat perspective, it looks like things haven't changed <em>too</em> much from the previous games (or at least from 碧), with the AT battle system, Craft/Attack/Arts/Move/Item options, and the Master Quartz system for customization.

But then there's this, which they've added this time around: 戦術リンク機能 (the Tactical Link System), allowing for a few more options during combat (even though they seem to be somewhat QTE-like in the timed button pressing, although at least it's only a single button... unlike elsewhere, where they do have full-blown QTEs). This is built on a relationship model, which looks to be considerably extended from what existed in 碧 (where it only affected which character's events/ending you would see and possibly what items you might get), since they've also added a counter to limit how many events you can get during each phase. Boo.

Nonetheless, I look forward to getting the game. Whether I wait for the strategy guide this time, who knows?

Distraction #4

I've also been keeping an eye on and off on Project Phoenix. The staff on it is fairly interesting, although I'm not 100% impressed by all of the work they've done as some of it's not really to my taste (even if it is a lot of AAA-level stuff).

That said, combat does have some promise. To a certain extent, it looks like an RTS derivative of the Langrisser/Growlanser (although Growlanser seems to have gone in the action RPG direction?), which could be very impressive. Other comparisons could include Studio e-go!'s キャッスルファンタジア〜エレンシア戦記〜 (Castle Fantasia History of Elencia) and トキノ戦華 (Tokino Senka) (warning: both 18+ games, although links are to Wikipedia), although both are squad-based tactical games, rather than real-time tactical RPGs). But, given that it's only just now finishing up its fundraising, I'll need to wait to see how it turns out.

That, and it's hilarious (at least to me) to see Donna Burke listed there. But that's just me!

My weekend hasn't really gone the way I expected a few days ago. There are a couple of reasons for that... distractions, you might call them.

Distraction #1

One of them is this:

A few friends were trying out the beta of the re-released Final Fantasy XIV and said it was pretty good. So, I decided to give it a shot last weekend (beta 3, open) and found that it actually was quite fun. I haven't spent any significant time playing an MMO since the now-defunct City of Heroes, although I tried out a couple along the way that didn't stick, but one of the attractions of Final Fantasy XIV (and XI, to be fair) is that you build up your one character, rather than creating numerous alts.

This is my main. Character name (Lapis Ritter) taken from two different characters from the same game. I leave it to as an exercise for the reader to determine which game. I will say that the (rough) look and the job are appropriate. As a separate aside, I find it entertaining that the Caucasian look for this character is a very Japanese-style Caucasian.

That said, the launch so far is demonstrating that Square Enix (Japan) doesn't know how to hire software engineers who understand the concept of managing load. For an MMO. When their approach for dealing with a heavy load is to reject players because the world queue is putting too much of a load on the server, there's something really, really wrong. It's really a pain in the ass to have to gamble to try to get into the queue to log onto a game.

Distraction #2

And this is the other [WARNING: 18+ content], a demo of which came out just this Friday:

The graphics are quite a bit different than the game it "succeeds" (even though it's a prequel), largely because they've elected to go full-3D this time around.
Mmm... combat. There are a few similarities to the previous game, but quite a lot of differences, too. One major item that you can see here are that the game takes advantage of its 3D nature to zoom in during close-range engagements. Another item, for people familiar with the predecessor, is that you only see six weapons, a major reduction from the twelve that were there before.

A couple of notes about combat:

• As noted above, you only equip six weapons (close/far), rather than the twelve weapons from before.
• On the other hand, you now equip three force crashes instead of one (upgraded to two).
• Each weapon has its own heat gauge, instead of a shared heat gauge. The bar below health is the "armour break" gauge instead.
• Ranged weapons have ammo restrictions. When a weapon runs out of ammo, you have to wait for it to reload before being able to use it again. Even though GIGA was aiming for encouraging long-range weapon use, this is a pretty big detractor.