Extra History: The Sengoku Basara Way: Part 3

With Nobunaga dead, the last 2 parts of the Extra History videos cover Hideyoshi, his death and the battle of Sekigahara.  This post is going to be shorter than the other ones because, well, the videos go into a lot of backgrounds that Sengoku Basara chooses to push to the wayside for the sake of an exciting action story, but there is still a fair bit to note.

 

Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura Den

I originally ended my Sengoku Basara retrospective at Sengoku Basara 4 because the main series and all the English media was already covered and the last game, Sanada Yukimura Den, is story-focused when fan translations are already incomplete and sparse for Sengoku Basara 4, which is still more than Sanada Yukimura Den got.  Since then I discovered a miracle.  An app for the iphone that, in a way, breaks through Capcom’s attempt to stop American players from enjoying Sengoku Basara 4: the translate app.

With the translate app, players can take pictures of the screen as the dialogue appears and form halfway comprehensible translation of all the text.  It doesn’t make the Japanese voice acting any better, but with the help of the translation app I can finally understand and somewhat enjoy the stories of Sengoku Basara 4, which, it turns out, are wonderful.  Sengoku Basara 4’s stories have something for everyone.  It has stories that are funny, sad, cute, awesome and everything in between.  It’s a pain to have to take constant pictures of the screen as the dialogue goes along and it doesn’t alleviate the depression of Capcom’s vicious betrayal, but it does make it partially possible to play the game to the potential it was made to be played.

It also means that Sengoku Basara: Sanada Yukimura Den is on the table.  Now that I can understand this more story-centric game, I can give my thoughts on it proper.

Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara 4 (Sumeragi)

I remember where I was when the first trailer for Sengoku Basara 4 was released.  I’ve never been so hyped for a game in my entire life.  No other game can come close to the excitement and anticipation for a sequel to one of the greatest games of all time and everything else in the meantime was just something to occupy me until I could finally play it.

Years passed.  The game came out in Japan, where it was promptly exalted as one of the all-time master works of gaming.  People outside of Japan kept importing it and sang the same praises.  Then the updated version, Sengoku Basara 4: Sumeragi, came out and importers further cemented it as the greatest game of its genre ever made.

I told those people to stop.  I told them to buy the English version when it comes out.  Just like Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, Samurai Kings, Samurai Legends and End of Judgement, Sengoku Basara 4 was going to have an amazing English release and those people importing it were both buying a worse version and putting time into game progress that would not carry over.  That’s what I believed.  Why wouldn’t I?  This was Capcom, the greatest game company there was.  They were on fire in the early 2010s, with hit after hit after hit after hit and the occasional Bionic Commando-shaped fumble, but nobody’s perfect.  I believed in Capcom.

Year after year after year after year after year after year I kept thinking that it would finally be the year we got the English version of Sengoku Basara 4 and that with all that time being spent on it, the English version was going to be as perfect as possible.  They must’ve been doing 100 takes on every single line of English dialogue so that the sound of it touches the pleasure sensations of the brain.  There was going to be more extra content in the English version than the English release of Kingdom Hearts.  I kept buying Capcom’s games, feeding them money, comfortable in knowing it was going into the English version of the greatest game ever created, maybe even the greatest thing ever created in the universe as a whole.

The hype grew with each passing year.  Sengoku Basara 4’s English version is so hyped up that playing it might put someone into cardiac arrest just from starting the game!  I took that built-up hype to every Capcom showcase.  “Maybe we’ll get a release date for the English version of Sengoku Basara 4!”
People kept telling me there wouldn’t be one, but there was no reason to believe that.  Capcom made Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, one of the hallmark titles of gaming.  They gave us that game because they knew the world needed it and not Devil Kings.  There’s no reason why they wouldn’t just do what they already did for one more game.  That would be a complete and utter betrayal to every single Capcom fan.  I made the foolish decision to believe in something.  Never believe.

It took many years for me to realize that Capcom is no longer the good company that gave us Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes.  They have no intention of delivering nirvana to their fans.  Sengoku Basara 4 will never come out in English and they have made it their mission to make their fans as miserable as possible, keeping the English version of Sengoku Basara 4 from them just to watch them squirm.  They are, simply put, evil.

When I came to grips with that, I finally just imported the Japanese version after all those years of hype and it is the single most depressing, soul-crushing game I’ve ever played in my life.  Not because it’s bad, but for the polar opposite reason.

Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes/3

Capcom pretty much perfected the Sengoku Basara formula the first game created with Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes.  After riding that for a few years and releasing a fighting game in the interim, it was time for Sengoku Basara to evolve with the console hardware.  With a new game engine and new play style, the next Sengoku Basara game was indeed an evolution, but the most important evolution of all was that IT’S IN ENGLISH!  IT’S IN ENGLISH!  IT’S IN ENGLISH!  IT’S IN ENGLISH!

They even got T.M. Revolution to do the opening in English!  I don’t blame anyone for thinking it’s not though.

Sengoku Basara Retrospective: Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes

When Capcom makes a hit game, it’s almost a compulsion for them to also make an updated version of it later.  It’s a practice almost synonymous with Capcom and Sengoku Basara 2 follows that tradition with Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes, or at least it kind of does.

That is one of the best openings ever and it made me buy Blade Chord on the itunes store.

Neogeo Arcade Stick Pro Review

Plug-and-play consoles are a great idea on paper: a quick, portable means of playing games right out of the box with almost no other accessories or game cartridges required.  Unfortunately, be it due to the limited technology of their time or just plain laziness, a lot of plug and play consoles aren’t that great.  Over the years the most common ones I’ve seen are the basic Atari and retro arcade games like Pac Man with the occasional Double Dragon or original Mortal Kombat.

The NES and SNES Classic systems caused a bit of a resurgence in retro plug-and-play consoles. After how much demand they got, I started seeing more of the retro Sega Genesis and Atari plug-and-play consoles as well as the PS1 Classic on store shelves.

The Super Nintendo Classic was the only one to catch my interest, but it wasn’t enticing enough to join the rabid fans in hunting one of them down, especially when I already had, or could easily get, the games on it off the WiiU eShop or other ports.  You’d have to put KOF on your retro game system to get me to want it.

Wuzzat.

Top 10 Stupidest Resident Evil Moments

Resident Evil has a reputation for being badly written and stupid, something I don't think it deserves.  The games have more strong emotional moments, badass moments and detailed lore than people give it credit for. Heroes, villains and the monsters in between them are well-established and have some good relationship building and continuity.  I can unironically say that a big part of why I like the Resident Evil games is for the story.

But I cannot pretend that Resident Evil doesn't have its bouts of stupidity, as if the concept of viruses being astoudingly mutagenic weren't outlandish enough.  Bad writing, bad delivery, bizarre concepts or awkward handling of situations are where its reputation comes from and regardless of whether it's exaggerated by the general public, it is still a part of what makes Resident Evil what it is.  As a sort of demonstration and celebration, this is my top 10 stupidest Resident Evil moments.

Odin's Sphere Leifthrasir Review

Odin Sphere, Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Dragon's Crown are sort of a trinity of Vanillaware games people actually care about.  All three use George Kamitami's fantastic artwork and tell classical stories using certain mythological inspirations.  Among the trinity, I've always considered Odin Sphere to be the best one overall, even after playing Muramasa, a faster-paced game on a stronger system.

I got the original Odin's Sphere on a whim.  I was at Gamestop to buy a copy of The King of Fighters 11 and 13, but since there was a buy 2 get 1 free sale on used games I also got Odin Sphere, which I remember being referenced in Nintendo Power as one of the Muramasa creator's previous games.  Essentially I walked out of a store with the two greatest fighting games ever made and a decent action game.

There was a lot to like in Odin Sphere, but technological restraints of the time weighed it down a bit.  It could get too unforgiving, loading times for the pretty graphics added up, some of the enemies required exploiting some kind of arbitrary flow-breaking weakness and the final part of the game, without spoiling anything, is bullshit at worst and vague at best.

I beat it, but never got the best ending, as that required repeating a certain set of missions, refilling the success-critical items for each time and having to wait through several loading times.  If it weren't for all the little problems Odin Sphere had I would've finished it fully.

Even with those gripes it's still my favorite Vanillaware game thanks to its story, a classical mythological tale of dueling kingdoms, dragons, forbidden magic and the underworld told across five different characters with their own play styles.  With the wrinkles ironed out it could almost be considered a masterpiece.

Lo and behold, Vanillaware promised to make it the fantastic game it could be with Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, an HD update to the game for the PS3, PS4 and Vita.  With my fond memories driving me, I got the Vita version, because with Muramasa Rebirth and Dragon's Crown on there, why not complete the set?

Fighting Game Camps: Mortal Kombat: Part 3 (For real this time.)

Continued from part 2.

Music

My brief single sentence describing the music in the April Fools version of this post wasn’t entirely off the mark.  Mortal Kombat’s music is extremely downplayed to the point that you may not even notice there’s music at all.  Where other fighting games have their music bombastic or energizing, Mortal Kombat goes for ambience.  In fact, in Mortal Kombat 9, there’s an ambience meter in the sound options menu.

It’s more akin to tribal drumming than the fanfare of other games.  There’s a lot of fast, looping drum beats, techno synth and long notes without any particular melodies.

J-Stars Victory Versus + Review

J-Stars Victory Versus and Senran Kagura 2 have been my two most anticipated games of 2015.  Both are centered around extreme power-clashing speedline-using shonen badasses on powerful handheld systems, but since J-Stars came out far sooner I counted the days for its release first.  That is, until Bandai Namco told me it wouldn’t be released physically on the Playstation Vita.

Apparently Bandai Namco hasn’t learned what XSEED did after the first Senran Kagura: that forcing customers to download a multi-gigabyte full-retail game on their expensive (especially on the Vita) memory cards through a digital distribution service that may not keep it forever is a really fucking stupid idea!  I wouldn't even be that offended if they didn't release it physically on two other systems and showed that they're perfectly capable of doing so!  Fuck you Bandai Namco!

At that point I should have stopped counting the days and not given in to their stupid fucking digital-only fucking didn’t-learn-anything fucking run-by-lobotomized-chimps fucking bullshit, but if I didn’t review a game synonymous with the word “shonen” I might have this blog’s title called out for being a lie.  So I got the damn thing, with only a Vita theme based on the game that plays its (admittedly awesome) theme song as the background music as compensation for the lack of a physical release’s pre-order bonus.  Fuck you Bandai Namco.

If you can get over J-Stars Victory Versus’ slap in the face for Vita owners and focus on the game as it is, then it’s an amazing action game and for some will likely beat out Super Smash Brothers 4.  The big question is whether or not you can honestly do that.