#I might make a sequel one day with their full and fully evolved teams

[smash-64]

2023 Game of the Year Countdown #5 Pokemon Trading Card Game  (and also the Pokemon Trading Card Game Neo! romhack by Cataclyptic that added Gen 2 Pokes) Nintendo GameBoy Color, 1998

This entry will include two games, but one is simply a romhack by a fan. However, that romhack is probably the best romhack I’ve ever played. First, the original.

Pokemon Trading Card Game came with the addition of GameBoy games to the Switch online subscription, and for many, it was their first experience with the TCG. My best friend and I taught ourselves to play back in the day, but we were poor kids with little allowance to spend on cards and never had any good decks. I used to read about really expensive decks filled with holographics and rares that won tournaments and always wished I could make one of my own. The pinnacle was always the Haymaker deck: a deck built around a few Pokemon with high HP and cheap attacks that could KO opponents before they could do anything about it.

The thing is, the Haymaker deck is so hilariously powerful, you can essentially stomp the CPU without even putting together a complete version of the deck. The best versions rely on Energy Removals and Super Energy Removals to hamstring opponents, and Gusts of Wind to force your opponent into switching to suit favorable matchups. I never pulled a single Super Energy Removal at all, and was lacking full sets of numerous Pokemon that were staples in the Haymaker deck, yet I was still able to absolutely blast the CPU. It was easy, but it was also fun.

However, the true experience came from the romhack created by Cataclyptic. The romhack creates a full set of new cards, removing most of the old ones from Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil. Instead, we get all the Johto Pokemon, as well as a few returning cards that have been balanced. I found the balanced cards to be wonderfully tailored to be good, but never TOO good. It was surprising to see that almost every card felt useful. Many were based on other cards, and I fell into a Meganium and Bellossom deck. There were two Meganiums, with one able to heal status conditions and the other able to shuffle energy cards among your Pokemon. Meanwhile, Bellossom was clearly based on the Do the Wave Wigglytuff of Jungle lore. However, this Bellossom felt more balanced since it was a stage 2 evolution, and the attack required grass energies, not colorless. As a result, it took longer to both fully evolve, and power up your Pokemon, since you couldn’t utilize the Double Colorless Energy.

I was also a fan of Jumpluff, as the entire evolutionary line only required a single grass energy for every attack. As a result, you had a whole line of Pokemon that felt true to their original design of being lightweight, quick Pokemon. I loved the attention to detail on this sort of thing.

Additionally, the cards themselves were created in the same GBC sprites that the original game had. Some look better than others, but I think almost all look better than their original counterparts. Clearly crafted with love by Cataclyptic.

Finally, before I get inundated with messages and comments telling me about the official TCG sequel that was only released in Japan, I did also try the fan translation of that game. However, I didn’t enjoy it much at all because they severely restricted so many things. Part of what was fun about the game to begin with was being able to get booster packs at a rate significantly above what my poor childhood self could afford. However, the very premise of Invasion of Team GR! is that they’ve taken all the Pokemon cards, making them very scarce. As a result, you can’t get cards nearly as easily. And with the extra sets added to the game, you can’t get the ones you want very easily, either. 

Additionally, the entire strategy behind most of the Team Rocket cards is to disrupt play, and while that might be similar in one way to the Haymaker strategy I previously praised, the Pokemon themselves are all pretty weak. It feels like you’re just playing Trainer cards and nothing else. I’ve seen some strategies that make people discard most of their deck instead of KOing their Pokemon. It very much fits the MO of Team Rocket, but it just isn’t quite for me. However, if you like blue decks in Magic the Gathering, you might enjoy this one. 

If you like the TCG or the original game, play Cataclyptic’s romhack! I’d buy a physical cart of it, if I could.

[letterboxd]

Loopy.

Andy Siara, writer of time-loop romcom Palm Springs, talks to Ella Kemp about having one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, and the expansive magic of being a ‘desert person’.

If you could re-live a perfect day again and again, would you do it? Would you be alone, or would it be better if your favorite person in the world was with you? Would the endless company, repetitive and increasingly claustrophobic, make you snap?

There’s a reason that time-loop movies tend to favor loners: watch as the hapless hero has to figure out the meaning of life! Harold Ramis’ 1993 comedy Groundhog Day is the gold standard for the device—Bill Murray trapped in a bizarre national holiday that’s become a universal adjective (which feels especially apt now). But Palm Springs, the new film from The Lonely Island comedy team, finds a way to dismantle the genre, play around with the ingredients, and cook up something entirely new.

There is still a time loop, we’re all still stuck, but here’s the thing: we’re stuck with two people now. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are wedding guests Nyles and Sarah—he, someone’s random boyfriend people pretend to know; she, the reluctant maid of honor and sister of the bride. Through one freak twist of fate involving a cave, they end up reliving the same wedding day, taking advantage of the daily ‘reset’ to throw as much life at the wall as they can, while probing every possible escape route.

It’s a first for the genre, and a first film for the writer-director team (Samberg produces the film alongside his Lonely Island brothers Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, who have years of glorious Saturday Night Live sketches and comedy specials under their belts). Director Max Barbakow cut his teeth making short films for the past decade—just like his closest collaborator, debut feature screenwriter Andy Siara.

Barbakow and Siara developed the story together over five years, and then Siara turned it into the fast-paced, razor-sharp, at once feather-light and often deeply moving script that became Palm Springs.

Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg in ‘Palm Springs’.

A quick scan of Letterboxd activity finds plenty of fans already. Jacob recognizes the paradoxical brilliance of the film, calling it a “high-concept romcom that wears its influences on its sleeve”, while still praising how it’s “so smart moment to moment that it absolutely feels like its own original story”. What makes this so special, so fresh—a movie about one day on repeat, released during, you know, a global pandemic, that neat event that makes so many homebound days blur into one—is just how much heart it has. “The little moments, the little cues, the timing,” Neema Sadeghi points out. “Everything felt so right and my heart was so so warmed.”

The following interview contains discussion of plot points and soundtrack choices, and has been edited for clarity.

Could you tell me about your relationship with Groundhog Day, before and after writing Palm Springs? Andy Siara: Before and after, I still consider it one of the greatest, if not the greatest comedy of all time. Doing a time-loop thing in this movie was never initially the idea, five years ago when Max and I first started talking about it. It organically evolved to that point. What was helpful to me was thinking about how at the end of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character figures out the meaning of life, to a point, and it ends with the time loop breaking. In our film, Nyles figures out whatever he thinks the meaning of life is, and at the end, nope, the time loop doesn’t break, you’re still stuck here for eternity. So then what do you do? That became the jumping off point. Palm Springs is potentially a sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist, and that helped free myself of repeating too much of what the time-loop genre, and especially Groundhog Day, has done so well.

If the time loop wasn’t the starting point, what was? Nyles. Max and I knew we wanted to do a tiny-budget movie in Palm Springs. We didn’t know what that was, but the first idea was of this character of Nyles. We never outlined anything, so we let the character lead the way. In doing that, I got a full grasp of who he is on a deep level and everything else built from there. We never once were like, “This is a wedding time-loop romcom about two lost souls!” Max and I joked that the earlier version of this was our version of Leaving Las Vegas. The story grew from Nyles, thinking: ‘What is the best way to deeply challenge this flawed character?’ And that’s where we came up with Sarah, who became even more fully realized. And the best way to challenge her was Nyles. Putting those two characters together and seeing the friction it causes, the story grew around that.

Their dynamic, and the film more broadly, feels very philosophical. I’m thinking of a line like “Your best bet is to learn to suffer existence”. When you were writing, were there any conscious thinkers you wanted to incorporate? Max and I talked a lot about Albert Camus, and Jorge Luis Borges… but when I got to actually writing, Max gave me his copy of Be Here Now by Ram Dass. His copy, when he gave it to me, had over 100 Post-it notes. We’d talked in abstract ways in a philosophical sense, about individuation and what not. But every day before writing I’d take Be Here Now and open up at any page, read a page to kickstart the day. I think even that idea of suffering existence, that might actually be in Be Here Now…

Quyen Tran (operating camera) and director Max Barbakow (right) on the set of ‘Palm Springs’.

It felt so refreshing to see these characters delivering such epic lines seriously, but the film never becomes somber or dramatic. It stays light. Comedy is balanced with sincere emotion so well—especially when it comes to romance. In a scene outside the cave, when Nyles is giving his big speech, he says, “I’d rather die with you than live in this world without you.” Reading this out of context, it could be from an epic romance. How did you manage to marry the wit with such big feelings? That is one of the lines that, read out of context, could feel heavy-handed, so I appreciate that! From the get-go, it was important to set the tone of this movie, that we will never take ourselves too seriously. Max and I would joke about having one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave, being able to go from slapstick to serious was always an important tonal shift for us. There’s a silliness to the movie, and so therefore with those lines, my hope is that even in reading the script, by the time you get to a line like that, you as a reader would know what Nyles is like in your mind. Also, I credit Andy Samberg for knowing how to deliver lines like that without them feeling cheesy. When we first met Andy and the Lonely Island guys, he understood this character, by the end better than I did. The character was just words on a page, a figure that existed in my mind. He created this character.

What did you learn from working with the Lonely Island guys, in terms of taking inspiration from their comedy experience while creating something brand new? By the time it got to them, the script was finished to a point that I was happy with. But Max and I didn’t know that much! So those three guys, and Becky Sloviter who was the producer for them, they know so much more than we did. We were able to not only on the practical side make people want to make this movie, but also on the other side, I’d say primarily in third-act stuff, they helped me dig deeper, and find a satisfying conclusion to the movie where the earlier version of the script just wasn’t as satisfying—you still got to the point, but we were able to mess with the mechanics a little bit more. And they got me to dig deeper on the science part too, where I let this journey into the subconscious via a Jungian, individuation approach maybe take hold a little too much!

I’m not very familiar with Palm Springs as a place. What was the appeal to build everything around this specific location? Both Max and I grew up in Southern California, and since the late 1980s I’ve been going to Palm Springs every year—my aunt had a condo out there. The place is a primarily LA retreat, with golf courses and retirement communities. Over the years, it’s just become a place for a lot of weddings to happen. So there’s that side, my own personal history of having seen the change and having gone there so many times over the past 34 years. I remember camping trips to Joshua Tree [National Park]—and I also got married in Palm Springs and went out to countless friends’ weddings there. But then also, I think there are mountain people, desert people, city people. I think I’m a desert person. There’s this mass openness that I find has a magical quality to it. Even if I don’t believe in magic, there’s somehow a magical solitude that comes in the desert. And there’s all sorts of literature, even going into pseudo-science, that is centered around the desert. Specifically the one surrounding Palm Springs.

Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti in ‘Palm Springs’.

It feels like a blank canvas on which anything can happen—and if anything, having more space can make you more anxious about being trapped there. I agree. And I had written two Gram Parsons songs into the script, and he was also drawn to the desert in the 1970s, [the] Joshua Tree area. He wrote a lot there with Keith Richards. There’s some kind of draw to the desert that I don’t totally understand to be honest, it’s on a deeper subconscious level that it strikes that chord for me.

Speaking of the music, the film has so many satisfying needle drops. I’m thinking of Leonard Cohen’s ‘The Partisan’ and then Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’ in that amazing final scene. Were these written in from the start? A lot of songs were written in from the start that didn’t make it in for various reasons. ‘Cloudbusting’ came up in our first or second meeting with Andy—it was his idea and we were like, that’s perfect! Andy and Max [and I] all wanted to make sure Palm Springs didn’t use songs we had seen a million times in other movies. It was so important to us. And then we also wanted songs that spoke to a more magical quality too. I think the Leonard Cohen one was Cristin’s idea, so it was a very collaborative field, but we all knew what kind of stuff we wanted. It was about thinking, let’s try and find a sonic happy place.

What film first made you want to be a filmmaker? Jurassic Park is my number one. It made me want to do everything.

Related content

A list of films set in and around Palm Springs.

More films produced by The Lonely Island

A list of time loop, paradox and causality movies

‘Palm Springs’ is streaming on Hulu from July 10 and screening at select drive-ins. With thanks to NEON.

[rockrevoltmagazine]

AWAKE AT LAST Taps Spencer Charnas for "The Change"

Dover, DE based Dark Pop / Hard Rock Band AWAKE AT LAST has released a vivid visualizer for their single, “The Change (Feat. Spencer Charnas).”

“‘The Change’ is anthemic and bold. It’s a call to arms to our listeners to not only make a change in themselves to pursue more fulfilling lives, but also to lead by example and BE the change in the world that show’s others they don’t have to be afraid to make the transformation themselves.””I can’t wait to finally release the title track of this amazing record we’ve worked so hard on.” – AWAKE AT LAST

Click HERE to Pre-Order The Change Online!

Catch AWAKE AT LAST Live with Famous Last Words, Dayshell & At My Mercy and Eyes Set To Kill & Rivals on 2019 Tour Dates

AWAKE AT LAST with Famous Last Words, Dayshell, and At My Mercy: 05/10 @ Legends Bar and Venue – Convington, KY 05/11 @ The Champ – Harrisburg, PA 05/12 @ Alchemy – Providence, RI 05/13 @ Revolution Music Hall – Amityville, NY 05/14 @ Kingsland – Brooklyn, NY 05/15 @ Championship – Trenton, NJ 05/16 @ Canal Club – Richmond, VA 05/17 @ Drunk Horse Pub – Fayetteville, NC 05/19 @ Soundbar – Orlando, FL 05/21 @ Crowbar – Tampa, FL 05/22 @ Connect Live – Acworth, GA 05/24 @ House Of Rock – Corpus Christi, TX 05/25 @ Dirty Dog Bar – Austin, TX 05/26 @ Prophet Bar – Dallas, TX 05/27 @ 89th St Collective – Oklahoma City 05/28 @ Fubar – St Louis, MO 05/29 @ Vaudeville Mews – Des Moines, IA 05/30 @ Amsterdam Bar and Grill – St Paul, MN 05/31 @ Annex – Madison, WI 06/01 @ Citadel – Indianapolis, IN

AWAKE AT LAST with Eyes Set To Kill and Rivals: 06/28 @ Let There Be Rock School – Frederick, MD 07/01 @ Bungalow – Manchester, NH 07/02 @ Alchemy – Providence, RI 07/03 @ The Cave – West Haven, CT 07/05 @ Mohawk Place – Buffalo, NY 07/06 @ Crofoot Ballroom – Pontiac, MI 07/07 @ Rockpile – Toronto, Ontario 07/08 @ Rockpile – Ottawa, Ontario 07/09 @ Salle Multi – Quebec City, Quebec 07/10 @ Piranha Bar – Montreal, Quebec 07/11 @ Montage Music Hall – Rochester, NY 07/12 @ INKCarceration Fest – Mansfield, OH

Click HERE for Additional Tour and Ticketing Information

Both as a band and as individuals, Awake At Last continue to stand for positivity, spirituality, self-help and making an impact every single day. Returning with their debut full-length release, The Change, they have never sounded more confident, more energized, or been more determined to reach out to those who might be struggling in the world. The Change releases June 21st via Outerloop Records. “We pushed ourselves to our limits as songwriters,” states guitarist Imran Xhelili. “There is more variety on this record and there are songs that lean in a heavier rock/metal direction with other songs being a lot lighter and more dynamic. All of the choruses on this album have huge hooks, and there are more sections that are less guitar heavy and carried by different elements, like pianos and orchestral instruments.

The lyrics are also more direct in how they carry across the messages we have always had at the forefront of our music.” While making waves with their previous output, this combination is the sound of a band who have truly come into their own. From front to back, every song carries a message of hope. Having commenced writing for it even before the release of their Life/Death/Rebirth EP in 2016, the finished result is not something that came easily. “We all had demons we had to battle mentally and physically,” explains vocalist Vincent Torres. “You wouldn’t believe the pressure that comes down on you when you begin the process for a full length record. After we pushed through the turmoil and embraced the wonderful things that came as a reward it became pretty clear that what we had made should be called The Change. I think this is a perfect name, because it represents the spiritual evolution that we all went through.”

Having achieved a lot in 2018, including a stint on the final run of the Warped Tour – commencing the day after they finished tracking The Change – appearing on the iMatter Festival alongside Underoath and August Burns Red and opening for Asking Alexandria in Louisville, Kentucky, the band are striding into the fifth year of their existence on a high. The first taste of the record is single “Dead Generation”, which stands as a wake-up call, urging everyone who hears it to stand up and speak with their own voice, rather than becoming part of said dead generation. This perfectly represents both the band – rounded out by guitarist Eric Blackway, bassist/vocalist Tyler Greene and drummer Jon Finney – and their core message, continuing to place their fans first, and wanting to do all that they can to help improve their quality of life. “I want people to understand the symbiotic relationship between a band and its fanbase and I want them to feel like they’re along for the ride with us,” Torres states. “We are a band that is built on the foundation of endurance and perseverance, and nothing we’ve accomplished has been easily accessed. I want our fans to know that the reason we are able to live this dream is because they continue to support us and allow us to do so, but most of all I want them to understand that whatever it is that nurtures their soul can also be obtainable if they strive for it and believe in themselves.” Xhelili expounds on this, noting “As individuals, it can feel hard at times to find our own identity and our individual greater purpose. It all may feel rather heavy and bog us down constantly. However, we are here to take a stand and try to rise above all of that and be a respite for all of the darkness around us, as a shining light.” The casual listener also might be unaware of the interconnectedness of Awake At Last’s releases, with Torres explaining that there’s a deep-rooted storyline following a character on their journey through multiple lives.The Change in fact serves as a direct sequel to Life/Death/Rebirth. “The being who experienced the afterlife in Life/Death/Rebirth is reborn into a new vessel in The Change, but in order to interrupt the endless cycle of life and death they’ve been going through they attempt to imbue their new vessel with all of their cellular knowledge. They believed that by doing this the vessel in The Change could bring about a great revolution in the world and finally end the process so the soul may finally rest. What happens next is yet to be determined.”

The album was produced by Kile Odell of Failure Anthem and Josh Landry in Greensboro, NC, the energy and the dynamic of the team essential to shaping the record into its finished product. With Xhelili admitting the pressure of making a full-length was nerve-wracking, he also claims that this nervous energy helped them nail it down. “We all were striving and yearning for this to be the biggest and best album it could be and we all walked away very proud and satisfied with the end result.” For Torres, the process was not an easy one, the sessions taking a toll on him, having his lyrics chopped and changed by the production team after extensive demoing not something that immediately sat well with him. “It was hard fought but after all was said and done I’d learned so much about taking many words and turning them into poetry, and I believe the sessions made me a much better musician and songwriter. After some push and pull I think the compromises made created the perfect record and I think you can feel some of that struggle in the music, but also feel how to get through it.”The Change also marks the band’s transition from a fully independent band to one partnered up with Outerloop Records, which is a landmark event in their story. This partnership has allowed the band to make the album they want, and having the backing of a label will allow them to spread their music far further than they could with previous releases. “They believed in the vision we were striving for and we signed with them for this record to see the vision come to life,” explains Torres. “It is a bit of an adaptation process when you go from being completely DIY and independent to having a team behind you, but overall it’s really cool to be able to bounce ideas off of multiple sources and work with some amazing people who want the same thing that we do.”

As they continue to build momentum, the quintet’s ambitions remain true to their original aspirations: wanting to establish an even stronger connection to their fanbase. “I want to create a movement where individuals from all walks of life can come together and support one another as we continue to evolve and make changes in order to pursue fulfilling lives,” states Torres. Given the demons that had to be battled and overcome to reach this point it’s unsurprising how eager they are for people to hear what they have achieved. “This is the moment we’ve spent years working towards and these are by far the strongest Awake At Last songs we have written,” says Xhelili. “I feel proud of every single song that made the record and there is no filler. This is an album the fans can listen front to back and be immersed in the underlying concept and themes that tie it all together.”

Connect with AWAKE AT LAST: Official | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

AWAKE AT LAST Taps Spencer Charnas for “The Change” was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

[aurelliocheek]

The Making of Frostpunk: Interview with 11 bit studios

Dress warmly for our story about an extraordinary game.

Frostpunk is world’s first society ­survival game. Developed and ­published by 11 bit studios, the ­Polish makers of the fantastic This War of Mine, ­Frostpunk was released 2018 for PC and 2019 for consoles. Gamers around the world celebrated Frostpunk for its outstanding atmosphere, great steampunk look, and addictive build-up sim gameplay with moral choices to be made that sometimes make the player’s throat closed. A few days ago 11 bit studios released the new DLC The Last Autumn, a big expansion with a prequel scenario, new technology trees and resources, new buildings and a lots more. For our cover story a few developers wrote excellent articles about the unusual genre mix, the social aspects and the outstanding art design. In addition, Development & Art ­Director Przemyslaw Marszal, Development & Design ­Director Michal Drozdowski and Partnership Manager Pawel Miechowski took the time for a ­detailed interview. Let’s start with this!

Making Games: This War of Mine was a great success and instantly placed you on the international map of game developers. Instead of repeating the success with This War of Mine 2, you chose a completely different game and a completely new story instead. Isn’t that a bit crazy? Przemyslaw Marszal: It might seem like this when looking from a distance. But ­doing it the other way – making This War of Mine 2 right away would be much crazier. Why? Because, after the first one we were very ­tired. Especially tired emotionally. This game required so much attention to ­war-­related details, so much of this emotional understanding that it was just too much near the end of the development cycle. So sure – we felt that This War of Mine put us on the map in a very good spot to do a sequel. But at the same time, we felt we needed a change, and this feeling gained the upper hand. So we looked for the next topic. The one that, we thought at the ­beginning, could be less dramatic, less serious and harsh. The one that will let us think more about its core gameplay ­systems or its art style. That’s how we came up with an idea of steampunk city-builder. Yet, after about eight months of development, we started to understand that we just can’t do a game without a message, without a meaningful root that will be something we want to tell about. That’s how Frostpunk was born – a game about society adaptation in survival times. One more thing is crucial. Probably right now, I can say This War of Mine was an artistic statement touching the problems of civilians struggle during wartime. And in this sense, it was sort of a complete statement from us. We told what we wanted to tell regarding this particular problem and we felt that at that moment there was nothing meaningful we wanted to add to it.

How big has your team grown after This War of Mine? Przemyslaw Marszal: Just after the game release, not that much as I recall. But during the years after it started to change. This War of Mine was done by about 20 developers internally and Frostpunk during the next few years scaled the core team to around 45 people, but we also grew in other departments. Right now, we’re capable of doing three separate games with three separate teams. Before The Final Cut edition of This War of Mine, which released ­November last year, we still had a team ­doing working only on this project. We’re still be patching and tweaking the game, but most of those people moved to the new project. The second team is responsible for Frostpunk, and third the unannounced Project 8 game. We also have a publishing team, working on third-party titles, ­business ­development, and marketing teams or our own internal QA guys, because we also test in-house the games we’re publishing like Moonlighter or ­Children of Morta. All this accounts for about 125 people right now, but we still growing and moving into a new office in a building we bought in whole, probably in March.

What inspired you to do Frostpunk? Are you fans of the movies Snowpiercer or The Day After Tomorrow? Or did the infamous “year without summer” inspire you? Michał Drozdowski: I remember when we tried to figure out with Przemek on how to proceed after making our first prototype called Industrial. It was very economical, it was a steampunk-ish city-builder proto, so sort of what we liked it to be, but it lacked a lot in terms of motivation, message, and overall vision. What was quite intriguing is that each of us separately came with a very similar vision of a frost fighting society survival game at some point. My head was full of images of very strong-hearted men. Those people you could once find in a situation where nature is the ultimate obstacle and worst nightmare – people like sailors, mountaineers, whale hunters, oil-platform workers. It was mostly about this vision of those hardened people fighting for survival. Another question then will be how the frost and winter came in and took the rule? Well, we used to have pretty strong winters in Poland, and we know something about really cold weather. But winter seemed to be a great enemy, especially combined with the power of heat would have in that situation and a steam technology used to generate it. As you mentioned those movie titles – they were known to us, and particularly Snowpiercer is one hell of a movie. We all love it both for its world as well as being a very compact and metaphorical ­approach to society.

What was the initial idea behind Frostpunk‘s art direction? Przemyslaw Marszal: When we start ­prototyping a new project, we often ask ourselves: what we would like to hear from a player looking at a finished game? How would we like him to describe what he sees? So we set up a list of adjectives that we imagine would suit best that kind of description. And then try to think about how we could achieve that. What steps we need to take to get that kind of feeling from the players. For Frostpunk these adjectives were: cold, city, steampunk, seriously looking, with living society, victorian, looking like AAA game. Getting everything that working right at once in the actual game is like solving a puzzle. And coming to that result involves a lot of research, drawing and conceptualizing things. In general, a lot of trial and error processes. Plus there is one other ingredient – uniqueness. So the graphic not only must convey all the associations we want but also has its own unexpected and exciting bits. Bits like round circular ice hole with a huge generator in the centre or radial laid city.

Talking about the development process: What problems did you encounter in general and how did you deal with them? Michal Drozdowski: From my perspective, the biggest problems came up with a growing team. We doubled the size compared to our peak during This War of Mine production, and I think we were not fully aware of the consequences of this sudden growth. The problem that arose was communication. In previous smaller teams, we were used to having a lot of short daily conversations that made the game vision spread naturally across all team members. Keeping a healthy amount of design ­documents and a few occasional meetings was enough to make sure people understand what is happening and why it is happening. When the team sized changed dramatically, we realized that these measures were not enough. Some people still lacked knowledge about some important elements of the vision of the project or its creative directions. We had to make sure that we have a better communication ­process on our side. One that is more targeted at supplying the team with all the crucial information. Taking into account that saying something once, or having it written in a document rarely ensures that the subject can be considered as a ­piece of well-spread information.

Which design decisions would you have made differently in retrospect? Michal Drozdowski: I really don’t like to look into the past with that kind of ­approach. I think that every game we make is defined not only by the design itself but by the team and the time at which it was made. Because during that time we over­came many obstacles and made many hard decisions. There is always a great number of ideas or even partial design that ‘didn’t make it’ into the game for various reasons. But even if they did not appear in the game, there was a reason that something more important took their place. There is a time we feel the game is ready and complete. Of course, it can then evolve and change, which is great, but that first version, I consider it a closed chapter.

Which feature of the game are you particularly proud of? Michal Drozdowski: I tried to rephrase that question in my mind and ask myself that the whole time I spent working on Frostpunk. And there is one definitive answer – the team we build-up for this project. I mention it not only to give them credits for their skills, passion, and willpower but to stress that sometimes building a great team might be even harder than crafting a great game. In the end, it’s those people who make the vision change into a game you could release. Getting back to more particular features, I’m most proud of our narrative solutions. We were able to deliver a mix of systemic and emergent narrative mechanics combined with a more classical approach to storytelling. Finally, we got a game where each action and decision matters and adds both to the grand story of the player’s journey and the message we wanted to deliver.

What you can consider as the biggest thing the art department achieved during Frostpunk production? Przemyslaw Marszal: I must highlight two things. First, it is awesome when a lot of people that see a Frostpunk screen know immediately that this is Frostpunk. This uniqueness allowing for distilling this game in a split second from a lot of other games. A uniqueness that is clear to describe but also has its rules and magic. And the second thing – we really worked hard to connect art with gameplay in a lot of fields. I believe that we achieved this level of immersion in which gameplay and art are working as one entity, and deliver a bond absorbing players into one precisely defined mood during their play.

How satisfied are you with the reviews, the feedback from the community and the sales? Pawel Miechowski: Complaining is a national sport in Poland, so I should start with a set of complaints, but the reality is that the reception was fantastic and we have nothing to complain about. A massive part of the reviews was underlining the game’s original approach to the setting, gameplay, and its maturity. There were some 6s and 7s here and there, but we’re fully aware that this happens each time. We can’t just please every gamer out there because we are not making games for everyone but for a precisely chosen type of gamer. We know who our audience is. And the majority of the audience gave us great feedback, first with fantastically positive acclaim, and then by providing us tips and hints on how to improve Frostpunk further and develop expansions such as the Endless Mode. The only problem we had was that the first paid expansion – The Rifts – was a small one, is like an appetizer before the big one – The Last Autumn – and we didn’t communicate that clearly to the community. So the reception of The Rifts was not as good as we’d want, but then we communicated precisely what is our plan and now The Last Autumn is out with great acclaim from the players. And when it comes to sales – the game paid off in just two days after the ­release and it was more than four years ­development process so the financial ­success was fantastic. Sometime last year the game crossed 1.5 million copies sold and is still selling very well.

How did you finance the development? Pawel Miechowski: Initially, the game was called Industrial, and the funding of the ­prototype was granted by the Creative ­Europe program. After it was made, we knew there was a huge potential, and we’ve decided to invest our resources into the game. It was roughly three million ­Euros of our funds, spent on the development in over three years during which, in the course of numerous iterations, the game morphed from Industrial into Frostpunk.

The (lack of) state support for the games ­industry is a much-discussed topic in Germany. Tell us about the situation in Poland? Pawel Miechowski: I’ve heard now there is a big program in Germany to support kick-starting studios and prototypes of the games, so I’d like to congratulate the German industry for making this discussion to happen. In Poland, things changed in a good direction over the last years. We also got nothing special six or seven years ago except some small grants for exhibiting at international shows. Now there are dedicated programs for R&D, programs for supporting exhibiting at the shows so practically every indie studio that has at least the will and some own funds can participate in shows like gamescom, PAX or ChinaJoy. From time to time there are programs to kickstart prototype development but those are not big ones. All in all the state support is solid. However, there are always things to improve, like the higher game development education-oriented things. There’s a lot to do in this field.

Was it difficult to port Frostpunk to the consoles? Why did it take so long? Pawel Miechowski: We did what we’ve ­aimed for and made Frostpunk play on those platforms like a natively ­developed console experience. To achieve that our team redesigned the UI and control scheme from scratch. The whole system went through five iterations during the ­development process and nailing it right, and getting the right game performance on consoles, was more important for us than finishing the game earlier. The decision about the delay was the right one from today’s perspective. The game is doing really well on this sort-of uncharted market for strategy games because we think this genre on consoles is still a bit of a blue ocean. There aren’t many of them, and we believe Frostpunk: Console Edition could be seen as a benchmark for those, especially in terms of the player-friendly interface. Also, we get a great amount of support both from Microsoft on Xbox and Sony on PlayStation, so we feel they see there is space for the games like ours.

With your publishing program, you support in some way other indie studios. ­Please tell us about that. Pawel Miechowski: We have a special philosophy of creation that can be underlined as meaningful entertainment. Games that leave a mark in the player’s minds, make them think about them even when thy not playing it. At some point, we’ve come to the conclusion that there are indie games out there who share the same philosophy and it would be great to create an eco­system of devs making those games with an extra mark, like ourselves. These devs need help on the market to succeed and this is where we come in with our know-how and resources. Primarily, we are a development studio, so we know exactly what the developer needs. We have the experience because we’ve been in the trenches, so to speak. Starting the role of the publisher and creating this ecosystem for the devs was a natural business direction. 11 bit studios can provide everything a developer needs – funds, marketing, QA. But we need to fall in love with your game. It has to ignite a spark that we truly understand. We’re a picky publisher but we consider it our mission. And when you look at the ­latest release like Moonlighter or Children of Morta, this proves we’re doing it the right way. Proof for that is the way those games were reviewed, the feedback from the community, how they performed sales-wise and how many awards they won.

In a nutshell: What are the three most important rules that an indie studio should follow? Przemyslaw Marszal: I think it’s hard to say if we are still indie devs. But looking back – what helped us a lot was, in the first place, understanding where in our ideas the value for players lay. And why players were not only paying for our games but more importantly also giving us the time to dive into our fantasies. Being brave and looking for our own way, trying to find this unique personality of the studio was the second thing. And thirdly, having an awesome, honest and friendly team that understands the goals of 11bit Studios as a company and treating them as there were theirs own. Michal Drozdowski: I’ll add something from the design point of view. The first thing is knowing what you want to achieve. All great games have a good strong focus – a few things that are critical for them and at which they aim to be the best. This focus is crucial to make further decisions during development. Having a very clear vision of the game you’re making, keeping consistency during design, production and finally, sales are the key aspects in delivering an outstanding experience to the players. This may sound as being a bit obvious, but it’s actually one of the hardest aspects. Be able to judge what are the very things that shape the personality of your game and treat all the remaining ones just as a nice to have. During prototyping or developing new features, you may easily find yourself straying from the path, so make sure to cross-check several times during the project that your main vision is still your goal.

What comes next from 11 bit studios? Przemyslaw Marszal: You know we just can’t tell. Yet what we can guarantee that whatever we do we want it to be a huge challenge for us. We won’t settle, we will push ourselves to achieve new experiences, emotions, messages, and craft more meaningfulness into our games. We will struggle while doing it, swearing and cursing on our ambitious decisions. Yet in the end, we will be satisfied and we hope players will be too.

Przemyslaw Marszal Development & Art Director

Art director and co-founder of 11 bit studios. He’s responsible for the art direction of all company titles, as well as managing development teams together with Michal. With almost 20 years of experience in game development and many games shipped under his belt, he always tries to work on titles never imagined before.

  Michal Drozdowski Development & Design Director

He is a creative director and a co-founder of 11 bit studios. He’s responsible for the game design, recently for Frostpunk and all company titles as well as leading, supervising and managing studio’s internal and external design teams. He’s designing gameplay in games for about 20 years now.

  Pawel Miechowski Partnership Manager

Working in game development since the late 90s. In the early 2000s landed in Metropolis Software and worked there as a writer and PR manager. Later in CD Projekt Group and from 2010 at 11 bit studios, initially as a writer and PR guy and now working as a partnerships manager.

The post The Making of Frostpunk: Interview with 11 bit studios appeared first on Making Games.

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Sakura Wars Review (PS4) — The Dream is Back

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

While it has been a long wait, Sakura Wars is a satisfying blend of everything that the franchise has done well for a new generation on PS4.

Claiming that Sakura Wars (aka Sakura Taisen) is a huge franchise is an understatement. The steampunk, East meets West stylized series featuring courageous women who act as a theater revue by day and fight demons at night left a huge mark on Japanese pop culture and on anyone who encountered it. When Sega and Red Entertainment released the first Sakura Taisen game on Sega Saturn in 1996, it made history with its peculiar aforementioned mix of genres and atmospheres. Most notably, it mixed various dating simulator, tactical RPG, and adventure elements (what we commonly call visual novels in English) together. By far, it wasn’t the first game that strove to create mixes like these. Red Entertainment themselves weren’t at their first attempt, as Sakura Taisen followed in the footsteps of games such as the Galaxy Fräulein Yuna series.

Sakura Taisen, however, is the first franchise of its kind that managed to reach such mainstream stardom, at least in Japan. This is in part thanks to a very unorthodox idea back then that the franchise pulled off. The seiyuu, Japanese voice actresses and actors, of Sakura Taisen would all regularly hold “Kayou Shows”–musicals similar to the ones that players experienced in-game–that greatly contributed to establish the franchise’ cult status. Putting the seiyuu themselves in the spotlight through stage events, streams and radio shows is usual nowadays, but it was a very novel idea back then, as Sakura Taisen‘s original author Oji Hiroi recently pointed out. Today, many game and anime franchises all do their own stage play musicals in the same vein.

While the Sakura Taisen series reached a conclusion with Sakura Taisen 4 in 2002, followed by a standalone Sakura Taisen V in 2005 (the sole episode that officially left Japan), the series never truly stopped. Indeed, the mainline game part stayed dormant, but anime, manga adaptations and spinoffs, mobile games, apparitions in crossovers such as Project X Zone, and real life events such as art expositions kept it rolling around over the years. And last but not least, the Kayou Shows continued for all these years. Fan demand for a new game never relented, and Sakura Taisen is such a big piece of Sega’s (and gaming) history that culturally and business-wise, a game comeback was only a matter of time. When, and how, were the main questions. And the answer is this brand new PlayStation 4 game, titled Shin Sakura Taisen/New Sakura Wars in Japan, and simply rebranded as Sakura Wars overseas.

Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

Sakura Wars, the PS4 game, is the first main game of the series in 15 years. Officially announced in March 2018 and revealed in March 2019, Sakura Wars is Sega’s attempt to fully relaunch the franchise worldwide, hence why a localization in multiple languages was announced from the get-go. The game is accompanied with its own novel, manga, and a multitude of new crossover collaborations and goods. Seeing the game is already available in Japan since December 2019, an anime sequel also started this April. A stage play was planned as well, but was sadly canceled due to COVID-19.

To be honest, as I relentlessly covered Sakura Wars news via the monthly streams that Sega organized for the game, part of myself was scared. I asked a lot of different questions to myself: “What if the game sucks? What if they only show the good parts on stream? What if I end up hating it?” I’ve rarely been this scared of being disappointed when it comes to my hobbies. It would have been incredibly painful to see the series fail its comeback and fall into oblivion. As I grabbed the game in Japanese, part of my doubts were dispelled after spending some time on it. I even attempted live translating part of the game to show my enthusiasm and spread awareness. Now with this English version, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with the game, and I can finally affirm this now, with conviction: Sakura Wars brings back the franchise that everyone loved in a magnificent way, all while making it accessible to neophytes.

“Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such.”

Sakura Wars works both as a sequel and as a reboot. The game’s intro explains how the cast from the previous games all disappeared after a decisive battle against the demons, and introduces instead a brand new cast of main characters. Players are put in the role of Seijuro Kamiyama, a young, talented ex-marine ship captain, who’s now assigned as the captain of the Flower Division. The Flower Division is the core battle and theater unit of the Imperial Combat Revue, protecting Tokyo from demons. All big cities in the current world of Sakura Wars similarly have their own Combat Revues, and they are about to participate in a big tournament to hone their skills. However, the Imperial Combat Revue is facing both a financial and identity crisis, and it’ll be up to Kamiyama to give the Flower Division members the trust they need to overcome their issues and win the tournament, all while fighting off a new demon threat.

You might be wondering why I’ve yet to touch upon the gameplay aspect of Sakura Wars in this review, but you’ve actually been experiencing it already if you’ve read this far. Just like its predecessors, Sakura Wars is an ADV, a pure and thorough Adventure game akin to what we call visual novels, and should be approached as such. You’ll be spending the vast majority of your time in the game reading the dialogue and events unfolding as you control Kamiyama and interact with the characters.

The game reintroduces the series’ LISP system, which are short-timed dialogue choices selected with the directional stick. This aims to make the players realistically think about their words and strengthen immersion. Most of the time, players will have a clear choice between either acting in a positive and gentle way (Top Choice), in a harsh and stern way (Left Choice), or being some kind of creep or clown (Right Choice). Beyond these obvious dialogue choices, you’ll have to do your best to figure out the characters’ feelings, as always picking cliche anime lines about friendship and love won’t work. Kamiyama himself isn’t a self-insert; he has his own personality, and will choose his own words in certain crucial moments, where you’ll instead be urged to pick the intensity of said words.

“All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D.”

The true difference in Sakura Wars compared to its predecessors isn’t the change from a tactical RPG system to action RPG elements for its battles; I’ll get to that later. It’s the fact that the game has switched to full 3D. This is a revolution for the series, and Sega made the best out of it. The past games let you roam around the Imperial Theater, which is the Imperial Combat Revue’s base of operations, via a 2D map where characters were represented in Super-Deformed, SD style. When you triggered dialogue with other characters, the games switched to a visual novel-like style, with the characters illustrated with 2D artworks and occasional anime cutscenes. It had (and still has) its charm.

On the opposite side, Sakura Wars lets you explore its environments in full 3D. This choice wasn’t simply fueled by a desire to make the series more appealing to a new generation of players. All of the concepts and mechanics unique to the Sakura Taisen series have been tirelessly thought over by the development team. They have all been improved and adapted to 3D. Exploring the Imperial Theater and the city has never felt so rewarding and immersive. While each area barring the Imperial Theater is quite small, they are packed with small details, fun NPCs, and points of interests. Kamiyama’s own thoughts and observations when inspecting elements will evolve together with the story. Sakura Wars is full of intricate world-building, most notably thanks to the contribution of military specialist and world setting advisor genius Takaaki Suzuki. Simply heading to your next main objective pointed out on the Teletron, Kamiyama’s steam-technology powered smartphone, will probably only make you experience half of the game. You’ll end up missing a myriad of optional events, which aren’t necessarily pointed out on the map, Bromides to collect (photographic portraits of the characters), minigames, and lore.

The most striking aspect introduced thanks to 3D is how Sakura Wars handles its dialogue and events. Nearly all the dialogue is presented through in-engine cutscenes, and each one is stunning. Except during their pre-rendered cutscenes, I dare you to find any other typically Japanese game with as much camerawork, screenplay, and especially lively characters during dialogue. Be it Yakuza, Persona, the Tales series, Ni no Kuni, or any offerings from smaller independent studios like Falcom or Nippon Ichi Software, the characters will most certainly simply be standing there when chatting. Most of the time in several of those games, you will be cycling through minimal, prepared in-advance movements and expressions.

Meanwhile, Sakura Wars feels as if specific movement patterns and facial expressions were tailor-made for every single dialogue in the game. They’re always on-point with the discussion and emotions conveyed by the characters. This is so disconcerting compared to what Japanese games usually offer that I’m convinced some players will dislike how the characters in Sakura Wars are constantly in movement. In-universe it makes perfect sense, as the members of the Combat Revues are all used to performing arts and expressing themselves with their bodies.

“Only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced.”

As for the ever-changing expressions of the characters, you might have heard how multiple artists have worked on Sakura Wars. The original character design of the main cast was handled by Bleach‘s Kubo Tite. Other original character designers handled side characters in the game, and we have K-On‘s Yukiko Horiguchi, Sword Art Online‘s Bunbun, Strike Witches‘ Fumikane Shimada, Pokemon‘s Ken Sugimori, Haruhi Suzumiya‘s Noizi Ito, and Persona‘s Shigenori Soejima. However, it’s important to note that similarly with an anime’s production, another single character designer redrew all the designs so that they’re easy to animate and more uniform. That task was handled by Masashi Kudo, who did a terrific job. In fact, Masashi Kudo in the past did the exact same job with Kubo Tite’s designs on the Bleach anime. As such, there’s absolutely no sense of disunity when it comes to the characters’ designs, despite the various artists.

Sadly, overall, I’d say only 60% to 70% of Sakura Wars‘ dialogue is voiced, and it’s the biggest disappointment that I have with the game. It’s especially jarring to see such incredible vivid dialogue scenes being left unvoiced. Sega’s auditioning for the game, which included singing–seeing as each character has their own theme song–brought us an all-star and talented cast of seiyuu. It’s a huge shame they didn’t get to fully demonstrate their skills. Pre-rendered anime cutscenes are back too, and are in 3D as well. These were handled by famous 3D anime studio Sanzigen. Ironically, the sole lackluster visual aspect of Sakura Wars lies in some of its 2D illustrations used to depict certain scenes in the game, with some of them being of varying quality. Going out of your way to interact with the characters and experience as much of the dialogue as possible, the core gameplay will have a direct influence on the minor gameplay elements, the battles.

“Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience.”

Each story chapter in Sakura Wars follows a typical mecha anime pattern, with the characters heading to sortie near the chapter’s conclusion, setting up a fight scene for the climax. Characters in the Sakura Taisen franchise fight demons using Combat Armors, which are mecha powered by steam and magical spirit energy, mixing steampunk and fantasy elements. This is where a stern warning is due: you definitely shouldn’t expect to be playing a traditional JRPG. Sakura Wars and its predecessors do not feature numbers to grind, equipment to maintain and skills to learn. The only variable which makes your characters stronger, or weaker, are their Trust Levels, the only way to influence Trust Levels are through your dialogue choices. There’s no real changes to the battle system throughout the whole game, except for Team Attacks that you’ll unlock as you increase Trust.

The battle stages aren’t that big and are globally pretty easy. If you do get a game over, you’ll always be able to restart with extra help. While there are many different types of enemies, none of them will stay etched in your memory. The only exception are the bosses, all introduced with huge on-screen Kanji, following Sakura Taisen tradition, and something you might be acquainted with through Skies of Arcadia and Valkyria Chronicles.

As an important note, the battle system of the original Japanese release of the game had no lock-on system and instead used an automatic homing function, which made it hard to hit flying enemies, most notably. This isn’t a problem anymore as a patch has long been released, adding a lock-on system, a better radar, limited button remapping, being able to save anytime, and last but not least, a dialogue log with voice playback. These improvements will be included in the Western version, so make sure to download the day one patch. However, the patch was only made available to reviewers a little bit before embargo, so some reviews might mistakenly point out these faults, even though they are now patched.

In any case, you’ll only be fighting for around 20 minutes for about every 3 hours of gameplay, and despite being so simple, the battles are still fun and do their job well. The battles, like the rest of the game, are also filled by cool dialogue and incredible cutscenes, including dialogue choices. The music by the legendary Kohei Tanaka (One Piece, Gravity Rush, among others) is always on-point as well, and it’s the combination of these factors that makes these climaxes so awesome. But ultimately, the battle system of Sakura Wars in itself is marginal. Rather than changing from a tactical RPG to action RPG, the battle system might as well have switched to Sega’s match-three puzzle game Columns, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Rather than the battles, what makes Sakura Wars so good is definitely its cast. It’s a purely character-driven experience. Japanese games tend to traditionally include a stereotypical cast, which gradually shows its uniqueness as you play. Sakura Taisen is and always was the culmination of this concept. The protagonists fight to protect the world and follow huge cliches based on their country of origin. The villains simply wish to see humans suffer for no reason. Everything is cheesy, but it works terribly well. The original script, written by 428 Shibuya Scramble‘s director Jiro Ishii, doesn’t stray from these traditions of the Sakura Taisen series, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Each chapter mostly focuses on a single main character, but all the others will play a role too. This is especially true for the second half of the game, when all the characters have already gone through a good chunk of development. Each character’s individuality slowly unveils itself through the multitude of dialogue events, and you just can’t help but fall in love with the characters.

Ultimately, while we might call it a dating sim, Sakura Wars is quite different from most. Of course, in the same vein as its stereotypical characters and plot, Sakura Wars is also filled with cliche anime situations. Kamiyama often finds himself in “lucky pervert” incidents depending of your choices. I’d add Sakura Taisen is one of the few franchises that manages to make sexual fan service moments and “romantic comedy” misunderstandings like these actually comedic and funny. Still, you shouldn’t expect anything steamy to happen, as even the unlockable optional flirting scenes are very tame. Indeed, your true goal in Sakura Wars isn’t to whoo girls, it’s to make the team members feel at home and have a place where to belong. I believe this is why the nomenclature of the series always used “Trust Levels” instead of “Affection” or “Love” levels.

Moreover, while we control Kamiyama, the true protagonist of this new Sakura Wars is Sakura Amamiya, the most devoted member of the Flower Division, who aims to restore the Imperial Combat Revue to its former glory. While the game includes a dive into each main character’ psychology and worries, everything revolves around Sakura Amamiya. She’s the sole character on the game’s case artwork, the first character you see in the opening anime sequence, and she’s the one getting a typical mecha anime midseason upgrade. It’s not a baseless choice as to why the ongoing manga version and sequel anime both put the spotlight on her.

Sakura Wars might even be too much centered around Sakura Amamiya at times. Most side characters, and those who belong to the other Combat Revues fought during the tournament, barely interact for most of the game with the main cast besides Kamiyama and Sakura Amamiya. Moreover, while the tournament battles are centered around 3 vs 3 team battles, only two members of each Combat Revue we face off against are introduced. Their third combatant is always a nameless, faceless character we’re never introduced to.

Nonetheless, in Sakura Wars the girls are always the true stars of the stage. This approach is one of the many reasons why the franchise as a whole is so inspiring and attractive to anyone, despite being a dating simulator for hetero male anime otaku. Furthermore, Sakura Amamiya idolizes Sakura Shinguji, one of the main characters of the past games in the series, which brings us to the final important point; how meta this Sakura Wars is.

“Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy.”

The first part of Sakura Wars‘ story features an obsolete Imperial Combat Revue shunned by all and on the verge of shutting down. It’s almost as if the game is reflecting the image of the franchise itself in the eyes of younger folks who didn’t live through it. Then, you’d be amazed at the numbers of NPCs who trashtalk the new characters while singing the praise of the old ones. Sega is fully aware of grumpy fans who claimed on social media that instead of a new cast, they’d rather have the ex-main characters back even if they were into their senior years. Players can regularly learn about the previous cast via the Imperial Theater’s archives, with Kamiyama sharing words of admiration. And then you have Itsuki, an embodiment of the good fan, with whom you can fangirl with while chatting about both the old and new characters.

As a newcomer or as an oldtimer, your overall opinion of the game and its characters will grow positively as you play, exactly mirroring how the Imperial Combat Revue slowly regain its fame through the main story, making for a unique experience. Overall I’ve rarely seen a game manage to deliver a commentary on itself, all while handling fan service perfectly, brimming with love and respect for its own legacy. I clearly remember the excitement I’d feel when I was a kid looping the Sakura Taisen games’ anime opening sequences while dreaming of playing the series. Experiencing Sakura Wars on PS4 feels exactly like that. The dream is back.

Before concluding, I’d also throw in a word regarding the English localization of Sakura Wars. As I mentioned earlier on, I’ve partly played the Japanese version, and I must say that the English translation is amazing. Despite the Japanese heavy setting, It doesn’t go with the simple choice of keeping Japanese terms and honorifics, and yet still retains what makes the series’ atmosphere so unique, and conveys everything that needs to be conveyed. Every ten lines I was in awe and reminded of how much I suck as a translator.

In conclusion, while Sakura Wars never feels like it cuts corners, you can clearly tell, with the lack of full-voice acting or the nameless third combatants thing, that Sega didn’t fully believe in themselves. Sega is incredibly eager to make the series reach glory again, and brought to the development team all-star artists, writers and seiyuu, but at the same time was reluctant and wary. They believed in this comeback but lacked conviction to put more resources on the table, which is slightly disappointing. A more ambitious and polished sequel would definitely have the potential to become one of the most iconic Japanese games in years, similarly to Persona 5. With full voice acting this time, even denser content, more interactions between the main and side casts, and an attempt to make the battle parts into something more than narrative climaxes, you’d have the formula for a masterpiece. Sales would follow suit, boosting the franchise’s popularity worldwide, and we could even see the past games finally get official localization.

Unless you religiously scorn the act known as reading, there is absolutely no reason to avoid grabbing Sakura Wars on PS4. If you’ve read the integrity of this review, you need to hurry up and grab the game right the hell now. It’ll make you discover a fresh universe full of surprise. If you’re a complete stranger to this culture, it will surely be the game that makes you realize what’s so good about Japanese games, anime and manga. In an era where the most exported Japanese cultural products are battle stories inspired by Dragon Ball, playing Sakura Wars can be a gateway that will definitely broaden your horizons.

April 29, 2020 10:00 AM EST

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