Nice. I was thinking of buying Mamoru-kun recently but now I'll wait and see how the western release turns out. I hope it has global leaderboards, but it probably won't. :\
Publishers need to be aware that having global leaderboards is important. Especially in shooters. Also just FYI, much like Strania, this game doesn't have replays, only scoreboards.
Are there any major differences between the PS3 and 360 versions, or are they basically the same game? I know the PS3 one has better graphics and it's in 16:9, but I don't know if they changed any of the stages or mechanics or anything.
Yes, there are, in fact there are so much that I emphatically recommend buying the PS3 version. If for some reason this publisher isn't releasing the PS3 version, I'd recommend you import the PS3 version instead.
PS3/360 differences:
PS3:
+16:9 meikai gekijou mode. Similar to Under Defeat's New Order Mode, but a lot more fun because enemies that were previously on-screen help you chain, and the amount of score items on-screen at once increases dramatically (so much so that early version of the game crashed often when too many stars appeared)
+Mission mode in meikai gekijou mode: multiple mission objective versions of the same in-game levels, sometimes with tweaked rules like: enemies generate 3x the amount of stars, deaths (which normally appear when you run out of time) chase you during a boss fight, and several courses where you have to face super-tough bosses in a row. Mission mode is a ton of fun and the difficulty scales really well.
+On-screen gem counter. There's an achievement/trophy in the game that requires you to accumulate x amount of stars but the number is huge and on the 360 version you couldn't keep track of it, so they included a counter on the Main Menu of the PS3 version.
+Improved load times. Load times across the board are improved over the 360 version.
+LE features; Costume DLC included for free, really nice artbook with dev interviews
-Leaderboards for every mission in meikai gekijou mode. Really bizarre choice. You wind up uploading scores to the leaderboards after every mission, and since there's over 50 it becomes a chore.
-Game instability. Despite a patch to fix stability issues, I still get rare freezes which require me to turn off my console. : /
-Simplified leaderboards. I think this is just because the PS3's leaderboard libraries are junky, but there's no option to find your own score on the boards, and your score does not update immediately (takes a few hours I think?). Kinda weird.
-Slowdown on last boss is almost gone in PS3 version, making the game a more challenging clear. Trophies can still be earned by increasing max lives in the options, but clearing the game is definitely tougher.
If the localized version improved the stability of the PS3 version it would be perfect but that unfortunately probably won't happen I imagine. Still, in terms of sheer features the PS3 version clearly wins out.
I also posted in the other thread that I just bought this two days ago. :-/
Well, post up if you need some help. A lot of it is in Japanese and there are very little resources in English at the moment. I'll try to post a rough draft of my guide next week.
