Episode 5 - the Hanagumi cat fight - is now available for watching! Check the OP!
Also, I'd like to make two announcements:
-Operation Rainfall has picked up the KissMeSweet project, after receiving a set amount of likes on its facebook page! A new phase of the KissMeSweet campaign is in the works, so keep your eyes peeled. Congrats guys.
-If you are a regular viewer or are interested in showing a small token of support to the Sakura Wars series, consider posting in
this thread on the official Sega forums. It's questionable the amount of support it will show to Sega itself, but as a token of support it is a nice gesture of goodwill. Registration is free and instant, the only downside being you can't choose a custom avatar until you reach 50 posts.
I will edit with my thoughts later. Someone's been getting creative with the episode part subtitles...
edit with my thoughts later:
-I love Satan as a villain and I like how he's being handled in the games. The otherwise "main" villain or leader just seems to ramble on and on, you get tired of listening to him. But Satan's behaviors exude pure malice, that grin of his showing corruption to the core. Everyone here is evil but we want to think Satan is a whole other ballgame compared to the rest.
-Ayame called Ohgami "Ohgami-kun". Only Kohran is that casual and she has a different way of referencing him. I love how the game plays up this ambiguous flirtation thing from her to him.
-The Mansion segment. So, I see you're given the option of tending to the woman who gets hurt. I imagine choosing to do so gives you backstory and battle bonuses, while the opposite does not give you the battle bonuses and backstory. Nice that they let you have that choice, takes a bit of guts. I wish they didn't both have some sort of creature as their childhood fear, but as much as it felt kind of hokey, the game wants it to make sense that Sumire and Kanna have such a bond, so that's partially why it was portrayed as it was. Part of their bond is rooted in that same sense of parental abandonment. There's a mutual understanding; of course the other of the pair don't know that there are parental issues, but
in my experience similarities have a funny way of showing up in relationships that otherwise don't seem to make any sense. Even the people who seem to have nothing in common on the surface definitely have something in common on an unconscious level, if it's not curiosity of the other person that brings them together. Consider it just my psychologizing.
-"I never wanted beautiful presents...only for my mother and father to be there." Sumire I knew you were a goddess. What the hell kind of big ass spider web do you have to run into to cause such horror, though.
-Shit! Looking for the key would've taken me a good ten minutes. I would've gone through every room in the mansion. How pedantic of me.
-I'm glad that the battle was positioned as it was: separating the two teams. In due team I would figure that we might see team members absent altogether, but we shall see. As usual, Sakura-san is protected by Ohgami, because Ohgami has chosen her as his waifu. But of course, it made tactical sense! And I applaud the introduction of destructible obstacles on the field. Good call on not saying anything when Kanna and Sumire got into it again. =P But of course, compliments in battle! It seems Ohgami had his Wheaties that morning. Either that or he was tired of putting up with shit after that day.
-It's a nice touch that the battle mugshots contained Ohgami, Sumire, and Kanna's civilian outfits.
-No offense to the translator, but sometimes the translations are super bizarre and incomprehensible. One instance was when Sumire had just been saved, and then there's Kohran first move in battle. Perhaps the sentences given are gibberish?
-Another thing about the battle: it was quite long! Which is good, and exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. There's a great core here, like in the limit of your actions, but I wonder what would happen if you tried to implement things like time/turn bonuses in these long battles...
-I don't entirely buy the best friends dynamic between Sumire and Kanna, it would seem to me be rivalry of great mutual respect. It remains to be seen, I suppose.
-It occurred to me while Ohgami was sucking out the poison to assume that he would just spit it out or something. But no, he ingested all of it, apparently. Good going duder. =P Heh heh.
-I don't entirely buy the best friends dynamic between Sumire and Kanna, it would seem to me be rivalry of great mutual respect. It remains to be seen, I suppose.
And finally, more about Sakura in the next Sakura Wars chapter. The most powerful character evar.