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[Leam]

Don't under estimate the power of word of mouth. It's at least gotten VC that much exposure.

It also got me buying Theresia, which I had no idea existed until 3 days before release date.

Oh i'm not talking about VC in particular, i'm also spreading the word as much as i can. I still have hopes that it'll sell at least ok. But there are many games as good as VC that end up getting poor sales. Same thing happens with movies and.. well, almost everything. Beyond Good & Evil or Psychonauts for example didnt do very good.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Speaking of voice actors, does anyone think the Aged Gentleman sounds JUST like a certain Ninja Cyborg from MGS4? I got chills the first time I heard him speak...

Hmm....I did not think of that.

But I must say that his character is quite fascinating.

 

[archnemesis]

What skirmish is everyone using to level up?

I played each skirmish level once for fun. The game doesn't really require grinding in order to make progress. Did anyone reach the maximum character level yet?

 

[Hcoregamer00]

I played each skirmish level once for fun. The game doesn't really require grinding in order to make progress. Did anyone reach the maximum character level yet?

My personal favorite has always been Skirmish 3.

It was so fun in the game, and it was even better as a skirmish.

 

[CSSer]

What skirmish is everyone using to level up? I've been just sticking with 1, because I can get 1,800 exp in just a few minutes... I tried playing Skirmish 3 last night and it took FOREVER. I sucked at it the first go around in the story mode and sucked again.

I'm only on the beginning of Ch. 7, haven't gone through the crazy mission that everyone keeps referencing.

I've only unlocked three of them, but you can finish skirmish 2 in 2 minutes/3 turns or so with a shocktrooper. Just run up on the left side and take out the infantry there. You can supposedly get >100000 exp in a few minutes with skirmish 4 or something.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

I've only unlocked three of them, but you can finish skirmish 2 in 2 minutes/3 turns or so with a shocktrooper. Just run up on the left side and take out the infantry there. You can supposedly get >100000 exp in a few minutes with skirmish 4 or something.

Boo, that takes the fun out of the game when you try to find ways to abuse the system.

 

[Dyne]

Speaking of voice actors, does anyone think the Aged Gentleman sounds JUST like a certain Ninja Cyborg from MGS4? I got chills the first time I heard him speak...

Yes, it does sound like the Raiden guy, Quinton Flynn. But I think it sounds more like No More Heroes Travis Touchdown, Robin Atkin Downes.

They sound so damn similar.

 

[badcrumble]

I really, really hope this game sells well enough to get a sequel, hopefully with a field medic class. Seriously, so fun.

 

[RpgN]

Hcoregamer, you said you don't want to end this game because of how good it is, right? Well, I just heard the story missions are 18 in total. Enjoy the last six mission :[ Ps. I had the same experience with Skies of Arcadia Legends.

Speaking of missions, I just finished chapter 8. It was beautiful. It really made me sad. The game is very mature in its themes. That moment with Alicia and the soldier, is unforgettable.

 

[zoku88]

I really, really hope this game sells well enough to get a sequel, hopefully with a field medic class. Seriously, so fun.

Well, the engineers are more or less the medics in this game. Notice that their healing item things is bigger (L) than the other classes which use small ones.

 

[Bajan32]

So i totally love this game..
On chapter 9 now, i lost Jann in chapter 7..
Perma killed after the reinforcements arrrived. there was no way i could get to him w/o anyone else dying. Which totally sucked because he was one of my fav characters.

I havent been able to get into SRPGs in years because they just felt like too much work. Something about VC makes it damn near perfect. I never feel overwhelmed, i love the characters. Love the look and the battle system is just too awesome.

I think ive logged about 12 hours now.. not counting my reloads lol.
O and Wendy is hands down my fav character.
Hee Hee.... Kaboom!!!

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Hcoregamer, you said you don't want to end this game because of how good it is, right? Well, I just heard the story missions are 18 in total. Enjoy the last six mission :[ Ps. I had the same experience with Skies of Arcadia Legends.

Speaking of missions, I just finished chapter 8. It was beautiful. It really made me sad. The game is very mature in its themes. That moment with Alicia and the soldier, is unforgettable.

Well, as I said earlier, I will heavily slow down my pacing of the game.

Mission 12 looks like quite a challenge, so I will play skirmishes to polish my tactics.

So i totally love this game..
On chapter 9 now, i lost Jann in chapter 7..
Perma killed after the reinforcements arrrived. there was no way i could get to him w/o anyone else dying. Which totally sucked because he was one of my fav characters.

I havent been able to get into SRPGs in years because they just felt like too much work. Something about VC makes it damn near perfect. I never feel overwhelmed, i love the characters. Love the look and the battle system is just too awesome.

I think ive logged about 12 hours now.. not counting my reloads lol.
O and Wendy is hands down my fav character.
Hee Hee.... Kaboom!!!

Good to see all the Wendy love

Well, the engineers are more or less the medics in this game. Notice that their healing item things is bigger (L) than the other classes which use small ones.

I have been playing the game for 20 hours and I never noticed

 

[Dyne]

Yeah, Wendy's awesome. I think my favourite character is Marina Wulfstan though. She's a babe.

Also Engineers are awesome. I didn't know they could heal better, too! I'm definitely keeping 1 or 2 every map now.

 

[zoku88]

I have been playing the game for 20 hours and I never noticed

I noticed since I was flipping through Dalla's inventory a lot in mission 7

Spoiler

I used her ot take out that tank in the Selvaria level.

 

[RpgN]

Well, as I said earlier, I will heavily slow down my pacing of the game.

Mission 12 looks like quite a challenge, so I will play skirmishes to polish my tactics.

Yeah, but can you resist? I always have that "one more time" habit with this game. If I don't play it, I think about it. How can you slow yourself down?

 

[Ferrio]

Question: I know you don't get all the characters from the get go, but do you have to play the game again to get them all... or will they all slowly be released as you play?

 

[Deleted member 20415]

Did anyone play the side mission from the reporter? I played

Spoiler

Largo's mission, and I had such a fun time with it. I loved that it changed up tactics quite a bit and brought some diversity. Largo loves his vegetables.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Yeah, Wendy's awesome. I think my favourite character is Marina Wulfstan though. She's a babe.

Also Engineers are awesome. I didn't know they could heal better, too! I'm definitely keeping 1 or 2 every map now.

My personal favorite sniper is Catherine O'hara, but Marina is great.

Yeah, but can you resist? I always have that "one more time" habit with this game. If I don't play it, I think about it. How can you slow yourself down?

It is hard to resist, but doing my Thesis Research is a good way to distract me from the game.

Reading 1,000 pages a week definitely takes me away from my gaming experience.

I noticed since I was flipping through Dalla's inventory a lot in mission 7

Spoiler

I used her ot take out that tank in the Selvaria level.

My engineer is some darksen girl, I keep forgetting her name.

She is pretty awesome because she gets along so well with

Spoiler

Zaka

.

 

[Alidar]

What?

Are you serious? This is pretty irritating also because American gamers are accustomed to seeing S ranks above the A ranking in this ranking totem pole.

People who are fans of Japanese RPG's are accustomed to the rankings, yes. But most Americans aren't, likely thanks to the grading system in schools and elsewhere, where an A is the best you can get.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

People who are fans of Japanese RPG's are accustomed to the rankings, yes. But most Americans aren't, likely thanks to the grading system in schools and elsewhere, where an A is the best you can get.

Well, even games like Ouendan, EBA and a Myriad of Racing Games people should understand the importance of the S ranking.

Getting an S ranking in Ouendan 2 is like getting a special feeling that an A ranking could never do.

 

[Farnack]

I'm at the point where Alicia can destroy everything but tanks. 8D

Every level, except special ones... I bring like 6 scouts, Largo and Rosie. The scouts just rape everything in sight. If I could figure out how to nade tanks without hitting its tractor area, I would be set to kill tanks too.

And how does personal potential come about? Chapter progression?

Did anyone play the side mission from the reporter? I played

Spoiler

Largo's mission, and I had such a fun time with it. I loved that it changed up tactics quite a bit and brought some diversity. Largo loves his vegetables.

I soloed it with Largo. What a tough guy.

 

[buffi]

I'm currently at chapter 12 and decided to try out Skirmish 5.
It can easily be cleared in 3 turns if you know what you are doing which makes it an insanely good grinding point if you are into that kind of stuff.

I probably wont bother grinding it though since it will most likely make the game a bit too easy later on

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Holy shit, I watched the video for the DLC starring Selvaria

Spoiler

It looks so fucking awesome to play as her in Valkyria mode

Warning, heavy spoilers for the DLC
Video 1
Video 2

 

[RpgN]

Holy shit, I watched the video for the DLC starring Selvaria

Spoiler

It looks so fucking awesome to play as her in Valkyria mode

Warning, heavy spoilers for the DLC
Video 1
Video 2

Good thing you said there are spoilers So what do you think of the Selvaria DLC without giving any spoilers?

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Good thing you said there are spoilers So what do you think of the Selvaria DLC without giving any spoilers?

It looks awesome, what else can I say? (my avatar shows my bias)

Selvaria is a great villain, and I want her to get more screen time.

Thank God I was not in charge of game development because I would have made Alicia the lead and Selvaria the main villain (which gets a ton of screen time).

 

[Durante]

Does it really matter whether the rankings start at S or A? I don't see how. But knowing this makes me happy in that my B average is suddenly much better -- I also felt strange after not getting an S for clearing the

Spoiler

Mission were you rescue Cordelia

in 2 turns.

You could always play the game in English?

I was curious, but not that curious.

 

[Farnack]

I'm currently at chapter 12 and decided to try out Skirmish 5.
It can easily be cleared in 3 turns if you know what you are doing which makes it an insanely good grinding point if you are into that kind of stuff.

I probably wont bother grinding it though since it will most likely make the game a bit too easy later on

Skirmish one is easy as hell and done in one turn. Skirmish two is a another one turn. Skirmish three is retarded with that tank, so I don't even bother with it. Skirmish four takes two turns with all my scouts charging the flag.

 

[slaughterking]

Does it really matter whether the rankings start at S or A? I don't see how.

Uhm, so is it that they replaced the S with an A or did they completely remove the S to make the best ranking easier to accomplish?

 

[radiantdreamer]

I agree to a certain extent, but we forget one very important facet of marketing.

The audience that they are aiming for. Unfortunately, Valkyria has a very strong anime style (unfortunately in terms of marketing, don't get me wrong, I love the anime style). That automatically limits the audience quite a bit since many people HATE this style. Tales of Vesperia is a shining example of an extremely high quality game that should have MASSIVE sales based on quality, yet it is not doing so because of the aesthetic that turns many westerners off.

So when a company markets something that has an art style that repels many westerners, how do they target the game for a mainstream audience? That is very hard indeed. This explains why Sega has been extremely conservative in its shipping numbers (which means that they likely had a VERY LOW print run). Sega themselves knew that this game would inherently have two things that would prevent sales, the SRPG subgenre that doesn't have the massive appeal of traditional RPG's along with an art style that limits its potential market.

This is something that no marketing would have helped, same thing goes with positive reviews and word of mouth. In this case, Valkyria will be an example of a game that is a high quality game that doesn't sell itself. Sure word of mouth sales would maybe garner an extra 50k for sales, but it wont produce a large difference.

The only thing that went into my brain is "I still haven't gotten a copy! SCREAM!!!!"

Okay, now that it's out of my system - it is unfortunate that the art style is definitely repelling a lot of buyers. I even know a friend who loves anime and isn't buying this game because he's "turned off by the graphics". He'd rather play Bioshock.

You're right. Even if there is massive amounts of advertising, the people that hate anime won't even look at it, skip the reviews, and live in denial. I know I do that with genres that I'm not interested in, even if everyone is raving about how awesome the game is.

It's kind of frustrating to see such a good game drop off the radar just because of the style and genre. Word of mouth will spread, and it will create more sales, for sure. It will spread among the circles that care about it. It won't have mass market appeal.

I do wonder about the interview though. They were saying that making a sequel or not will be determined by North American sales. What are they expecting in terms of numbers? Since there's a low distribution as it is, I can only assume that they aren't expecting much.

 

[Volcynika]

Aw, got a D ranking on

Spoiler

Desert Encounter

. Still, fun to roll up to their main base with my tank and wreak havoc! Screw you, enemy snipers!

 

[Durante]

Uhm, so is it that they replaced the S with an A or did they completely remove the S to make the best ranking easier to accomplish?

I assumed from the earlier discussion that they replaced S with A (and so on). If they actually just removed S that would really suck.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I've noticed the game is a little cheap with the interception fire. The enemies have far less of a windup when you run into their fire zone and can continue damaging you until it goes fully into aiming mode. They also seem to have much a much wider line of sight. There's been some situations where they've been able to run mindboggingly close to me without any of my guys even attempting to shoot them.

 

[slaughterking]

I assumed from the earlier discussion that they replaced S with A (and so on). If they actually just removed S that would really suck.

Well, I don't think it would be a big deal, but I don't see the point in just replacing it with an A, since the western audience is rather familiar with S-rankings.
It doesn't make much sense to cut it from the game either, but maybe they thought we would feel better when we achieved the best ranking more regularly. :lol

 

[noonche]

I love this game.

 

[rykomatsu]

Tales of Vesperia is a shining example of an extremely high quality game that should have MASSIVE sales based on quality,

I lol'd

 

[Dyne]

Okay, now that it's out of my system - it is unfortunate that the art style is definitely repelling a lot of buyers. I even know a friend who loves anime and isn't buying this game because he's "turned off by the graphics". He'd rather play Bioshock.

I was the same way at this year's PAX - so much shit going on, yet I made it a point to find Sega's booth. There wasn't much there, but I'm pretty sure they had VC playable, but I was turned off by Welkin's little side-hat and Alicia's little animu baker hat in a screen, and never looked back.

They should have just said "MADE BY SKIES OF ARCADIA TEAM" on the box.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

I was the same way at this year's PAX - so much shit going on, yet I made it a point to find Sega's booth. There wasn't much there, but I'm pretty sure they had VC playable, but I was turned off by Welkin's little side-hat and Alicia's little animu baker hat in a screen, and never looked back.

They should have just said "MADE BY SKIES OF ARCADIA TEAM" on the box.

Considering how "amazing" the game sold, it wouldn't have done anything to raise sales.

Not to mention that Skies is just as "animu" (I hate this damn word) as Valkyria.

Maybe they should have had a Valkyria Chronicles will all guys and make it hyper realistic to appeal to the American market? :lol

 

[Durante]

Luckily, people that don't buy VC because of its art style implicitly recieve a very harsh punishment - they can't play VC.

 

[Dyne]

Well, SoA was a mix of realistic with anime character designs. I like when it blurs the line like that.

But then I saw VC and changed my opinion. Astounding.

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Luckily, people that don't buy VC because of its art style implicitely recieve a very harsh punishment - they can't play VC.

That's true, but we also receive a heavy one.

No Valkyria Chronciles 2.

It goes both ways.

Well, SoA was a mix of realistic with anime character designs. I like when it blurs the line like that.

But then I saw VC and changed my opinion. Astounding.

Well, this generation of consoles show that you can make cell shaded games that look almost like the anime counterparts.

With Valkyria they went for a different look that pays off in many regards.

 

[Durante]

Hey, think about it this way, all the very best and innovative games don't recieve sequels and/or ruin their creators!

Some examples:
Planescape: Torment
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex

Spoiler

lolz

 

[Dyne]

Hey, think about it this way, all the very best and innovative games don't recieve sequels and/or ruin their creators!

Some examples:
Planescape: Torment
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex

Spoiler

lolz

Don't forget Shenmue. :lol

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Hey, think about it this way, all the very best and innovative games don't recieve sequels and/or ruin their creators!

Some examples:
Planescape: Torment
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex

Spoiler

lolz

Very true, but there are so many ways they could develop a sequel to VC....

1. EW1
2. Days of the Valkyria
3. Rise of the Eastern Europan Imperial Allliance
4. Future war in Europa

That is with the universe of Valkyria, they could even make an altogether different game that utilized the Valkyria engine. Then you consider that the creators also want to expand the Valkyria universe, you have a perfect storm of a "could have been" scenario.

 

[MickeyKnox]

Great game, it's been fun really fun so far.

 

[Alidar]

OK, I'm ready to move back to VC since I'm done with other single player games that temporarily drew me away. I'm still extremely early in the game. Does having played Skies of Arcadia improve the experience of VC all that much? I have SoA Legend in my backlog, it's going to be the next RPG in my backlog I play, probably after the holiday rush ends. Would it make sense to push it up to now and play VC later, or would there really be no improvement of the experience and thus should just dive into VC now?

 

[Dyne]

OK, I'm ready to move back to VC since I'm done with other single player games that temporarily drew me away. I'm still extremely early in the game. Does having played Skies of Arcadia improve the experience of VC all that much? I have SoA Legend in my backlog, it's going to be the next RPG in my backlog I play, probably after the holiday rush ends. Would it make sense to push it up to now and play VC later, or would there really be no improvement of the experience and thus should just dive into VC now?

No, even though it's a really great game, the only similarities are the antagonists and the appearance of Vyse and Aika as playable.

You should play SoA anyways.

 

[Volcynika]

No, even though it's a really great game, the only similarities are the antagonists and the appearance of Vyse and Aika as playable.

You should play SoA anyways.

I agree with this, I've beaten SoA, but the only thing's amusing to me is the appearance of characters from the game in VC. SoA is awesome, I agree,

Spoiler

except for the LONGEST set of ending sequence stuff I've ever seen

 

[XiaNaphryz]

They also seem to have much a much wider line of sight.

Are these scouts or other units? Because all scouts regardless of side have a ridiculous line of sight arc, something like 300 degrees or something.

 

[Llyranor]

Hey, think about it this way, all the very best and innovative games don't recieve sequels and/or ruin their creators!

Some examples:
Planescape: Torment
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex

Spoiler

lolz

Geez, Torment's boxart must have turned away so many potential customers.

I mean, some people may dislike VC's style (too bad for them), but at least it's not this:

 

[Facism]

why didn't that useless winged arse Hans take that bullet? :'(