[Dark Age Iron Savior]

no, not Suda 51. But this is probably the game he mentioned that would be Contact 2.

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/08/30/marvelous-announces-sakura-note-for-ds/
http://www.siliconera.com/2009/09/01/sakura-note-a-tear-collecting-everyday-fantasy/

http://www.mmv.co.jp/special/game/ds/sakuranote/sp_tokuten.shtml









I've previously talked about Akira Ueda - he started out mainly doing graphical design of area maps for Square, then Love-de-Lic, and finally at Grasshopper is when he started really getting noticed - he worked on Shining Soul, Shining Soul II (one of my favorite GBA games, and far better than it's predecessor) and then Contact (which Suda 51 basically said was Ueda's game through and through).

After (or apparently while?) working on Contact, he left and formed his own company (Audio Inc.) which is a small company that mainly serves to help him collaborate on other projects, such as the anime-based DS lite action RPG Deltora Quest* and now Sakura Note. The graphical style of both has been pretty obviously directed by him.

(*the anime itself was based on the works of, curiously enough, an Australian authoress)



What I like about his graphical work is kind of hard to describe - if you were to just take a screenshot of some of his stuff, especially early work like Shining Soul, it would be glaringly obvious how it's almost always just a bitmap file with invisible boundaries to make the actual walls/objects.

But to me, that has a certain kind of charm. Call me crazy, but as much as I love having stuff fully-rendered, I still have a lot of nostalgia for the days of pre-rendered 3D environments - almost all of it, but especially the evolution of certain series like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil. We can look back and complain about it's static nature, or the many frustrations of set camera angles and annoying controls. But in the best instances, these graphics were insanely detailed and atmospheric, sometimes even outright beautiful - I don't think it would be too controversial of me to say that the Resident Evil remake for Gamecube is still one of the best looking games of the decade, despite the sheer repetitious nature of the hallways, caves and underground labs.

Akira Ueda's work on portables has always reminded me of that, and even though it started out pretty ugly (in Shining Soul), watching it's evolution has been very rewarding. Some day I'll go out and find/rip some graphical maps of the aforementioned games, but for now I just hope you'll agree that Contact and the upcoming Sakura Note have a visual style that stands out as pretty unique.



For those who can't, ah, see what I'm talking about, you might be a bit more interested in what I rambled on about before - namely, the evoluton of combat in Ueda's games.

In that topic I mentioned how those staff members went from a game with traditonal style combat (Shining Soul 2) to one with...something different (Contact). But seeing it in the context of the five handheld games mentioned above, I've reflected further upon it.


-In the two Shining Soul games (SS1 - March 2002, SS2 - July 2003) , the player controls their character via the d-pad and attacks and uses items with A and B. It's a bit hard to compare the system to any other action RPG easily. The player has three slots for weapons or spells and three slots for items to carry around. You change between weapons and items in real time with L and R. Like Diablo, time continues to flow when you're in your equipment and status/level up menus, but a little icon of your character will indicate when they are taking damage. You can attack with any weapons equipped to your three L slots (and you can buy a backpack to get more later), and you can use either use items in your inventory or use them via the B button when they are in your R slots.

Weapons and spells (or rather, spellbooks) normally just have a single attack, but each weapon/spell type has a Diablo-style skill you get points to apply to when you level up. Once you level these skills up (and it gets more expensive to level them up each time), you can "charge" your weapon or spell by holding the attack button. It works a little like Secret of Mana, as each level you charge up your attack raises it's power and sometimes range. However, each level you charge it up to costs more SP (in the case of a spellbook, you have to charge up at least a level to cast it, or otherwise you just whack things with the book). Items also allow you to charge, although for something different - charging an item allows you to throw it, whether giving a healing item to a friend or throwing an explosive of some sort.

The Shining Soul games have other intricacies - passive skills that increase resistances or heal you over time, elemental damage, summons - but they're essentially an arcade-style distillation of the Diablo concept, with the player seeking to balance their character out so they can both survive upcoming battles and more efficiently destroy the enemy waves they've already experienced. It's very much a game about direct combat.


-Contact (March 2006), on the other hand, is to some degree about indirect control of combat. A central concept in the same is that you are not actually the protagonist, Terry, but rather an unseen entity shows him where to go and what to do (with your stylus). This distinction comes into play several times during the game, but it's mostly shown through the combat system's differences from Shining Soul. I haven't played the game, and the combat is surprisingly detailed, so I won't try to summarize it for you. Instead, I recommend that those who have not played it check out the following FAQ:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/file/930222/45914

Do a search for "enter battle", and read to your satisfaction. It's actually rather interesting compared to what I previously thought about the game.

Contact is also one of the few JRPGS (well, one of the few RPGs period) where stats are not raised by leveling up. Rather, like the much-criticized Final Fantasy II (J), Terry gains skills based on what he does and what happens to him - defense increasing when he takes damage, proficiency with a weapon type increasing the more he uses it, things like that. There is also a costume-based class system where skills are gained based on use of the costumes. The player makes these decisions for Terry, but compared to most GBA and DS action-RPGs, the combat features notably less "player intervention".

(Contact has a few other nods to older and more experimental RPGs, such as the ability to attack and kill nearly anyone in the game, and to become so infamous that NPCs will attack you on sight)


-To be honest, I'm not sure about Ueda's involvement with Deltora Quest (September 2007). It's listed on Audio's history page, and the backgrounds are pretty obviously based on his style, but I don't know how involved he was with other things. Sadly, the only footage out there is the two minute trailer, but between that and the game site, it's rather easy to deduce that the combat involves using the stylus to drag the player character through enemies, moving them in patterns in order to...cast spells? I'll have to try the game for myself some time.



(oh, and as you possibly may have heard, this game was worked on my Basiscape, with a large amount of it composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto. You can hear several compositions by going to different pages at the game's site)


-And now comes Sakura Note, due to hit Japan in October 2009. In June 2008, Marvelous/Audio released a adventure/puzzle game based on a manga/anime series about a demon detective and the teenage girl he abuses. However, I think it's safe to say Ueda has been working on this title for a while.

The mystery now is the combat system of the game. It seems to involve just the A and B button, with one apparently used to attack and the other used to...absorb enemy projectiles? The player is shown fighting several enemies (although only the two giant pigs are easy to see), and it looks like all fighting might be "boss" battles - nothing directly indicates the fighting of small-fry you tend to see in other action RPGs.

Whatever the case, I'm very interested in what Ueda is doing with this game, and I hope very much that it gets enough exposure to warrant interest on the part of US (and/or European) publishers.



now, I may be over-emphasizing Ueda's role in all this. There are least a half-dozen other people working at Audio, maybe more, and some of those may have been Shining Soul/Contact team members who moved with him. It's certainly within the realm of possibility. But Ueda's name is the one I know of for sure, and it's been pretty interesting to follow where he's gone.



also, yeah. Uematsu is doing music. A brilliant idiot is writing scenario. And the character design is being handled by some dude we should probably care about but don't.

(I kid about that last one. Hideo Minaba is a pretty talented artist and has a damn good resume, but people rarely ever talk about him)


so, what do you think?
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[Cycle]

i like the cover art

bet it will get LAMED UP if it gets released over here

now i will read about the game
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Man’s maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.

[eskaibo]

Whoa, that Deltora Quest game is based on a series of Australian children's fantasy novels.

I didn't know that people overseas knew about it!
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♪ x x x ♫ x x x ♫ x ♫ ♫

[cake]

I stopped playing Contact after a couple of hours. It seemed to have some nice ideas but wasn't much fun to play, and the plot was pretty disturbing. I guess at least it left an impression, and Sakura Note looks like it might be concentrating more on plot than gameplay.

[monaco]

i wonder if the ninten triplets in the video are just a coincidence.

[eric_c]

Contact's combat system reminded me a lot of MMORPG combat -- i actually enjoyed it, maybe because the idea was so odd for JRPG.

i'm really looking forward to Sakura Note. i doubt anyone will localize it, though! (prove me wrong, publishers!) i'm still waiting for U.S. versions of similar games like Afterschool Boy and the Boku no Natsuyasumi series.
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Tiny Cartridge

[skelethulu]

ok so that Sakura Note trailer made me remember a time when I was young Japanese boy EXCEPT I NEVER WAS

Also was that Ueno Park?

Man I really like the dog sprites in this game.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

最後に、アメリカからのファンコメント（訳文までありがとう）へのお返事を。
（2009.09.01 お知らせ 「サクラノート」プロモーションムービー公開！ へのコメント）

コメントありがとうございます。
このゲームは、日本独自の文化風習を多く取り入れています。
ですが、この作品が文化の違う世界のファンたちにどういう風に受け入れられるのか？
そこにとても興味があります。
ビジネスとして可能性があれば、僕らはローカライズを作るつもりです。
その時が来たら、このブログで速報としてお知らせします。
これからも、僕らとファンの皆さんとの間で、楽しいセッションが続くことを願っています。
（シャイニングソウル2も遊んでくれて、ありがとう）

ロボットによる翻訳：(Translation by robot:)
Thank you for the comment.
This game has taken a lot of Japanese original cultural manners.
However, to what wind is this work accepted by fans in the world where the culture is different?
It is interested there very much.
We will make localize if there is a possibility as a business.
We will inform you as a news flash by this blog when that time comes.
Hereafter, it wishes a happy session to continue between you and us of the fan.
(And thank you for play also of The Shining Seoul 2)


I'm not going to lie to you guys, this is exactly what I needed at the moment.

[MOAI]

I've been interested in Akira Ueda's work for a while now. Shining Soul II really is great (especially as a multiplayer game), and Contact is, uh, interesting at best (tedious at worst, which is usually combat). He's generally been involved in interesting RPG's; if I remember right his first credited game was Super Mario RPG. He also worked on Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, which is a legend in some circles and hasn't yet been translated (the fan translation has been stalled for a year now).

[Gironika]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

well, if we're talking about Japan, I am pretty foreign to there.

(the response was to a comment I made to the previous blog entry, which is why I felt so positive about it)

[Tokyo Rude]

Wonder what "session" means in Japanese.

Cool thread DAIS *thumbs up*

[TORUMASUTA]

I played a bit of Shining Soul II, based on a previous recommendation of DAIS, and didn't get too far in it. However, in a bit more than an hour of playtime it managed to impress me in the same way that no action RPG has in the years since Legend of Mana, which is incredible. The first time you die because TIME SPENT IN MENUS IS REAL TIME HOLY SHIT, or the first time the goblins you are on a quest to fuck up are seen to have conversations with each other that gives them quite a bit of character right before you kill every single one, are all memorable moments, which is something most games never get to start doing, nevermind in the first hour of play.

[Quick Shot II Turbo]

Huh, so it was you who made that comment. I should've guessed it, I suppose. Feels nice not being the only person who is very excited for this.

I loved the overworld in Contact, mostly for being so abstract in their layout and design. Artistically, it was a really strange and interesting mixture of clean, detailed artwork and really crude 3D, plus the occasional weird place you ventured into. Sakura Note, from what I've seen, seems to be more bent towards lush and colorful settings, like 3D Square Enix in 2D. Which is all sorts of nice, too.

I also think it's a given that this will be localized; if not for the States, then at least for Europe via Rising Star.

[firenze]

[eric_c]

thought you guys might be interested in this -- just posted 40 minutes of two Japanese dudes playing Sakura Note. sorry for the self-link; not sure how to embed dailymotion videos here.
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Tiny Cartridge

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[eric_c]

thanks for the kind words! also glad you like that bit at the bottom of the page -- i dropped that in there on a whim, but it really is something more blogs should invest in. sorry the site's media-heavy pages aren't amenable with your setup.

oh, and here's another Japanese video that audio inc. forgot to mention on its front page. it's tucked away in one of the sub-pages, but gametrailers has it now.
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Tiny Cartridge