Senran Kagura’s failed return on 3DS

You probably remember that Senran Kagura Shinobi Versus had a big role in lifting the Vita back in Spring 2013. The title ended up sold out within one day, selling more than 90’000 physical copies. Its success far exceeded Marvelous’s expectations and 6 months later, they announced 200’000 copies shipped, which is twice more than the previous Senran Kagura on 3DS. That is quite a performance for what is basically an otaku game. Therefore, when Marvelous announced Senran Kagura 2 Deep Crimson for 3DS, many wondered if the company management hadn’t skipped basic maths in primary school.

The thing is that since then, there’s been a lot at stake around Senran Kagura. Senran Kagura Burst was released for 3DS in Europe this year, in a rather… physical version. Thanks to a bold ad campaign in the UK, the game met the objectives. In the wake of this success, Shinobi Versus and its cooking spin-off Bon Appétit are given the greenlight too. Perfect (and unique) example of a franchise doing a successful shift from 3DS to PSVita, Senran Kagura surely became a thorn on Nintendo’s side, which was at risk to see niche gamers progressively ditching the 3DS to focus on Vita. Little doubt then that a lot a shady deals happened. Vita was the logical choice : Marvelous would sell more and at a higher price. But the publisher decided otherwise. Vita players, who made them quite rich, would be left behind, with Bon Appétit to kill the time until those fat cats eventually bother caring about them. Company deals apparently take precedence on costumer satisfaction.

Shinobi Versus fans knew they had a hard time ahead of them. Like Star Wars’s Rebels, they are little means to fight the Nintendo-Marvelous economic and financial Empire. The latter would spare no effort in trying to brainwash the public into believing that going back to inferior hardware was the right thing to do. Deep Crimson was heavily advertised in Akihabara for example. The situation was hopeless and the Nintendomination was looming ahead once more.

But the Senran Kagura fans rose and said NO! Senran Kagura 2 Deep Crimson figures were published today. It’s an all-time low for the series, and it sold only half of its stock. It’s half of what Shinobi Versus sold on PSVita, 30% less than what Senran Kagura Burst sold in 2012, and it’s even inferior to what the very first Senran Kagura moved back in 2011. I was in Okayama on that day : a 4 pm, the game had already sold out and left the shop empty-handed. Today in 2014, fans did not come, the enthusiasm of Senran Kagura’s debut is gone, only bitterness remains. Takaki producer is disowned, Marvelous’s management is ridiculous at best. Those people have to face the mess they’re in and stop running from their responsibilities (Takaki says he’s busy with DLC for Deep Crimson). Therefore, I hereby demanded that Mr. Takaki immediately made public information relative to the future Senran Kagura game on Sony systems (which he has refrained from doing until know, most likely favor 3DS over Vita).

Marvelous should have seen that coming. Let’s take an example : you go to the restaurant and eat delicious lobster. You return to the same restaurant the following day and they give you cabbage soup for the same price. Naturally, you will look for another place to have lunch. It’s quite surprising that Marvelous couldn’t have such a basic reasoning before making the decision. Others made similar mistakes and failed even harder : ImageEpoch, after successful projects on Playstation platforms like Sol Trigger or Toki Towa (maybe a bit less for this one), decided to develop exclusively for 3DS. Sol Trigger had sold 60K FW and Toki Towa 40K iirc. Tôshin Toshi on 3DS moved a bit more than 20K. Their latest game, Sonipro, cratered with only 6K sold.

One by one, those who stabbed their clients in the back will either have to take a different stance or decay, because it’s the costumer who ultimately drives the market (the ultra-fast 180° of the Tomb Raider exclusivity is another proof of that). The next one on the list is long known, Platinum Games. The moment of truth draws near and we will soon be able to track Bayonetta 2 preorders more precisely. If PG indeed were to collapse, one more step will have been made towards justice in this industry.

3DS/Vita, paradoxical schedules

That’s no secret, PSVita is struggling on the market. It sold an abysmal 3K units in April in the US, 30 or 40 times less than its competitor, the 3DS. In Europe, the situation is a little better, but 3DS still sells 4 times faster.

That said, Sony’s handheld is still resisting the Nintendomination. It so happens that Vita now has more games to come than its powerful competitor. 34 Vita games are scheduled in the West whereas 3DS has only 17. You’ll notice by the way that contrary to urban legends, Sony is pushing its system pretty actively. How to explain this paradox? With an install base 5 times bigger than Vita’s and selling more than everything except PS4, 3DS should get all the games.

First thing is that the pace of localisations has slowed, while Vita gets increasingly more of them. Funny thing is that huge 3DS hit in Japan like Dragon Quest VII, Dragon Quest Monsters 1&2, Hatsune Miku Project Mirai, Yôkai Watch, Attack of the Titan or Fantasy Life ive no sign of being translated, when in the same time some publishers don’t hesitate to bring ultra-niche Vita games like Mind 0 or Akiba’s Trip 2. Nintendo had done much last year to make games cross the oceans. With tremendous success, 2013 has been a record year for 3DS : Fire Emblem Awakening, Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, Project X Zone, Bravery Default, Etrian Odyssey, Professor Layton 6 and many others allowed the double screened handheld to shine. But after a series of operating losses and missed forecasts, Nintendo doesn’t seem willing to make effort to back its 3DS any more. The manufacturer turned around when Rune Factory 4 was canceled in Europe, and it itself crossed off Shin Megami Tensei IV from its schedule. Meanwhile, they live off easy money with Tomodachi Life and the remake of Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire. Nintendo who last year was an example as a publisher is gradually losing that status to Sony, who helped getting games like Tales of Hearts R and Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment in the West.

The other side of the issue lies in the market situation in Japan. Except for indies, Western publishers hardly care about dedicated handheld. It leaves to Japanese publishers most of the job in supporting 3DS and Vita. It so happens that in the very source of handheld gaming, PSVita is also more attractive despite 7 times more 3DSs on the market : 51 Vita games vs only 27 3DS games scheduled. All this despite Nintendo constant scheming to undermine Vita’s performance : again recently, the big N bought timed exclusivity of One Piece Red World, released for 3DS in November 2013 and suddenly announced for Vita and PS3 in June! Despite those evil practices, PSVita keeps gaining ground in Japan.

The heart of the problem is that it’s very difficult for 3^rd parties to exist alongside Mario, Dragon Quest or Monster Hunter. I have compiled data from the highest selling 3^rd party games released in 2014 in Japan, by adding digital sales when available. The average is twice as high on 3DS. However, the standard deviation, which measures the dispersion from the average is four times higher on 3DS. In others word, the risk to flop (or bomba, like we say in gaming circles) is much higher. And if you take off the first of each column (Sword Art Online and Dragon Quest Monster), the average of Vita games sales overtakes the of 3DS, while the standard deviation remains inferior. Consequently, publishers have more to gain by developing on Vita than on 3DS, all the more that they can ask a higher price and achieve a superior digital sales ratio. But in that we are still far from the economic reality, because PSVita games often have a PS3 port releasing as well. I therefore compiled such data, and the conclusion can’t be clearer : the standard deviation jumps but is still under 3DS, and the average of the PS3/PSVita couple surpasses the one of 3DS by far. If we bear in mind that Playstation games are traditionally 10-20% more expensive than 3DS games, Sony platforms are then much more interesting for publishers in terms of revenue.

The standard deviation also reveals that Vita gamers are more predictable, more homogeneous than the mainstream audience which follows fleeting trends. Developers and publishers know that the otaku audience is fond of their Vitas, and that they won’t accept inferior 3DS version, graphically poor and lacking trophies or screenshots. The two only known JRPGs that have been released on both systems (Conception II and Exstetra) turned out to be a 70-80% market share for Vita.

If this trend continues, 3DS could very well end up like Wii : a system that wins the market but loses on the gaming side. A fallen idol outshined by a new one.

Review – Conception II

A true gaming UFO, Conception II had seduced me by its attractive character design. 40 hours and a western release later, it’s time for a frank verdict.

In Conception II, a deep-rooted evil force sends to the world armies of monsters via seven «labyrinths of sin», threatening mankind’s future. Only a few chosen ones called 聖徒 (roughly «sacred children», kinda rings a bell) have to power to seal them. And that’s actually one dude (you) and seven girls. This ultra-generic and highly cliché setting being an excuse to throw you in the progression system of this game that consists in dating and make children (!). 

Therefore, you have to choose a girlfriend. Well actually you don’t have to, because you can have several at the same time. The first phase consists in dating your classmates to raise your friend level. Those mini-events are rather well done : the girls look pretty cute and funny, character modeling and animation are very nice. Even if only a limited part of the dialogs is dubbed, the little conversations you have with your mates are really enjoyable as the Japanese voice actresses delivered their best. In particular, Rorona’s voice actress Mai Kadowaki does a wonderful job as Toori who is adorable. Unfortunately for you guys, you won’t be able to experience that since Atlus USA scrapped the Japanese voices. Sadly, there are not that many of those events, or least not enough to last 40h without regularly repeating the same ones. While talking you’ll often be prompted to choose between several answers, but as far as I noticed the impact on the gameplay is nil. After that you go directly to the church, not for the marriage, but to give birth to your children directly (!). No need to panic though, everything’s done by a simple hand contact between the main protagonist and his partner (!). Your kid get immediately off his egg (!!!) and you now just have to assign him some job (Lancer, Gunner, Healer, etc.) before going down the mazes with him. Because in clear violation of International Labour laws, you’ll have your kids do most of the fighting against the demonic creatures standing on your way.

That’s where everything begins to collapse : the battle system allows you to attack the enemy from 4 sides, a bit like Atelier Ayesha but in far less complex or interesting. Unlike Atelier where you have to master a variety of alchemy items and skills, in Conception II you just have to spam your most powerful attack to progress. Buffs and debuffs exist but in 40h I haven’t seen a single moment where they could be important. In the same way, the specialty of the children hardly matter in general. There’s Also a «chain» system to push back the enemy in the timeline, but it’s far from efficient (at least it gives you extra exp. points). Adding to an already tiresome battle system, the game has some stupid difficulty spikes, especially at the end when the sixth boss of the last dungeon flattened my team while I had met little resistance so far. Seriously, being robbed of the ending trophies after hours of boring fights is unacceptable.

Only one half of Conception II is decent : the dating is cool, the dating artworks are cool, the dating music is cool, but combat is really terrible in every aspect. I have a feeling that the fundamental problem about this game is that it’s too long. Shorter, the poor battle system would have been less annoying and you wouldn’t have had to repeat the same dating events which would have allowed the player the enjoy the character design more serenely (despite some awful kitsch here and there).

Nintendo’s lost battle in the UK

In continental Europe, especially here in France, many people keep believing in Nintendo despite its waning business and influence. On the other side of the Channel though, things are quite different as Nintendo is being ousted pretty much.

My good friends of Vgchartz have found this very informative chart comparing January-February in 2013-2014 software sales.

In units at first, the situation doesn’t seem that bad. 3DS games sales progress by one third and WiiU games sales double. But when putting things into perspective, the business is definitely not that rosy…

WiiU benefited from the release of Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze in February, and has nothing in the following months. In 2013, games came in March-April, so WiiU software should be flattish until Mario Kart 8, which will collide with a more ambitious and innovative, WatchDogs. 3DS is even worse. The release schedule is nearly blank : Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney and the traditional Nintendo rehashes. Shin Megami Tensei IV is even more invisible than the Malaysian plane. 3DS software is unlikely to perform as well as Luigi’s Mansion, Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing did last year. Here again, it should end up flat or declining.

Let’s get into hard facts and figures. First thing that comes to mind : PS4 and XboxOne sell each more software than 3DS despite being fresh on the market. While a lot fanboy journalists (at least here in France) keep babbling about 3DS «domination», it’s obviously very different in the real world : since January, 3DS games have been bogged down in the depth of the UK charts, when they’re not kicked by the vigorous line-up of competing systems. The Sony family sells 1’338’000 games (3 systems), Xbox family sells 1’487’000 on only 2 systems, whereas the large Nintendo family (4 systems) sells only 649’000. This is almost three time less than the others despite more active platforms. 

In value, the beating is harder still : PS4 or XboxOne each generate more revenues than the entire Nintendo family! The Kyoto-based firm is in a sort of scissors crisis : WiiU and 3DS progression is big enough in value to compensate the collapsing Wii/DS market. Nintendo make up for only 13,5% of the UK’s game market. Down from already not-so-stellar 16,4% in the same perio lest year. Sony’s or Microsoft’s market share is four times as big, with less active systems. The Japanese manufacturer has long bet on scale economies, setting lower prices to attract the most customers. But when price-demand elasticity doesn’t work anymore, such strategy leads to financial disaster.

The lost battle of England might be the first of a long series for Nintendo. British players punish the lack of renewal, outdated visuals, lack of ambition, broken promises and casual focus. How much time before France, Italy, Germany and the rest of Europe gets fed up with ever-identical rehashes? How long before the casual market dries up like in the UK? Iwata should get to work, clock is ticking.

My games of the year 2013 (GoTY 2013)

Best action game

Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge (PS3)

We badly harassed Tecmo Koei Europe to get this one. Abusively taken by those filthy Kyoto pilferers, this great action game came back to us and that’s only justice. Its immense difficulty is tiring but refreshing, the gameplay is fantastic from A to Z and the multiplayer has grown perfect.

Runner-up : Orochi Warrior 3 Ultimate (PSVita)

Best shooter

Battlefield 4 (PS4)

Already fairly good on PS3, Battlefield is transcended thanks to the power of the PS4. It’s now filled with details, effects are as close to reality as they can get, and the bangings makes you freak out even more. But above all, it is the 64-player Conquest Mode that takes console players to another dimension. Pure war across kilometers, vehicles for everyone and recon job better than ever.

Runner-up : none

Best fighting game

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (PS3)

Well that was easy, true. But Dead or Alive still reigns over the fighting genre, when the competition is focusing on underwhelming Free to Play. DOA5U is only a little step further compared to DOA5, but it does give some easy trophies and it will soon welcome the most desired character ever : Gothic Lolita Marie-Rose.

Runner-up : SoulCalibur II HD (PS3)

Best strategy game

Pokemon XY (3DS)

It’s not very strategic, but Pokemon Y is probably as much a strategy game as a JRPG. Despite the blank story and the super low level of difficulty, this newest episode is addictive as ever thanks to character design and top graphics.

Runner-up : World in Conflict (PC)

Best puzzle game

Ace Attorney Dual Destinies (3DS)

Phoenix Wright is back for greater good! The game is so beautiful that it looks like an animated series, the characters are as hilarious as ever, it has a top-class story and a thrilling suspense. All the more reasons to dive into the quickest and rightest judiciary system in the world.

Runner-up : Sim City (PC)

Best RPG

Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3)

Succeeding to the great Tales of Xillia was not easy. Yet Tales of Xillia 2 is greater. Better story, better direction and very nice new characters add quite some value to a already near -perfect battle system.

Runner-up : Atelier Escha&Logy (PS3)

Best music

Atelier Ayesha (PS3)

Equally great, now more varied, the OSTs of the Atelier series are well above average. In Atelier Ayesha, introductions, endings, battle themes and background music are all masterpieces. It logically gets the palm. Good for it that it release this year, because the next…

Runner-up : Fairy Fencer F (PS3)

Best story

Remember Me (PS3)

Everyone forgot about it, but I will remember it. Remember Me creates one the most fascinating world this generation. The parallel European History is so credible that it could actually happen in the next 20 years. You can look into your memories, you’ll never find the true meaning of Remember Me.

Runner-up : Metal Gear Rising Revengeance (PS3)

Best game you might never play

Sol Trigger (PSP)

Sol Trigger is one of the best RPG released on the previous handheld generation. It has intense fighting, a great story and the best graphic of a PSP game ever. Publishers should really have a look at it when there’s time, because Westerners definitely shouldn’t miss gems like that.

Runner-up : God Eater 2 (PSVita)

Biggest letdown

Idol Neptune PP (PSVita)

I didn’t really expect anything from it, and yet I was disappointed. Even for a spin-off, I wanted it at least to live up to the standards of the series. It’s not long, it’s not fun, it’s not complex. It’s only good to eye up on Noire (^^’)

Runner-up : Stardust Amazones (3DS)

Best innovation

Lightning Returns (PS3)

While the last adventure of Lightning doesn’t avoid a few drawbacks, I can’t help to be impressed but the work done at Square Enix to give a fresh look at this latest Final Fantasy. I’m used to play on limited time with Atelier, but in real time it’s greater still! You’re running day and night, your eye staring at the clock. You curse your enemies that make you lose precious time, you panic at night… It’s clearly unique.

Runner-up : Journey (PS3)

Best DLC

Project Diva f – Oomiji pack (PSVita)

The DLC that «completes» the Vita version of Project Diva F to match the PS3 version is one of my favorite added content of all time. Expensive (3000 yens), it’s worth much more than that. Senbonzakura alone is.

Runner-up : Metal Gear Rising Revengeance – Blade Wolf DLC (PS3)

Best graphics

Killzone ShadowFall (PS4)

Greatest piece of technology of this beginning of gen, Killzone ShadowFall is mind-blowing. Colors, lightning effects, background effects, all that didn’t exist anywhere but on PC. It looks exactly like Star Wars Episode III, it’s as simple as that.

Runner-up : Battlefield 4 (PS4)

 Game of the year

Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3)

  Atelier Escha&Logy (PS3)

  Atelier Ayesha (PS3)

  Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge (PS3)

Review – Ace Attorney Dual Destinies

Five years. Five long years that Phoenix Wright hadn’t be in court for the hilarious trials of the Ace Attorney series. True, his best friend and rival Miles Edgeworth did come to our DS, but only once out of two, the second game sadly having never been localized. In this particular context, Ace Attorney 5 coming at us is rather crucial and we shouldn’t leave this gesture by Capcom unanswered.

First of all, this game is BEAUTIFUL. It looks as good as no game on 3DS ever and puts Nintendo’s games for its own system to shame. The characters are so well detailed and animated that it reminded me of Fire Emblem cut-scenes. All this including the legendary talent of the devs to offer us eccentric characters with extreme personalities, weird but extremely fun behavior. In short, AA5 is the best-looking I’ve seen on 3DS by leagues.

Adding to its fantastic humor, the game is no less relevant in judiciary themes, as it has always been in the series. All scenarios (i.e. the cases at hand) revolves around something called «the dark age of Justice». A period plagued with fabricated evidence, false accusations and a growing defiance towards the judiciary system. Even though the chapters are different from each other, for most part they keep being linked to this topic, highlighted by a mysterious bombing inside the court. This particular narrative gives a great significance to the game in a whole. Like in a good TV thriller, the player feels deeply involved in the story. 

Storytelling has been thought with great care. The second case might seem a bit weak in this department, you will be stuck at on your 3DS for everything else. A example of the effort made by Capcom on this : the beginning of the game is very different from the demo to ensure maximum pleasure of discovery. The scenario has some awesome twists, music is as classy as ever and the very end is near perfect.

The gameplay doesn’t vary much from the past episodes, you still have to show the right evidence at the right time to win trials, and discuss with witnesses in investigation parts. The big thing in AA5 is Athena’s capacity to analyze the emotions of people : those sequences are fairly numerous and offer diverse approach. It’s really a great add to series, much more interesting than the «Logic» in Ace Attorney Investigations. In theory, it’s about finding emotions that contradicts the current statement, but in practice it’s far richer. Past features like psy-locks and Apollo’s ring of truth are present too, but don’t occur very often. Investigation has lost any interest as you can investigate only 2 locations per case, and the game indicates everything.

As for characters, AA5 makes a balance between the three main protagonists, each of them having his own trial to win. I really appreciate this willingness to get rid of the «sidekick» role and allowing less important characters take the spotlight, even if it means less Phoenix (and believe me, you never have enough Phoenix). Your opponent, Simon Blackquill, is a truly great character that will instantly wipe out Klavier, who I thought didn’t really fit to the job. Talking about this, Klavier and many other make a comeback, but it’s always very short and they doesn’t make much sense in the story. But yeah, it’s always nice to see them.

The only thing I’m disappointed of is the level of difficulty. Like I said, investigation has been reduced to a check-list, so you no longer have to search for this little thingy in the flower pot but it does save time). The green life bar doesn’t have any more importance, because when you lose you get back exactly where you were with a full one. It really damages the thrill of the game during trials. Not only this, but as in Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney, the hints given here and there are far too direct and it skips the reasoning. Worse, when you do lose, the game has like a special help window for you to get closer to the solution (but you’re free to use it or not). I understand that nowadays publishers want to avoid that players feel frustrated, but it does hurt the challenge. Of course there still are many parts that will melt your brain, but it’s just not as great as before.

Despite this, Ace Attorney 5 is a super great game, long (more than 30 hours) and hooking. You English-speaker won’t have any problem with language (us French sometimes do), but some may need to get over their fear of digital games. Indeed, AA5 will be available only on the 3DS e-shop. It is more than worth it, and will surely determine the future of Ace Attorney in the West.