Wednesday 27 May 2015

News roundup: This week's magazines and a short Rikyuu gameplay video

This week's Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi gaming magazine coverage

This week is Dengeki PlayStation's turn to present the latest Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi updates. It wasn't the greatest article; everything in it was already revealed on the official website and in the previous Weekly Famitsu coverage. Perhaps we'll get a new video clip in the next website update to make up for the lack of news?

Series director Yamamoto Makoto had some comments about Maria to go with the main article about her moveset:

Azai Nagamasa's elder sister, Maria, heads out to the battlefield to play around when she gets tired of being at the Emperor's side. She's reckless enough already as she skips around the battlefield, twirling her enemies around and turning them into spinning tops, pinball games and draught horses. On top of all that, please imagine her rating the way that Hideyoshi and Nobunaga look compared to Yoshiteru - and Sakon's reaction when he hears about it!

Aside from that...
  • The magazine writers described Maria's Giga Basara artwork as depicting a 'sexy beauty'.
  • This isn't actually news, but they keep spelling Maria's Oshibeshimobe Kuruma♪ move slightly differently (it's back to Oshibeshimobe-guruma♪ in the magazine). The spelling doesn't affect anything important but it's driving me crazy when writing this blog, so I'm going to stop correcting it until I can see the final game and use the definitive spelling.
I also picked up Weekly Famitsu; as expected there was no new Sengoku Basara information but it was interesting to see a shift in their list of upcoming games. The PS3 version of Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi has dropped to 34th place, yet the PS4 version has risen up to 26th; it's surprising to see the PS4 version leading for the first time. Dengeki PlayStation has the game ranked in 5th place in their corresponding list, with 37.9% of votes being for the PS4 version compared to 62.1% for PS3.

The Butai Sengoku Basara 4 DVD will not be released after all

The most disappointing news of the day was this morning's discovery that the Butai Sengoku Basara 4 stage play DVD has been officially cancelled. Capcom aren't behind this; the DVD was the responsibility of their partners, and no explanation has been given beyond the cancellation being due to 'a number of factors'. I submitted some feedback through the official contact form so hopefully they'll respond.

I was just thinking about the stage play again last night and it's terribly sad to think that it's never going to be available for those who weren't able to attend its limited run last year. While the upcoming crossover stage play is interesting too, it's a shame that the future of the main series is so uncertain now. The actors put so much energy into those performances.

Watch more Sen No Rikyuu gameplay courtesy of Capcom TV

A number of fans already spotted this but last week's Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi gameplay footage from Capcom TV has now been released on YouTube for everyone to see.


It's probably most of interest to Sen No Rikyuu fans as there's a gameplay demonstration approximately halfway through the clip and he's the character they've chosen to highlight. There isn't any Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi coverage scheduled for next week's Capcom TV but we can probably expect to see more in future episodes as the release date gets closer.

12 comments:

  1. That fan blast attack is stupidly powerful lmao

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    1. Yeah they were being really cheap with it in that clip (lol). I imagine it will be slightly less effective on higher difficulties...

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    2. That looked like a new science fiction/fantasy weapon: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm proud to present to you the SUPER-HIPER-FAN-BEAM-RAY-ULTRA-CANNON!" XD XD

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    3. This series is full of weirdness, isn't it? (lol)

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  2. So the stage does just sort of end with you interrupting Kenshin and Shingen's fight. I suppose there's the possibility that the demo version edited to remove some of the other events in the stage, too, though. If not, I wonder if Kasuga, Kanetsugu, and Sasuke actually show up in the stage and aren't just commentating, and I wonder if it's possible to knock Kenshin off of his horse when he dashes to the Takeda camp and how that changes things. We already know it's possible to assault the Takeda main camp before Yukimura reaches Kenshin, after all...

    As I believe I've said before, I'm really fond of Rikyuu's gameplay. It seems 'relaxing', or perhaps 'lazy'- not to say it's not interesting, but it's like he's not even trying to fight too hard in spite of pulling off these amazing feats! I can't see how he's not a rival for Yoshiteru's power... maybe he overly relies on his psychic abilities and hasn't trained his body enough? Haha.

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    1. I imagine that there are a few hidden tricks to that Kawanakajima Intrusion stage we haven't seen too. Most of the demonstrations seem to avoid half the area and either rush for the bosses or wander around aimlessly, and while Yukimura's hilarious entrance is great it feels as though something is missing. Since it is probably hard to control the players during live demos, it's possible that they're showing off an incomplete demo build as you say rather than risking revealing all of the secrets too early. Otherwise it feels rather simple compared to the epic struggles that made up the stage design philosophy in Sengoku Basara 4.

      I guess Rikyuu is too focused on his own internal struggle to have risen up as a genuine threat to the nation (yet?). Really looking forward to playing as him in a couple of months!

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    2. I'm liking Rikyuu and his weird hair the more I see him. He brings some calm and culture (half the time) which is refreshing when mostly everyone else in SB is all about crazy action boom crash bang.

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    3. I think Wabisuke will grow on me more as I learn about his story, since he seems like a very interesting fellow and the contrast with his other 'half' is huge. For now I'm all about that crazy action boom crash bang and Sabisuke keeps pulling all of my attention :D

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  3. It really sucks that the DVD got cancelled. Not a surprise, but still. I really wanted to see that one. It was the last time those great actors for Ieyasu and Mitsunari were going to appear in those roles too, wasn’t it. What would sending feedback do if it’s already cancelled?

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    1. A lot of Japanese fans were sending in feedback too. I mostly wanted to make the company feel guilty in the hope that they'd have a change of heart!

      I wonder if it's simply a matter of them being in some kind of financial trouble - which seems likely given the state of the Dais websites and the shop which has been 'under construction' for months - or whether the footage wasn't good enough to use, which would mean that nobody could ever release the DVD even if they sorted out whatever administrative problems they have. At least there are some reenacted scenes from the stage play in the Basara Matsuri DVD which comes out in a few days, but it won't have all the actors or the heartbreaking final performances. I never thought that the stage play series would end up this way; while at least we know some of the actors are being kept for the Butai Sengoku Basara vs Devil May Cry show, what does the future hold? ;_;

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    2. I suspected that the footage got lost or something like that. Something's obviously up with that company though. Would be nice if the fan's feedback could help in some way. Who knows!
      Do you know if there will be Azai couple stuff on the Matsuri DVD?

      Yeah I wish the stage play series could go on for a bit, it was doing so well. This DMC crossover just isn't the same kind of thing.

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    3. The Azai couple were there so there will be some clips of them floating around once the DVD is out, no doubt, as well as some of the other great performers new to Butai Sengoku Basara 4 like Katsuie's actor. This is assuming that the stage play intro isn't cut from the event DVD due to some weird contractual problem - it had better not be, or I'll fly back to Japan and do some investigating myself!

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