Sisters Royal: Switch / PS4 / PC

[Marc]

Haven't seen this mentioned on here so far, new Alfa shooter for Switch:

https://gematsu.com/2018/06/alfa-system ... e-in-japan

Gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXuqTQcKlMc

Looks very Shikigami. May have to set me up a JPN account for this.

[FRO]

Looks like fun. Hoping this one comes stateside.

[Marc]

It's a lean couple of weeks until payday, but I'm so tempted. Turns out creating the JPN account was a piece of piss, and I can even use my own bank card.

[BulletMagnet]

Looks very Shikigami.

...with a touch of Mamoru-kun, I'd posit. Wonder how much info exists on how the thing actually plays...

[_rm_]

It does look a lot like Mamoru kun, a game i really like.

Any good info on how to create the JPN account and buy this?


Thanks in advance.

[Mero]

Unexpected to see them come out with this, think this is their first stg since Shiki 3.

[Tokyo-J]

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

[guigui]

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

Wait a little ?

[Tokyo-J]

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

Wait a little ?

Is a USA release confirmed?

[DoomsDave]

I bought it, played once and initial impressions are not very good. Cliffs:

- It's basically Shiki. You only shoot in 1 direction and it has 3 buttons, autofire, shikigami attack and bomb. The only thing it has in common with Mamurokun is that you're little girls walking across the stage.

- 5 stages, all very short. Level design and enemy patterns are pretty uninteresting.

- Starts off pretty easy but gets manic by stage 3. I credit fed normal on my first run and used 5 continues. I'm not a high skill player though, I can 1cc only a handful of games.

- There are environmental elements that are really annoying like ice that slows the player down or fans that knock you around. Stage 4 is absolute bullshit. The entire stage including the boss is in the dark with a light only around the player so you can only see a small radius.

- Overall production value seems pretty low. Art style is super inconsistent. Technically it runs fine at 60fps and the game isn't ugly but it never shines at anything. Environments themselves are pretty forgettable with not much going on. There's a really bad disconnect where the characters in game are chibi but the illustrations of them during dialog sequences is of regular adults. Both kinds of character designs are pretty boring anyway. Massive boobs on the screen is frequent.

- There are 2 or 3 good music tracks in the game but apart from that the music and overall sound effect quality is really bad. The carnival type music they use in between stages is a worst of all time contender.

- It's story driven and very Japanese text heavy. No English and no voice acting at all. At the start/end of each stage and at the start/end of boss battles there will be lengthy dialog between characters. You can skip it but might mean the game will take a while to get localise if at all.

- It has tate and button config. Most of the menu is in Japanese but there's not many options at all so easy to figure everything out.

I really like the Shiki series but I really have no urge to go back and play this after trying it once, it's just average. Maybe I'll give it another chance soon.

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

Unless your paypal account or credit card is from Japan then the only way is using a Japanese eshop card.

I get them from playasia. There's probably cheaper places but I haven't looked recently.

https://www.play-asia.com/nintendo-esho ... /13/704a2v

[Tokyo-J]

I bought it, played once and initial impressions are not very good. Cliffs:

- It's basically Shiki. You only shoot in 1 direction and it has 3 buttons, autofire, shikigami attack and bomb. The only thing it has in common with Mamurokun is that you're little girls walking across the stage.

- 5 stages, all very short. Level design and enemy patterns are pretty uninteresting.

- Starts off pretty easy but gets manic by stage 3. I credit fed normal on my first run and used 5 continues. I'm not a high skill player though, I can 1cc only a handful of games.

- There are environmental elements that are really annoying like ice that slows the player down or fans that knock you around. Stage 4 is absolute bullshit. The entire stage including the boss is in the dark with a light only around the player so you can only see a small radius.

- Overall production value seems pretty low. Art style is super inconsistent. Technically it runs fine at 60fps and the game isn't ugly but it never shines at anything. Environments themselves are pretty forgettable with not much going on. There's a really bad disconnect where the characters in game are chibi but the illustrations of them during dialog sequences is of regular adults. Both kinds of character designs are pretty boring anyway. Massive boobs on the screen is frequent.

- There are 2 or 3 good music tracks in the game but apart from that the music and overall sound effect quality is really bad. The carnival type music they use in between stages is a worst of all time contender.

- It's story driven and very Japanese text heavy. No English and no voice acting at all. At the start/end of each stage and at the start/end of boss battles there will be lengthy dialog between characters. You can skip it but might mean the game will take a while to get localise if at all.

- It has tate and button config. Most of the menu is in Japanese but there's not many options at all so easy to figure everything out.

I really like the Shiki series but I really have no urge to go back and play this after trying it once, it's just average. Maybe I'll give it another chance soon.

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

Unless your paypal account or credit card is from Japan then the only way is using a Japanese eshop card.

I get them from playasia. There's probably cheaper places but I haven't looked recently.

https://www.play-asia.com/nintendo-esho ... /13/704a2v

Thank you.

[djsheep]

I bought it, played once and initial impressions are not very good. Cliffs:

- It's basically Shiki. You only shoot in 1 direction and it has 3 buttons, autofire, shikigami attack and bomb. The only thing it has in common with Mamurokun is that you're little girls walking across the stage.

- 5 stages, all very short. Level design and enemy patterns are pretty uninteresting.

- Starts off pretty easy but gets manic by stage 3. I credit fed normal on my first run and used 5 continues. I'm not a high skill player though, I can 1cc only a handful of games.

- There are environmental elements that are really annoying like ice that slows the player down or fans that knock you around. Stage 4 is absolute bullshit. The entire stage including the boss is in the dark with a light only around the player so you can only see a small radius.

- Overall production value seems pretty low. Art style is super inconsistent. Technically it runs fine at 60fps and the game isn't ugly but it never shines at anything. Environments themselves are pretty forgettable with not much going on. There's a really bad disconnect where the characters in game are chibi but the illustrations of them during dialog sequences is of regular adults. Both kinds of character designs are pretty boring anyway. Massive boobs on the screen is frequent.

- There are 2 or 3 good music tracks in the game but apart from that the music and overall sound effect quality is really bad. The carnival type music they use in between stages is a worst of all time contender.

- It's story driven and very Japanese text heavy. No English and no voice acting at all. At the start/end of each stage and at the start/end of boss battles there will be lengthy dialog between characters. You can skip it but might mean the game will take a while to get localise if at all.

- It has tate and button config. Most of the menu is in Japanese but there's not many options at all so easy to figure everything out.

I really like the Shiki series but I really have no urge to go back and play this after trying it once, it's just average. Maybe I'll give it another chance soon.

Any suggestions on how to buy this? I have a Japanese Account but am located in the USA.

Unless your paypal account or credit card is from Japan then the only way is using a Japanese eshop card.

I get them from playasia. There's probably cheaper places but I haven't looked recently.

https://www.play-asia.com/nintendo-esho ... /13/704a2v

Your review is on point. Started enjoying the game from the 3rd Level. Skipped the cut scenes with the "+" button.

* With regards to buying Japanese e-Shop games on the Switch, I tried 4 different credit cards with no luck.

I then created a dummy PayPal.jp account, and linked my gaijin credit card to that.

I then requested an authorisation e-mail on my Switch to link my PayPal to the account.

I clicked the link, and all was done, now I can purchase anything on my Switch with PayPal.

This took me a while to figure out. The key is to have a valid Japanese mailing address for it to work. You can use one from a proxy shipping service, for example. If anyone needs any help with it, feel free to drop me a line.

[xxx1993]

It looks very much like a spiritual successor to Castle of Shikigami. I wonder if this game will feature cheesy voice acting?

[James_Degica]

Not that it's one of our games, but the hard difficulty provides an extra scoring mechanic (treasure chests which spew coins when hit, the risk being you need to stay close to them to collect while being fired at) and a large overall bump in difficulty. The story is fun too (albeit in Japanese, so unless you can read it, that won't mean much).
Yes, it is very much Shikigami-esque, so if you enjoyed that series, you'll find something to like.

[FRO]

So with Degica handling it, does that mean it will see release on the Switch in the West?

[Shepardus]

So with Degica handling it

They're not.

Not that it's one of our games

[M.Knight]

Thanks for the impressions, DoomsDave!
I have a question : According to the gematsu article, there are "Secret fairies" in the levels that increase the Tension Bonus rate. How do these come into play during the levels? And how are they incorporated into the scoring routes, compared to Shiki 3's Hi-Tension Maxes for example?

[FRO]

So with Degica handling it

They're not.

Not that it's one of our games

Wow. I'm a doofus.

[James_Degica]

Thanks for the impressions, DoomsDave!
I have a question : According to the gematsu article, there are "Secret fairies" in the levels that increase the Tension Bonus rate. How do these come into play during the levels? And how are they incorporated into the scoring routes, compared to Shiki 3's Hi-Tension Maxes for example?

There are points throughout the level that can be shot repeatedly and a fairy will pop out (think the fairies in Raiden).
If you grab one, it grants a limited x2 multiplier to any points (so max goes from x8 > x16).
Some characters can use their special attack ("Shiki" attack) to release the faries, others need to use their normal shot.
I think there's one hidden on each boss too, so the key there would be grabbing it, then destroying the boss.

So with Degica handling it

They're not.

Not that it's one of our games

Wow. I'm a doofus.

Don't worry, I often have trouble writing, let alone reading so you're already better than me!

[M.Knight]

Thank you James!
That mechanic seems less flexible than Shiki 3's HTMs but is still interesting as you have to get the fairies at the right time to maximize your score gains. Uncovering them also reminds me of the Star Soldier Z-tiles, which is pretty cool.

[cj iwakura]

Somehow it looks... cheaper than Shiki. Like it lacks any of that series' charm.

I'm glad they're still making shmups, at least.

[Despatche]

DoomsDave's writeup is really weird and I don't know if I believe that "I really like the Shiki series" bit. I'm not about to call this better or worse than any of the SnS games—I've never played it—but there are obvious red flags here. A lot of the claims here are things that exist in SnS, and these are things that have traditionally turned people away from the series. It just reads like damning one game and praising another for the exact same qualities, which is far too common and never gets called out like it should. We need less people worrying about "charm", whatever that is, and more people worrying about actual gameplay.

The "really bad disconnect" is a fairly common artstyle choice, it was never an issue in the Ys6 trilogy etc.

[DoomsDave]

My write up was after a short amount of time playing and I only did it because there were no other impressions but I criticized the gameplay. Just because one game does the same as another doesn't mean it does it as well. Almost everything about this game's design isn't on par with Shiki. Enemy patterns and environmental elements are fun in Shiki, they feel lazy and boring in this. In Shiki stages are longer than 40 seconds and actually interesting, enemy patterns are fun and environmental obstacles aren't annoying/cheap. Yes it shares the same elements but it's execution is poor, not sure why that's hard to understand. With that said, I haven't had a chance to get back into the game so maybe my initial impression is way off and it will grow on me. I also mentioned I'm not a high skill level player and don't play for score so my opinion on the whole Shiki series for serious players shouldn't hold much weight anyway.

The bad disconnect in artstyle is common but it never being an issue is subjective, it always looks bad to me. I always prefer gameplay over "charm"(dumb phrase) but when presentation is poor then I think it's worth pointing out.

[James_Degica]

Not to pick a fight, but I enjoy Shiki and I enjoyed this perhaps more in some ways.
The slightly lower difficulty and shorter levels meant 'a quick blast' turned into several hours trying to better my score, and whereas I wasn't a huge fan of Shiki's environmental obstacles,
I found the ice level on this worked well with the control method.
I wasn't a huge fan of the art at first either, but after a few plays, it grew on me to the point that while writing this, I feel the urge to boot up the Switch again...
Each to his own, I suppose!

On a side note, Alfa System is 30 years old this year, making them perhaps the oldest developer in Japan.

[DoomsDave]

Haha I'm not trying to start a fight either, I've played the game for about an hour so they were just very early impressions and I have no problem if people love the game. My opinion might change after some more time. I hated that ice level though...

[James_Degica]

Variety is the spice of life, afterall!

I hated that ice level though...

I can see that; the ice level caught me off guard at first. The giant fans were a lot tougher for me though.
I think someone else mentioned, but it reminds me of Elemental Master in some ways.

[Despatche]

My write up was after a short amount of time playing and I only did it because there were no other impressions but I criticized the gameplay. Just because one game does the same as another doesn't mean it does it as well. Almost everything about this game's design isn't on par with Shiki. Enemy patterns and environmental elements are fun in Shiki, they feel lazy and boring in this. In Shiki stages are longer than 40 seconds and actually interesting, enemy patterns are fun and environmental obstacles aren't annoying/cheap. Yes it shares the same elements but it's execution is poor, not sure why that's hard to understand.

I have seen far too many writeups that make no indication that one implementation is better than another, and I have even seen writeups that diss one implementation with zero explanation for it. What I say here is a great example. SnS is historically defined as a "bad Touhou clone" with "boring" patterns and whining about every game's stage 3 that always has environmental problems to "put up with". People still say these things today, if you look hard enough.

Saying something is "actually interesting" but also saying you don't play the games very seriously just adds to this. You can't really judge a game's design if you openly admit that you don't actually pay attention to it. It's very disrespectful to the game designers who put in serious hours trying to get these games to work at least somewhat well. This is an age-old problem with the community, even in this age where there is no real "community" and it's just a bunch of fragments everywhere that don't even know they all exist. I can already see someone trying to tell me I'm being "elitist" by stating this, even though it's very basic logic about how game design fundamentally works.

Maybe if far too many people wouldn't blindly go off wot ppl fink about a game to the damned letter, as we see with so many gaming sites and as we saw with RXN, this wouldn't be an issue. Objectivity exists in this hobby, and in game design. People are even willing to admit to it about things they personally like. Just like with RXN, we need and deserve better voices. We need people who actually care about game design, and who also actually care about the fact that someone was willing to put in the effort to make a real game for this dying genre (something all too many "superplayers" scorn). This throwaway posting is no better than the equally throwaway reviews that all those awful websites churn out every time a company dares to localize one of these games. That's not "elitism", it's basic decency.

[Shepardus]

We need less people worrying about "charm", whatever that is, and more people worrying about actual gameplay.

"Charm," as ill-defined as it is, is the only part that really matters; it's what makes the game actually compelling, as opposed to merely not broken. You can tune a gameplay system to be mathematically perfect or whatever and it'll still fall flat without the right support.

Objectivity exists in this hobby, and in game design. People are even willing to admit to it about things they personally like. Just like with RXN, we need and deserve better voices. We need people who actually care about game design, and who also actually care about the fact that someone was willing to put in the effort to make a real game for this dying genre (something all too many "superplayers" scorn).

Be the change you want to see and go write those "objective" reviews you so desire if you think everybody else is doing such a poor job. There is such a thing as objective analysis of a game's design, but without clear axioms it just comes across as any old opinion with "this is fact so you can't disagree with me" tacked on at the end.

But I digress, that may be something for another thread. As for this game, what little footage I've seen reminds me of a cute mobile game, but not necessarily in a bad way.

[DoomsDave]

I mean I posted initial impressions after an hour of play and you're acting like I've done some grave injustice to the game's developers and the community because I haven't studied the game in detail before posting. It's not elitest, it's just kind of ridiculous.

Like shep said, if you're so passionate about the genre needing better voices then buy the games and review them yourself instead of complaining to others that their opinions mean nothing. You did the same thing in the RXN thread.

As for people "who actually care about game design", I've been in the industry for 10 years, currently employed by a studio as a designer and just released my own game on the Switch that I designed myself. It's not a shmup but if you want to see how much I care about design then I can PM a code and you can do an objective review on it...

[PAULINK]

I'm surprised there aren't any voiced parts in this game, hopefully it gets localized.