New shooter from Suda 51 and Level 5: "Liberation Maiden"

[BazookaBen]

Apparently it's already out in Europe. Anybody in that place want to download it and post a review?

Some screens in the link.

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/10/04/fe ... reenshots/

[KAI]

Not new at all, Kaihou Shojo looks really cheap.

A high school girl who became President of Japan after her father's assassination

Only in Japan.

[shmuppyLove]

Looks pretty good!

Are we emulating 3DS yet?

[BulletMagnet]

I think this one's closer to a rail shooter, so I'm moving the discussion to OT: I'll shift it back if I've been misinformed.

[Zeether]

I don't get why this can't be out in the US right now when the game's EU version is pretty much a finished English version. I am buying this though, because I want more Level-5 stuff localized (Time Travelers PLEASE)

[shmuppyLove]

I don't get why this can't be out in the US right now when the game's EU version is pretty much a finished English version.

Same thing happened with Xenoblade and Last Story on Wii ... good ol' Ninty!

[BazookaBen]

I don't get why this can't be out in the US right now when the game's EU version is pretty much a finished English version. I am buying this though, because I want more Level-5 stuff localized (Time Travelers PLEASE)

I guess now we know how British people have felt for the past 30 years.

[Skykid]

I don't get why this can't be out in the US right now when the game's EU version is pretty much a finished English version. I am buying this though, because I want more Level-5 stuff localized (Time Travelers PLEASE)

I guess now we know how British people have felt for the past 30 years.

Yes, Terranigma aside.

[cj iwakura]

I don't get why this can't be out in the US right now when the game's EU version is pretty much a finished English version. I am buying this though, because I want more Level-5 stuff localized (Time Travelers PLEASE)

I guess now we know how British people have felt for the past 30 years.

I used to think it was a matter of multiple languages, but I hear few games bother doing anything but English.

They've really picked up the exclusives, especially on the Wii.

[wuuds]

Hi there all

Long time fan of the website but I've only joined today (stuck in Africa with no decent internet before. long story).

I've been playing Liberation Maiden today since it's released here in Europe, so I can shed some light on the game.
First off it's not on-rails. You control the mech freely in an open 'zone' using the analog stick of the 3DS for movement. The left shoulder button lets you 'strafe' which is very useful when engaging the minibosses and main bosses in the game. To fire your weapon you have to place the stylus on the touch screen to highlight an enemy and then lift it off of the screen to fire. You can 'paint' a bunch of enemies to fire at all of them.

The tricky thing is that your weapon and shield share the same power source. Firing your weapon when fully charged (you fire missiles at various enemies on screen or all of them at one enemy) means you lose your shield for a second or so, leaving you vulnerable.

There are only 5 stages, so not a long game, but they are a lot of fun. Three difficulty levels and the ability to tackle stages individually. Each stage has to be unlocked in story mode to make it available for single play.
Um.. what else... Oh Yeah! during each stage you will get missions on the fly (you get them over the radio). You also 'purify' the areas by destroying enemies. Not quite sure how that works yet to be honest.
I have however managed to unlock a 'sub mission' in one of the stages so there must be others around as well.

OK so I hope that helps a little. I'll answer any questions you have if any.
Glad to be here

[BazookaBen]

Thanks for the report!

Is it in 3d? It seems to me it would be weird to switch your eyes back and forth between the touch screen and the 3d screen quickly. Otherwise it sounds very interesting.

[wuuds]

Um.. I have to confess that I haven't even tried the 3D effect yet! I have no idea why but it totally slipped my mind. Lame of me. I'll get on that right away and report back.

The game has a reticule to keep track of your stylus movements on the top screen. If these crosshairs do not pass over an enemy and 'activate' it, then you won't fire. So you can move it around freely. Forgot to mention that sorry.
I find it very well implemented. To be honest I never look at the touch screen for aiming. It feels very natural to simply look at the top screen and fire away. The only time I have looked at the bottom screen (which is covered in a great looking 'honey-comb' pattern) is when I've had to check where specific enemy ships are located for some missions. Oh and also when switching weapons. I feel this will come naturally after a bit of practice though.

I also forgot to mention that there is a chaining system in place. I haven't quite got the handle of it yet but it doesn't seem too difficult. It'll count the enemy ships you take down and reset after a small pause if no new enemies are attacked. Nothing new I know but I personally love this kind of system. Also if you chain enemies then a green um.. 'sphere' will form screen left. When the chain is interrupted this sphere 'breaks' and feeds your score. A nice visual cue I find.
It is easy to just drag the stylus across multiple enemies, but when you release the stylus all your missiles fire at once. I've found that sometimes tapping enemies individually can be a more effective way of keeping the chain going. I'm no expert though just an observation.
Oh and there is a bomb in the game. It has to be built up from destroying enemies and clears an area on the screen when fired. I tried testing it on a mini-boss but I don't think it had any effect. Will double check that.

The presentation in this game is great. It has a kind of 'fight back to reclaim nature' feel to it. The art is also very 'organic' and fleshes this out thematically. For example when you defeat a mini-boss you'll see a kind of ethereal green bloom form which looks great! This is also where you'll be shown a message to inform you of your 'purification percentage'. Still have to figure that one out. There's artwork and bits of information about the world and characters to unlock so perhaps it has something to do with that.

Going to try some other difficulty levels for a bit more of a challenge.
The final boss can be quite a bastard though.

Will get back about that 3D

*NOTE
I'm quite excited about this game but if I'm giving away too much please tell me.

[EmperorIng]

If and when I pick up a 3DS, I'll probably have to pick this one up.
If it gets released in the USA, that is.

[wuuds]

I'm sure it will.
All of Suda's games so far have released over on your side.
Has anyone here played Sine Mora? I really want to play that. Love the mechanic in that one.

[BulletMagnet]

Long time fan of the website but I've only joined today (stuck in Africa with no decent internet before. long story).

I could swear that someone else around here has/had that same avatar...or maybe I'm thinking of a different forum.

Has anyone here played Sine Mora? I really want to play that. Love the mechanic in that one.

There's a topic for the game here, but prepare yourself going in. In any event there's a demo if you want to just try it yourself.

[wuuds]

Ah I think I use this over at Tiny cartridge so maybe you saw it there? Or the Earthbound forum

prepare yourself going in

I see what you mean. There's a lot of Suda 51 hate over there. Ah well I enjoyed Killer7 on the Gamecube. Never really played much else of his. I just though Sine Mora's time system seemed like a good idea.

Yesterday I finally played Ketsui for the first time. Now that I really enjoy!

[trap15]

Well, it was super hyped, and they even name-dropped Garegga for fuck's sake, so I can definitely see how it was a letdown that the game was fairly bad. Honestly, it feels like a missed opportunity; it had the capability to be a good game, and I could feel it while playing a bit.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well, it was super hyped, and they even name-dropped Garegga for fuck's sake, so I can definitely see how it was a letdown that the game was fairly bad. Honestly, it feels like a missed opportunity; it had the capability to be a good game, and I could feel it while playing a bit.

Biggest problems in dot points which are covered in that thread:
- supersupersuperwidescreen, so you can't even see anything on a HDTV without HDMI cables
- emphasis on appeasing the casual audience with unskippable cutscenes, overcomplicated story, dumbed difficulty and HD etc
- use of randomisation (piano drops on you from nowhere, instant Game Over for no apparent reason, randomisation = luck, not consistency)
- defending use of randomisation with "well game x did it, so can we" even though game x had *no* randomisation at all
- broken autofire
- pictures released to initially convey the game as inspired by Battle Garegga and nothing for us to worry about 'euroshmuppyness' end up nowhere near the final product (yet another euroshmup)

A good portion of the concerns for these were quite apparent well before the game's release, and the developers didn't listen. Little bits and pieces that could've been individually fixed with a patch or even well before release were ignored and left to remain and grow. No wonder then that the thread degenerated further into less constructive comments as more people felt it wasn't the 1200 MS points it was overhyped up to be.

[wuuds]

Honestly, it feels like a missed opportunity; it had the capability to be a good game, and I could feel it while playing a bit.

That's a pity. I think it's worse when you can actually feel that the game has potential. It would be great if they did release a patch or whatever to fix certain things but I doubt that will happen unfortunately. Then again, stranger things have in the past.

piano drops on you from nowhere, instant Game Over for no apparent reason

Seriously? That sounds incredibly stupid. Why would anyone put that in a game, never mind a genre, where skill is of such paramount importance?
Sounds really disappointing.

At least there is the demo so I can try that out first.

[CStarFlare]

Sine Mora is weird; many of BPzeBanshee's points are valid but I've actually become used to most of them. The piano is rare as fuck (>24 hours of play time, seen three piano tokens; the piano only drops if you grab the token), random items are a pain but if you can keep it together to stage 2 you'll have built a decent arsenal regardless of your luck. The cutscenes are pretty short and can be fast-forwarded through in any case. It certainly takes some cues from Garegga - rank, medalling, and optionally destructible boss parts are all there. There's also flamingos and a little bit of boss milking.

Sine Mora does have a lot of issues, and it eventually became apparent to me that stage 1 is by far the most obnoxious.

- You have random item drops, which can leave you severely underpowered for the midboss, where you are literally guaranteed to lose your multiplier if you don't have a random shield drop.
- The second phase of the midboss fight takes place in a wind storm, where it's nearly impossible to re-collect your powerups if you take a hit. If you weren't able to destroy all the midboss's parts in the first encounter (see: were underpowered and didn't have a shield) then its second phase can get really rough.
- Then you have a tight tunnel section where enemies release goo when they die that can damage you - but only sometimes, and it's not apparent when the stuff is dangerous and when it isn't. Still haven't really figured it out.
- Then you have sections of the boss fights where smoke or the environment literally cover your ship and the boss' bullets.

But if you can get into stage 2 with a decent weapon level, the game suddenly is much less of a pain in the ass. It has a couple of instant-game over sections later on, but they're not hard to avoid once you know to watch for them. Once I could get past stage 1 on a regular basis, the game stopped stressing me out and I really started to like it. There's a couple layers to the scoring system which is nice, and it really is well presented. If you like boss fights, it has something like 13 of them, and there's a lot of variety among them. Some of the gameplay decisions are controversial or flat-out poor, but it's an interesting package and can be a lot of fun when you start to feel like you've been able to get things under control.

[AweOfShe]

Thanks for letting us know your impressions, wuuds. Looking forward to giving the game a go, once it hits the NA eShop.

[Casey120]

I still had some money from my pre-paid card on my 3DS yesterday , checked out what was new and came across this but the fucking cut scene trailer doesn't even remotely hints to what kind of game it is so I passed it by quickly.
Now I see gameplay shots and really want it but I already spend the money on other games , 10 seconds of actual gameplay would have resulted in an instant buy .
What kind of lame advertising is that ?

[BPzeBanshee]

Thanks for the more indepth writeup CStarFlare, you've brought up some points even I hadn't been aware of.
One point about the cutscenes I'd like to clarify though: they're not so annoying in itself for me but the developers were more than well aware of the difference between 'fastforwarding a sequence that you still have to put up with' and 'skipping it outright' and yet again chose to ignore the advice. Again, little bit of ignorance to the audience with more little bits that added up over time.

Certainly nothing they can't learn from experience. Soldner-X was a piece of crap to begin with but the sequel is very playable, and both are from the same studio. If they could improve I'm sure Grasshopper Manufacture or whichever part of the joint that actually made the gameplay design choices can too.

[EmperorIng]

I still had some money from my pre-paid card on my 3DS yesterday , checked out what was new and came across this but the fucking cut scene trailer doesn't even remotely hints to what kind of game it is so I passed it by quickly.
Now I see gameplay shots and really want it but I already spend the money on other games , 10 seconds of actual gameplay would have resulted in an instant buy .
What kind of lame advertising is that ?

Dude, you're supposed to see "Suda 51" with "cutscenes made by Studio Bones" and say "instabuy", of course!

[wuuds]

Hey all.

Sorry for not checking in until now. Got the flu or a cold whatever you call it when the Norwegian winter gets you for the first time. No fun times.

There's a review for Liberation Maiden over at Nintendolife if anyone's interested: http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/esh ... iden_eshop

i agree with the review on most points except for where they say:

Shoko also has the ability to strafe by holding the L button, which might cramp your hand a bit, but it can be quite useful when tackling some of the harder sections of the game.

and

it does suffer from repetition after prolonged play

The strafe button 'issue' is just stupid since you can just press the L button once to activate/deactivate it. You don't have to hold the thing down so there's no cramping whatsoever. (I would also change 'quite useful' to 'essential' for enjoyment but yeah that might just be me)

As far as repetition goes. It's a shooter. You shoot stuff. It's five stages long. How bad can that be in all honesty. To be honest I found it quite cool actually and each stage was different. Some even had small 'sneaking' segments. Every area you visited also was very different from the previous. If you find it repetitive then you aren't really into the genre are you? You could call almost anything repetitive if you wanted but this seems a bit wrong, as if the reviewer either had no understanding of the genre or just never played further than the first stage.
Ah I got a bit annoyed. OK I'll stop

October 25 NA gets it and then you can all decide for yourself if you want to.

ps. The 3D left me cold to be honest BazookaBen. I can't speak for others though since I think it works best with 2D games and just makes the rest look blurry.

Also so many different points going on around Sine Mora. Guess I'll just have to take the plunge and check it out.

Oh and yes! What the hell was up with the trailer for Liberation Maiden. Basically it's just the intro to the game with no gameplay at all. When I finally booted up the game I was greeted by that same footage. That irritated me more than a little and made it difficult to get into the whole thing straightaway.

*EDIT:

I'm still trying to get a hang of chaining. There's a multiplier as well so trying to suss it out. I've always loved shooters but I'm very new to trying to figure out the mechanics. Can't wait till the peoples here put it under the microscope!

Attacking stages individually now, starting with easy and moving up as I try to get a hang of the system. So far:

Stage01 - 706,440 (meh. nothing to write home about)
Stage02 - 1,307,012 (getting there slowly)

strangely time seems to out-rank the point score in the leaderboard.

[Zeether]

Out in the US now.

I just bought it and I love it to death. Only problem is the enemies' missiles track in a weird way, they tend to weave around and even though I get a missile warning from the commander (by the way, the voice work in this is great) it never actually hits me, but some of the missiles head straight at me.

Very fun though, and I am digging the hell out of the music, especially during the first boss. If they release a soundtrack I'll be super happy.

[Octopod]

Just bought this and gave it a go. All the tapping annoys me. Why can't I just press a button to shoot?

Edit: Actually I think I'm playing it wrong and no tapping is really needed. Also it kind of sucks for left handed people. It is pretty fun though.

[wuuds]

Finally more people are getting the chance to play this!
I wonder what everyone will make of it

[linko9]

Does this have CPP support like Kid Icarus? I'm left handed

[Domino]

Downloading it right now. Won't be able to play it until at tomorrow.