News roundup: Gossip from the Tokyo Sengoku Basara 4 preorder event

Today the last of the five consecutive Sengoku Basara 4 in-store preorder events was held in Setagaya, Tokyo at a Tsutaya store. KobaP presented a brand new Sengoku Basara 4 video, met the fans and answered questions in two separate 'talk show' presentations.

Since I'm not there in person, I've rounded up a few rumours from people who did manage to attend via scavenging from Twitter, blogs, 2ch and the like. Here we go.

• This week's new video is about battles. A lot of stages were shown.
• Masamune's Aoba Castle stage has an 'Oushuu Cup' event (presumably a race).
• Katsuie was shown racing against Masamune with his 'nagi-copter' (i.e. spinning his naginata like a Doraemon-style take-copter).
• Shikanosuke's Investigation: Shikanosuke stage was shown too.
• Kanbee's stage has a mining cart you can ride. And there's a ball roulette of some kind..?
• There's an onsen stage where the girls get together (Note: I think this could be the one we've seen in a few pictures before, and in Ieyasu's DLC video). Someone confirmed the name was Kaga Onsen: Otome No Tsudoi (Kaga Hot Springs: Gathering Of Maidens).
• On the Maeda family's festival stage, Sakon was heard asking where the gambling parlor was.
• Tsuruhime's stage has a huge bell which can produce money when it sounds.
• Soldiers formed a barrier on Nagamasa's stage but it was broken immediately.
• YamamotoD mentioned making a theme park stage this time (Note: we've seen this in a few shots).
• Someone said that the mechanic of cutting through the sliding doors on Yoshiteru's stage was nice. Weekly Famitsu once said that this mechanic was part of Honnouji, if I recall correctly, so this might be mixed up (either that or both stages use it).
• Motochika, Motonari and Keiji were shown on the march screen.
• KobaP seems to have said that Motonari has his sights set on Aniki's Hyakki Fugaku fortress.
• There's some kind of team-up between Masamune and Yukimura for Osaka Castle; the messages are jumbled but people are saying it feels as though they confront Hideyoshi and Hanbee.
• There's a huge cannon on your side for Osaka Castle again.
• And Hanbee's 'one night castles' can spring up again too.
• There was other content too which the 2ch poster thought they had missed. Someone else said that there was so much information they doubt anyone will be able to remember it all to make a report.
• For some reason half of Twitter is going on about Amago again. I'm going to assume that this is actually a Shikanosuke stage using Amago's name and troops as this is what all of the information points to... Amago's legions of fans are scary.
• Amago's soldiers 'surf' the desert on wooden planks on Shikanosuke's stage.
• Many people have mentioned an appearance by the 'Amago Juuyuushi' (Amago Ten Braves). Historically, Shikanosuke is described as being part of this group.
• Yoshiaki's copies are better than Yoshimoto's were.
• You can view pictures of the venue from @ritsuka8282 and @suimemo to see the scale of the event (it's small).
• There's also a close-up picture of the facial expression designs for Shima Sakon. The other new characters will have these designs too in the special book that comes with the Hyakka Ryouran Tamatebako edition of the game.

Once again, Tsutaya is a store chain which is offering the Shima Sakon DLC costume with preorders - so that's why a lot of Sakon fans turned up there and he's being shown most prominently.

Even though these events are over, the news isn't going to stop flowing. The video should appear on Capcom's channel during the week (probably tomorrow), then there's a Nico Nico broadcast on Thursday, a private demonstration event for selected fans next Sunday and Jump Festa the week after. Furthermore, there's only a week and a half left until the next likely character announcements in Weekly Famitsu. I recommend checking the calendar link at the top to keep track of everything!

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We now have the video and reports from Famitsu, Gamer and Dengeki!


Rather than continuing to scavenge observations from elsewhere, here are my own now that I can see it.

• The Amago Juuyuushi were in the formation part of the video, and they are also the people who surf in the desert.
• There are a few new formations.
• You race against Masamune and Kojuurou at Aoba Castle, like in Masamune's Sengoku Basara 3 stage.
• The one-night castle which pops up on the Osaka: Toyotomi Hajou stage is huge.
• Nagamasa is shown on Maria's Tango: Sengenji stage.
• There are now three different Kaga stages, lending some credibility to the claim that the Maeda family will have a decent role this time. Kaga Border: Shizugatake has Matsu and her animals.
• Similarly Shingen has three stages even though he's an NPC, now that he's been confirmed to appear in the Takeda Kawanajima stage (not that there was any doubt he would!).
• There's a clash between Yukimura and Naotora ("Tiger vs Tiger!") which is called the Kai Takeda Grudge Time. Not sure whether this is a proper stage or a drama stage with a special name - it's probably a one-on-one battle from Naotora's story?
• The Kanbee roulette looked a lot like pinball to me...
• And the sliding doors are Honnouji, not Yoshiteru's stage. The reporter mixed them both up.
• I'm putting them on my list as Eastern Sun/Western Shadow as it's better English when they're being described separately, but it's worth noting that the two Battle of Sekigahara stages are named as Eastern Yang/Western Yin.
• KobaP mentioned that he thinks that Yoshiteru is the strongest boss so far, and they're pretty pleased with how he turned out.
• He mentioned that there were four characters left, which is correct according to the numbers revealed to date.
• He also told the Famitsu reporter that most of the attendees at the events were rather shy.
• The reporter observed that the number of women present was overwhelming. KobaP was amused and said he knows that there are men playing the games even if it's the women who want to turn up and share the new information. Apparently the Tokyo events tend to have slightly better male representation than the others.
• KobaP said most of the people asking him questions during the signings wanted to know whether particular characters were playable or not (Motonari was singled out as an example), and they also wanted story information.
• The team aren't planning more demo events next year, but they'd like to do release events.
• KobaP mentioned the angry tweets he received after the last NPCs were revealed (specifically citing a Kasuga fan who was furious he couldn't play as her) and said that the decision about which new characters, PCs and NPCs to include was a hard one.

My translation guide has been updated with the new information.

Update 22:00: Added Dengeki Online and Gamer report links, and a couple of minor details to the end of my bullet points.