As mentioned earlier today, this week was the first in a series of NGC episodes featuring gameplay from Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi. I was at work when the video aired so I caught up later with Nico Nico's time shift version.
Hosts Edosan" and Fumiichi started off by talking about the latest Dai Gyakuten Saiban and Devil May Cry updates for a while, then the show finally began its Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi coverage with the most recent full-length trailer.
This kicked off around an hour of gameplay demonstrations, starting with Yoshiteru and Rikyuu on the Battle Of Kawanakajima Intrusion stage. They joked about Yoshiteru's time stop being like The World from a certain popular manga title.
The hosts were less cautious than Capcom so we got to see a few new screens from the game, like the title screen here.
Pressing the touchpad takes you to the standard mode selection screen. Their version of the game had all of the characters unlocked at around level 100 but only the first two difficulties were available, so this isn't necessarily the final version of the mode selection; they went straight into Free Battle Mode so it was impossible to see more.
(I apologise for the terrible colours for my annotations today, it's not a very subtitle-friendly picture with the tools I have to hand.)
Personally speaking, I think it would be weird to have so much empty space on the mode selection screen when there aren't even any pictures on the left aside from the stylised map of Japan. There have to be some more modes, right?
I'm screengrabbing everything I can to make updating my guide easier when I finally get around to it (I'll update it tonight). There were lots of small details shown, like confirmation of the buttons for each of Rikyuu's moves and the addition of a description for his Hold Square move.
This picture also confirms the skill revision controls I mentioned a couple of days ago. You can see the skill revision shortcut highlighted in red.
They cycled through the stage list a few times so I managed to pull out these details for a total of six confirmed stages exclusive to Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi.
| Stage | Japanese Name | Enemy Commander |
| Battle of Kawanakajima: Intrusion | 川中島の戦い 乱入 | Takeda Shingen, Uesugi Kenshin |
| Battle for the Nation's Peace | 国家安康の戦い | Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu |
| Itsukushima Sanbee Occupation | 厳島三兵衛占拠 | Takenaka Hanbee, Gotou Matabee, Kuroda Kanbee |
| Naotora Women's Dojo | 直虎女道場 | (Unconfirmed: Ii Naotora) |
| Oushuu: Ushuu Annexation | 奥州・羽州併合 | (Unconfirmed: Mogami Yoshiaki) |
| Sawayama Castle: Chouhan Defense | 佐和山城・丁半防守 | Shima Sakon |
The two listed as unconfirmed didn't load the enemy commander portrait before they were skipped past, but I'm reasonably sure that my guesses are correct. The others are 100% confirmed. In addition, I noticed that all but six of the stages from Sengoku Basara 4 are still there. The missing six are probably included too, it's just that the hosts never scrolled that far down the list in this particular video.
At one point a trophy message popped up. The trophy is called Acting Invincible and I would guess it's earned by transforming into Kanetsugu during the battle (and possibly achieving something with him).
There was also an interesting kind of chest on the battlefield when Battle Roulette was switched on.
When the player broke this chest, a message appeared explaining that it would increase the chance of earning a particular result in the next roulette. The first one they broke promised a higher chance of a Transform (black) result, while the second gave Tenka (red). In both cases, the skulls and opposing colours were removed from the next Battle Roulette wheel, so it was completely black/gold or red/gold.
For people not painstakingly writing every detail down to create a guide the show was probably not essential viewing, yet I had fun listening to how much the hosts seemed to be enjoying the game. Their enthusiasm was infectious.
There will be another of these broadcasts at 19:00 Japan time next Monday, and the time shift version can be reserved now. Don't miss out if you'd like to watch.
Animate reveales a new Sengoku Basara tote bag
The Nipponbashi, Osaka branch of Animate has tweeted about a ¥2,500 Sengoku Basara rope tote bag with a design inspired by Date Masamune. It's being released to commemorate the second year since the shop was renovated. The bag will go on sale on 31st July 2015 in very limited quantities so reservations are highly recommended when they open in the morning.
Hmm, given some of the screens we've seen (thinking mostly of Kasuga somehow being an enemy at Kitanoshou, when one can clearly see Kanetsugu buried in the ground- so unless it's her VS stages and VS stages now have roulettes somehow, obviously needs to be a normal stage) could that really be the only six stages? And wasn't there something about the animals getting the stage? Is it possible that the final release will have extra stages, or perhaps when they said an animal stage they meant VS stages?
ReplyDeleteI imagine that failing there being additional stages there have to be additional modes to explain how the heck Kanetsugu and Kasuga could be in the same stage. I mean being less optimistic, maybe there's a playbook that makes you Kanetsugu permanently, but I think they'd wanna make the transformations more special.
Er... Kanetsugu as a playable character and Kasuga as a boss on a stage where there's no Kenshin, I should say.
DeleteHmm, I suppose there are either more stages than we have seen (entirely possible as they still haven't announced the final number formally), more mini-stages which don't show up in Free Battle, or... more characters might be popping up as mid bosses, though that doesn't really explain Kanetsugu and Kasuga on that other stage. There could also be some strange minigames/challenges which mix things up in unpredictable ways (a Kanetsugu Kumite challenge?). I think I'd like all of those possibilities to be true with as many full stages as possible in the mix, as DLC if necessary.
DeleteI wonder who the mid-bosses on Naotora's dojo will be?
All of that would certainly be nice to include. I suppose the ninja would make sense for a mini/VS. stage... the animals though, that'd be a bit odd. I can't quite imagine why Shikanosuke and Matsu would team up, but, hey, there have been stranger things in this series!
DeleteA Kanetsugu Kumite? Now that sounds rough! I'm not the best at dodging so while one hit KOs are great, I'd probably get my butt handed to me in short order.
Tadakatsu's certainly an option for Naotora's dojo, but I have a feeling since she changed it into an "otome" dojo, he won't be there. Perhaps the mid-bosses would be randomly chosen from the female generals? If it's set characters though, I'd probably go with either Tsuruhime or Matsu, and Kasuga. Tsuruhime to take Yukimura's role as a go-getting young'n, and Kasuga taking Sasuke's role as the dojo ninja. But if they wanna show off the two returning ladies (given Maria is being given a lot of focus elsewhere and is already the real boss at Naotora's other women's onsen stage), Matsu instead of Tsuru could work.
This only just occurred to me... with the main menu being revealed now, does that mean we still only have Sengoku Creation and Free Battle modes?
ReplyDeleteI guess the Battle Roulette and new stage gimmicks we've seen so far will add some variety and flavor, but I would have liked something similar to Utage's Unification Mode. The zenny-betting feature would be great for a game based on gambling already.
And yeah, I know it may not be the final menu for the game. I can't complain with all the story content we're getting either, but I always liked the side modes they give in the expansions. I'm hoping they're holding out on at least one.
DeleteI think given how the two dojo stages work, they may be counting them as "unofficial" additional modes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the Takeda Dojo challenges basically a multi-character gauntlet? I wouldn't know as I was too scared to try it on my own and by the time I looked it up I was kind of back to playing Utage for K&K, haha.
DeleteYou're right, the harder Takeda Dojo gimmicks make it very similar to the challenge modes in the older games, in some ways. I still think they'll be adding more modes for the final version of the game, since the menu looks so strange with everything pushed into such a small space. If nothing else, they barely have to do any work at all to add Versus; it worked well in Utage already and the 1v1 stages can all be reused.
DeleteThe betting in Utage was also far more fun than it had any right to be. If they can put a mode like that in it would give the game much more replay value.