MoonPrince (thuey@UCDAVIS.EDU)
Fri, 25 Sep 1998 10:57:36 -0700
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 10:57:36 -0700 From: MoonPrince <thuey@UCDAVIS.EDU> Subject: My Thoughts of ST vs ST2
This is partly for my own amusement but I was playing Sakura Taisen (now
on ep 8) for the 4th time(going for Sumire). And I figured I'll just list
what I think are the advantages/disadvantages of one over the other. Feel
free to jump in.. any of you. 4 sections- ST(No SPoiler), ST(Spoil),
ST2(No Spoil), ST2(Spoil)
Sakura Taisen(No Spoiler)
______________
+ Introduced LIPS, which opens up different paths, varying responses, etc.
+ Characters are very accurate. Eyes blink randomly, mouths open and
close according to how the syllables are pronounced... very
natural. Text scrolls at same speed as mouths open/close and
speech.
+ Little details with battle such as buildings blowing up, little humans
+ Two different kinds of hits. It was cool to see smoke rising from your
koubu at times and do something different. Ditto for the enemy.
- Dialog toward the end of the game does not go at the same speed as the
text. Anyone else annoyed by this? It starts I believe in ep 7,
in the battle portion.
- Battles are far too easy in general, 8x protect?
- No penalty for dying(other than dropping in love index, but that could
be a positive thing)
- Animation is mediocre at best. Colors are really pale, anime and CG
seem to clash.
Sakura Taisen(Spoiler)
______________
+ Cut scenes are IMO better than ST2. I am reminded everytime I play
through how cool the game is. Ep 7: Hanagumi form fireballs,
direct it to Oogami, who then shoots it at Tenkai. When you
beat the game, you see this nice scene of the Hanagumi members
shouting stuff as they appear one by one on the screen. Stuff
like that.
+ Last boss, Aoi Satan, was hard! The only challenge in the entire game.
+ Replay value. Initially, I thought it wouldn't be as fun going thru
a 2nd time... a 3rd time... but when I beat it my 3rd time
through with Kouran, I think I enjoyed that time more than
any other. Why? Episode 9... there is a very nice
Kouran/Oogami scene in that episode... extra stuff like that makes
me think, "Dang!! I can't believe they programmed this stuff in!"
Little things you don't notice until you get there.
+ "One Long Day" option after beating.
+/- Though cornier in many places(like the Sumire/Kanna episode where
the same thing happens to both... but by a different thing), I
thought the storyline was more thought out in ST. ST2's story
wasn't bad, just not as good.
- Although I do like Sakura, the fact that the other Hanagumi members'
ending isn't nearly as long is discouraging.
Sakura Taisen 2(No Spoiler)
_______________________
+ Even better adventure-mode gameplay. Many kinds of LIPS for variety.
+ Better walking around system. With the clock, it's easier to tell how
much time before the next event happens.
+ Different ways of answering the LIPS with the addition of personality
meter
+ More interaction with Kasumi, Yuri, and my fav, Tsubaki
+ Intro of Tsubomi!(well, and others...)
+ More of stuff I like in battles(buildings destroyed, people running
around)
+ Harder battles(Bosses start with charged meters, most have unique
attacks; Oogami has 3x protect which is reasonable)
+ More strategic battles. 1st time through I didn't bother with the
Forest/Mountain/Fire/Wind formations, but when I tried them out
2nd time through, I realized how much I was missing.
+ Awesome awesome animation. Possibly the best FMV ever in a game. Who
cares if not full-screen? It's fluid, it has a lot more frames of
animation, and it perfectly blends CG and anime.
+ Slightly better BGM(it's more dramatic) but a HUGE leap in songs. I'm
still deciding to get the ST Vocal CD or not, but I've had my ST2
Vocal CD since it was released.
+ More plot twists than ST. Revelations in ST2 are more dramatic, some
totally unexpected. One scene shocked the heck outta me(I think
it was during the Natsuyasumi[Summer Vacation] portion)
+/- Art has changed. I like how the characters are drawn sometimes, but
a lot of the time, I think the art is just ...whacked. I don't
like how Sumire looks like. Sakura looks ok sometimes. Maria and
Kanna are for the most part, fine. Ditto for Kouran. Iris.. I
get totally freaked when she does the in-your-face-shots
+/- Penalties for dying in battle(your battles are rated) but the reward
for having minimal losses isn't that great...
- LOAD TIME. If there was one thing in this game I can not stand, it's
unreasonable amount of load time. Everything is much slower than
ST, but in battles when you do your "super"/sure-kill... oh my
goodness... It was so bad IMO that I avoided using them at all.
The load time is a huge factor on why I consider ST better than
ST2.
- Sure ST2 has combined normal hits, but they were nowhere as amusing
as the extra animations in ST. I mean, I loved for instance, when
Maria would shoot w/her machine gun normally. Then when she has
her lucky-attack, you see her unload a barrage of bullets as the
back of her mech unloads smoke from the tension. ST2? The lucky
attacks just have that little dialog between the two chars.
- I don't like the look/feel of ST2 battles. In terms of look, I don't
like the fact that everything is so squarish. Gone are the nice
roundish surfaces of ST. In terms of feel, I mean that when you
walk and stuff, it "feels" a little jerky, not as smooth. Just
stick in ST and play a battle for comparison.
Sakura Taisen 2(Spoiler)
+ Christmas episode! Oh my gosh... a chance to dine with Tsubaki, Kasumi
or Yuri? Singing as BGM? A #1-girl focused episode? Even though
the ep's hecka short, it packed a lot in.
+ How about #1-girl focused ep #2(was it ep 11?)? Much more than ST in
this aspect. Entire episodes based on who's your #1...
+ And #1-girl ep #3? Ok, not really but if you do beat the game with
minimal losses in battles, you'll see an extra episode after the
ending credits scroll. After Owari, you'll see "Soshite..." But
as I mentioned above, this reward isn't that great as there isn't
much to it.
But all the above lead to better replay value than ST. Add to that the
personality meter and there's just so much more variety in the game.
+ Endings I think are very similar in length, but none are as long as the
Sakura ed of ST
+ Even better "One Long Day" option. Addition of viewing those load-time
hungry "supers" and other misc stuff adds a great deal to this
option. Also, all floors of your HQ are accessable.
+ Better mini-games. While the only game in ST I played was Hanafuda, in
ST2, the games have amused me and my non-ST-fan friends for hours
- Am I the only one who feels that FMV isn't the greatest thing
necessarily? I much prefer real-time cut scenes(a la the "huge
projectile" scene I mentioned about ST in battle vs Tenkai, or any
system-generated cut scene) to FMV. When you beat ST2, you just
get FMV. I mean, it's excellent quality FMV, but I wished there
was something different.
- Last boss wasn't really hard. He looks awesome... love the way the
thing moves around and stuff. But a little disappointed that he
didn't kick my butt like Aoi Satan did in ST.
I'm probably forgetting a lot of things, but that's my preliminary list of
Sakura vs Sakura 2. I mainly prefer ST because even though it's
physically not as good(graphics, sound, FMV, strategy, options, etc), it
was innovative. ST2 is an awesome sequel, don't get me wrong, but it was
built off of a successful engine. But perhaps if the load time wasn't
that bad, I would be saying that ST2 is undoubtedly my preference. At any
rate, what do you guys think?
-mp