UnchainBlades ReXX as eShop download (moved discussion)

[Takao]

I'm not even going to bother with arguing numbers Stealth20k, because you'll just ignore them anyways. If Square Enix were truly expecting the performance of 3D to be what it was they wouldn't have 35% more copies than anyone wanted. It's better to have a smaller initial shipment with various small reshipments rather than a huge first shipment that stays on store shelves for months. If Square Enix were expecting this as a result of userbases one would have to question why they put such a top effort on an unproven platform. They could've launched the game alongside a PSP SKU, or just ported BBS to 3DS to mitigate any failure due to userbase. But I'm sure none of this will make a difference to you since it seems you're hardset in the "NO GAME CAN FAIL ON 3DS" mindset.

[Deepthroat]

So Xseed is publishing KH 3D in the US ? Good to know... Oh wait ! Games can indeed fail on 3DS but considering the user base, KH 3D did pretty well BUT I think Square Enix was expecting better sales.

Concerning UnchainBlades reXX, the dub seems pretty awful on this first trailer... No dual audio makes me really sad

Tom, do you plan to release this one in Europe ? I know you did that for several PSP titles (YS Seven, Lunar, etc.) so... ?

[Ryos]

Concerning UnchainBlades reXX, the dub seems pretty awful on this first trailer... No dual audio makes me really sad

I'm really really really hoping that it's because the audio is out of context that it sounds so bad. If not, it is what it is. I was unfortunately expecting this when I saw how good some of the Japanese cast is (and in turn would mean licensing issues).

[Olivier]

I'll be sure to get the game. After the acquisition of The Last Story and my recent discovery of Trails in the Sky, y'all are quickly becoming one of my favorite companies in this industry and I'd hate to see anything happen. I'm torn between buying it for the platform I'd be more likely to play or the platform more likely to affect SC.

[Richard12]

Game looks great, almost better than most retail games. Etrian Odyssey-esque, perhaps? Shame there's no retail release. Definitely gonna get it for 3DS though, I'd love to see XSEED support the system more strongly.

[Wyrdwad]

I seem to have missed the last few comments on here -- sorry about that!

Concerning UnchainBlades reXX, the dub seems pretty awful on this first trailer... No dual audio makes me really sad

I'm really really really hoping that it's because the audio is out of context that it sounds so bad.

A lot of people have been saying this, but honestly, I don't get it. I don't think the voice-acting sounds bad in that trailer at all! Is it perfect? No, of course not. But the worst that can be said about it is that the characters are overacting -- and overacting is generally a welcome thing in a highly anime-inspired, highly melodramatic game.

Overall, I think the voice-acting in the game is great... but my opinion has diverged from popular opinion before (Ys: The Ark of Napishtim on PS2, for example, which I personally think has top-notch voice-acting; and Odin Sphere on PS2, which I personally think has subpar voice-acting), so it's really hard for me to say what you guys are going to think.

I will say that those lines were indeed taken out of context -- I mean, they kinda had to be, what with it being a one-minute trailer and all! So hopefully when you hear all the voices in context, you'll come to appreciate them more. I just don't get the hate! I mean, these are professional voice-actors with countless anime and video game credits under their belt, directed by a true professional who's also got countless anime and video games under his/her belt (still can't reveal identities for legal reasons, sorry!), and most of the body of work of all parties involved is generally beloved by fans, so it seems really strange to me that this would spurn such ire.

I guess it remains to be seen what everyone will think once the game is released. Here's hoping you guys appreciate it in the end, though -- we put a lot of effort into it, as did all the actors involved and the voice-director, so it's certainly not like it was some quick dollar-store deal or anything!

I'm torn between buying it for the platform I'd be more likely to play or the platform more likely to affect SC.

Buy it for the platform you'll be likely to play it on, of course! There's no such thing as a "platform more likely to affect SC." Money is money! If you buy it on either platform, it'll make us happy -- and if it's a hit on either platform, that could easily make life easier for us in releasing future games, on ANY platform! There's no reason to assume that buying it on PSP over 3DS will help us more with unrelated game releases -- buying it is buying it, period!

-Tom

[Ryos]

I will say that those lines were indeed taken out of context -- I mean, they kinda had to be, what with it being a one-minute trailer and all! So hopefully when you hear all the voices in context, you'll come to appreciate them more. I just don't get the hate! I mean, these are professional voice-actors with countless anime and video game credits under their belt, directed by a true professional who's also got countless anime and video games under his/her belt (still can't reveal identities for legal reasons, sorry!), and most of the body of work of all parties involved is generally beloved by fans, so it seems really strange to me that this would spurn such ire.

Everyone has different perspectives on the quality of voice work in games but experience alone does not equate to an automatically great performance. For example, the cast for the second episode of Xenosaga had a lot of dub experience but it was pretty poorly done overall and with some casting changes that raised some eyebrows (KOS-MOS ). For me voice acting can make or break an experience because there are games that are greatly helped by phenomenal acting (Nier) and then then there are games that end up whiffing with bad acting (granted this sort of experience doesn't come up as much recently but I always like to cite Grandia, which was just plain hideous when compared to the star-studded original). Back in the good old days with text only, we were left to determine how we thought the characters sounded, which I think is a lot of the same reason why movie adaptations always manage to upset readers when their perception ends up not translating over to the silver screen. Part of it too is that we've gotten some pretty good dubs for Xseed games so this one seems like an aberration.

I'm hoping of course that this is all irrelevant and that the game's acting is great. We just have too limited of a sample to go off of until we get a chance to hear it (properly) in action.

[Shizuka]

(...) and Odin Sphere on PS2, which I personally think has subpar voice-acting)

Nonsense! Just kidding, but I don't really find voice actors bad, as long as I can mute them.

[Davar]

Been gradually reading through this forum and figured I go ahead and sign up to through in my two cents,

First off, Tom, XSeed and the whole sha-bang, the whole going for a digital release over a retail one because that's what it takes to make localizing the game viable? FREAKING GENIUS. Whatever it takes for awesome games to get translated that I otherwise wouldn't have a chance to play I am all for. If you guys could continue to release more games parallel on both the 3DS and PSP that would be even more awesome, myself having a slight bias for 3DS releases because that's currently the only console I own.

And the thing about the voice actors? I listened, and they're not perfect, not Disney dubbing Studio Ghibli films with well known celebrity voices by a long shot. BUT YOU GOT VOICE OVERS IN!!! You could have saved yourselves a ton of cash and I'm sure headache by either leaving the Japanese voices over the English text or else leaving the voice files out of the game entirely. But you got the English voices in and voices that I can buy as belonging to the characters. I recently played through Devil Survivor:Overclocked shortly after playing the original voiceless version, and the sheer emotional quality that voices added to that story has my appetite whetted for another voiced rpg... and here one is!

So... my one question that maybe could be answered about the digital download before, if I'm still using the stock 2GB card that came with the 3DS, should I be buying a new SD card in anticipation of release day?

[commodorewheeler]

Been gradually reading through this forum and figured I go ahead and sign up to through in my two cents,

First off, Tom, XSeed and the whole sha-bang, the whole going for a digital release over a retail one because that's what it takes to make localizing the game viable? FREAKING GENIUS. Whatever it takes for awesome games to get translated that I otherwise wouldn't have a chance to play I am all for. If you guys could continue to release more games parallel on both the 3DS and PSP that would be even more awesome, myself having a slight bias for 3DS releases because that's currently the only console I own.

And the thing about the voice actors? I listened, and they're not perfect, not Disney dubbing Studio Ghibli films with well known celebrity voices by a long shot. BUT YOU GOT VOICE OVERS IN!!! You could have saved yourselves a ton of cash and I'm sure headache by either leaving the Japanese voices over the English text or else leaving the voice files out of the game entirely. But you got the English voices in and voices that I can buy as belonging to the characters. I recently played through Devil Survivor:Overclocked shortly after playing the original voiceless version, and the sheer emotional quality that voices added to that story has my appetite whetted for another voiced rpg... and here one is!

So... my one question that maybe could be answered about the digital download before, if I'm still using the stock 2GB card that came with the 3DS, should I be buying a new SD card in anticipation of release day?

I am also curious to know how much memory this game will take up on the SD card.