Official SFO SFC Review coming soon!

[DZComposer]

I am awaiting the arrival of my copy of the Japanese version of SFC (hurry up, DHL, you had it for three days and it is still in Japan... ).

Once I get it, I will write up a review for you guys.

[Sol-Ratcht Saporro]

Oh, I was thinking the same thing but when the English version came out.....Maybe you could make a sticky out of it when it's out everywhere?

Just an opinion....

[DZComposer]

I also preordered the US version and will do a comparison report. :?

[DZComposer]

My SFC came in this morning. I'll have an impression write-up this afternoon.

[ONE_HELLCAT]

Can you post pics of the instruction booklet, like of the characters or whatever?

[Sol-Ratcht Saporro]

Ooh! Good thinking!

[DZComposer]

The manual doesn't look like it has anything new about the characters.

SFC INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

All gameplay stuff, no story spoilers, I promise. (not like I know what's going on in the story anyways, too much reading, and I don't read anything other than Katakana with assistance from charts)

I'd like to start by saying I'm glad the series returns to it's roots of Arwing combat.

GAMEPLAY -> CONTROLS:

The control scheme feels natural for the most part. As has been said before, you control where the ship goes by moving the stylus around. Up makes you go up, down makes you go down, etc. Double-tapping the top-half of the screen is boos. The bottom is brake. Barrel rolls are done by either making a little circle or moving side to side real quick (both work). Drag a bomb to where you want it and whatever is there goes boom. There are buttons for loop and U-Turn on the touch screen.

Every button has one function: Fire. Holding it will make you charge you laser, if the ship you are flying supports it.

There are some problems, though. I find myself accedentally engaging the boost or brake as I tend to pick up the stylus to change direction.

There is something that is missing that was present in all other SF games: Tilting your ship to turn tighter. If this is there, I haven't figured it out yet. This could really come in handy for quicker turns, especially since this game is so time based.

GAMEPLAY -> ROUNDS & TIME

You fight in rounds. You can move your characters a certian distance for each round. Make contact with an enemy, and you battle that round. Also, most of the maps are clouded out. You can "erase" some of the cloud, but only a little. When you fly through it, it goes away. But, at the beginning of each round, some of the cloud comes back.

Each battle, you have target enemies. You must destroy the enemies and then collect their stars. I do not like this collecting business. SFAd had enough, and the series was better without it. Especially since the time doesn't stop for anything except ending the battle.

After you clear all target enemies, it's boss time. All bosses have multiple parts, though the first one is three individual bosses.

Time. At first I thought this would be neat, but it is becoming a frustration. Your time is not replinish each round. You have 150 secs. You can replinish it with a time powerup, but each only adds 25 secs and they can be hard to find in some levels, though blasting a bunch of non-target enemies can reveal them or other powerups.

Powerups can also be obtained by flying though blue and white rings.

The crappiest part is that you do not get a time refill at Boss time. meaning, you could start with just 30 seconds to beat a boss. There are powerups, but they are scarce. Though one boss practically throws them at you, so sometimes it isn't really a problem.

When time runs out, you lose a life and the round is over. The enemy will continue on it's course, sometimes costing you the mothership, which is intant game over regardless of how many lives you have.

IMPRESSION SCORE:

8.7 of 10 The time annoyances prevent me from giving it a 9.x.

[ONE_HELLCAT]

Can you post the character artwork and stuff anyways? A guy on NSider wants to see it.

[Blaz3]

Sounds great but I do have a question.

So it's quite a short game?

Are there different missions and in each mission you fight lots of rounds or are you simply on the map of Lylat, similar to SF2? (You've played it right?)

The answer to my questions are just to clear some things up and will not change my decision on whether to buy this game or not, the online will keep me easily occupied.

[Guest Fox235]

Dude.....That could drastically change the sales in America.....depending on the report...

[DZComposer]

As far as I can tell, the game is NOT short.

I haven't even finished my first play-thourgh yet. I'm stuck on Aquas (very frustrating planet).

The game is VERY similar to SF2 in a lot of ways.

That said, there are some key differences.

Firstly, in SF2, you could go anywhere on the lylat map. In SFC, the game pics your planet, though some missions you can unlock paths to different planets. For instance, after Fichina, Slippy wants to go to Aquas and Lucy want to go elsewhere. Corneria, I think. Not sure. You can choose to follow either of them, provided Lucy's route is unlocked.

In SF2, you had no limit to how far you could go on the map. In SFC, you have a route gage for each character on-screen.

You draw a path from each character's location to where you want them to go. If at any time along that path, any character meets an enemy, you battle.

Each character that battles that round has a "button" you can press with a picture of the target enemy in that enemy group and how many targets there are. I've had as many as five battles in one round.

I'll scan a couple of Japanese Manual pages later. There are a couple of new renders.

For instance, on the cover, it is an overhead shot of an Arwing with Fox standing next to it looking up at the "camera."

[ONE_HELLCAT]

Thanks man. Sounds cool.

Also, is ther another contrl scheme that's button only like in the SNES games?