Well, there goes my little speculation down the drain. And it seems Rean continues to be our beloved gofer.
As for the arena episode: Yes!! I loved the arena minigame in 3rd and that Rendition of the Kiseki characters "Fist of the North Star" style always had me in stitches. Wouldn't it be awesome if they made another one with some of the new characters added?
And the Nightmare Arena in 3rd gave us Team Blade. I see no reason why Hajimari shouldn't raise the stakes. Arios, Cassius and Victor as team 'dadasses' is certainly a boss fight I would look forward to.
If they retain their nastiest Crafts from the previous games, Arios does his version of Arcane Gale which has All-Cancel, Victor clusters the characters with Radiant Spin and Cassius finishes with Armor Render, catching all the clustered characters in its line of effect.
Massive damage, all buffs stripped away and AT-Delay. Lovely.
My connection hated me this morning so getting a good look at the Dengeki stream was rough going but I've finally seen most of it. I did skip over the S-Craft animations (except Noel's) because I want to see those firsthand, and Gu4n pinged me with the name of C's because he knows that's the sort of thing I geek out over. Anyhow, a few things that stood out for me there and in the separate Dengeki review:
- Gacha mechanics for extra goodies, huh? Watch as this is how Kondo slowly works up to introducing Akatsuki into the main story... Or he adds a postgame patch and you can randomly pull Chloe and Nacht for the True Reverie Corridor.
- Gambler Jack II compilation, you say? And Swin mentions an actress from Calvard? Yeah, I've been calling it for a while and I'll say it again: Jack, Halle and Nike are gonna be major characters in the next arc. xD
- Not sure whether the fact that the part of the Corridor we get to see sharing the character from the title is meant to be important but I can't help but be reminded of the other time that 'Hajimari no x' has been important in the games and that's the Primal Grounds. The one is 創の円庭 (Garden of Beginnings) and the other is 始まりの地, using the more traditional character.
- If the rumors of a new A-rank breaking Sara's record is not Estelle and Joshua together I'll be rather surprised. We know they were on track for a promotion back when CS4 started and they just helped save the world which I'm sure looks good on the resume. It's Noel saying the line and she didn't really interact with Estelle and Joshua but it looks like Michel or Arios is the one who she's reacting to and they both spent a lot of time with the pair. And a new S-rank when we've still only gotten the identity of one and a tease that we've seen another... Dammit Kondo!
- There's now an Ultra Rare level of Quartz and via the gacha system we see a bunch of the spell-granting ones at that level but none of the stat-boosting or more esoteric ones. It looks like the gacha unlocks progressively better selections as you progress through the game. There are also a few Master Quartz returning from CS1/2, with Brave seeming to now be Earth-based and Murakumo being Mirage-based. There's also a new Water MQ called Elixir so it's a safe bet there are a few more of those waiting to be discovered.
As for the arena episode: Yes!! I loved the arena minigame in 3rd and that Rendition of the Kiseki characters "Fist of the North Star" style always had me in stitches. Wouldn't it be awesome if they made another one with some of the new characters added?
And the Nightmare Arena in 3rd gave us Team Blade. I see no reason why Hajimari shouldn't raise the stakes. Arios, Cassius and Victor as team 'dadasses' is certainly a boss fight I would look forward to.
I've still got my hopes for an Alternative Saga 2, only divided more broadly so it can include Tokyo Xanadu characters as well (because Rion or Sora would be a lot of fun in a game like that) with a Dissidia-esque division of characters that doesn't quite equal 'good vs evil' but could put morally flexible characters like Rixia or Hummel on one side with the more straightforward hero-types on the other.
Oh, and we'd better get some more funny team names in Hajimari's arena because I loved them back in The 3rd.
If they retain their nastiest Crafts from the previous games, Arios does his version of Arcane Gale which has All-Cancel, Victor clusters the characters with Radiant Spin and Cassius finishes with Armor Render, catching all the clustered characters in its line of effect.
Massive damage, all buffs stripped away and AT-Delay. Lovely.
That is an evil thought and I like it. xD
Related note, I've got my fingers crossed that characters who didn't get S-Crafts before will get them for the arena. Especially Wallace, the man is badass enough to face McBurn down and come out unscathed (even if he wasn't going all out yet) so he needs one. And needs to be one of the opponents in Project Tyrfing too.
I just posted my predictions/wild-ass guesses for Hajimari over at Kisekicrack. Now the wait begins.
And while I'm here, @Wuolong77 I just read your Grandmaster theory. Very nicely argued!
I hate gambling. Which means I normally hate gacha. But as long as its in a single player game with no RL cash I love gacha. Multiplayer with no cash doesnt get a pass because its normally balanced so that the goodies are so rare no matter how hard you try you wont get the best stuff unless you farm your ●♤●}~♡ off for in game tradeable currency to trade it with the lucky ♡■□♡ who won it.
But in single player they tend to have sane chances.
Saw a little GIF of an after battle part with some of the Crossbell characters. They were focusing on Rixia but I was too ditracted by the snack that was Wazy in 3D on the side. My dream in this game now is that Olivert is playable and that I can have him and Wazy in the party at the same time. I still need a sexy duo as a potential team line up and link up.
Welp, time to batten down the hatches folks; I just had C's identity spoiled for me. I was so close to making it! RIP.
I just posted my predictions/wild-ass guesses for Hajimari over at Kisekicrack. Now the wait begins.
And while I'm here, @Wuolong77 I just read your Grandmaster theory. Very nicely argued!
Thank you very much. I read your predictions, too. There were some nice bits I wasn't aware of. Now let's wait for Hajimari to tear our predictions to pieces...
Welp, time to batten down the hatches folks; I just had C's identity spoiled for me. I was so close to making it! RIP.
Ugggh, yeah, that sucks. I've already silenced twitter notifications and will be avoiding it and pretty much everywhere else aside from direct messages with people I know until I'm through with the game just to be safe.
Now let's wait for Hajimari to tear our predictions to pieces...
Yeah, the games are very good at that. And I thought my theory on the final Awakener in Sen IV was so solid too... xD
But if I'm just right on the nature of Elysium and the Emperor I think that'll be enough for me this time.
Speaking of predictions, are there any for the previous games that you had that were bang on the money that you felt impressed with yourself for?
Also, unrelated, do we know how much the standard digital version costs? I want to get my JP PSN cards all bought so I'm ready to roll tomorrow. Somewhat frustrating that it goes live a few hours after I head out to work - I'd have like to have had it all downloaded when I got back!
Speaking of predictions, are there any for the previous games that you had that were bang on the money that you felt impressed with yourself for?
I'd say the fact that I called Gaius being a Dominion well in advance (I started calling it back in 2013, though I didn't get completely convinced of it until Thomas appeared the next year to break the pattern of green hair) but the weirdness around his claim to have inherited Barkhorn's Stigma takes some of the fun out of it because I'm still trying to work out what really went down there.
Other than that, while it's not so much a prediction as a set of general observations I'm still proud of my tarot-based personality assessments of the Enforcers (and CS3 and 4 seem to be bearing out my general observations about Sharon and Shirley as pertains to their card symbolism). This reminds me, I've said it privately but don't think I've done so publicly: I'm calling Cedric as eventually becoming Enforcer XVIII based on the symbolism associated with The Moon.
My favorite theory on the other hand is the Barkhorn one that CS3 apparently broke, but I'm still convinced there's more going on there we haven't been told, especially after the last game.
Also, unrelated, do we know how much the standard digital version costs?
7590 yen. I went to check recently to make sure I had enough in my store wallet to cover it and realized I was a little short, so I had to grab another card on short notice. xD
EDIT: We got a last-minute update on Hajimari along with the other bit of bombshell news. While we already knew there was going to be a big update on October 1 that included the SSS' Communication Event at Elm Beach, it seems there's going to be a lot more arriving than just that. There will be an increase to the level cap, new areas will be added to the True Reverie Corridor, new Episodes will be added and new playable characters made available within the Corridor and some undescribed new information based on the next game in the series will be added as well.
Wait, cold steel games have a level cap? I didn't even know this lol.
There's a 1.01 update now, with balance tweaks, the fixing of typos and various bugs, a specific mention of fixing freezing errors in certain scenes (haven't found any yet myself) and increasing the difficulty in Nightmare mode. They also added the September 3 DLC update to the site, with new generic and character-specific costumes.
Wait, cold steel games have a level cap? I didn't even know this lol.
Yeah, but between EXP scaling and the way the games are balanced you'll rarely get all that close to the cap by just running through the game normally. My guess is that Hajimari will be similar in terms of the main game but once the EX Corridor update drops, there will be enough new content and at a high enough level that we'll break the original cap.
This unfortunately reminds me that recently some nut on youtube was trying to convince people that they should avoid the series because it was pay to win with all the dlc. I presume they meant shining poms.
I dont know if they are seriously awful and insecure about it. Or if they are some kind of obsessive persona (or othsr series) fanboy where it is their personal mission to keep all other games down for the glory of their sacred cowgame.
