Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048 made its surprise debut at Otakon last weekend, and is in stock and shipping now! I’ll be fielding any questions you might have about the game here in this thread. Will fill out this post with more pertinent notes soon~
<img src="http://peachprincess.com/shingo/prettysoldier.jpg" alt=" - " />Hi Shingo! Got a few general questions here:
How many hours of Strategy/RPG play and how many hours of “visual novel play,” respectively may we expect?
Are there any extras similar to the ones on YMK’s disc included?
Can you adjust the difficulty level? How difficult are the battles?
[ 07-23-2007, 05:52 AM: Message edited by: Mockingbird ]
2.There are only demo movies on the disc
3.Not that I know of, you can’t change the difficulty level. And the battles aren’t really hard per se but where I am in the game I have just fought 2 long battles where it is 6 vs 20+. Your characters usually dodge the monsters attack but when they start landing hits there’s no way to restore lost HP at least I know of. So after beating the first stage and losing a couple of girls, I am immediately sent into battle again without the dead characters, and after losing another couple of characters, I once again am sent into battle again without the dead characters which leaves me with 3 characters so it’s 3 vs 20+ which is impossible so I have to start over which is frustrating especially since the battles are too long.
This depends on your familiarity with turn-based strategy/tactical games, but as Kai says you can expect an average of an hour of or so of gameplay per map (if not more). The “visual novel” aspect of the game is a much shorter portion.
There were none available to us, alas. We did include as many demo movies as would fit on the CD (including those for Family Project and Princess Waltz).
The difficulty level can’t be adjusted, and the battles are challenging. In correspondence with the developers at D.O. they told me that the difficulty level was set in response to Japanese fans who complained about bishoujo strategy games being on the whole too easy, so they deliberately tried to make PSW something other than a cakewalk; I consider myself to be an above-average hand at this type of game and it took me a good while to beat.
That said, the game is definitely beatable and I found the combat portions to be fun. Resources are available to help clear the game for those who have purchased it legitimately; contact me at pr@jastusa.com or via forums PM for details.
So does this mean that the game is like Fire Emblem in which once your characters are defeated in battle they’re gone for good?
Also is this game’s system of which girl you end up with going to be like a normal bishoujo game in which it’s what you do mostly outside of battle? For example, do you choose which girl to interact with? Or is this game kind of like Vanguard Bandits where decisions that decide which scenario and series of battles you follow depend on some choices that pop up at the tail end of a battle?
Battles are presented in groups of three. If one of your units is disabled in one of the three battles it is unusable for the other two, but all units are reactivated for the following mission (group of three battles).
How favorably disposed the girls are toward you depends on how much you deploy them in battle and let them “show their stuff”, basically. There are very few choice points when it comes to the actual dating portion of the game.
I’m glad you didn’t make the battles too easy - I ordered this game mostly because I’m a big X-com fan (though I can understand if you aren’t, it could be frustrating).
How many battles are there in the game? And is there any replayability to them? Like random setups? Or is each battle always the same?
I’m an X-com fan as well, and I have to say some of the levels in this are up there with X-com in difficulty (though not nearly as complex). There are a total of nine battles (boards) in the game, and there is some replayability as in order to clear all of the girls you need to deploy them in different configurations over the course of at least two playthroughs. Also, placement of your units and enemy units on the battlefield is determined randomly within each force’s starting area, so some initial placements can be more advantageous than others.
I think you’ve pretty much summed it up here. The shipping process has been accelerated and we should be clear or preorders within a day or two. Sorry for the delay, and I hope you enjoy!
6 vs 30? Sweet!
Super Robot Taisen difficulty anybody? Now THAT is what i call fun. Cakewalk SLG’s are just no fun, you need to be forced to think 3-4 moves ahead… If I use this move now…will have enough MP left to do that when whatever decides to hit me with his special move 2 turns later, etc.
Just curious, but as tactical games go, just how does the system work in terms of the battle. Basically along which lines of the following games is it most similar to in the strategy battle element:
Final Fantasy Tactics
Advance Wars
Fire Emblem
Disgaea series
Starcraft
Vanguard Bandits
Zone of the Enders The Fist of Mars (with the targetting thing turned off)
I’d have to say it doesn’t match any of those games. All your characters go, or you End Turn, and then all the monsters take their turns. Nearly everybody can’t attack through anybody else or anything you can’t walk through. The exception is poison gas attacks that some monsters have, which have the extremely annoying ability to go through walls. No special abilities, no items, and no healing except between battles. The only improvements in characters appear to be an increase in Level but not other statistics. One tricky thing is that 3 of the characters that use ranged weapons can’t target monsters that are one square away. Range for weapons and movement is a bit quirky; I haven’t figured out exactly how much a diagonal is, but it’s greater than 1. You can cancel movement and try a different destination to see if you can get the target(s) you want to light up. But if you have only one target and cancel the attack you wasted that chance.
I’d have to say it’s pretty close to “Piece of Wonder”, except that facing is barely a consideration, and there’s no limit on moving and attacking as long as you move then attack.
Hope that helps you.
Hmm… in the last 2 days that I attempted playing this game I get to the airport and get raped by the third part of that mission. Every time i play it I get my @ss whiped all over. I have to say a huge drawback is the fact you can only lvl by having sex with the characters you used. Of course the only time you have sex is in between missions. I hope the next release like this at leasts lets you lvl during missions.
Chikara, i found that choke points are key, i put my characters in a spot where they can hold it with 2-3 people and are only fighting 1-2 monsters at a time, as this tactic worked great in other games of the type, however… in the mission your on, i was down to 2 monsters left, and i lost because i ran out of time… so im either going to have to try it like that again, or figure out another choke point, i killed the 3 boss monsters, then 12 others, 2 left that i was in pursuit with all 6 chars, and i run outta time. that was very frustrating.
Got mine today and so far I would have to compare it most to the Fire Emblem games, I think. Obviously the ranged combat makes it a little different, but unit hit points are pretty low, you have to use chokepoints (like the above poster says) because of the limited arc of fire (and short ranges).
The only thing I really don’t like is how long it takes for the computer to move. Forever! You can turn the battle animation off (including the movement), but it would have been nice just to turn off the computer’s. And having to click every time your units evade or get hit. (Still, I guess that’s part of the reason it was only $25)
I had almost the same problem with the last battle in the airport. At some point in all the battles (unless losing terribly) I’ve noticed that the morale of the monsters appears to break and they start running away or at least not coming after the characters any more. Luckily, in that battle I had basically trapped the last two in places where they weren’t going to move closer to the characters to flee into the rest of the map, so it ended with 9 turns left.
If you’re having trouble with tactics, email the address in the manual for some useful advice. I’ll have a walkthrough/review up on my website soon, but I still have 4 CG to go and I’ll respect Shingo’s apparent wish regarding spoilers.
BTW, I’ve been advised that the monsters CAN shoot through each other, but not through characters.
Finished last night. Pretty fun game, though the non tactical combat portion is pretty light. In particular, the sex scenes with the girls were pretty well, non-existant, just a picture of them clothed and then one naked.
The combat bit could use a bit more tweaking. It definitely seems to be biased towards characters with high evasive stats - Misa and Saeko almost never get hit.
Combat is a bit tedious, once you know what you’re doing. As was mentioned, you have to master the usage of choke points. The third airport mission requires a bit of luck in monster and biosoldier placement. You’ll want to head to the central servers as quickly as possible and place your front-line soldiers at the F’s and long-range soldiers at the L’s.
You won’t keep them there, because you’ll run out of time, though you probably won’t lose anyone if you get everyone there without taking any damage. Instead, you’ll want to transition as quickly as possible to a strong-side/weak-side defense, depending upon which side the progenitor creatures end up. You’ll constantly adjust, depending upon your specific circumstances. You’ll probably use one of your soldiers to go back and forth as needed, to plug any holes or lend fire support.
[][][][][][][][]
[]-----------[]
[]–[][][][]–[]
[]–[][][][]–[]
[]F------L—[]
[]–[][][][]–[]
-----------F—
-----------F—
-----------L-F-
Due to the difficulty level, it’s possible for a run of bad luck to mess things up or cut things closer than it ought to.
I played the original game a long time ago, so I’ll have to dig it out again if I want to compare the them. Obviously, a number of translated sentences don’t exactly match the original, but the feel is okay.
BTW, G-Collections… did you notice that you forgot the .hlp file? 
[ 08-08-2007, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: Proxy Account ]
I was looking for info on the missing .hlp file also. Generally these have a bit more info than the manuals, and given how bad i am at strategy games, i figured i could use all the .hlp i could get. No such luck though.
We’re aware of the lack of the .hlp file and we’re looking into steps we can take to provide either a patch or a downloadable file to be placed into the install directory. In the meantime you can email me (pr@jastusa.com) for a strategy guide (though most of what the guide says has already been presented by various people in this thread).
LOL There’s no need for a patch just for a help file. Just make it a downloadable file.
Below is a sample situation from the airport lobby. There, you rush the terminal corridor to block yoju (Y) from getting into the rest of the lobby. This creates a “corridor of death” where you can slaughter the yoju with minimal risk. The trick is to begin tactical rotation to give as many soldiers as possible a shot at the yoju.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||F-|___
Here is a sample lineup. You might not achieve this immediately, depending upon how long it takes you to get units to the entrance. However, this or a similarly flexible setup is the goal.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||F-|___
F—F—
----L—
L-------
–L-----
Two to three of your frontline units will act as “blockers”. They prevent the Yoju from moving past a certain point during the rotations. I recommend Saeko, Ayumi, and Misa for blocking functions. They have sufficient evasion ability to reduce risk of damage from the monsters. Below, the blockers have been designated as “B1” and “B2”. The remaining short range unit (and backup blocker) is designated as “B3”. Long range units are designated as “L1”, “L2”, and “L3”. Alpha is the recommended “L1”.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||B1|___
B2–B3–
----L3–
L2------
–L1----
For move one, B1 moves out of blocking position into its standby position. For move two, L1 fires.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||–|___
B2–B3–
B1–L3–
L2------
–L1----
For move three, L2 moves into attack position and fires.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||–|___
B2–B3–
B1–L3–
–L2----
–L1----
For move four, L3 moves into attack position and fires.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||–|___
B2–B3–
B1L3----
–L2----
–L1----
For move five, B3 moves into attack position and fires.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||–|___
B2B3----
B1L3----
–L2----
–L1----
For move six, B2 moves into blocking position and attacks.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||B2|___
–B3----
B1L3----
–L2----
–L1----
Now, just reverse the movements until the firing line is clear, as in move two. L1 then fires. Afterwards, B1 moves back into blocking position.
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||
||Y-||__
||B1|___
B2–B3–
----L3–
L2------
–L1----
Likely, you’ll kill at least one yoju per rotation cycle. While you can advance your units, it’s unnecessary until the monsters start retreating. In two square wide choke points, you’ll be able to set up your rotations so that everyone (or almost everyone) can attack each and every round. Plan out your rotations and you’ll turn your force into a lean, mean yoju-killing machine.
[ 08-10-2007, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: Proxy Account ]