Project Sylpheed
 

"I feel the need... the need for speed."
Some relevant linkage:

• official site (Flash, JP)
• GameTrailers.com media collection
• CDJapan entry for OST (release date 22 Nov.)

From what I've seen, this looks awesome. Does anyone know if they made a flightstick controller for the 360...?

would a flight stick really work for this game? I always thought this series was along the lines of a traditional shooter, and though the veiwpoint seems to have changed, I wager this is more like panzar dragoon rather than ace combat. Good looking game though. Another reason I am considering getting a 360 rather than a PS3. We will see though...

Well, it seems you've lost that wager. From IGN's preview:

IGN fails for calling roll and yaw ADVANCED features.

Truth be told, this is the only thing I give a shit about Square releasing in the next six months. Their RPGs are played the fuck out. Granted, they are only publishing, but still.

Do we have an American release date on this? As far as I know it's not confirmed to be coming over yet.

Well, here's something else they fail for: take a look at their lists of available and upcoming games in the genre (on that same preview page). GRAW? UT2K7? Duck Hunt?!
Oh, and how about being too lazy to look for box art? Come on, guys, if the folks over at Play-Asia can find it (entry)...

http://image4.play-asia.com/640/PA.71284.016.jpg

And it'd be foolish for them not to bring it over. If they do, I might entertain the thought of buying a 360.

Ahahaha, I didn't even notice that. Those lists are usually so off base it hurts.

True enough, but the problem with this genre is that it's hardly done anymore, and when it is, it turns out to be either poorly done, or doesn't sell worth shit. At least, this is the case in recent years. Star Wars Starfighter and it's Jedi sequel were the last ones to do pretty well, if I recall correctly. I do hope that SE does bring it over though. It would be quite nice.

A review has cropped up over at Game-Science.com; thought people would like to know.

Looks great, thanks for the link, Firefly!

Did someone say...
 

...'Newtonian physics'?
Or 'circle-strafe'?
Yes, such a thing does seem possible in this game; specific reference is made to a point about half-way through this video... looks like it'll come in handy for attacking capital ships.

It could also be a really interesting combat maneuver for some small ships that are on your ass.

I really, REALLY want this. Second only to the rumoured 360 Afterburner, this is probably my most anticipated product. These trailers and reviews you keep linking just makes it far worse waiting for an official announcement about this.

Oh? Well, have some more, from the same source Game-Science used for their review.

I never really thought much of this title, and almost forgot about it, until Seanne just happened to post the OST in his journal, then that's what caught my interest in it again. I feel it's been FAR TOO LONG since I've last played my last space flight sim, which was probably either Tie Fighter or Wing Commander Prophecy, which just goes to show how severly lacking I've been missing out on most space based flight sims, and this has honestly (besides that of Gears of War) placed a tiny bit more weight on getting the Xbox 360 first, depending on how and what games are available for the PS3. I don't expect the controls to be that complicated to those of a PC flight sim, simply because of the lack of buttons you can get on a keyboard, but consoles have managed to turn out some pretty good arcade style flight sims, namely that of the Ace Combat series, so I'll be looking forward to getting this title should I get a Xbox 360 anytime soon.

But wait! There's more...
 

Some generous individual has seen fit to include the game's cutscenes among his collection of video clips over on YouTube.

http://xbox360.ign.com/mail/2007-01-26.html

check this out, was also able to reserve at local gamecrazy. they said june they think.

:D

So there is news this is coming to North American shores then, I'm glad. :)

Such news is good to hear; it displeases me, however, that corroborating evidence was not provided. Indeed, a quick search of the official XBox site turns up no mention of the title.

There have been interviews mentioning that it's on it's way, but that's about all the "evidence", if you can call it that, we've got. As it stands, it's impossible to put a date on when it'll be over here. The store just randomly guessing June isn't anything to go by here.

Well, since we're asking after evidence, will this entry help any? The announcement (mentioned in Kotaku.com among other places) also mentioned this other title... although from what I've been hearing about the latter, the should've just pitched the premise to Ubisoft, given their pedigree with this sort of game...

Yeah I saw that during the downtime. I wish it would give us a better date than just "Summer".

Dunno if this means anything, but online retailers agree with July 10th being the release date for this. Hopefully that's true.

Also we got horrid, HORRID American boxart, and a subtitle. "Arc of Deception".

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/...XL._SS500_.jpg

I'm not sure but wasn't MS doing the localization of this one? If so then we can blame them for the narsty box art. Either way I usually just hop on the net and make a copy of the Jap version of a lot of covers for theirs are usually better. Anyhow July 10th is a fine date for me, can't wait to play this one.

Thanks for the update Colonel-San

Microsoft Game Studios ain't workin' on this, as far as I know. SE's the one handling publishing, with Game Arts being the original devs. If you find a high res original of the box art, link it in this thread. Other people might want to follow suit and do the same thing.

I guess we could count our blessings though. The art isn't as bad as Senko's

I cannot help but wonder whose idea this was; this is an example of box art that didn't need to be tampered with. Now, if S-E were to actually show both covers side-by-side and conduct a poll as to which gamers would prefer, I wonder what the answer would be.
And speaking of things-best-left-untampered... I hope they took a page from Ace Combat 5 and give you the choice of English voices (with, one has a right to expect, decent work thereupon) or original audio w/subtitles.

While that'd certainly be a nice bonus, I'm not going to jump into this one expecting that. It's unfortunately the exception and not the rule in these sorts of things. Although with more and more games having the option, it's always a possibility.

Looks like retailers also have this pegged at 40 dollars, so it's not a full priced game. Which is a nice change of pace, considering things that should be that price are often not, such as Senko again.

Most of the time it's a space limitation that decides whether a game has dual language or not. Hence why most Tactical RPGs have dual language and why very few modern RPGs do not. So if Sylpheed is a semi short game with not too much voice work then there could be enough disc space to allow for dual language.

Either way here's to hoping that there is dual language or at least decent -> great dubbing.

I'm not keeping up on this shit recently. Oi.

A couple of hours ago, a demo went up on the marketplace. I'm downloading it now, impressions will follow.

Edit: Ok, holy shit.

A couple of bullet points to remember while you read this. I like it, a lot. It's fun, but it's also insane.

I played the first mission after doing all the tutorials (which you should do, more on this later). There is literally 500 billion things going on at any given moment. You have to protect like 8 carriers or so from this giant enemy force which seems to never end. I can't actually tell if it does since right off the crack there's more enemies than there is pornography on the internet. You're supposed to protect the ships for 15 minutes. I made it to the 14 minute mark before getting fucked up and having the last transport die. Fucking intense though, seeing as how much shit's going on. Frame rate takes a dump from time to time depending on how much crap is flying around though. This might be more noticible after just leaving Forza, since that's a constant 60. This seems to average about 30 but can drop to the low 20s, possibly high teens. I couldn't tell exactly.

The controls are complex. This is why you need to do the tutorials. Almost everything you can think of that would be on a space shooter like this on the PC is here. Match speed with target is tap both triggers at once. There's three different ways of targetting depending on how you hit A, be it tap, hold, or double tap. There's shit like pulling a trigger for speed up, double tapping for afterburner, gotta double tap the other trigger to get out of the A/B early, and so forth. Wingman orders are a two tier menu using the d-pad, there's two kinds of radar, and yaw and roll are assigned to the same stick, which you perform is dependant on the amount you tilt the stick. Do it lightly for yaw and all the way for roll. Special maneuvers like barrel rolls, 180s, and auto levels are dependant on combinations of controls you use in conjunciton with the B button. It's all a lot to learn.

I'm pretty psyched though. This sort of thing is right up my alley.

They finally got around to putting up an English mirror of the official site. Also floating around is what appears to be a video playthrough (175.3MB WMV file; GameTrailers.com mirror).
As for the controls' complexity: it sounds like the good Colonel went for the Professional setting (the others being Simple and Normal).

Dude this game rocks. It's like Ace Combat meets Star Wars.

*Sigh* Why did my 360 have to die this week? ='(

So I kinda suck at it, but it's a lot of fun. I agree with the Ace Combat/Star Wars comparison. Pretty fricken cool.

I'm kind of impress that Square-Enix manage to do a good game that is not an rpg/a-rpg or something.

Yup, went to EB and put a $25 pre-order on this one. I'm SOLD!

Count me in; I bit the bullet and got myself a 360... and C&C3 to play in the meantime.

And here's yet another video of someone playing the demo... competently. Note clever use of Newtonian physics in a couple of places.

I wish he would show the rank he got in the end. I've B ranked the demo now a couple of times. It's all about taking the right weapon loadout. In this case, the charge gun, the rail gun, and the biggest missile launcher you can mount.

This guy did a little better than I did in terms of fighters shot down, so he might have A'd it, I dunno.

Anyway, she's gone gold as of last week, so now it's just a waiting game.

ok after watching the video I think it's the first game that really made me think into buying a 360...

IGN has an updated hands-on up and about.