Sega sucks since 2002

[GSZX1337]

Since you say the cut-scenes look awful, I assume it's the art style you have trouble with.

While I don't really care for the art style (I don't really like the manga art style much), that's not what I meant. I don't remember too much, but one thing that stuck in my mind (I think) was in the beginning cutscene. The protagonist draws pictures of fish he saw. That's neat, I don't think I've seen that before. Then he gets a gun pointed at him. Wasn't expecting that. Then the woman immediately has the guy hauled off. For no reason.
"What's your name?"
"I'm (insert name here)."
"There's spies here. What's in that journal."
"It's just a journal I keep."
"We're going to have to haul you off."

Yes, let's not look at the journal, or even ask more questions, let's arrest him. Then, while they're walking (who knows for how long) the woman looks at the journal. Why couldn't she have done that before? After she looks at the sketches, she says that the pictures of fish might be a code.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Why would detailed drawings of fish be a code.
"Ah, he drew a flounder, that means the enemy will attack at nightfall."
That just left a really bad taste in my mouth. Since RPGs are mostly about their story, I figured not only will there be more of this shit, but I'll more than likely have to watch it without skipping. (I guess I could just go and do something else, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a game)

If the cutscenes are unskippable (which I guess they are since it's an RPG), it really doesn't matter how fun the game is since the cutscenes will interrupt you.

...except they are skippable.

That's nice to know. Might as well ask, does the game stop you and give you text boxes or in-game cutscenes like other games (ie. StarCraft) do?

[the7k]

Wrong assumption on both counts. The story actually gets pretty good, and it's all skippable as was already pointed out.

And, it isn't too far fetched to think drawing of animals might be code. Hell, anything can be a code. I heard of some military organizations that refuse to let their members get tattoos of certain things (like foreign languages - even if it says something harmless) on the basis that it might be code.

[skyknight]

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3179125

I do think this article does bring up several things that SEGA needs to do NOW to stay in the gaming business.

I will not challenge other gamer's preference, but I do say that Valkyria Chronicles is a solid good game, especially if you are into SRPG, and if you want to have a different way of control instead of a simple move'n'attack on a grid.

[GSZX1337]

Wrong assumption on both counts. The story actually gets pretty good, and it's all skippable as was already pointed out.

Is this like Fallout 3 where "it gets good" in about an hour, or is it like Final Fantasy 13 where "it gets good" in 30 hours?

And, it isn't too far fetched to think drawing of animals might be code. Hell, anything can be a code.

It'd be different (to me at least) if they were little symbols like the little Jesus fish, but these are detailed drawings. That just seems ridiculous to me. If they thought that it was a code, they could've just confiscated the journal. I could go further, but I'll just say that my point is that these characters aren't acting logically and they appear very stupid. I immediately didn't like these characters, and was glad to see the enemy come in.

I should not be happy that the enemies are killing the characters in your story.

With all that said, I might give it a rent sometime. I've been meaning to play more RPGs. (I've been palying through EarthBound lately and I've got a lot to say about it.)

[the7k]

Fallout 3 and Final Fantasy XIII "get good"?

Different strokes, I suppose. I didn't like Alicia at first, but she grew on me. She's meant to be overbearing at first, but she quickly loosens up.

[GSZX1337]

Fallout 3 and Final Fantasy XIII "get good"?

I thought Fallout 3 was decent. (Having Liam Neeson was nice too.) I just heard about the "getting good" in 30 hours from Zero Punctuation's review and some forum posts.

[J T]

Don't forget that Sega's Total War series is a huge PC franchise:

[Pulsar_t]

Perhaps Sega are best suited to the PC market with the occasional fan servicing console game. They can't afford to acquire any more talented dev. teams but it seems they're shooting for actual profit by year's end.