Macross 30: The Song That Crosses The Galaxy

[Tochiro]

Animated trailer for Macross 30.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... vl9lf6VHfQ

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Dammit, Tochiro, you beat me to the punch!

Anywho, this is just getting more and more awesome. But now I have to buy a PS3 since my apartment clubhouse's got stolen...

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

http://www.ps3trophi...alaxy/trophies/



Trophies are out for the game. Looks like its mostly endurance trophies which is a great thing. It ensures I will be playing for a long time. There are also a good number of hidden trophies (presumably story trophies).



Among the most interesting ones are:



Transform 2,000 times

Fire 50,000 missiles (Its going to be tough now that we have to buy ammunition)

Have more than 1,000,000G at one time

Spend a total of 300,000G at the shop

Travel 10,000km

Shoot down 3,000 enemy aircraft

Collect all 100 sheets of slate ("Those who unlock the mysteries of the ancients". Maybe Protoculture information?)

Collect 100 different blueprints for aircraft and extra equipment

Maximize the level of more than 10 characters

Tune 10 or more aircraft 100%





These ones are important also.



Develop all valkyries and extra equipment except DLC aircraft

Develop all valkyries to Rank 3 except DLC aircraft



This means DLC. Not that any of us are surprised really.

[Tochiro]

Well the game is out! I'm about 3 hrs in so far and enjoying the heck out of it.
For anyone that is interested, some unboxing pics can be found here:
http://www.macrossworld.com/4437/macros ... t-unboxed/

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Soon it shall be mine!! ..........In about a week or so.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Some enterprising individual has posted the OP for Macross 30. Check it out!

Also, I GOT IT!!!!

[quasadra]

i have got this game last week and been playing it whenever i have the time. currently at chapter 5.

some thing to mention:
-they are not kidding on the RPG part, it really does feel like a JRPG except you missile spam instead of taking turns. still, it is no Skyrim with VF as the subquest are all very basic stuff. the main story are all voiced though.

-the VFs are beautiful to look at(there is even a model viewer where you can examine all the VF's transformation closely), but the terrain is low resolution. not a big deal, it is decent enough and you will pay attention to all the missile coming your way rather than how the ground looks.

-controls can get a little too busy sometimes. you have 2 button for shooting, 1 for melee, another 1 for dash and evade command, then you have several set of 2 button combo(mostly involve the guard button) for stuff like special attack, fast pack purge, support skill, shooting down missile, etc. you can also employ a zoom mode with L3 for long range shooting, and manual reload by double tapping the trigger. you have a lot of control on the VF, just it might take a little practice. the tutorial does teach all these stuff, if you can understand what Aisha is saying.

-the game is quite long as far as i see, im at chapter 5 and it took me more than 26 hours(i have done quite some sidequest). i think im at the halfway point or at least approaching it.

-the game does have some minor technical problem, while i have not seen any bug or crashes, but the FPS take a dive when there are a few enemy spaming missile or a special attack is used. the game also lag for a second or so when it is loading something on the open map. IIRC this is Artdink's first full ps3 game, guess they can improve on this.

now, it is quite import friendly providing if you dont do the side quest. not to mention the story with be lost on you. many side quest involve fetching an item, if you cant read japanese then it may prove difficult to find the necessary item.

i think the game is worth it, if you are macross fan in general. if you just like one of the many macross series then you might get bored by the rest of the stuff here. it is pretty much a super robot wars scenario where the major character in the macross franchise got together. it is a fanservice(not in the sexual way) game for macross fans.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Actually a fellah name Zoroastres has a guide up on Google docs which provides a ton of info on how the game works. Check it out here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6r3Sy1 ... Vac0k/edit

OK it's probably about time I recorded down my first impressions of Macross 30, now that I'm half-way through my second playthrough and I understand some more things about the game.

First off, the game is gorgeous. For Artdink's first venture on the PS3 it doesn't look too bad and the Valks... oh the Valks! Yes, the game has a bad habit of slowing down when there's lots of planes and missiles flying about but since I've run into some slowdown on Western titles like Mass Effect 3, I'll let it slide this time. Hopefully if Artdink does another PS3 Macross game, they'll learn from this.

Flying around takes a little getting used to, but once you do, it's fun as everything. Yeah, I wish the flight cieling could have been a little higher and there were some actual towns and cities to fly around in, but it works for this game and works well. Probably the most interesting areas to fly around are the Sierra Desert and the glacier, especially because of the various enviornmental features (canyons and arches and such).

As for the dogfighting and such, it's pretty fun and challenging, in it's way, although the difficulty could be ratcheted up slightly. The VB-06 is kinda broken as even a rank 1's Autocannons can shred most planes and even sub-bosses. On New Game + more powerful planes like a VF-25 with Armor Pack or the Durandal or Chronos can blow most enemies outta the sky without much effort, especially near the beginning of the game. Guess you need to play on Ultimate difficulty. [:)]

I'm not really fussed about multiplayer, too many games include unnecessary multiplayer that becomes a ghost town just a few months after the game is released. Would mulitplayer be good for M30? I don't know.

Now for the story and character interactions which is the real meat and potatoes of this game. I found myself quite liking the new characters like Aisha, Leon and Mina. Mina is quite cute as the new songstress and the songs Planet Cradle and Wandering are great new additions to the Macross discography. The only thing I would have preferred that had been added to are the character interactions. They do a great job but I would have liked to have seen a few more such as a bit more interaction between Hikaru, Max, Milia and Misa.

I got the general gist of the plot, though I was a little fuzzy on Ushio Todo's reasons for doing what he was doing. Also...

Spoiler

As much as I want Mina to be a last living member of the Protoculture, I think the actual explanation, from my limited understanding of Japanese, is that her family were some of the first settlers on Ouroboros and that her father, a researcher, found the ancient Protoculture weapon Yurva Arga. This is one of the Evil-series weapons of the same kind that the Protodeviln possessed during the events of Macross 7. He also discovered a system to seal away(?) Yurva Arga using Anima Spiritia, otherwise known as Song Energy. I'm thinking that Mina might have got trapped in stasis as a result of messing with this system in some fashion. HAVAMAL wants the songstresses to reverse this system or turn it to their own purposes. Like I said, I'm a bit fuzzy on Todo's purposes, since he seems to be Zentradi but wants to stop Bodole Zer's Rain of Death on Earth?

There were only a couple of things I didn't like.

Spoiler

There is a WTF moment where Isamu literally pops out of nowhere in his custom YF-29 inside a Vajra mothership. Not sure what happened there.

Spoiler

I don't like how the ending works. As soon as you land the final hit on Yurva Arga, the screen fades to white and Mina says, "Arigatou, Leon. Arigatou... minna!" and then the credits start rolling.

The credits are nice with that little CGI render of Aisha's desk and is wonderful callback to the credits of SDF Macross.

Spoiler

You get two final images at the end of the credits, a picture of Mina, Aisha, Sheryl and Ranka goofing around and one of Alto and Leon shaking hands on the flight deck of the Macross Quarter.

I guess I got the ending where Leon ends up with Mina, as there is a final dialogue scene where I believe the two of them promise to be together even after the Ouroboros Aura lifts. BUT! Then there is a long dialogue scene between Aisha and Mina. I can't spoil it for you as I don't know what they say. It is the ONLY piece of COMPLETELY unvoiced dialogue in the entire game! So if someone who can read kanji gets to this point in the game, please let the rest of us know what Aisha and Mina are talking about! [:)]

[quasadra]

that doc is really helpful. my thanks.

i like how genre savvy Leon can be sometimes, he figured out what Roth is trying to do as soon as Mina spill that bit of information.

seeing my best plane now is a VF-25S with Super Pack, i look forward to the POWAR Durandal and Chronos will display. VB-06 is king in taking out those pesky ship hovering over the town you have bisness with. and its special attack annihilates everything when use in tight spaces. its gerwalk and battroid mode is slow and with a huge body, you will get hit a lot, plus its defense is not really that good. also, the missile is the slow, hard hitting type. they have a tendency to be easily evaded. it must rely on the autocannon to do most of the work.

Kz(livetune) does the those 2 songs, you cant go wrong with him handling the music. i have Mina as support all the time for her useful ability and Planet Cradle on demand.

EDIT: finished the game. @Arbiter: that scene is just those 2 talking about features in new game plus, nothing important.

[NastyNate]

The game is already down to 90 dollars. At this rate we'll be at 60 in no time.