Lately, Galaxy Angel has become one of my new guilty pleasures. Boy, do I love that series. It has everything I like in anime cute girls, lots of weird random humour, facked up engrish, and sci-fi with stupidity of the good kind- it's almost like what Galaxy Fraulein Yuna was to me a couple years back. Thing is, there's a couple of games based on the manga/anime, for the PC and PS2. Don't ask me how, but a friend of mine obtained a copy of the second PC game, Eternal Lovers. Now... I can read Japanese to some extent (those damn kanji!), and I can understand about 60% of what's being said to me... but I still have very little experience with this sort of game. SO... here comes the question. If anyone has played it or knows how to play it, (I find the controls kind of complex and the objectives sort of vague) or has any pointers or anything of use about the game, or any opinion about it or the series, it would be greatly appreciated to hear and discuss it. For the record, yes, I've googled it, and I've found the FAQs to be less than informative. I thought... hey, it's likely to find a response here.
While I don't have that game, I do have the first Galaxy Angels game for the PS2 though which I've finished only once. As far as I know, the PC and the PS2 version is identical and this game and yours ought be just as similar so I may be able to give a bit of help. Take note though that its been a long while since I last played the game and the series in general so bear with me on these. Well, assuming that the sequel is that similar to the first game, it should still be an "Adventure" type of game with RTS sections in between to break up the monotony right ?The adventure part is where you explore places and trigger some events, mini-games and stuff. In the first game, its pretty much limited to the mothership. I think its called the Elle Ciel. The game casts you as the commander of sorts of the angel troupe ( Takuto Myers by default as per the manga ) so part of the job is to keep the troupe happy. I think the bulk of the "keeping them happy" job is on the adventure part of the game. Pick the right responses, visit them any chance you get, etc. In the first game at least, you do have to (?) pick a favorite out of the 5 girls as some events specific to that girl will only happen once she has enough heart icons or has the greatest number of heart icons compared to the others. That applies to what ending you'll get too. ( more like picking what girl you're going to "end up" with in the ending ) As for the RTS part. There wasn't really any real strategy involved in the first game though. Basically I let the angel troupe do all the shooting and blasting and keep the Elle Ciel ( and any non angel frame spaceship out there for that matter ) well out of harms way until every enemy is gone or at least until the Elle Ciel reaches its required destination on a mission. While each angel frame has some unique attributes, they all pretty much behave similarily as far as I can remember. Millefuille's ship is the good all-rounder, Ranpha's ship is a short range attacker with weak defense, Mint's the long range attacker ( not so sure on this one . . . ), Forte's the high offense, good defense but slow ship, and Vanilla's ship is the "healer" so to speak. You can also increase ( or decrease ) their heart levels while in this mode too. Well, thats about all I can remember at this point though . . . Hope this helps !
Yup, that's a lot of help, actually. I sort of figured out it would play like a dating game thing in the 2D story portion, but the 3D Ship portion is weird to me. Apparently, from what I hear from you, it plays sort of like a "lite" version of Homeworld, which I've seen someone play but never actually played myself. Sounds cool. This means the ships are never directly under your control, but instead are selected and given a target, right? Eventually, I'll get a hang on the keyboard control. How do you control this sort of RTS game on a PS2? It's gotta be one hell of a task. I'm thinking this will be quite good to practice my Kanji/listening skills, too. You've been of great help, enkyotmp. Thanks a bunch. BTW, is that series great or what?
I love galaxy angels, even subbed some episodes! I will buy the games eventually, just want to get the special editions next time I'm in japan, as they come with loads of extras if you can find a complete version. BTW Eternal lovers is usualy considered the best of all the series, but there are quite a few games to get.
You helped sub Galaxy Angel?? What group were you with? I probably had some of your files, if you subbed season one or two! Yup, the limited editions even had figures and such. If I recall correctly, there's a Mint pack and a Milfeuille pack, and some sort of triple-disc revision of sorts. Too bad this is the sort of thing doomed to never reach this side of the pond (and by this side, I mean Mexico).
I'm very good friends with a guy who does work for a variety of circles. I just do checks for him, he doesn't speak Japanese very well, but he loves anime so he just gets on with it, with loads of reference books. I don't have time to do the full thing so I just tweek stuff for him, make sure it sounds right, he only occasionally misses point utterly. I mostly did season 2 btw, so I am not actually in a circle per se, I just help out. Actually there are at least 4 people I know of here at oxford alone who do Fansubbing. As for galaxy angels, avoid the 3 disc compilation as it does not add much in the way of extras. I want Eternal lovers on the pc ltd ed. Most of the ps2 limited editions just come with an extra dvd, buy them in japan at "gamers" and they are a tad more impressive.
Dude, you rock so much... I'd have found the translation of the series (at least the intro songs, anyway) to be quite difficult. Season two rocks. That episode with the giant robot is pretty much enough to love the series to bits. Slightly OT: Have you taken the JLPT tests? If so, up to what level?
Trust me Galaxy Angels is very hard to translate, there are just certain instances where you can find no english equivelent to what is said. As for the theme songs, nightmare, I would say that is the hardest thing to do in most anime. I don't do the JLPT tests at Oxford. In english terms you are meant to be about A-level level before you start uni. I know I moan about it a lot - but the texts we read at Oxford are hundreds of times more difficult than anime, it makes the anime translation seem fun! We do lots of very pretentious Japanese academic prose that the majority of Japanese people would never ever read. I am trying to get a scholorship at a Japanese university for just next summer so I might see if I can do them there. I am meant to know well over a thousand Kanji so it should be alright.
Yeah, the Homeworld analogy isn't too far off. The whole thing does feel like some stripped down Homeworld. Minus all that nagging resource collecting of course ! The game's controls aren't so bad though, at least you'll have to get used to it. I mean, its not a mouse-drag-a-thon like a typical realtime strategy game. I remember that you can just switch units from the triggers on the dual shock, plus I think that the game either paused or slows down the game when you're issuing commands and the like. All-in-all, a bit clunky but still manageable. PS2wise, I've always wanted to pick up that triple-disc set though, but I'm gonna wait and see if I'll be lucky enough to pick a cheap example down the road. Now I don't know if this is just a rumor I've heard but Eternal and Moonlit Lovers supposedly checks for the previous game's save and whatever affection level your favorite girl is at on your old save carries over to the newer game. I really can't confirm this until I get the other two games, and that should take quite a while ;-) . I like Galaxy Angels though, but I'm more of an Azumanga fan ;-) . Only seen a couple of eps. from the anime ( the one where Millefuille befriends a robot to learn of a secret cake recipe is the one I remember the most, quite a nice episode . . ) but I have 5 volumes of the english manga though, which the first game's plot is almost competely based on. Should be worth your while to track those down too aside from the anime.
I hate resource collecting anyway, so it'll be okay for me. I'm thinking of getting the imports for either PC or PSTwo. The PSTwo version would require me to get a swap-magic, but I need one for other things anyway... The PC Version is going to look a lot prettier, for sure, as I have a medium-to-high-end PC (265mb video card and all) - but somehow, even with applocale, it requires me to restart the machine with Japanese region configuration, even if windows supports the text in the first place. I'll look around Lik-Sang and stuff. A friend of mine orders stuff frequently, so I'll ask him to include my request there. Enkyotmp - you HAVE to see that anime. It rocks insanely. I didn't know there was an English Manga. If there's a dual-language one like Chobits, I'll try to track it down. The girl from the comic place (There's always one in every comic place, is there not?), who, by the way, is also a fan of Azumanga, will probably know. I'll ask her. Warakia - You might not need the JLPT from what I read you're doing. You're probably fine for 1kyuu. You need 1,000 Kanji for 2kyuu, and I think 2,226 for 1kyuu. I'm taking 2kyuu next december (2006), as I'm still not precisely close to 1,000 (I can read like 550 or 600 now, or so). Quick academic question: How the HELL do you learn that many Kanji? Do you have any cool memory or comprehension tricks you'd like to share?
Quick Azumanga comment - I love Osaka, although she hardly aids the unfortunate and wholly inaccurate image of osaka people, she still is very funny! As for Kanji you really need to split is up into reading a writing kanji. For example I need to be able to write around a thousand kanji at the moment, but reading is at least 2000 kanji - both readings, and common readings for as many as humanly possible. Of course that is the ideal - and I am hardly keeping up with that - it is just too much to handle. For writing kanji, I would reccommend getting the most basic 600-ish kanji under written control. Because that is probably all the kanji you will EVER need to write, apart from specialist ones as you need them, but you will forget them soon enough. Most sources have a solid 600 basic kanji down, which are mostly common nouns and verbs, very useful. You just have to keep practicing over and over by writing these out. 30 a week is possible. I used to just sit down on sunday and write them out over and over while listining to OST, then go for a walk, come back and try to remember all 30 by writing them down. After those 600 are out the way, the load gets a lot easier. Once you have these 600 they will help you will common compunds - hopefully. So when expanding your vocab to 1000 kanji, you are just learning the readings of the kanji and compounds. You don't really need to know how to write them, so that takes a load of. The hard thing is working out the common compounds, again lots of reading of Japanese is the best way to do that. Once you have a good thousand kanji with both readings mastered and common compounds sorted, you can really understand most things, that Japanese people read. So that was my objective a year ago, and give or take a kanji here and there it has is worked. So my overal kanji learning technique would be - get the simple common kanji under written control. It really commits them to memory. Then when expanding your knowledge beyond that, try and put them in context and whenever you see a kanji in a game or manga, stop and make sure you know the reading in context and meaning in context. If not look it up. There are no tricks to it really, it is just about constant revision and dedication. They slowly become fixed in you mind without you knowing how they got there, 1000 kanji seems a lot, but they are hard to forget once you have put in the hours to get them there. It pays off when you play an rpg for the first time and pretty much get the plot! I'm the kind of guy who just sits down and does all his work in one go, hence kanji blitz days. But I know a lot of other students who do up to 5 a day, which is quite easy I suppose. Do both if you have the time. My problem is with academic japanese each author uses certain words over and over, so when ever I start a new book you have to learn about 200 specialist words and the compounds that go with them, that only that writer uses. By the way I have a pretty shocking memory and dyslexic to boot, so if I can do it, anyone can!
Heh, I'm dysgraphic (there's three of those: dyslexia, dyslalia and dysgraphia), so I understand your kanji concerns. I have taken note of your advice and will follow it as much as possible. Thanks very very much.
