Capcom on Star Force 3: Noise Kaizou Gear is Out, DLC is in
July 6, 2009 by Ryudo
Filed under Mega Man News
So Star Force 3 has been out for a bit, and I’m certain many are enjoying this vastly superior entry in the series (I know I am). However as some who have played the Japanese version may know, certain things are not available in this game, notably the Noise Kaizou Gear, Rezon Cards andSecret Satellite Server Brothers. These features were much like Wave Command Codes in that you could input a series of taps on the Touch Screen to power yourself up in various ways. For reasons “unknown” these were omitted from the North American release of the game and not surprisingly, there was great rage among the fandom (somewhat justified since this’ll have been what, the 3rd time that a game in the BN/SF series had some major things removed from the North American release).
Long story short, this was brought up on the Capcom Unity forums in a thread that Seth has graciously taken the time to not only answer, but look into things regarding the manner. After a few days he was able to give us some answers;
Here is the info I received from Japan. It’s a bit of a game of “telephone” where my original questions have mutated a bit in translation, but hopefully you can get the gist of it.
- Noise Kaizou Gear
This is a set of licensing item (cards), so it’s not available in US territory.* But, we’re distributing “White Cards” (one specific kind of cards available in this Noise Kaizou Gear) on our official website.
– Rezon cards
This is a part of “Noise Kaizou Gear”, so it’s not available in US territory.* We’re not planning to distribute them on our official website.
- Secret Satellite Server
This is a booklet published by Capcom Japan, and it’s not available in US territory.
* But, we’re distributing some of the “Cipher Codes” (which are included in this booklet) on our official website.
- Meteor ServerIf this means the “Meteor Server” which the powered up boss appears after collecting certain number of stars on title menu, it’s available in US version, too.
For the record, nobody on the US side made a decision to remove any content–it seems to be a licensing issue. There will be some additional free content coming to Wii-ware soon, as well as more website content, but that’s the best info I could get at the moment.
best,
Seth
He also mentions that there will be extra cards coming to the Nintendo Channel that you can download using your Wii.
There you have it. Capcom of America didn’t remove these features out of pure spite, but didn’t have any choice in the matter due to Licencing issues. They are however going the extra mile and giving downloadable content, though I imagine this won’t be quite satisfying to some people. Reminds me of the missing Boktai features of BN6 (Konami of America wanted them out, so Capcom removed them and as compensation inserted side quests that required the use of an E Reader in Japan), but nowhere near as drastic.
Keep in mind however that NONE of these features are required to finish the game or access hidden areas. You can visit each map in Star Force 3 provided you meet the conditions for them (Standard Complete, etc). That said, get off their backs already.
Any word on if it will be paid DLC or free DLC?
Ought to be free. I can’t think of a DS game that charges for DLC.
coolio
I personally think it’s a good thing they took out the Noise Kaizou Gear, since now people will have to rely on skill rather than unfair powerups to win and Wifi battles will certainly be more fair than on MMSF 2 when we had the “Auto Tribe King n00b” crisis.
lol tags “WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR???”
It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have DLC without making people pay for it. It would be better to have it on the cartridge itself, IMO.
dude, you NEVER have to pay for DS downloads.
Alright, I have one problem with this: how was it that Star Force 2’s Wave Command Cards were able to pass through licensing issues yet these were not? Both were sold as physical media.
Yeah, that’s odd that the Noise cards don’t make it but the Wave Command cards did. And besides, even if the cards themselves were held up by licensing issues, they probably could have left the data in the game. We’d just have to look up what the commands would be for whatever effect.
I would think the Cipher Codes (annoying things they are) would not be affected by this.
And the cheap Wave Commands had use. Auto-Tribe King was a pretty good assist in smashing SP bosses in under 10 seconds, and was pretty much my only chance at survival against the DX bosses. I would never use it in link battle, though. I don’t play that way.
I agree with Axl Fox…these things are crazy cheap boons…WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOOR!?!?!?
“And besides, even if the cards themselves were held up by licensing issues, they probably could have left the data in the game.”
That would be the even stranger part about this: the card data *is* still located in the game, not to mention completely translated. All that Capcom did was lock off its access methods.
…I am really not sure about this. I mean, I am not exactly complaining as much as trying to understand, and there just appears to be more going on here than some licensing issues.
Forci, the licensing issues relate to the printing and selling of the books with the cards in them in America. They were able to do it for Star Force 2, but the codes were put onto GameFAQs anyhow, making for a rather large loss on the publisher. Now, nobody wanted to print a book nobody would purchase, so Capcom of Japan decided to completely lock the feature in America.
In other words, it’s GameFAQs’ fault.
are they gonna continue the anime for starforce?
Probably not, unfortunately. It’s too bad – I would’ve liked to see and hear Joker. That guy reminded me of Mr. X in RE2.
How exactly did Noise Kaizou Gear and Rezon Cards work? Were they like the power ups you could get via wave command codes in SF2?