That cannot be the case, he told me he is interested in Valkyria!
While both games look very similar, Valkryia at least has an under-utilised setting, and a cool filter/engine to work with. I just hate what Sakura Tension is doing to the fanbase.
The art style is not interesting at all, even if it had a filter it goes through, the actual character designs are generic anime stuff outside of a select few of characters. Not everyone is going to hate that, but I like it when people try to make their games stand out. Some argue Skies of Arcadia's art is similar, but most of the humans in that still stand out (a good example is De Loco) if not just for their outfits, the world art, monster art and even ship and building art are all at least creative, while in Sakura all of the characters look similar or have the same builds. The majority of the characters share the same bodies with a custom head, lazy design IMO.
The gameplay is not really new, not that it makes it bad because I like it when games stick to tried and true gameplay styles, but in here the developers could not make up their mind and it becomes some kind of malformed half turn based half DATING game. The characters can flirt you while you move around... I do not see why anyone would think that is a good idea. When a character dies they leave the game forever unless they have something to do with the story. COOL, I will just restart the whole mission now because I liked that character or literally have to because I will need him or her for future battles.
The music is not really bad just... girly. It all fits I guess, just does not feel right for a SEGA game and the vocal stuff is like Special Friends quality.
SEGA fans treating the franchise like some kind of golden child just pisses me off way more... A sequel, a set of figurines and toys, a whole cartoon, a constant stream of DLC, updates on all of their blogs about the franchise every fucking week and more. Where is this kind of love for Virtua Fighter? The House of the Dead? Streets of Rage? Those were way more profitable and are loved by way more people. It is games like this that I think are helping make SEGA lose it's image they have kept since the early 80s, and I do not like how it looks.
*Cough*