Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-4435241-20140521165801/@comment-1457172-20140811154212

Renjiru wrote: Good arguments, and I agree with them wholeheartedly. I wouldn't want to abandon too much of the original Inazuma Eleven (particularly the art style and player looks, which i've fallen hopelessly in love with long ago) but if this new season, and i mean really brand new season does debut, it'll be the first season for many fans in the community that they can follow from the start. I had fun with GO, but I barely watched anything but the last few episodes before GO2 started; still, the race to see the final plot twists as the game came out while the anime kept going was fun on both go2 and go3. Figuring out which SSC has whose genes is still a fun thing to try, and to be honest, I want to experience that race of anime progress vs game progress many more times and feel excited for a new season's climax again. It's also notable to mention that GO2's final team took a lot shorter to be revealed; The Lagoon was rumored as soon as the first gamers reached it and documented on this wiki days later. Ixal Fleet, however, showed in the game's biggest trailer (Magic Amp and Judgement Ray, + their outfits) and remained a mystery for a good long while.

What bothers me though, about GO, is that the version exclusive teams got decreased attention right at the start of GO2. Hakuryuu and Shuu got their very own film; this was awesome (as i'm sure many will agree). In the previous series, we had Burn and Gazel get pretty good coverage in-game, and even more in anime (for gazel mostly, but you get the point). Sein and Desuta got sufficient coverage and backstory, and like Chaos, a merged team match against Inazuma Japan.

What really bothers me is how this went from GO having both version exclusive teams as well as their merged team in a movie of its own, GO2 only /showing/ the version exclusive captains briefly twice, and GO3 actually only showing one for real; Sarjes, as Acrous either barely or did not even show in his younger form. For all we knew in the anime, Acrous was just Lalaya's father, and that's it- and all we know about Sarjes thanks to the anime is that he was someone that Katra apparently knew. The games expanded much more on the backgrounds of Sarjes and Acrous, and that was a good thing to do. Garshya and Vanfeny barely got any backstory- you just fought them, then you had a sort of epilogue cutscene with the Grandchildren (the five kids, seven including garshya and vanfeny, that i mentioned in my previous post) and Kuroiwa and Potomuri, which had some sort of very vague hint towards Kuroiwa (or Grandfather, as he's called there) needing strong players to save the galaxy. In other words, these two barely got any backstory whatsoever, just more of an unfinished epilogue to what could happen. Garshya and Vanfeny, after beating The Excellar, seem to join Snow Weasel, Hasshu's team; as a sort of final proving that they're worthy of being Kuroiwa's disciples, maybe. This isn't explained, there is barely any explaining to the Go2 version exclusive teams at all- and that pains me, because their designs are awesome and there could have been so much more to them that would maybe have pleased more fans.

Oh yeah, and something I'd like to add; Every movie has had its appearance in an Inazuma Game. Ogre got its own game version, Zero can be fought if you link the GO games, you battle Inazuma Legend Japan and Destructchers in the after-game story itself (!) in both GO2 games, to a point where you even have to beat both those teams to even get the opportunity to battle either Garshya or Vanfeny's team. GO Galaxy however, has so far not really shown any signs of having Best Eleven vs Battle Eleven extras. And going by the players' edited movesets and all (such as The Birth, which isn't in GO Galaxy to begin with) I was hoping there would be downloadable content for it, but I doubt a download would unlock a move that likely isn't even fundamentally programmed into the game. So yeah, that's sort of a pain to me too, even though it's more of a special long episode than a real movie with new characters; they could at least have made a Legend Gate somewhere in Galaxy for it, like they have for Ogre. I think GO Galaxy is a special case, though. I mean, consider this: Inazuma Eleven releases their games midway through the season (generally leading to mad spoilers, the most egregious being the Inazuma Eleven GO game promotions, where they spoiled a few late to end game plot points...in a commercial attached to the episode). and, generally, the movie is advertised during that time, if not earlier (especially since they all take place during the events of their shows). But unlike the others, the third movie was announced at the conclusion of the the series, and because of it, I don't even know if you could call Chou Jingen an Inazuma Eleven GO Galaxy movie, since it seems to exist outside the canon (being a dream match as it is), and at the same time, seems to encompass the entire canon. In fact, due to the way it was introduced, there's a chance that the movie hadn't even been considered by the creator until near the end of Galaxy's run (and, thus, probably after Galaxy's release).

But you know, I think the whole version team thing is a give and take. Inazuma Eleven handled Burn and Gazel's appearances in the show rather well, and Hakuryuu and Shuu were the same (and, much like Gazel and Burn, they appeared later on) but...Then there's 3's version teams. I always felt these two were rushed, because each game got one episode to be introduced, have the advantage, get beaten, learn their lesson, whatever happens before and after all that, which leaves little time for the game to leave an impact. I mean, the Dark Angel saga was REALLY short, and once it was over, you start to wonder "Did that have any effect on the plot?  The characters?  Anything?" Short answer's no, it was just a short intermission. But that said, the difference between the Dark Angel saga and, say, Vanfeny and Garshya, is that one is actually a threat. They actually put them in the show, and when it was all over...nothing happened. They didn't fight, nor did we see what happened to the afterwards, they were just introduced and that was it. I'd assume it was just advertisement for their in-game counterparts, because all things considered, they didn't need to appear (though it might have been due to time constraints).

And as much as I love the GO Galaxy anime, this all goes back to a conversation I had in another thread. There's really not that much closure on Galaxy, and it was also the shortest season in GO and the second shortest in IE altogether. There's a lot left unsaid and a lot that isn't explained, but it's rather well paced (as if contrasting with Chrono Stone before it). It feels as if, rather than trying to make the anime feel rushed, they decided to leave things out altogether (specifically, backstory, closure, and an epilogue). Having not played the games, nor knowing Japanese, I can't say whether they explain what happens to Kuroiwa at the end, or if they explain what Zanakurou actually is, and I'm not sure if they provide an epilogue. But it made for a rather jarring end to the series.