Month: February 2018

Yesterday, Arc System Works streamed for over an hour, showcasing interesting developer interviews with the top developers. The famed Daisuke Ishiwatari of Guilty Gear and Toshimichi Mori of BlazBlue were present, alongside Mike “Ninja Viking,” who translated Japanese into English. James Chen acted as the host, leading the show and asking the two developers questions.

Here’s a breakdown of the show:

• James Chen first met Daisuke Ishiwatari about twenty years ago at University of California-Los Angeles, where he obtained his first copy of Guilty Gear. Unfortunately, it wasn’t signed as he thought!
• Mori wanted to make a “dream match-up” of the various fighting game universes, which is how Cross Tag Battle came to be.
• Mori has always been a fan of Monty Oum and caught wind of RWBY in Japan. Before the show was localized, Mori wanted to collaborate with Rooster Teeth on it. The collaboration happened thanks to a Forbes interview which the Rooster Teeth team saw and then reached out to ASW. The companies first met for a “greet and meet” before actually working together.
• While Mori is very excited about BBTAG being part of the Evo 2018 lineup, he feels a little sad that BlazBlue: Central Fiction isn’t on the main stage (which is the title that he heavily worked on over the years).
• When it comes to the release of BBTAG, Mori emphasizes having as much of an even start for players around the world as possible, which is why the release dates are close and there isn’t an arcade release.
• When asked about their favorite weapons, Mori said that there is a “very high scythe ratio.” Chen asked if there will be any fan weapons, showing Amane’s fan, but the developer points out we already have Yukiko Amagi. Ishiwatari answered: “Azrael’s fists.”
• Mori’s favorite character from Guilty Gear is Order Sol, and Ishiwatari’s favorite BlazBlue characters include Taokaka and Nine, but lately he’s intrigued by Haku-men.
• When asked if Mori intends to continue the BlazBlue story after CF, he said he can’t really share anything just yet.
• Mori presented his game designers with the challenge of integrating the characters from different games into one and making their systems work.
• When asked which characters were the hardest to design, Ishiwatari feels all of them more or less were very difficult. Mori said Ragna and Litchi. It took a lot of time to capture the “protagonist look” for Ragna, and as for Litchi, well, Mori said it’s best to have male designers work on characters like that. Her design is Chinese-inspired, which is fairly common in Japanese manga/anime. Designing Litchi taught him a lot, but he can’t go into specifics.
• Ishiwatari simply wanted more people to listen to heavy metal and through naming a lot of attacks in his games; he wanted to share names of songs and bands he likes.
• Picking characters for BBTAG came down to balancing the game. It’s a combination of selecting which characters from different series should make it and making a balanced game.
• Ishiwatari would love to feature some Capcom, Tekken, and Virtua Fighter characters in his games as playing their titles inspired him to work on fighting games. Mori brought up Powerpuff Girls.
• Mori’s favorite Astral Heats are Haku-men and Bang’s.
• Many fans keep asking whether BBTAG will be fully dubbed in English, but the company has no comment at this time.

While there were no new announcements, Arc System Works has a press event coming up this week in California, where their American branch is located.

Source: Arc System Works Twitch