Among this year’s crop of upcoming fighting games, Blade Strangers for Nintendo Switch may be the one that most fighting game fans are least familiar with. This crossover fighter, featuring characters from a number of Studio Saizensen and Nicalis’s games, pretty much came out of nowhere when it was announced last year.
In a recent interview, the game’s director Toshinobu Kondo got a chance to talk to Nintendo Everything about all things Blade Strangers. The interview covers a lot of ground, from basic development questions — such as character choice — to questions of why they decided to make the game in the first place. In fact, the question of why Studio Saizensen and Nicalis decided to make a fighting game is one of the first questions asked. The answer is simply that this came from the idea that fighting games are competitions based on all-stars that represent different fighting styles or countries.
In addition to this, he also talks about the game’s approach to art assets. Similar to a few other games, Blade Strangers starts with 3D models that are then rotoscoped into traditional sprites, albeit Studio Saizensen’s work with this technique tends to involve more automation and manual tweaking by artists. In fact, Kondo states that their work on Blade Strangers is the culmination of this technique, with the sprites requiring very little touch up from artists at all.
As for the game’s simplified execution requirements (special attacks are done with dedicated button presses), he states that they did this based on feedback from their previous games, where there was complaint about how the commands made the games more difficult to play. The concept then, according to Kondo, was to make a fighting game that more advanced players would still enjoy, without alienating beginners. Speaking of which, they do still care about high level play, at least when it comes to the game’s balance. Kondo stated that they have had the game tested by high-level players in Japan and are tweaking the balance based on their feedback.
Of course, this is just part of what they talk about in the interview. They also talk about the game’s cast, the features they’re adding to it, post launch support, and much more. You can check out the full interview over at Nintendo Everything.
Source: Nintendo Everything