SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is definitely an interesting choice for SNK’s first non-King of Fighters fighting game in years. As such, many fans are bound to have more than a few questions about it; now, SNK’s Yasuyuki Oda answers some of these questions in a recent interview by Honey’s Anime, covering a lot of ground.
Some of it cover topics that Oda and other SNK staff have already talked about in other interviews. One of these — one of the most popular topics about the game, in fact — covers the game’s characters. Previously, Oda hinted that SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy would have characters not normally seen in King of Fighters games. In this new interview, Oda seems to reiterate that, stating that they “have some characters that will surprise people”.
Additionally, when asked about it, Oda also mentioned that they are looking into possibly having DLC characters to expand the cast in the future. This, of course, will not be surprising to most fans, considering that SNK has been fairly generous with DLC characters for The King of Fighters XIV.
Now, while the rest of the questions in the interview are still mostly covering the same topics we’ve seen previous interviews, Honey’s Anime does bring up on important question: are they working on a sequel to Garou: Mark of the Wolves? To this, Oda gave the very vague answer of “I will continue to make them until the day I die.” Garou fans, take that as you will.
Red Bull esports kicked off March with the reveal of their new US-based competitive circuit for 2018: Red Bull Conquest. Featuring competition in three titles — Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, Tekken 7, and Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 — in 15 qualifying events across the USA, this will be a fight to remember!
You can catch more details about the circuit in the announcement post here. To delve deeper into the details of this new circuit, we grabbed a chance to pose some questions to Jimmy Nguyen, National Tournament Director for Red Bull Conquest. See what they had to say below!
Replies have been edited for clarity.
Zavian “mushin_Z” Sildra: How does this new circuit fit into the overall plans for Red Bull events this year, particularly in relation to Red Bull Proving Grounds? Is this a replacement, or a parallel series?
Jimmy Nguyen (National Tournament Director for Red Bull Conquest): Red Bull Conquest is the evolution of Proving Grounds and Battle Grounds, and it continues our plans to cultivate the FGC. If you recall, in year one, we focused on individual growth. In year two, we focused on team growth. This year, we are focused on regional growth. Each year is a progressive step in learning, goal-setting, and working with the FGC to figure out how to best support this incredible community.
mushin_Z: What prompted the decision to feature competition in TEKKEN 7 and GUILTY GEAR Xrd REV 2, in addition to STREET FIGHTER V?
Jimmy Nguyen: The fighting game community is so much more than a single fighting game. With many games spanning multiple genres, what we wanted to do this year with Conquest is start with games that have a long history and are deeply rooted in each of the fighting game genres: 2D, 3D, and anime. This allows us to highlight players and their passions throughout the country across all genres.
The communities of these genres are sometimes perceived to be siloed, which isn’t exactly the case. In fact, there is a lot of cross-pollination between the communities, and that is why we chose to introduce a multi-genre team tournament finals. What we wanted to do is squash those perceptions, and give the players the opportunity to show and grow the teamwork and comradery that is prevalent across the genres in all of the FGC.
mushin_Z: How were the qualifying stop locations decided?
Jimmy Nguyen: The list of qualifying stops is a combination of last year’s US stops mixed with some new ones. While the previous two years focused on attracting and developing new players within some of the larger and concentrated regions in the FGC, this year, we’re continuing to do the same but in addition, we are looking to cultivate and grow smaller regions that have been looking for an opportunity to do just that.
We looked at many regions and evaluated community history, needs, population, and drive. Even though we couldn’t include all of the regions we looked at, there is a very good chance they can be included in future circuits.
mushin_Z: Was the scope of this circuit always intended to be USA-only, or were stops considered for Canadian cities, or internationally?
Jimmy Nguyen: Red Bull is established in many countries in the world, and each has its own esports initiatives. Conquest is a Red Bull US initiative, and will begin its maturation starting in the US. As Conquest continues to grow, there will be potential of the circuit being adopted in other countries.
mushin_Z: Please tell us a bit more about the RISE/RALLY/CONQUER theme, and how it came about.
Jimmy Nguyen: You may not have known, but the principal of RISE, RALLY, and CONQUER has been a part of our lives since, well, forever. It just hasn’t yet been explicitly used in the same context we are establishing.
Every trial and journey we go through in life, it requires us to RISE up to the challenge, gather ourselves (RALLY), and learn to acquire knowledge and experience (CONQUER).
When applying this principal to the FGC and Conquest, what we are communicating to everyone is:
RISE within your communities and take a stand.
RALLY together to grow, learn, help each other, and determine who will represent your region.
CONQUER all others and claim the title of best fighting game region in the nation.
mushin_Z: Are there any more circuit surprises we can look forward to from Red Bull in 2018?
Jimmy Nguyen: If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore! However, stay tuned for more details and announcements about the Conquest Finals in Washington, D.C. I think everyone will be super hyped when they hear what we have to announce.
The only other surprise I have to tell you is to keep an eye out for the rising stars that develop during Conquest throughout the year. Every year, we have had a handful of players make a name for themselves. Expect the same for this year.
It’s almost time for Daigo Umehara’s second exhibition event, Kemonomichi 2! This event will see first-to-ten fights between legends in three different titles: we’ll see Ito take on Kotaka Shoten in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Tanukana will battle Yuyu in Tekken 7: Fated Retribution, and Daigo Umehara faces Tokido in a Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition showdown.
For a closer look at the fighters in Kemonomichi 2, their characters, and their styles, check out the interview videos below; Daigo Umehara, the Kemonomichi competitors, and other players provide insight into all of the above.
Planning to catch the action from North America? Keep an eye on twitch.tv/daigothebeastv, it starts at 1:00 PM JST on March 10, which means 8:00 PM PT on March 9th for us over here.
For anyone planning to watch #kemonomichi 2 this weekend (everyone, right?), please remember the time zone shift!
The worst part about Evo being as big as it is, is the fact that it’s impossible to catch all the action! At Evo 2017, one of the most shocking moments was the defeat of sponsored Japanese player Tanukana at the hands of relative newcomer Beautifuldude.
Even Beautifuldude candidly admits he didn’t see this in his future — Not in Tekken, at least. In his latest interview with That Blasted Salami, the multi-game pro talks about how he took his fundamentals from the anime sub-genre and transitioned successfully to Namco’s 3D arena.
Arc System Works has given plenty of media interviews last month, during their visit to the United States. GamesBeat posted their lengthy interview with Toshimichi Mori, the producer of the BlazBlue series, and Daisuke Ishiwatari, director of the Guilty Gear games. The focus is on BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, and there are a couple of interesting questions about the game’s engine and netcode that should be of prime interest for fighting game aficionados.
After posing a few queries about differences in 2D and 3D design — including the use of Unreal engine in games like Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 and Dragon Ball FighterZ — GamesBeat asks about networking technology. Mori states that it’s their in-house code. Ishiwatari continues by saying, “As much as we’re tired of hearing about GGPO, we are interested, and we’re researching that. But for this title, we used in-house technology.” Mori then expands on the answer:
With our in-house technology, if players are within a close distance, there’s no latency. However, with longer distances, we’re still testing, because there’s a possibility that players will experience some latency. But in any case, we do have the American and European audiences in mind. Latency is a problem we’re working hard to solve.
What we’re trying to do is, obviously we’re using our in-house technology, but we’d like to take some of the good stuff from GGPO and create a combination out of that.
The interview also talks at length about the complexity of game mechanics, and making BBTAG more accessible to a general audience. The auto-combo system is an evolution of the feature that appeared in previous games. Mori discusses some overall differences between Western and Japanese players, noting that Asian players tend to be more dexterous than US gamers.
Read up on the rest of the interview over at GamesBeat — and in case you missed it, also check out our BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle developer interview as well.
The YouTube Channel That Blasted Salami is typically know for its in-depth breakdowns of the Tekken 7 cast. But when you’re presented with the opportunity to talk to one of Japan’s FGC Superstars, you should probably take it — particularly when it’s the both blunt and insightful Naoki “Nemo” Nemoto.
Nemo shoots on a few topics in his interview with TBS, just to name a few: his game of preference between SFIV and SFV, the general strength of grapplers, and his opinion on the current version of Urien.
French Bread, in collaboration with Aksys Games and Arc System Works, has finally brought the Late[st] version of their Under Night In-Birth Exe games to Western audiences. While the successor to Melty Blood has enjoyed a niche following for quite some time, it has indeed been a long wait since for Late[st], as it cultivated its arcade scene for about two years.
Shoryuken has had a unique opportunity to speak to the developers of French Bread to learn more about their design philosophy and some of the decision-making that went into making the consumer version of UNIST. Their newest title comes with extensive Tutorial and Mission Modes that allow anyone to self-learn the game, two console newcomers Wagner and Enkidu, and a Chronicle Mode that tells the origin of the fighters. We asked as many questions as we could — it’s hard to overstate what a rare opportunity this is. The questions were answered by French Bread’s battle designer and planner, Kamone Serizawa.
The interview has been translated from Japanese as a courtesy of Aksys Games. It has been edited for clarity and length.
Woocash: The console version is much bigger in size with an addition of tutorials as well as scenarios, especially in comparison to the previous game. What was the thought process in planning the console port of the Late[st] version?
Kamone Serizawa (French Bread’s Battle Designer): As this game is the first console version in a long time, it was a great opportunity for us to capture the attention of new players. For that reason, we put the utmost importance on offering a substantial amount of gameplay and the feel of a new game. We are fortunate enough to have many fans outside Japan, so we wanted to make this game something special to hype up the series both domestically and internationally.
Woocash: The tutorial mode is quite extensive, and it actually teaches many advanced mechanics (like options selects, etc.) Can you talk about creating this mode? Did you source any help from competitive players?
Serizawa: We did not have competitive players go over it or ask for advice from them while working on the Tutorial Mode. A team of two planners created it themselves by cramming all of their knowledge they can muster on fighting games into it. Our planner team has been actively battling it out with real players at arcades which must have helped them see things from the players’ standpoint to make the Tutorial Mode they would want to see. So, in that sense, yes, you could say we sourced help from competitive players indirectly by battling them.
Woocash: Similarly, there’s also Mission Mode that teaches combos. How did you go about creating it?
Serizawa: Our initial goal for the Mission Mode was to have practical tips available in the game that can replace Wiki pages or online walk-throughs. As the game has had several updates, we suspect it’d be difficult for players to find up-to-date information online, which we thought new players would find challenging if they want to try out the game. To alleviate that, we came up with a list of tips and information we would want to see if we were new players.
As for the combos, we focused on common parts of available combo recipes; we wanted to try and make the recipes easy to remember, so we had certain parts of combos shared among them, even if that meant the amount of damage they can deal would diminish a little bit [there are many similar combos made from different starters, like Assault C or 2A — Woocash]. That might have made the majority of combo parts feel redundant, but we honestly think being able to practice useful combo parts would help them the most in actual matches.
Woocash: Can you talk about your process for balancing the game? Additionally, how do you decide which characters have a reversal move and which ones don’t? Assault attacks have been made faster, why is that?
Serizawa: When balancing the game, we normally try and make it so that it would give depth to how the players can enjoy the game by making changes the players would be happy with regardless of whether they use a weak or strong character. For relatively big updates, we also take into account all players’ battle results, etc., from the arcade version. For a pair where one player may have significantly big advantages over the other, we often find out in most cases it stems from incompatibility between the characters at the priority/concept level, so we often end up making detailed modifications on hitboxes to alleviate this gap.
As for reversal moves, we kept the numbers of the characters who have them handy at a minimum in this game, as reversal moves that omit guarding don’t go very well with the GRD system where guarding is the key. However, reversal moves are one of the most crucial elements in fighting games which can make the gameplay significantly more enjoyable, so we decided that only the characters such as the protagonist that new players will most likely choose should have reversal moves while more technical characters don’t.
Assault attacks were made faster to help bridge a gap in skill level between experienced and novice players, as one of the highlights of this game is reading each others’ Assault, Throws and Shield. The more experienced players are, more skilled they are at defense techniques and as a result, Assault attacks are no longer very effective at breaking guards, so we didn’t want to create a situation where players (especially new ones) lose matches without enjoying the game how it’s intended just because they didn’t know how to use Assault attacks to break guards.
Woocash: Tell us about the new characters, Enkidu and Wagner. How did you come up with their battle concepts? What kind of archetypes were you looking to fill, if any?
Serizawa: The concept of Enkidu is to make a character where “reads” and “footsies” will play important roles. We wanted him to be a character where the old school fighting techniques such as distance management during the ground game can be utilized.
Wagner’s development started from making the image concept of “advance and crush.” We expressed her persona in combat by allowing her to forcefully overcome the issue of her situationally predictable attack due to its straightforwardness through strong priority of her attack.
Woocash: How do you gather feedback about the game? For example, if US players wanted to reach you or give feedback, what is a good way to go about it?
Serizawa: For the console version, we mostly rely on the questionnaires we collect through our official website. For example, the specifics of this game, such as game modes, etc. are based on the responses we received in our questionnaire on the previous game, Exe:Late. When it comes to the game balance, we normally learn from what we observe at arcades as well as from the feedback available on the internet. We investigate exactly what the users are unhappy about first, then try and modify the battle balance from that point of view for all characters. There is a handy contact form (http://inbirth.info/contactform) available on the portal site, so if you can send your feedback to us that way, it’d be great!
Woocash: A lot of players are curious about the PC version of the game. Is that planned? And any time frame on that?
Serizawa: We understand there’s a demand from all over the world for PC version in general, so if we get enough support/requests on that for this game as well, we would definitely love to try and make it happen. I personally want the PC version myself as well which would allow me to enjoy the game more casually.
Woocash: Can we expect any more patches or support for UNIST? Any more characters?
Serizawa: There’s nothing concrete we can talk about right now, but we’re constantly on the lookout for how we can improve the game better and we think adding new characters would be a very important update as well; some characters have been added to the roster thanks to their popularity from the previous games, such as Wagner. We’re grateful to see fan art, as it helps the fans stay hyped up about the game as well!
Woocash: There’s a glitch in the game with Assault attacks. If done quickly enough, Assault combos do not scale damage (as in, their damage becomes the same as that of regular combos, this is a known bug). It hasn’t been fixed though, any plans for that?
Serizawa: Fixing this particular bug will put the game rules back to how they’re supposed to be, so we’d definitely like to have this issue addressed when the timing is right, but we also need to keep in mind that the fix may not necessarily improve the game balance and there would be less things that can be done (e.g. combos) as a result. Also, from the perspective of expanding the community, we feel we should be responsible for the updates we release once they go out, so we did not take immediate actions to get it resolved. We would definitely make the fix after taking into account the overall balance of the game as well as how we can offer new ways to enjoy the game.
Woocash: Mika doesn’t have a Vorpal Trait, why is that [a character specific buff during Vorpal]?
Serizawa: Vorpal traits are originally intended as characters’ hidden elements to be explored, so for a character like Mika who doesn’t like to keep secrets, it’s natural to not have a Vorpal Traits… we’re just kidding! They’re just simply not ready for Mika yet. We’re definitely making Vorpal Traits available for Mika in the future.
Woocash: What exactly is Kuu? [Linne’s familiar/dragon]
Serizawa: It’s something sent by her older brother, Kuon, that is responsible for watching Linne closely. Kuu certainly doesn’t pose any immediate danger or restriction on Linne, but it finds her no matter where she may run and positions itself right next to her at all times.
Woocash: What’s next on the deck? Will we see any more additions to this series?
Serizawa: We are not able to make any immediate announcements at this time, but we’d very much like to keep this series going. Now that the backbone of the characters has been revealed in the Chronicles Mode, we’re finally able to proceed with the scenario.
There are no big announcements we can make at the moment, but we’d appreciate your continuous support and love for the series!
Big thanks to Aksys Games for making this interview possible. Be sure to read our Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]review to learn more about the game.
It’s time for the second part of our interview with Arc System Works! As we mentioned in the previous article, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the fighting-game-focused company. We had a great opportunity to talk to Daisuke Ishiwatari of Guilty Gear, Toshimichi Mori of BlazBlue, and Minoru Kidooka, the CEO of the company.
While the first part focused a lot more on the upcoming BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, this time, we turn more to Daisuke Ishiwatari, asking him what’s next for Guilty Gear. The future isn’t clear yet for the series, as we do not know what’s coming after Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2. We discuss the latest patch for the game, development philosophy, and how Ishiwatari feels about the series’ direction; the others chime in with final comments.
The following conversation was live-translated by an ASW interpreter, and has been edited for clarity and length.
Woocash: Switching to Guilty Gear, I know there’s a patch out now, but fans are still eagerly waiting for the next thing. What’s next for the series?
Daisuke Ishiwatari: As for Guilty Gear’s future… I think, for the franchise, one of themes of it is preserving the feeling you’d get while playing the previous versions. But what that does at the same time, is it creates a prerequisite for new consumers or fans who want to join the community, it creates a large wall. One large theme that I have right now is that previously, I wouldn’t mess with that sort of fundamental feeling or structure of Guilty Gear, but I’m experimenting a little bit with how we can explore a way to kind of level the playing field for new fans who might want to be part of the community.
I don’t have anything specific to tell you right now, but it is a current theme of mine, and investigating and exploring what we can do to make everyone happy. As developers of the Guilty Gear franchise for so long, I think it’s safe to say we understand fully what Guilty Gear is and what it represents and what we want fans to feel when they play it. But in transitioning to the next era of Guilty Gear even, what we strive to do is making especially a lot of older fans feel when they first hold the controller is: wow, is this really Guilty Gear? Am I playing GG right now? But upon diving deeper, they realize: okay, this is GG.
So I think we want to go for a little bit of that freshness, and that’s kind of the [goal] right now.
Woocash: A little bit of old and a little bit of new?
Ishiwatari: Yeah, I’m really trying to go back to the origin, derive GG’s fundamental core and rethink how it should be presented. Not just the core of GG, but the core essence of fighting games in general, and rethink GG from that perspective.
Woocash: You’ve said before that the budget for REV 2 was one new character and one old character. Is this sort of philosophy still active for the future, bringing a mix of old and brand new characters?
Ishiwatari: I don’t know if I would necessarily confine it to one old/one new character, but of course, with any project, there is the issue of scheduling and budget. If I were able to do anything I wanted to, I don’t know if I would ever finish the game. So, with that in mind, I try to always create the best combination that I think fans want to see and enjoy based on the constraints I’m given.
Woocash: I have to ask, specifically, because many fans are asking about this (even though he’s not my favorite character, my favorite is Anji, I hope he makes it in!), but people really want to know about Order Sol and A.B.A.
Ishiwatari: Of course, the prerequisites of any further development is for the game to perform well in the marketplace. So as much as I want to say, hey, we’re going to put every single character in the game, but I think we really need to assess where it stands. As creators, I also want to present something in its best, possible, completed state, which doesn’t necessarily always mean having all the characters as much as possible. In Japan, Bridget is the hot pick right now [laughs]!
Woocash: I know that Ishiwatari-san is not the balance expert, but I still want to ask about the newest patch and its aim. Some people have sort of mixed reactions to it, and these are very early impressions; such as Faust getting many new things, Johnny getting new things while he is already considered a strong character, perhaps Answer is not getting enough, etc.
Ishiwatari: I think with any patch or update in a game that’s so sensitive and dependent on balance, there are going to be reactions when things change. Some may be very polarized, and of course, as you’ve said, I’m not super hands-on with the design of the balance of the game. That being said, the team that I work with that adjusts the balance and looks at all these elements, always tells me, “Wait for three months from now and see what people are saying.”
Immediate reactions are always going to be very polarized, but the balance team is always thinking about the long-term longevity of the game and insisting that we’ll see what the users say after three months — that will be the true determiner of how this patch is to be received.
With GG, of course there are a lot of subtleties and minuscule changes that can affect the game. I think that first impressions of a patch don’t always see the entire picture, so to speak. I think once the patch is out there for three months, people will start to understand the intent behind the balance changes, and what they were designed to do.
Woocash: Some companies, like Blizzard, when releasing a patch, do “developer commentaries,” short explanations along patch notes. Is there any thought to do something similar?
Ishiwatari: I think that a large part of fighting game community culture that we’ve grown up in and are developing is the aspect of discovery. As players play the game, they’ll uncover new elements. I think that there’s joy in that process of discovery. Maybe if the current climate is changing and what Blizzard is doing is the right answer, or maybe it’s about communicating to fans and giving them hints or something close to the answer while not taking away that joy of discovery; maybe there is something to be learned from how they are releasing patches and adding commentary to them.
Woocash: How do you gather feedback from players? I’m sure that’s easier in Japan, from arcades, but for example, what is a good way for US players to reach ASW to tell them something? What are your strategies? How can players convey how they feel about game balance and updates?
Ishiwatari: Currently, at least in the Japanese ecosystem, we use social media as a large source for collecting feedback; our development team is also very close to the top players in Japan, so we get a lot of feedback as to balance gameplay mechanics there. In terms of overseas feedback, I think that’s a large part of what ASW-America is designed and intended to do. I would actually like to ask the rest of my team at ASW about how that’s going to look if you go to the home page, talk to us on social [media], or on ArcLive [their Twitch stream]. There’s a lot of sources that can start building that channel of communication.
Mori: I feel the same way.
Kidooka: Again, going back to our conversation at the beginning of your interview, which is the entire purpose of ASW-America, I know a lot of these responses may seem a little fuzzy to you right now, but that’s because I think, to a large part, they are — we don’t know exactly how it’s going to behave, it’s going to be a creature of its own. Where the channels of communication are going to be built and how we’re going to interface with the fans is still to be seen. A large part of why we’re here and doing this interview is an extension of that intent. We’ll find out, so reach out to us on any channel and we’ll see where it takes us.
Woocash: We’re starting to see companies like Capcom bring out their old games in Anniversary Editions, and this is ASW’s 30th year. Are there any plans for something along those lines? For instance, there’s still a very active GG Accent Core community, but there’s no PlayStation 4 version. Fans would love to see that game specifically done in GGPO netcode.
Kidooka: As you mention, it is the company’s 30th anniversary, not so much highlighting or singling out one game, but it is important to have some kind of celebration of what ASW is. That might be Accent Core, but not necessarily. But the exact date of the anniversary is May 12th, so we would like to have something to present of some news by that point in terms of anniversary editions, etc.
Ishiwatari: Please stay tuned!
Woocash: A fan was asking about GG light novels. Are there any plans on expanding merchandise offers in countries outside of Japan?
Ishiwatari: In Japan, it’s easier to forecast the demand for these types of goods. The cost to develop a similar type of merchandise in the US still remains to be seen, and there’s a lot of research that needs to be done; we’re not sure if it will sell 10 copies or a million. So, it’s one of those things that we need to, again, feel out with the community and the audience and begin to hone in on what people want and [see whether] there is an opportunity or a way to bring some of those contents over to the US.
Woocash: One fan was curious — I guess they want some music recommendations! — they’re asking what are some recent music that you guys have been listening to?
Ishiwatari: Of course, I’ve been listening to a rock band, they’re not necessarily metal: The Struts. I don’t think they have a second album yet, but that being said, they’re a very melodic, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll.
Mori: Miss Android and Egoist. They’re a group that originally showed in the Guilty Crown anime. They’re starting to pop up more in real life too, and it’s a very interesting transition I guess.
Woocash: Open floor to you, what would you like to say to Shoryuken readers and ASW fans?
Ishiwatari: I rarely get the opportunity to come to the US, and most of the time that I do, I come for the purpose of media interviews or some kind of event. You know, it’s a very common thing to be asked, any comments for fans, and I always say the same thing, but I’m going to spin out of that mold for this. With the invention of BBTAG, it’s becoming more and more normal and acceptable to have a bunch of different franchises collaborate in one universe. You see that with all the superhero movies as well.
As an extension of this, instead of having one franchise and asking other people or making a game based on characters from one franchise, I think it would be really cool if there was some fighting game platform where franchise or IP holders would come to us and say, “Hey, please let our character join your fighting game tournament,” and just have this platform where characters would come to our door to participate. I think that would be a really cool format to create a fighting game.
And of course, my long-term goal with that is to have Family Guy participate some point.
Mori: With the formation of ASW America and celebrating BBTAG, going back to what Mr. Kidooka said about closing the gap between ASW and the fans and the community as the first step of that — not just with social media and everything that we’re doing — is ArcLive. We launched ArcLive broadcasts to interact with fans. So building upon these foundations and extending the channels in which fans can communicate with us as a team is really important to us. When I say building the community, I don’t want to make a community that’s very inward-facing and has a high barrier to entry. The idea is to share this with people and that is something I want to make sure is conveyed correctly and truly. It’s our intent to have people understand where we are as developers, and open the doors and have people join us and celebrate fighting games as opposed to having just a very tight-knit, hardcore community.
Kidooka: Marking the 30th anniversary of ASW, really looking back, we started out as a very, very small company, and I think it’s safe to say the growth was very slow. Here we are 30 years later, finally forming a US branch. I know I’ve said “stay tuned” many times throughout this interview. Now what I want to say with that is “Don’t stay tuned for the next one or two years,” but look at it as a span of long-term growth. Of course, BlazBlue and Guilty Gear are the flagship games of ASW, but there are many other games we are developing and many other areas we want to explore. In doing so, we also want fans to learn what ASW is and hear the story behind all the products. As a business, of course, it’s easy to say we work to make profits, and that is a part of what we’re doing, but more so than that, it is also to see why we create certain games, what we’re trying to do with this game. With the first ArcLive, we had Daisuke and Mori featured and interviewed, but I want to set up other developers and have the US community hear their story and perspective on what they think gaming is and why we’re developing certain games.
And that’s all, folks. Once again, a big thanks to Arc System Works for the interview and translation. Remember to refer to the Part 1 of our ASW interview, in case you missed it. And if you want to hear even more from Ishiwatari and Mori, read up on our Evo 2017 interview.
It’s quite an exciting year for Arc System Works. The Japanese company (known primarily for their 2D fighting games) reaches their 30th anniversary this year — on May 12th, specifically. Furthermore, it also has been about a year since the establishment of the American branch of their business.
Those reasons, along with the impending release of BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, led to a press event in February. The biggest representatives of the company traveled to California to show the latest product. Shoryuken had an incredible opportunity to talk to none other than Daisuke Ishiwatari, the creator and director of the Guilty Gear games, Toshimichi Mori, the producer of the BlazBlue series, and Minoru Kidooka, the CEO of the company. It’s a rare chance to have all three of them in the same room and available for a conversation — which is part of an overall effort to improve communication with the media and non-Japanese audiences.
The following conversation was live-translated by an ASW interpreter, and has been edited for clarity and length. We talked about the US side of the company, and about BBTAG; stay tuned for the part two, which covers Guilty Gear and other topics!
[Feature image: Daisuke Ishiwatari & Toshimichi Mori, at Evo 2017]
Woocash: Tell us the story of establishing the American Arc System Works branch. How did that come to be?
Minoru Kidooka (CEO, Arc System Works): Over the years, there have been many companies that have helped us in the US, in game distribution and interfacing with the fans, but despite that, we still felt a distance between us, the developers, and the fans who are acquiring games and enjoying them. Really, a large part of what the US branch is trying to do is to really close that gap and communicate more directly with the US community, and understand what they are thinking and what they want from ASW, so we can continue developing awesome games.
Another reason is, we’ve been very grateful that Evo has selected our games to be one of the main tournaments hosted at Evo. What we always notice is that a lot of Japanese players make top 8, which is not necessarily the greatest feeling, because there is that gap that I mentioned earlier with consumers in the US and around the world. So we want a lot more variety, and for them to start hearing developer stories, and to understand what it is that we are trying to do and help them really nurture the community.
Woocash: Following up on this console and arcade gap, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is pretty much the first ASW fighting game with a pretty much simultaneous worldwide release, and no arcade release. Can you expand a bit on this gap, and is this something that you will try do more with future titles?
Toshimichi Mori (BlazBlue producer): Yes, the entire concept for BBCTB was to have an equal starting line and when developing the game, we always had that in our minds. And the inclusion of RWBY characters as well adds to that, leveling the playing field of everything being equal. We personally at ASW would like to do this as much as possible moving forward.
As Mr. Kidooka mentioned earlier, all the ASW games really favored Japanese players, in the sense that an arcade release had a huge impact on them understanding the game, breaking it down sooner than everyone else around the world. Again, I really wanted to level the playing field and have everyone start from the same line.
I think there’s always been a general sense in North America, Europe, South Africa, and Asia that Japan comes first, and it will start trickling out to the rest of the world. We really didn’t like that feeling that’s now lingering in the community. Of course, we also want to preserve the arcade culture, which is a large part of what ASW stands for, but that doesn’t mean to say Japan or the arcade has priority. I think where we place the priority now is with all fans around the world, as much as possible. I don’t know how that looks yet across our entire library yet, but I want to preserve the intent of the fans first and then figure out how to work with arcades, trying to get everyone to be part of this movement.
Woocash: Can you talk about the BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle English dub announcement? Why did the company decide to have English dub again?
Mori: In terms of BBTAG, with RWBY joining the cast, and of course, RWBY being developed by Rooster Teeth located in Texas, English is a large part of that franchise and property. We wanted the entire game to feel like it adapts both elements of that, so it’s in Japanese and English. That being said, of course, there was a large request from fans to have an English cast in BlazBlue again.
Having said that, recording voices in two completely different languages at a simultaneous release is inevitably going to affect the release date of the game. Internally, we’re still not 100 percent sure that completely localizing in two languages is the right answer at the expense of delaying a game for the fans. If BBTAG proves that dubbing was the correct answer, then that might affect our decisions moving forward. But it is an immense process to have localization across different languages, so we’ll have to see how that turns out moving forward, but we will do our best to accommodate the users that way.
I think where we place the priority now is with all fans around the world, as much as possible.
Woocash: Speaking of localization, are there any plans to bring BlazBlue: Dark War to Western audiences?
Kidooka: In terms of Dark War, this being one of very our experimental games with the social game space and ecosystem, I think social game culture is very different from region to region. This is an uncharted territory for ASW, and I think the first priority is going to be establishing some roots and understanding how all the games work in the Japanese space, then we can start looking at localization. But of course, it’s always in our mind.
Woocash: Mori-san was a little sad about Central Fiction not being on the Evolution 2018 main stage, but fans are dying to know whether there will be more support for this game. Is there anything planned for that game?
Mori: Yes, I am thinking about it, and all I can say right now is stay tuned, look forward to it. I think it’s, of course, very important to preserve the 1-vs-1 fighting culture as well, it’s been one of my themes.
Woocash: Going back to BBTAG, I wanted to ask about the DLC situation. Initially, when Blake Belladona was revealed at Evo Japan, it didn’t say that she was free DLC, but it was clarified later. Was it the plan from the beginning to have Blake and Yang as free DLC, or was it a reaction, a change of strategy based on the fan feedback?
Mori: Originally, it was the intent to have the characters be free and accessible to the user, but it was a mixture of both of those. As ASW, we participate in many events throughout the year, including Evo Japan, and with a lot of the fighting game communities popping up in different regions, we wanted to save some news for each region. It was the decision to announce the character and announce pricing structure [later], and we wanted to keep some reveal for each event, but this is a part of what we need to learn ourselves and grow as a company as well. I think we deconstructed the news too much to the extent that it was confusing for the consumer. That’s something that we need to look back at, and figure out how to better communicate while having some exciting reveal at each event for people to look forward to. We put the news out there, and I don’t think we fully predicted how the community was going to react at the time.
Woocash: In BBTAG, there’s an ETC tab in the character select screen. What’s the story behind that? Could this possibly suggest collaboration with more franchises?
Mori: To be perfectly honest with you, the ETC tab is simply where you pick a random character. When the interface was still in development, I told the UI designer that this is going to be mistaken, that it will give the wrong idea, but it ended up in the final version, and that’s where we are right now.
On a more serious note though, depending on how the game performs and how the users react to it, it is something we would look into, expanding the franchise library.
Kidooka: Again, back to the user and fan feedback, if we do see a strong demand or call for a certain collaboration, then that is something we’d like to explore. It is all about establishing those channels of communication between the fans and the developer. Mori-san added that of course, The Simpsons are on his wishlist to team up with [laughter], so we’ll see how it goes.
Woocash: Last year, there was a visit to Riot Games, the makers of League of Legends. Can you tell us about that?
Mike [the interpreter, who was actually at the visit]: We handle a lot of the ASW US interactions, so as far as the Riot Games visit, we set up a tour. A large part of what we wanted to do is to show ASW what we believe was the leading edge of the esports scene. So hey, these are possibilities, you’ve got a lot of strong characters, this is something we can start exploring to do in terms of the future of characters in the esports scene. That was the main goal. Of course, we met with some Riot people while we were there, but I think that’s about the extent of where we are right now, in terms of the Riot visit.
Woocash: So, esports research.
Mike: Research, yes.
Kidooka: To add on to that… we want to keep an open mind to different companies we can work with. I’m sure everyone’s talking about the most recent collaboration we did with Bandai Namco, in turn seeing how that turned out. I think the important thing here is to always create that interest in fighting games and show people that it is a very fun thing to watch and interface with. We’re keeping an open mind and if there is an opportunity for something to be had and exploring that.
Woocash: Is there any thought to do a circuit tour or a pro ASW tournament in the United States? Japan has ASW Fighting Game Awards, and Arc Revo.
Kidooka: Again, all I can say is “stay tuned,” but I do feel that it is a necessity to help nurture and build a community, make a story out of it. Even at the Fighting Game Awards, we had one US player [Grover], join a tournament to sort of expand the tour and the tournament outside of Japan — which again, is a big theme of what we’re trying to do with ASW America. We’ll see how that develops and takes shape.
This is only the first part of the conversation; stay tuned to SRK for the rest! Big thanks to Arc System Works for arranging and translating the interview.
Moonlight Games is preparing a unique genre-bending hybrid title called Consortya that combines live music with MMORPGs. We had the opportunity to chat with Andy Martin, the company founder and lead designer about how he and his team aim to appeal to musicians and MMO gamers with Consortya.
