Nieuws: Interview over Drakengard
Door Joni Philips op 16-04-2004 om 17:13
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Bron: CVG
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Drakengard is een actie titel van Square-Enix. Onlangs sloten Square-Enix en Take Two een overeenkomst om de titel in Europa uit te geven op 21 mei.
Onlangs werd er een persconferentie in Tokyo gehouden waar voornamelijk werd gesproken over de actie titel Drakengard. We hebben ook enkele nieuwe screenshots van de game voor jullie. De volgende mensen waren aanwezig.
Takamasa Shiba - producer, Drakengard
Kazuya Sasahara - movie director, Drakengard
Taro Hasegawa - monster design, Drakengard
Kimihiko Fujisaka - character design, Drakengard
Trao Yokoo - director, Drakengard/Cavia
Takuya Iwasaki - line director, Drakengard/Cavia
Akira Yasui - art director, Drakengard/Cavia
Masatoshi Furubayashi - lead programmer, Drakengard
In het interview wordt gesproken over hoe de Europese versie verbeterd werd en de beste versie is. De game speelt zich ook af in Europa en ze denken ook dat de game beter zal ontvangen worden in Europa omdat er veel culturele achtergrond inzit.
Drakengard has three very different modes of play. Which would you say is the most prominent and how did you balance the action elements with those more akin to a traditional RPG?
Shiba: The strongest mode? In Drakengard, what I believe is that they all balance out. All three modes merge into one very interesting game. So one could argue that the overall effect is like an orchestra, where a cello or a violin don't exist individually, they merge into one harmony.
It's about 20 years since videogames first emerged and here we are with PlayStation 2. Videogames are becoming more and more difficult to put into genres so what I thought was that we'd attempt to make a game that was simply fun to play. A game that has lots of different features - not just a different action game or a different RPG game - but something that was ultimately fun.
The game genre of Drakengard is considered to be an action RPG. Does the game's plot diverge like an RPG creating many different stories within the game?
Shiba: It is considered an action RPG, but the emphasis is definitely more on the action side. The player likes to have more storyline and plot so we made it so that the stories diverge to ensure that that RPG element was in there.
There are five different endings to the game and there are diverging points throughout the story arc that players can explore. One good point is that because this is an action/RPG the player knows why he is fighting and why he is entering into this battle. There is a strong background to this game.
In a more traditional action game, it's unlikely that the player will know why he has to go after one big mushroom, say, but here with Drakengard, the motivation is explained clearly for the player. Despite the fact that the game is weighted more on the action side, the player is given a plot to lead him through the action.
The game sold well in Japan. Why do you believe this is?
Yokoo: There's this game called Dynasty Warriors that's been selling well over here [general laughter]. It's a game that has a similar cinematic appeal to the Final Fantasy series - which also sells well.
So I think that Drakengard benefited from this combination of game styles and also in the fact that there's certain, obvious irony involved in the way Drakengard takes the Dynasty Warriors idea and expands it.
Shiba: Yes, there haven't been many games where the central character can become a dragon knight as well as fight against hordes of enemies on the ground.
Iwasaki: There are two things which attracts Japanese players especially. The dragon's strength and the ability to call upon his ferocious attacks, plus the second reason why we believe the game was so favoured by the Japanese gamers is the fact that we've tried to create a compelling story. There's also the issue of the storyline dealing with taboos. The focus on the sin of killing and how this affects the personality of Caim.
As an individual creator, are there any elements of the game that you're particularly proud about? And also, is there anything you'd like to improve upon?
Hasegawa: One satisfying point was the freedom we had when creating the monster types. We actually ended up with many more monsters than we originally planned to have. I would have loved to place more gigantic monsters on the battlefield, but I wasn't able to do this time round.
Furubayashi: I also enjoyed the challenge of bringing so many monsters to the screen at once as well as making all the battlefields feel really sizable, expansive. It's good that we were able to illustrate the vision that the director, Yokoo-san, had in his mind.
Yokoo: There are a lot of goody-goody heroes in action titles at the moment. I've always found it difficult to believe that these kind of heroes would be comfortable going around and killing people. In the case of Drakengard I think - by having monsters as antagonists - that we've created a convincing foe for Caim to fight against.
One thing that we weren't able to do was have much more sinister central characters. Shiba-san suggested that we not make them as dark, so that's how they ended up.
Sasahara: We were able to bring in 3D computer technology from Japanese animation and, as a result, we've ended up with some really high quality movies.
As for disappointments? We weren't able to do the background in the kind of detail that I'd envisaged and the number of soldiers that appear on screen means that I wasn't happy with the way their feet fall onto the ground.
Fujisaka: I'm pretty much satisfied with what we achieved. It's the first title that I had a chance to explore character design within. I think it's good that we ended up with such a high number of sales in Japan. It makes me hopeful as far as overseas sales are concerned.
What other titles have the creative team been involved with?
Furubayashi: Ridge Racer numbers one to four.
Yasui: Moto GP.
Iwasaki: I was involved with the Ace Combat series.
Yokoo: Um. Alpine Racer 2 in the arcades.
Fujisaka: Just Drakengard so far [laughs].
Hasegawa: A Namco title called Seven.
Sasahara: The Biohazard series and Dino Crisis 2.
Shiba: Valkyrie Profile, a previous Square Enix game.
Any messages for gamers in Europe?
Yokoo: Because I'm a Japanese creator, I'm not sure how the game will be received in Europe. I feel that the European market has more culture and, as such, is very different from the United States. More historic background if you see what I mean. So I think that the game will suit a European market.
Yasui: I'm looking forward to the fact that we've used Medieval Europe as a motif for Drakengard and how the European Market reacts to this.
Furubayashi: I'm really happy we've managed to debug the game a lot before it reaches Europe. We're hoping this will be the final version of the game and I hope that sells well.
Hasegawa: I'm personally a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons and other table-top games and we've used these as an influence for the environments and monsters within Drakengard. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction will be from European gamers.
Fujisaka: We've been creating the game with the overseas market in mind right from the beginning. I think, as well as the obvious motif of Medieval Europe, you pick up on the Japanese colours that are also in there and enjoy the way the game looks and plays.
Sasahara: I have created lots of brutal movie scenes, so I hope people will enjoy them.
Iwasaki: We have launched the developmental company Cavia for the creation of Drakengard. Each member of staff has interesting characteristics and we hope some of that individuality has appeared in the game.
I think the move to Cavia has allowed all of them to become more free creatively putting out more of their individual colours and causing a greater appeal to Japanese otaku culture. We're hoping that this cult driven aspect will also find fans in the European market.
Are there many differences between the European, Japanese and American versions of Drakengard?
[The team laughs]
Furubayashi: The camera angles are different between the previous versions and the PAL version. The camera hangs back further from Caim so that the player can easily manoeuvre the player through the world. Also, there are less bugs in the European version.
Shiba: Compared with the US and Japanese versions this shift in camera angle has resulted in what we consider a better quality perspective on the action rather than just a 'different' view point.
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