Pokken Tournament devs – Mega Evolutions, amount of Pokemon, development 30% done, more
This week’s issue of Famitsu has a new interview about Pokken Tournament with Pokemon Company CEO and president Tsunekazu Ishihara, Tekken series chief producer Katsuhiro Harada, and Soulcalibur producer Masaaki Hoshino. You can find some excerpts after the break (courtesy of Siliconera).
Ishihara on what parts of the game he personally thinks are its biggest highlights and appeal…
“I believe that this project’s most entertaining and refreshing aspect is about being able to move your own Pokémon and watch them react and pull off moves in full-frame, and the freshness of real-time. We’re working on making those aspects as enthralling and fun as possible.”
Hoshino on Mega Evolutions in the game…
“Yes, Mega Evolutions are implemented in the game. I believe you might be able to tell just by watching the trailer, but when Lucario changes forms, that’s the Mega Evolution.”
Hoshino/Harada responding to Famitsu on how starting with Mega Evolutions, the game sounds like it’ll have plenty of Pokémon-like features…
“And that’s not all, we’re also adding things that would fit in well with this game’s characteristics.” – Hoshino
“When you think about Mega Evolution, there are those [Pokémon] that do Mega Evolve and those that don’t, so you might wonder what happens to the ones that don’t. We’ve already thought of plenty of things like that since the early planning stage, in order to make it more like a Pokémon game. That’s how we’re thinking of shaping this game into one with an emphasis on Pokémon’s way of playing, along with many of the game’s own ideas as well.” – Harada
Harada/Hoshino on how many Pokemon will be in the game…
“Over the 700 total Pokémon… is what I’d like to say, but the development wouldn’t be done on time by the time we decided. We expect it to be a little more limited.”
“That said, I believe that the general direction that current fighting games are trending towards having more characters. I also believe that getting a grasp of how to play as all the characters is a big part of the fun, and as far expanding that goes, we’re thinking of starting with Pokémon that are easy to understand, and with a nice range of movements and ways to play.” – Hoshino
Hoshino on whether Tekken characters will appear…
“This time, it’s a battle that takes place in the world of Pokémon, so we’re not thinking about having Tekken characters appear. However, once you play it, then there might be some sort of hidden elements that could bring a smile to fans of the Tekken series.”
– Development is 30% complete
– The team is taking its time working on a new system, while putting their cultivated know-how to its full potential
– The first demo will be in 2015
– The team will take the rest of the year to work thoroughly on the game
Ishihara on his thoughts of having a Pokémon title going into arcades…
“As far as it being an arcade game goes, my strongest hope is for it to be a high-end game where players can experience getting to play as Pokémon in full motion. Again, the Pokémon World Championship that is held each year that focuses on players going against each other in Pokémon games, and I’d like to see Pokkén be added as one of the important titles to those Pokémon battles.”
