Interview with the producer of Metroid Prime: Federation Force
CGMagazine recently interviewed Kensuke Tanabe, the producer of the upcoming 3DS title Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Here are some excerpts from the interview:
Where did the concept of Blast Ball come from and how did you kind of come to the concept of taking Metroid Prime and enter it into a competitive shooter type thing?
So first off, I’d like to let you know that Blast Ball is part of a game within Federation Force. So when I was working on the Prime series, I always thought of looking at the game from a different perspective. So as you’ve seen Prime Hunters, that’s my attempt to bring different bounty hunters into the series. So the Metroid series itself belongs to Mr. Sakemoto, but within the Metroid Prime series, I haven’t seen anything that was focusing on the Galactic Federation against the Space Pirates so it’s sort of that balance. So that’s one of the things I thought and felt like the fans were curious about. They wanted to see a little more about that and that’s sort of the idea behind the creation of this game, and I have always been thinking about it. I’m finally able to accomplish it after 10 years or so. As such, that’s sort of how I decided to have the co-op mode with up to four players.
So with the co-op in mind, I also understand that the first person shooting games, there are different levels of game players. Some of them are very good; they’re very advanced, and some of them are not so good at it. So I wanted to have a mode where people can all play together on the same reign basically, and so that’s sort of the idea behind Blast Ball. So if you have a survival mode where you have to kill each other, obviously the advanced player is going to blast through the other players. There’s no chance for the beginners to move. If you take a look at that huge ball in the middle of the field, it’s much easier for you to target it and puts everyone on the same playing field no matter the skill level. Another thing to note is that if players experience this mode, then they’ll be able to learn the controls and be able to apply that to the main story itself. So while they have a lot of fun playing this game, with this mode they will also be able to learn how to play without any complicated tutorials.
Now when it comes to the world of Metroid Prime, I know a lot of fans are very loving of that series. Will you be carrying over any of the references or things people might love from the series into this game or will this be a completely new experience with no mention of the Metroid Prime games?
So the core game system itself is pretty much a brand new thing. I’d like to clarify it. So you can play as a solo player or up to four players. Each player will be given a mech with all the same base specs. It is then up to them to pick a load-out before they go on to a mission. You’d be able to choose items such as missiles or repairs or other things like that. However, the player would also have to consider that there’s a weight limit to the mech. The super missile is something that’s very powerful but because it’s so heavy, you’ll only be able to carry one or two at most at a time. As opposed to that, a repair capsule is pretty light so you’ll be able to carry multiples. So depending on how the player feels, they might choose to bring a powerful weapon like a super missile or some other people might choose to be more like a healer type to bring in repair capsules. So the load-outs will basically give players the choice to choose what type of character they will be in that mission.
So Samus will be in the game in some element?That’s for sure. You will see her in some way. I feel like that’s something nice about this game. It’s kind of like a mix.
Check out the full interview here.
