Monolith Soft on Xenoblade Chronicles X, sharing dev insight and open to helping other Nintendo teams
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 5 Comments
Nintendo interviews haven’t stopped pouring in from E3 2015. The latest one comes from Game Informer, who chatted with Xenoblade Chronicles X director Tetsuya Takahashi and Nintendo’s Genki Yokota.
Topics include:
– Why Los Angeles was chosen as the main city for Xenoblade Chronicles X (New York was considered)
– HD development
– Working on first-party Nintendo games and being open to helping out with Zelda Wii U
It’s a pretty massive interview, so we’ve only posted a few excerpts below. You can read the full discussion here.
Nintendo and Monolith Soft on their relationship, JRPG term, state of the Japanese market, more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
During E3 last week, GameSpot conducted an interview with some developers from Nintendo and Monolith Soft. Those staffers are as follows:
Hitoshi Yamagami – Producer, Nintendo
Genki Yakota – Director, Nintendo
Tetsuya Takahashi – Executive Director, Monolith Soft
Koh Kojima – Director, Monolith Soft
Shingo Kawabata – Producer, Monolith Soft
In the interview, GameSpot asked all of these developers about the relationship between Nintendo and Monolith, the “JRPG” term, how the Japanese market is at present, and more. Head past the break for their comments. You can also access GameSpot’s original article here.
Takahashi on Xenoblade X, next game in development, wants Monolith Soft to grow, more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 36 Comments
GamesBeat has published a fairly lengthy interview with Monolith Soft’s Tetsuya Takahashi. Takahashi talked about Xenoblade Chronicles X in-depth, confirmed that his next title is in the works, expressed interest in expanding Monolith Soft, and more.
We have a good chuck of the interview rounded up below. The full discussion can be read here.
On being anxious about getting Xenoblade Chronicles X out in North America…
Takahashi: Yeah, although there’s still quite a lot left for us to do. We’ve announced a release date and everything, but all we can see is a looming deadline.
On how Xenoblade Chronicles X is a deliberate successor, and if Takahashi wanted to make the story more closely grounded to reality…
Takahashi: The simplest answer, probably, is that I felt like, after working on a fantasy setting, it might be nice to try something new. Science fiction is a great change of pace. It’s a really interesting flavor.
On the challenge in bringing an RPG franchise to HD for the first time…
Takahashi: Probably the biggest challenge for us comes in the planning stage, where we have to think about how we’re going to use these limited resources — I’m talking mostly about time on the schedule — to create all the assets in such a huge world. What order do we need to take tasks in to accomplish them all in the most efficient way? There’s a lot of tech that goes into expressing the open world concept as well, making sure that it’s a seamless experience from one end to the other. That’s probably the biggest challenge.
Takahashi says it takes about 30 hours to get a Skell in Xenoblade Chronicles X
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 11 Comments
Xenoblade Chronicles X has a feature that allows players to obtain and fly various mechs known as “Skells”. Just don’t count on gaining access to a Skell right away. Speaking with IGN, senior director and chief creative officer Tetsuya Takahashi said that it takes about 30 hours before mechs become accessible.
He said:
“The reason we decided to do that was because the scale of the game changes once you get a Skell. We wanted to make sure that the initial difficulties you might have had maneuvering across terrain or trying to figure out how to reach a certain spot would be something you had a full sense of before you got the Skell.”
“We didn’t want people from the very beginning being able to be to zip towards the exact opposite end of the continent. We wanted people them to have the experience of knowing that distance first hand by running it. Once you do have the opportunity to control a Skell, it really does change the feel of the game. And we feel like these are gradual steps that ease you into that process.”
“When people hear 30 hours of gameplay, they might be reacting to that number a little bit. But I think that something that’s going to be familiar to MMO players is the idea that 30 hours is not necessarily a really long time if you think about the total gameplay time that might pick up. Now, certainly in traditional JRPG terms that may feel like that’s quite a ways out, but I think that we’ve designed the content in such a way that it feels fast as you’re going through it.”
Xenoblade Chronicles X launches in North America and Europe in December.
Producer says Project X Zone 2 has new battle system elements for added depth
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 3 Comments
Project X Zone 2 is going to include “some new elements” that will “add more depth to the battle system”. This was teased by producer Kensuke Tsukanaka during an interview with Siliconera at E3.
Tsukanaka said:
We haven’t officially announced this yet, but, we are going to include some new elements to the existing battle system. We actually took it out of the hands-on demo here at E3, but, we’ll be announcing it soon! We know it’ll add more depth to the battle system.
Siliconera also asked if the team is adding additional comments. Tsukanaka wouldn’t comment on specific details, and would only offer up the following: “whatever it is, it’ll add depth!”
Nintendo Treehouse @ E3 2015 – Xenoblade Chronicles X (day 3)
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Xenoblade Chronicles X – first video with English voices
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 7 Comments
More: Monolith Soft, top, Xenoblade Chronicles X
Xenoblade Chronicles X footage (GameSpot stage show)
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Xenoblade Chronicles X footage (IGN stage show)
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Off-screen Project X Zone 2 footage with audio
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 1 Comment
