New kaiju game from Matt Frank + Simon Strange [Archive]

[Kaijusamurai]

Hey guys - just the other day, ol' faithful Chris Mirjahangir got in touch with me, saying that we had an opportunity to make the next big kaiju fighting game.

Here's the thing - with Kickstarter blowing up everywhere, and crowd-sourcing becoming viable, we could get Kaiju fans everywhere to pool their money, and get a game made. Not just any game, though! A game that exactly conforms to what WE, the fans who would pay for it, would want in a Kaiju battle game.

This isn't just idle speculation - I got on the phone with Simon Strange, thanks to Chris, the Pipeworks mastermind behind all three of the Godzilla fighting games, and we spent half an hour talking about what it would take to make this happen. Turns out, "what it would take" is very dependent upon what we, the fans, would be willing to pay for.

So, in all seriousness, and FOR REALS I put out this question: What would you like to see in a new Kaiju battle game, and how much would you be willing to contribute to make it happen? There are several options, and I've put together a poll for each one. Let's keep discussion in this thread, please.

Question 1: Which set of monsters?

Option #1 - A full-scale licensed Godzilla game.
Option #2 - Just like #1, but with Gamera, instead of Godzilla.
Option #3 - Just like #1, but with All-original Kaiju. (No licensing of monsters = $ saved!)


Question 2: What technology?

Option #1 - Online fighting with fully 3D monsters.
Option #2 - Asynchronous fighting (we each take turns, but not necessarily in real-time unless we're both online) with 3D monsters.
Option #3 - Just like #2, but with sweet 2D art.
Option #4 - 2D card-based brawler.


Question 3: What platform?

Option #1 - Consoles.
Option #2 - PC / Mac / Linux.
Option #3 - Something browser-based.
Option #4 - Mobile phones (iOS and Android)


Get to voting! Remember, it's not about what you *want* so much as *how much would you pay* to help make this happen? The best part is that everyone who contributes would get to be at least partially involved in shaping the final game.

This is for real!

[Kaiju-King42]

I have a few questions.

1. How much would we be expected to pay? I'm definitely all for a new Godzilla game, but my resources aren't too impressive at the moment.

2. You seem to suggest a lot of online fighting. Would this game be like multiplayer only game, or would the multiplayer be similar to Godzilla: Save the Earth?

3. When you say that we could get a fully licensed Godzilla game, do you mean a legit, company produced video game? Or is this being created by a small group of people?

[Svitska Donkun]

Starting with Question 2.

Question 2: What technology?

Godzilla DAM and STE were the big winners. Make the game exactly like those, but with updated visuals. It was the perfect system for Kaiju fighting. G:Us was awkward, floaty, overly simple, and just all around odd and poorly optimized with little thought put into characters movesets. You should basically just import the movesets of all the monsters you can from STE to the new game. Not being able to roll, and the horrible jumping in G:U made fighting a terrible chore.

One interesting option, with your art style, would to cell-shade the characters. Go for a whole "manga" inspired aesthetic with the UI and menus, as well.

Question 1: Which set of monsters?

A full scale licensed Godzilla Game would be preferable, as Gamera offers too little a roster. A custom Monster set would be cool though. What would be the BEST, is if you combined the Godzilla roster with the key players in Gamera, and added a couple unique creations.

If you're limited to just Godzilla, however, Keep ALL the monsters in the roster for G:U, but add:

Monster X
Hedorah(MOST WANTED)
Godzilla 70's(Think kickboxer-based moveset with spammable beam weapon ala Baragon's in STE)
Battra
Matango(Giantize it)
Zone Fighter
Sanda and Gaira(Alternate costumes of the same monster, add easter-egg Frankenstein costume?)


Biollante should be demoted to a non-playable boss monster, as I don't think she works well as a playable fighter.
Perhaps add more Boss monsters, like Dogora, or Gotengo(Not the badly implemented one from G:U, though).

If you add Gamera monsters, the possiblities increase greatly. You have Gamera, Iris, Zigra; and Legion would make a cool boss monster.
If you could also create some kind of Ape-like stand in for both Kong and a mecha counter part, that would be awesome, as it would be impossible for Pipeworks to get the rights to the official versions

As for monsters I left out, they would work great if implemented as "assist trophies", like how Super X and Battra appeared in STE. These monsters are weaker and can only really do one thing.

You'd have:
Super X
Manda
Gorosaurus
Kamacuras
Kumonga
Gaos
Guiron
Dimension Tide(That'd be the scary one)
Meganula Swarm
Gezora

Question 3: What platform?

Consoles, easily. Not even a question. Put it on a console with a controller suited for fighting games, like 360 or PS3. or whichever one of them comes next.

OTHER FUN STUFF:

Online depth is a MUST. Its' not enough that you just have online, but also what you can do with it. Please give players options regarding military attack intensity, frequency of power-up drops, which power ups drop, what music plays, destructability of buildings, even gravity.
Bring back RAGE attacks! Critical Mass was lame...
Also ensure a decent amount of online modes, such as Basic Versus, Melee, Tag Team, Destruction, and Mini-games. The mini games from STE were pretty cool.

Let us record matches and watch the replays!
Also, a half-baked city builder would be awesome for custom arenas!
Make achievements/ Trophies references to kaiju films!
Alternate costumes for monsters would be cool as well, but make them hard to unlock. Make unlocking monsters themselves, really easy so it isn't a bitch to accumulate a roster before taking it to a friend's house.
Also, bring back Day/Night options for cities!
Make maps more STE esque, not G:U esque. They were easier to get around and fight in. Also, bring back the boxing ring!
I also can't stress enough, that if you put Gamera into a Godzilla game, Pipeworks would be considered a God among the fanbase and a boundary breaker. So many precedents would be set. You guys should find out if there's any way you could do that.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE BRING BACK THE OLD NARRATOR!

[tymon]

Question 1: Which set of monsters?

Option #1 - A full-scale licensed Godzilla game. Godzilla, Angurius, Rodan, Varan, Ghidorah, Baragon, Gorosaurus, Gigan, Megalon, Titanosaurus, and Mechagodzilla are all essential IMO. Any other monsters are just gravy (and putting Gamera in, however doubtful, would be amazing). I'll take quality over quantity at the end of the day.

If licensing Godzilla is too expensive, Gamera is another interesting universe to take on (and it would be easy to include all the kaiju from the entire series). I'm also open to original monsters with no licensing, dinosaur hybrids, robots, aliens and other giant monsters influenced by Toho/Daiei (rip off the real kaiju as much as we can without either company getting on our case about it, lol).

Question 2: What technology?

Option #1 - Online fighting with fully 3D monsters.

Question 3: What platform?

Option #1 - Consoles. Yeah.

Basically I just want a Godzilla game modeled after the DAMM/STE style but with the following modifications/add-ons (and yes I would help pay for it!):

- Make the monsters' movements and attacks more similar to their on-screen appearances - they need to be slower and have a more more weight to them. Find a middle ground between what's done in DAMM and what was done in the Showa and Millennium movies.

- Improve the graphics, obviously. It would be great to have buildings, trees, vehicles etc that resemble (and get destroyed) like great miniature sets.

- Locations from the movies (Glaciers from Godzilla Raids Again, Egg incubator area from Godzilla vs. Mothra, Planet X from Monster Zero, Mt. Fuji from Destroy All Monsters, etc; and of course a badass version of Monster Island, as well as a bunch of cities).

- Cinema mode: Go back over previous battles with either manual or auto cameras, be able capture a wide variety of shots and angles and then edit them all together into your own battle sequences.

- Ifukube tracks are a must!

- Matt Frank designs all the kaiju (sorry to kiss ass, but I'm a huge fan of his recent IDW work)

- A good story with real characters, perhaps?

Plus everything that Donkun mentioned in "Other Fun Stuff" sounds fantastic.

[Godzillabrawler]

Everything said so far is what most fans would love in a Godzilla game. So I'm jumping on this thread's bandwagon and saying everything they've said is pretty much what I'd want.

Now, on the subject of donation, I'd have to wait until it went official. Like if the game's website had a donation section, oh you KNOW I'd beg my parents to let me.

[Living Corpse]

Must have:

HEDORAH!!!
KING KONG (unlikely as it will take a lot of fan donation just to get this one guy but it'd be nice)
MECHANI-KONG (also unlikely but would be nice)
ZONE FIGHTER (the more exposer this guy gets with fans the better)
GODZILLA 70's (his beam flying and magnet powers would make for some awesome and funny finishers, plus hus fighting style is so different from other Godzilla's)
MONSTER X

As for stages I really want Planet X and I don't mind if a few post apocalyptic ones are used kinda like the ones for GU but for the love of god let those stages actually have some effect on the battle, Seattle (GU) and Monster Island (DAMM,STE) was the only one that did anything because of the lava.

[Destroyer]

I'd like to see Monster x and Kaiser Gidorah as separate payable characters.
Hedorah has not been in these games too long
Kumonga deserves a crack at this
Godzilla 74-75

Of course a licensed Godzilla game would be best, but Gamera would be interesting, the giant turtle needs to make a comeback. It'd be cool to have some Gamera characters as 'secret characters.' Gamera, Gyaos, Iris, Guiron, Barugon. I'm a huge Legion fan, so I'd love to her as playable.

And really, we need an actual cinematic story. Full CGI cutscenes with an ongoing story.

And it should be on consoles, namely PS3. (And X-box 360 for the X-box players.)

And it should be completely fighting, no taking turns and attacking. That's for Pokemon.

And like Kaiju-King42 asked, how much are we expected to pay?

[Megaton17]

Personally I'd like to see all original kaiju, allows for a lot more flexibility in terms of game play and story telling, as well as using less money that could be spent on other game elements. It would be pretty damn cool if Matt got to design the kaiju in the game.

However, I'd be fine with another Godzilla game. Gamera would be pretty nice as well.

This should definitely be a console game.

Game play wise, I'd like to see something similar to War of the Monsters, at least in terms of depth.

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Hrm,

Question 1? All three are viable options for me.

Question 2? The first option. I like real time fighting

Question 3? Console or PC.

[Gorosaurus Rex]

A fully licensed Godzilla game would be fun, but I feel as if that would be difficult to pull off considering the expenses of licenses etc. Original kaiju sounds doable and just as fun. I think multi-platform works well as well.

At the same time though, even if we do shell out money, who would work on it? Where would we get the talent?

[Mugendude26]

Here are my choices.

Question 1: Which set of monsters?
Option #3 - Just like #1, but with All-original Kaiju. (No licensing of monsters = $ saved!)

Question 2: What technology?
Option #1 - Online fighting with fully 3D monsters.

Question 3: What platform?
Option #1 - Consoles.

[Living Corpse]

At the same time though, even if we do shell out money, who would work on it? Where would we get the talent?

Good question. And the answer is [CENSORED].

[Draglord]

1. I'm leaning towards the Gamera game or the all original monsters option. It'd probably be easier and cheaper to acquire all of the Gamera monsters and their different incarnations (IIRC, Kadokawa also owns Daimajin, maybe he could be a secret character?) than Godzilla and alot of the other Toho monsters that people want. I'd doubt that Kadokawa would make you jump over a crap ton of hurdles like Toho probably would.

2. Gonna go with option 1 (hopefully it'll be like G:DAMM or War of the Monsters).

3. Consoles. More people would probably play it on a console than a PC. But on the PC, people could always make some fun mods to go with the game.

[zilla103192]

I'd say either Gamera or original Kaiju

I would LOVE a new Godzilla game, but Gamera needs a shot in the game scene again. And Original Kaiju wouls allow you to save money, while also being able to create homages to Godzilla and Gamera without dealing with copyright.

I'd say option 1, I like real time fighters. War of the Monsters is an EXCELLENT game that uses kaiju and real time fighting.

I'd say console. I love my PS3. And I believe more console games are purchased more then any other games... so more MONEY! WOO!

[Svitska Donkun]

Just one more thing on battle arena's. One other thing I hated about G:U is that there's no fun in destroying a city that's already destroyed. So there's another reason for STE esque levels.

[Gyaos]

I'd dig a Gamera or new Godzilla game. However Im leaning more towards an original monster based game for all platforms.

I've always wanted to see a game where you can actually create your own monster by mixing and matching body parts much like the customization in the upcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, Halo: Reach, and Spore. Infact I'd very much like to see a Kaiju RPG game. You can either create your own Kaiju or use a preset one and attack cities, fight bosses such as the military, other monsters or mechs. The online mode would be cool too, like if your monster is attacking a city, another player can join your "world" and challenge you to a fight, this is where the Fighting part of the game takes place. Alternativly, you and the player can team up to cause havok in the city.

A kaiju RPG/MMO is something new as far as im concerned, and I dont think it's ever been attempted before aside from fan-made projects. The game would appeal to both RPG fans and Fighting game fans since it combines aspects of both.

Like the OP stated, original kaiju would most certainly save them the trouble of having to aquire the rights to say, Godzilla and Gamera. I invisioned a War of the Monsters style game for the fighting aspect and character customization similar to the Transformers games and Fallout/Elder Scrolls series.


Though the most likely scenario is a fighting game which is god too. I'd still want original kaiju, but make it like War of the Monsters which to me is the quintissencial kaiju fighting game aside from DAMM.

[Mugendude26]

I've always wanted to see a game where you can actually create your own monster by mixing and matching body parts much like the customization in the upcoming Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine, Halo: Reach, and Spore. Infact I'd very much like to see a Kaiju RPG game. You can either create your own Kaiju or use a preset one and attack cities, fight bosses such as the military, other monsters or mechs. The online mode would be cool too, like if your monster is attacking a city, another player can join your "world" and challenge you to a fight, this is where the Fighting part of the game takes place. Alternativly, you and the player can team up to cause havok in the city.

Eat Them! has the create your own monster thing but I don't about the other stuff you mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxYLQoDd ... re=related

[miguelnuva]

Is their an option for an all orginal kaiju game with just Gamera and Godzilla added in?

[Tyler]

This is what appeals to me the most.

Question 1: Which set of monsters?

Option #3 - Just like #1, but with All-original Kaiju. (No licensing of monsters = $ saved!)

Question 2: What technology?

Option #1 - Online fighting with fully 3D monsters.

Question 3: What platform?

Option #1 - Consoles.

[Svitska Donkun]

While original monsters would be cool, I don't think you guys understand that this could be our only chance ever to get a perfect Godzilla game.