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

[SpanishBulldog63]

^This.am I the only one picturing a 4-way brawl between Rhedosaurus,The Giant Behemoth,Yonggary, and Gorgo?

[Mr. Strange]

Not trying to brag, but I still like my, Rise of the Kaiju.

Rise of the Kaiju rolls off the tongue well, but is the framework about Kaiju rising? Since we're looking to deal with established brands like Godzilla, I don't think "Rise" actually means anything useful in this context. That's a bit nit-picky, but I think the final title should both sound good AND clearly explain what the game is all about. "Rise" falls short on that second criteria.

[Mr. Strange]

To me, the only beam weapons that were added to t&c monsters that seemed to fit with their monster were the sonic beams of Titanosaurus and Varan, mainly because it would make sense that they would rely on sonic waves to navigate underwater(or in Varan's case,in the air) and then focus them into a beam for combat(but without copying Gyaos' Sonic Cutter,i'm trying to think how else sonic waves can cause physical damage). But JJ's handclap KC's eye lasers just didnt seem right to me.I like CheetoKamper's idea of KC using the Eye Reflectors, however.

I agree that JJ's beam weapon (it was supposed to be a beam from his wrist - sort of a hybrid between Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel) was never very good. I also didn't like Varan's beam - though I love his projectile.

I do feel pretty comfortable with Titanosaurus using a sonic beam, and I had a great concept for KC's eye lasers. Allow me to briefly defend both:

1 - Titanosaurus using a sonic beam. Titanosaurus is weak to sonic - we know this from his film. But why? Well, it makes sense to me that, as an undersea creature, he uses sound to communicate over long distances, like whales. His advanced hearing makes him vulnerable to sonic attacks, essentially. But if his hearing is developed, it made sense to me that creatures of his race would also have sophisticated vocal cords, to create the sounds they had evolved to hear from far away.

2 - KC's eye lasers. KC used "eye reflectors" in his film, but obviously that doesn't quite make sense in a fighting game - if weapons just bounce off him, then opponents simply wouldn't use weapons - and what's the fun in that? Folks like Mothra, JJ, and MKG already had some "weapons bounce off me" style effects, but they all came with strategic penalties.

So for KC, I came up with the idea that he is a "living battery" and can charge up his internal energy reserves by absorbing weapon attacks. This is why KC doesn't recharge energy normally - but automatically gains cells when blocking beam attacks. Then he expends the absorbed energy from his eyes. This gives a bunch of the same mechanical effect as "eye reflectors" - but spreads the absorption and the discharge into two distinct actions.

Just to make KC even more tied to the living battery idea, I have his stats change rather dramatically as his energy cells fill up. When his energy cells are low, KC takes almost no damage from weapon fire. When full, KC takes full damage from weapon attacks. When energy cells are low, KC has regular grapple strength. But as he gains energy, KC becomes a fierce grappler - with the highest weight in the game other than Biollante. (High weight makes him almost impossible to lift)

In my head, I thought that original KC was the "low-energy" state, while Final Wars KC (very jumpy and energetic) was the "high-energy" state.

[SpanishBulldog63]

To me, the only beam weapons that were added to t&c monsters that seemed to fit with their monster were the sonic beams of Titanosaurus and Varan, mainly because it would make sense that they would rely on sonic waves to navigate underwater(or in Varan's case,in the air) and then focus them into a beam for combat(but without copying Gyaos' Sonic Cutter,i'm trying to think how else sonic waves can cause physical damage). But JJ's handclap KC's eye lasers just didnt seem right to me.I like CheetoKamper's idea of KC using the Eye Reflectors, however.

I agree that JJ's beam weapon (it was supposed to be a beam from his wrist - sort of a hybrid between Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel) was never very good. I also didn't like Varan's beam - though I love his projectile.

I do feel pretty comfortable with Titanosaurus using a sonic beam, and I had a great concept for KC's eye lasers. Allow me to briefly defend both:

1 - Titanosaurus using a sonic beam. Titanosaurus is weak to sonic - we know this from his film. But why? Well, it makes sense to me that, as an undersea creature, he uses sound to communicate over long distances, like whales. His advanced hearing makes him vulnerable to sonic attacks, essentially. But if his hearing is developed, it made sense to me that creatures of his race would also have sophisticated vocal cords, to create the sounds they had evolved to hear from far away.

2 - KC's eye lasers. KC used "eye reflectors" in his film, but obviously that doesn't quite make sense in a fighting game - if weapons just bounce off him, then opponents simply wouldn't use weapons - and what's the fun in that? Folks like Mothra, JJ, and MKG already had some "weapons bounce off me" style effects, but they all came with strategic penalties.

So for KC, I came up with the idea that he is a "living battery" and can charge up his internal energy reserves by absorbing weapon attacks. This is why KC doesn't recharge energy normally - but automatically gains cells when blocking beam attacks. Then he expends the absorbed energy from his eyes. This gives a bunch of the same mechanical effect as "eye reflectors" - but spreads the absorption and the discharge into two distinct actions.

Just to make KC even more tied to the living battery idea, I have his stats change rather dramatically as his energy cells fill up. When his energy cells are low, KC takes almost no damage from weapon fire. When full, KC takes full damage from weapon attacks. When energy cells are low, KC has regular grapple strength. But as he gains energy, KC becomes a fierce grappler - with the highest weight in the game other than Biollante. (High weight makes him almost impossible to lift)

In my head, I thought that original KC was the "low-energy" state, while Final Wars KC (very jumpy and energetic) was the "high-energy" state.

on #2,I never noticed that he gained energy when blocking beam attacks...I need to play as KC again(or more often) and check that out.But now I can see how the eye beam mechanic worked in G:U.

On the subject of energy weapons and Kaiju, what other monsters could possibly get the "Form meets Function" treatment in the energy/special weapons dept. like Titanosaurus? For example, the idea of an electric attack ala Manda Neo for Manda always intrigued me.

[Brianzilla2004]

The one part of this I'd like to specifically talk about is the "arbitrary" elemental weaknesses. Brian is, on this point, totally wrong. Godzilla is not vulnerable to electricity randomly - he is weak specifically because he beat Ghidorah too often in our balancing tests. With his ~12% extra damage taken from Ghidorah and Megalon's beam attack, Godzilla stopped dominating those matches so completely.

A few elemental resistances / vulnerabilities were put in place because of movie reference, but for the most part every single one of them (and even the specific breakdown of damage types) was adjusted specifically to improve game balance. Having that knob in there to adjust allowed us to be a bit more free with our melee attacks - letting us make them "look good" as our first criteria, instead of worrying too much about their particular effectiveness.

Let's take Megaguirus as a specific example - she has a crippling weakness to Atomic Energy. Why? Because she absolutely CLOBBERED Space Godzilla for months. Her energy parasite playstyle just hurt him too much, since his game is all about creating alternative ways to regenerate his hard-to-come-by energy. This was a hard decision, because it then meant that G2k and G90 / G54 were extra strong against Megaguirus. We had to take other steps to fix those match-ups.

The damage type system was such an incredibly useful tool for balancing the game - I can't imagine letting it go. Using a wide variety of damage types gave me fine control over each match-up possibility in the game, which in G:U was 650(!) different match-ups to balance.

I was really surprised at some of the fan backlash about this issue - I think something that made it hard to swallow was the fact that the numerical range of the resistances / vulnerabilites was so wide. Many of them were only ~5% changes to the base damage, while a (very) small number were +50% or more. Seeing that row of vulnerabilities in MOGUERA's character sheet seems to have been off-putting, but I promise you that MOGUERA was a top-tier character for a long time, and needed serious weakening. I didn't just slap those attributes on him randomly!

I appreciate the explanation. Perhaps in the next game, you could show the actual % of change in damage each weakness and resistance has.

As for GFW Gigan do we really even know if he was metallic blue? The tint used in this film gave everyone a weird color, all the people, monsters and cities had weird lighting to reflect that this was a heavily polluted future. What color was the suit without the weird lighting?

Yep. He is indeed a dark, metallic blue (just like the various toys made of the character). You can see the suit in decent lighting here: http://youtu.be/Zcn3Mrzi2VE?t=4m6s

I think it is a really stupid move to say that monsters cannot do the moves they do in the games because they were never done in the movies.

I'm glad you're extending your respect to folks who want different things from the game than you do.

To an extent, I agree with some of these things, but some are pretty nitpicky (no offense to Brian).

No offense taken. As I said, some of the things I mentioned were rather nitpicky. The coloring of Gigan 2004, and more specifically Godzilla 2000, were VERY minor complaints. Their inaccuracy didn't bother me at all. I actually think Gigan's charcoal color would make a nice alternate color option, if they included the metallic blue. It's more accurate to the original concept art than the suit in the actual film.

* Destoroyah is much smaller than he was in the movie

Well, the thing with the Heisei monsters was that they were all in the 100 meter rage in the movies. So actually, SpaceGodzilla, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Biollante, Heisei Mechagodzilla, are all technically "smaller" than they should be in the Pipeworks games. Making them all larger would be jarring, and I can guarantee you nobody would like it. (I mean, did anybody like the giant Mecha-King Ghidorah at the end of Godzilla:Domination?). Yeah, I didn't think so.

Then again, reaching critical mass made monsters larger, and even "turned" Godzilla into Burning Godzilla. If one wanted to recreate Heisei battles, it was easy enough to do.

I don't mean that Destoroyah should be 120 meters and Mechagodzilla 1974 should be 50 meters (Heisei and GFW monsters would win every battle). I think that all of the monsters should be sized to look like they did compared to Godzilla. So while Megalon was only 50 meters tall, he was more or less equal in height to the Showa Godzilla. Therefore, he should be about equal to Godzilla's height, whether it's the Heisei Godzilla, Godzilla 2000, or some other variant. If you look at Destoroyah's size in the movies, he towers over Godzilla. I think it's one of his most menacing traits--just how massive he is.

* Anguirus' Supersonic Roar, Godzilla's Fireball, Jet Jaguar's Handclap, King Caesar's Laser Eyes, Mechagodzilla 1974's Flame Nose, Orga's Paralyzing Goo, Titanosaurus' Sonic Wave and Varan's Concentrated Blast should all be removed entirely (Godzilla, Mechagodzilla and Orga all have other powers that could easily replace the abilities listed)
* Biollante's Radioactive Sap Spray and Mothra Larva's Web shouldn't be able to create Beam Battles when they collide with a beam attack

This is where I can't agree at all. All of these things were added for the sake of adding variety to the arsenal of these characters. I'm also confused as to how Jet's "handclap" (karate chop?) and King Caesar's eye lasers aren't "accurate"? Orga's projectile is "goo"? Since when? He demonstrates a shoulder canon in the film, and the designers took a small liberty with it. Not a big deal. I can understand not wanting Titanosaurus, and Varan to have beams, but I'm sure they were added for the sake of balance.

The "Handclap" is Jet Jaguar's projectile blast wave thing. He never used any energy weapons in the movie. King Caesar's eye beams were something he stole from Mechagodzilla (I DO love the idea of Caesar being able to absorb energy attacks). Orga's goo attack is his tap ability (I have no problems with his shoulder canon in the games). I frankly have no defense for Varan at all... I think he's a pretty lame monster as a fighter. He seems more like a support power-up or something. Titanosaurus doesn't need a beam though. He's got his hurricane winds from his tail. He could potentially knock buildings and other objects into other monsters with gusts from his tail. I think that would make for an interesting and unique ranged combat method.

Mechagodzilla is shown to use the nostril flames in publicity photos, as well as in the original Japanese poster for the 1974 film. If we're going to remove that, we might as well remove Showa Gigan's eye laser, since he never had it outside of publicity photos either.

You're absolutely right. I totally spaced when I brought up his flame thrower. I too think that publicity photos depicting the monsters using certain attacks are absolutely fair to use. If Gabara were to ever make his way into a game, I'd love to see him use his electrical attack as a projectile, as shown in that awesome publicity photo.

When you're making a fighting game, you need to give some of these monsters abilities they may not have in any previously existing media. If Titano and Varan don't have beams, then they need some kind of way to handle/combat beam battles, because sitting there, helplessly blocking your beam doesn't sound like my idea of a good time, especially not simply for the sake of a "film accurate version". This is a video game, not a movie.

I absolutely agree with you that the game needs to be good before it's completely faithful to the movies. As I just said, Varan really isn't a very powerful monster. Without a beam, I don't know how anyone could come up with a good moves list and set of stats that come anywhere near accurately depicting the monster from the movies. Even though they gave him a beam, I do think that his style seemed like a solid take on the character.

Still, I don't think that some of the liberties taken were necessary.

1 - Titanosaurus using a sonic beam. Titanosaurus is weak to sonic - we know this from his film. But why? Well, it makes sense to me that, as an undersea creature, he uses sound to communicate over long distances, like whales. His advanced hearing makes him vulnerable to sonic attacks, essentially. But if his hearing is developed, it made sense to me that creatures of his race would also have sophisticated vocal cords, to create the sounds they had evolved to hear from far away.

Titanosaurus' sole weakness is supersonic waves...

2 - KC's eye lasers. KC used "eye reflectors" in his film, but obviously that doesn't quite make sense in a fighting game - if weapons just bounce off him, then opponents simply wouldn't use weapons - and what's the fun in that? Folks like Mothra, JJ, and MKG already had some "weapons bounce off me" style effects, but they all came with strategic penalties.

So for KC, I came up with the idea that he is a "living battery" and can charge up his internal energy reserves by absorbing weapon attacks. This is why KC doesn't recharge energy normally - but automatically gains cells when blocking beam attacks. Then he expends the absorbed energy from his eyes. This gives a bunch of the same mechanical effect as "eye reflectors" - but spreads the absorption and the discharge into two distinct actions.

I never thought of it as a reflector so much as a way of absorbing energy. Automatically making Caesar rebound attacks back at his opponents would be cheap, and not a very fun ability to play with. On the other hand, allowing him to absorb incoming energy attacks with well-timed blocks, then having him capable of firing that attack back at his opponents could be cool. It would also more accurately depict the character. Although consider GU's beam mechanics, I guess a well-timed block wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. But I'm sure one could get creative...

Just to make KC even more tied to the living battery idea, I have his stats change rather dramatically as his energy cells fill up. When his energy cells are low, KC takes almost no damage from weapon fire. When full, KC takes full damage from weapon attacks. When energy cells are low, KC has regular grapple strength. But as he gains energy, KC becomes a fierce grappler - with the highest weight in the game other than Biollante. (High weight makes him almost impossible to lift)

In my head, I thought that original KC was the "low-energy" state, while Final Wars KC (very jumpy and energetic) was the "high-energy" state.

This is very interesting stuff. I like this idea, but I honestly never noticed it while I played the game...

[W2daERN]

On the subject of energy weapons and Kaiju, what other monsters could possibly get the "Form meets Function" treatment in the energy/special weapons dept. like Titanosaurus? For example, the idea of an electric attack ala Manda Neo for Manda always intrigued me.

Ebirah could have a sonic cannon from his claw that stuns his opponent like the Pistol Shrimp. (Admit it, this sounds way cooler than squirting water)

[miguelnuva]

I hope we can get all the TOHO monsters that Matt frank has redesigned in his Neo universe because now I wanna recreate some of those fights.

[Goji]

Well, if you're gonna pull that, why not give Anguirus a beam weapon, then? You can't be almost completely screen accurate with one character and then just make random shit up with another.

Yeah, that's why I found it odd. Anguirus was able to get by without one, so why not Varan and Titanosaurus? Giving them beams was the easy way out, but I think if more time had been allowed for development, something more creative could have been done. I wouldn't be opposed to Varan simply sharing Anguirus's sonic roar.

MOGUERA, Jet Jaguar, Baragon and Mothra Larva couldn't beam war in GSTE. Nobody complained then.

Exactly.

I don't mean that Destoroyah should be 120 meters and Mechagodzilla 1974 should be 50 meters (Heisei and GFW monsters would win every battle). I think that all of the monsters should be sized to look like they did compared to Godzilla. So while Megalon was only 50 meters tall, he was more or less equal in height to the Showa Godzilla. Therefore, he should be about equal to Godzilla's height, whether it's the Heisei Godzilla, Godzilla 2000, or some other variant. If you look at Destoroyah's size in the movies, he towers over Godzilla. I think it's one of his most menacing traits--just how massive he is.

Maybe making him and SpaceGodzilla (at the very least, having all of the Heisei characters be slightly bigger would be pretty jarring looking) ever so slightly taller than everyone else? I think maybe that could be a decent comprimise.

The "Handclap" is Jet Jaguar's projectile blast wave thing. He never used any energy weapons in the movie. King Caesar's eye beams were something he stole from Mechagodzilla (I DO love the idea of Caesar being able to absorb energy attacks). Orga's goo attack is his tap ability (I have no problems with his shoulder canon in the games). I frankly have no defense for Varan at all... I think he's a pretty lame monster as a fighter. He seems more like a support power-up or something. Titanosaurus doesn't need a beam though. He's got his hurricane winds from his tail. He could potentially knock buildings and other objects into other monsters with gusts from his tail. I think that would make for an interesting and unique ranged combat method.

Jet's beam is terrible, and one of the worst in G:STE. As an avid Jet player, I can tell you that is isn't useful in any situation. Jet needs as much energy as he can get for growing/shrinking. Using it for the beam is a complete waste.

I know what you were talking about regarding Orga, but I suppose I never saw it as "goo", is all. It definitely makes a "gooey" sound though.

I agree about Titanosaurus. CheetoKamper mentioned the same thing in an earlier post, and I think that having his wind ability be able to blow around debris (small buildings, cars/JSDF vehicles, bridges, etc.) is a fantastic idea.

Mr. Strange made a good point about KC, that he simply reflects beams, so it would be pretty unbalanced in a fighting game because it would mean your opponent would basically never be able to use their beam. Being able to store specific beams, like Megaguirus, wouldn't make any sense since KC never exhibited that power in either of his film appearances.

If Gabara were to ever make his way into a game, I'd love to see him use his electrical attack as a projectile, as shown in that awesome publicity photo.

Definitely! That would be bitchin'.

[Living Corpse]

On the subject of energy weapons and Kaiju, what other monsters could possibly get the "Form meets Function" treatment in the energy/special weapons dept. like Titanosaurus? For example, the idea of an electric attack ala Manda Neo for Manda always intrigued me.

Ebirah could have a sonic cannon from his claw that stuns his opponent like the Pistol Shrimp. (Admit it, this sounds way cooler than squirting water)

Nope, the water thing sounds cooler, the sonic thing is pretty lame. Don't we have enough beams already? If Ebirah is gonna have a long range weapon then why not something unique to him like a stream high pressure cutting water just as sonic roar is unique to Angurius instead of giving him some lame energy ray that doesn't fit him at all? =/

[Brianzilla2004]

Ebirah could have a sonic cannon from his claw that stuns his opponent like the Pistol Shrimp. (Admit it, this sounds way cooler than squirting water)

I always thought it would be cool to give Ebirah the ability to smash the ground and pull big chunks of debris out. He could essentially create boulders, and then chuck them at his opponents. It's a way to give him a ranged ability without giving him a new beam.

[Living Corpse]

Just have him shoot water. They gave Angurius something unique to him that still fit his personality by having him have a sonic roar, a stream of water would feel much more fitting for someone like Ebirah and be more unique then some beam.

[zilla103192]

I say don't give Ebirah any ranged weapon, but whatever...

[Goji]

I always thought it would be cool to give Ebirah the ability to smash the ground and pull big chunks of debris out. He could essentially create boulders, and then chuck them at his opponents. It's a way to give him a ranged ability without giving him a new beam.

This sounds like a fantastic idea. The Hulk had that exact move in Capcom's Marvel Super Heroes (though it was later removed).

Just have him shoot water.

Not only would that look silly, but a stream of high pressured water doing damage to a giant monster? Eh..that's stretching it man.

[Goji]

I hope it is like Godzilla Unleashed, but good. The concept behind the Pipeworks games is just fine...however, you need to:

- Fix the *HORRIBLE* control from GU
- improve the graphics
- improve the buidling destruction system (Look at the destruction system from the Sega Dreamcast Godzilla Generations for reference)
- more monsters (removed Krystass and Obsidiot for new kaiju, such as Hedorah, Gorosaurus, Ebirah, Battra, Monster X, Keizer Ghidorah, Manda, Gabara, etc.)
- add some TOHO kaiju that weren't in a G film (i.e. Gaira, Sanda, Gezora, Kameba, Ganimes, Dogora, Magma, etc.)
- give each kaiju their own unique ending, not just the same general ending.
- Release it for the PS3 and Xbox 360, *NOT* just the Wii or Wii 2.
- For God sakes, drop Fire Rodan for the classic Showa Rodan.
- Once again, please use showa or Heisei incarnations for King Ghidorah, *NOT* the pathetic GMK KG (which is *not* popular among fans).

Just my two cents...

-The controls for G:U were fine, they just had a relatively steep learning curve.

-IF this game got a console release, it would likely be a downloadable title, so I wouldn't expect some kind of disc release, especially not for the Wii.

-Endings will require even more money, as an artist would have to be hired to do all of that stuff. Honestly, if extra $ is earned, it needs to be for a console release. PC is the most economical platform, but it's also the least attractive (to be frank).


My issue at the moment is the time frame for donations (assuming it will be May/June). I'm planning on attending G-Fest this summer, which is going to cost me at least a good $700, after the plane ticket, hotel fees, and everything else. There is no way I'll be able to donate before August or September. One would assume you would still be receiving donations at this point, so hopefully even a late contribution would still mean that I could donate my $500 for the monster of my choosing (Which will most definitely be Hedorah, if he's not already planned from the get-go).

If Toho does approve this game, we need as many Toho monsters as possible. Not to knock on people and their original monsters..but if we're allowed to use licensed monsters, I couldn't care less about any original creations. (No offense intended to anyone).

[SpanishBulldog63]

Another thing about the water cannon is how exactly would it work in a Form meets Function way? not only is it unlikely to cause damage out of water, but if it were to be used underwater,it's the aquatic equivalent of blowing air in someone's face.Think firing a big water gun underwater in a pool at a friend:it wouldnt go far or do much. The rock thing could work kinda like how JJ's handclap did in STE: not a continuous attack, but a single fire attack. I'm not trying to shoot-down the idea,its just a strecth of a ranged weapon to use.

[Mr. Strange]

This is very interesting stuff. I like this idea, but I honestly never noticed it while I played the game...

I'd just like to comment on this final statement - it's totally true that even the most awesome thing in the world is wasted unless people can see it and take advantage of it. This is hard for designers to accept sometimes - but it is an important lesson. Some of the ideas fans have thrown out for the next game (both in this thread and elsewhere) have totally failed this test - which is to say that they are not something players could see, understand, and learn to do themselves.

The design term for this phenomenon is feedback. If a system does not provide enough feedback, the system is broken, regardless of how great it is to use after you understand how it works.

[hammysammy59]

Ebirah creating and tossing boulders with his huge, awesome claws is definitely more appealing than the water jet, but I wonder if it would be nightmare to program: mainly because it would look crazy without some level of terrain deformation.

I actually think the pistol shrimp-style sonic boom claw would be the best bet. It builds off Ebirah's design and personality (or lack thereof) and is unique(ish). Or we could just give him a special attack that isn't long-range.

[Living Corpse]

Just have him shoot water.

Not only would that look silly, but a stream of high pressured water doing damage to a giant monster? Eh..that's stretching it man.

Think industrial water cutters.

[Goji]

Sorry man, I still think it's a terrible idea. No offense.

[Chris55]

Ebirah creating and tossing boulders with his huge, awesome claws is definitely more appealing than the water jet,

Well yeah, this ain't Pokemon