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

[jdude1996]

Mr. Strange do u think it would be possible 2 have critical mass return but this time you can choose to either keep it or exchange it 4 a rage attack?

[matrix]

Mr. Strange do u think it would be possible 2 have critical mass return but this time you can choose to either keep it or exchange it 4 a rage attack?

Well, im no Mr. Strange, but I think that is pointless, rage seems alot cooler.

[Mr. Strange]

Mr. Strange do u think it would be possible 2 have critical mass return but this time you can choose to either keep it or exchange it 4 a rage attack?

I'm not fond of Rage Attacks, for a couple of reasons:

1 - They rely on getting a power-up. If you don't get it, you don't get the attack.
2 - They need to be triggered. If you don't (or can't) trigger it, you don't get the attack.
3 - People want them to be super-strong attacks, which makes the scarcity problems of #1 and #2 that much worse.
4 - They are complex, which means they need a lot of work if they are going to be guaranteed hits.

I'm much more in favor of giving monsters awesome regular moves, that they can use at will. For example, Destoroyah's Rage Attack used to be the Oxygen Destroyer Missile - in G:U I made that a 100% cost weapon, which he could use at will. I thought that was a lot more interesting.

Also, if the attacks aren't this awesome special super-damaging "Rage Attack" that gets all built up in the player's head - they can be allowed to miss, which means they are much less complex to implement, and gives us greater freedom in design & animation.

All of these terms are pretty meaningless - "special attack" "regular attack" and "rage attack" are all the same thing under the hood - but "Rage Attack" has a ton of preconceptions built up around it, which makes it really hand to please people.

[Blackout286]

Mr. Strange do u think it would be possible 2 have critical mass return but this time you can choose to either keep it or exchange it 4 a rage attack?

Ah, I know a game that had this kind of gameplay deal.

It was Naruto The Broken Bond, during combat whenever you fought or got hit you built up your rage meter. The rage meter had 3 levels, and each level obtained allowed the player's character to unlock and use the jutsu for the specific.

The first level was either a weak short cinematic jutsu (Like Shadow Clone Barrage) or a short timed power-up state (Self Regeneration or Sharingan)

The second level was a short but medium damaging cinematic jutsu, or a real time jutsu (Like Fireball Jutsu or Palm Rotation), or a much powerful state (Curse Seal/Curse Mark State 1)

The third level was a decently longer but the most powerful jutsu within the set, and it was cinematic.

Anyway, the game allowed this, HOWEVER, when you have a full rage meter, you could sacrifice the entire filled meter in order to enter a monstrous Rage Mode (However in this mode you cannot use any Special Attacks/Jutsu). Once the mode ends, the rage meter is completely empty and the player has to refill their rage meter all over again.

As you probably picked up by now, the character's special attacks/jutsu and Rage Mode are tied together by the Rage Meter. Because of that, you had to carefully manage yourself and your decisions.

Do I want to keep all of my unlocked abilities and fight with whatever chance I have? Or do I want to gain a massive advantage and sacrifice my abilities for awesome power?

It was pretty awesome, of course some characters only had two levels within their rage meter due to the lack of abilities that certain character held within the source material. With that, the developers made the first level bare medium damage potential, while the second one was the most powerful.

Anyway, I can see this idea work for a monster fighting game, it just has to be planned out and managed properly.(And have the special attacks be mostly real time)

[ゴジラ]

Mr. Strange do u think it would be possible 2 have critical mass return but this time you can choose to either keep it or exchange it 4 a rage attack?

Anyway, the game allowed this, HOWEVER, when you have a full rage meter, you could sacrifice the entire filled meter in order to enter a monstrous Rage Mode (However in this mode you cannot use any Special Attacks/Jutsu). Once the mode ends, the rage meter is completely empty and the player has to refill their rage meter all over again.

As you probably picked up by now, the character's special attacks/jutsu and Rage Mode are tied together by the Rage Meter. Because of that, you had to carefully manage yourself and your decisions.

Do I want to keep all of my unlocked abilities and fight with whatever chance I have? Or do I want to gain a massive advantage and sacrifice my abilities for awesome power?

I pretty much only use my jutsu, I only use rage mode whenever dealing with players online who use Orochimaru or any Itachi. And I normally come out on top during those encounters, but barely.

Don't forget in order to pull of a jutsu that you had to use a great deal of chakra (Energy for those who don't know), if someone interrupted you then the amount of you gathered up was lost, until your chakra bar regenerated it all on its own. (Although it restored itself in a mildly slow fashion, of course this was for balance).

I can see this in a Godzilla fighting game, but so long as the attacks are real time. (I'm not against cinematic specials, but real time would keep the action going).

[Lenbo]

I was thinking about this, and wondering if maybe because the visual style tries to present itself as "realistic" that maybe some expect the monsters to act "realistic" as well? Some things may look silly because they're being done in an... ATMOSPHERE that leads one to not expect it. So... if THAT'S the issue, then maybe the visual style should be less ...serious. So it's not taken as seriously.

You brought up the visual style of the game, and that's something I was thinking about too. How will this new game look?

I agree with you that the visual style doesn't need to be too serious. StE and G:U visually were more realistic and much darker than G:DAMM.

I felt that G:DAMM for Gamecube was the most visually appealing out of all the Pipeworks Godzilla games. It had a very bright, clean look to it. The lighting and the monsters didn't have all that cluttered, bumpy texturing they received in the subsequent games. The night stages had a cool neon, slick appearance to them.

StE had a rather muddy, messy look to a lot of the monsters and stages. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that it had to be made to work on PS2's limited hardware capabilities.

Unleashed was a step in the right direction, but I still felt the environments looked murky, and some of the monster's features were difficult to make out.

What do other people think? G:DAMM arguably looked the least realistic, but I felt it was the most aesthetically appealing. For a game that's supposed to be a fun brawler, G:DAMM on Gamecube nailed it visually.

With Matt Frank spear-heading the art direction, I think this game could return to a less gloomy looking Godzilla battling game. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has in mind for this game's look.

- Lenbo

[matrix]

You guys are going to hate me but, I like G:StE coloring of the monsters best, because I like it better dark, the other 2 were bright, and godzilla movies are dark too.

[Goji]

STE was not that visually different from DAM:M...in fact, the Xbox version looked better than both versions of DAM:M.

[Blackout286]

Well Lenbo, I'll say that G:DAMM's graphics are good, especially the monsters. I felt that Godzilla 90's, and a handful of other monsters looked great. And everything mostly did look smooth, especially during a fight whenever the camera would close in, or during the slow replays. You could see the mostly smooth texture of the monsters and everything.

But personally for me, I felt that G:U had the better visual presentation of both monsters and the game's environments.

Although like you Lenbo, I'm curious in seeing what Matt can dish for this possible game, but still I can't help but feel disappointed that there's little to no chance of Toho allowing Matt to design how the monsters appearance will look like in the game. A Godzilla animated/anime-ish like fighting would have been awesome to experience. But there is always DLC if there's enough funding and if enough people demand it.

[Living Corpse]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

[godzilla898]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

Depending on the monster used, YES.

[PopInPicsPresents]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

Depending on the monster used, YES.

I don't care what monster is used, I care how it's used.

[miguelnuva]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

Oorchi or maybe Super Godzilla would be cool for a final boss. As much as I would like to use Bagan I'm starting to think he couldn't leave up to all the hype.

Now Orochi or Super Godzilla following Matt Frank's origins sound like terrible beasts to take on. Super Godzilla could be the 1954 Goji corpse added with King Ghidorah cells or something along those lines while Orochi is just a huge eight headed dragon who can shoot Fire, Ice, Lighting, Air, Earth, Water, Light and Darkness from his heads.

[hammysammy59]

Yeah, put me down for liking DAMM's graphics the best too. Of course it's not the most technically impressive, but it has a really clean, finished look. It looks very complete, and I like how the colors complement each other.

I love the sound of Orochi as a secret super-boss.... but it sounds like resources that go into a boss-only character will take away from resources that could be building more playable monsters.

[PopInPicsPresents]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

Oorchi or maybe Super Godzilla would be cool for a final boss. As much as I would like to use Bagan I'm starting to think he couldn't leave up to all the hype.

Now Orochi or Super Godzilla following Matt Frank's origins sound like terrible beasts to take on. Super Godzilla could be the 1954 Goji corpse added with King Ghidorah cells or something along those lines while Orochi is just a huge eight headed dragon who can shoot Fire, Ice, Lighting, Air, Earth, Water, Light and Darkness from his heads.

How would it shoot Earth from its head?

[Showa Gyaos]

Grayshot! You forgot Maguma from Gorath!

[miguelnuva]

Guys, would you be cool with a bonus boss that you fight after meeting the right conditions, like beat the game on hard mode?

Oorchi or maybe Super Godzilla would be cool for a final boss. As much as I would like to use Bagan I'm starting to think he couldn't leave up to all the hype.

Now Orochi or Super Godzilla following Matt Frank's origins sound like terrible beasts to take on. Super Godzilla could be the 1954 Goji corpse added with King Ghidorah cells or something along those lines while Orochi is just a huge eight headed dragon who can shoot Fire, Ice, Lighting, Air, Earth, Water, Light and Darkness from his heads.

How would it shoot Earth from its head?

Just shoot like rocks from his head or stone fireballs for example

[hammysammy59]

That head could just vomit dirt. It wouldn't hurt, but your monster would be grossed out and feel bad for that Orochi head.

[hammysammy59]

Joke or not, I feel like if we can come up with a decent moveset for Ebirah, we could TOTALLY put something together for Maguma. That said, maybe he's better suited as a cameo or a summon.

[Oasis_S]

I felt that G:DAMM for Gamecube was the most visually appealing out of all the Pipeworks Godzilla games. It had a very bright, clean look to it. The lighting and the monsters didn't have all that cluttered, bumpy texturing they received in the subsequent games. The night stages had a cool neon, slick appearance to them.

I agree completely. I remember being surprised that StE's visuals seemed like a step down. While not a MAJOR issue, sometimes it felt like the monsters didn't stand out from their environment. I DUNNO, maybe I'm just a sucker for more simple styles, lol.

Though I remember Unleashed being pretty good? Always wanted the lighting effects to be amazing. What with so many BEAMS flying around. AGAIN, DON'T REMEMBER UNLEASHED VERY WELL (I guess I didn't play it as much as I thought I did, lol) but used to the only... light emitting... points? were from the monster's mouth and from where the beam made contact with whatever else. Wanted to stroll around New York City at night, with the soft glow of Obsidius's lava cast on the buildings. :V

Also, while Matt Frank is a great artist and his redesigns are neat, I kind of hope he sticks closer to the source material.