Ben-DutkaWell, good luck with that.
Japanese developers have been trying for years to create games that appeal to a wider audience. But it's difficult to picture franchises like Guilty Gear catering to anybody but the extremely niche hardcore fighting aficionado.
That won't stop developer Arc System Works from trying, though. The team that's currently working on Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- has a goal for their new project: They want to give the acclaimed series a "fresh start" (via Event Hubs ). Series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari didn't explain exactly how they'd go about accomplishing that goal, but I wish him luck. Since the debut of the franchise back in 1998, nobody would ever label Guilty Gear "accessible."
And in the eyes of most die-hard fighting fanatics, it should continue to cater to that niche group. None of this "attracting as many people as possible" BS, right? But if they're going to do it, I say the first step would be to not give your games titles like "Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-".
lol, why would you commit suicide like that?
Why not, I mean trying to go mainstream to cater to everyone, making it "accessible", has worked so well for other Japanese devs. Right SE, Capcom?
why has the industry turned into this?
this is the biggest reason why the industry has turned to sh*t!
gone are the days where games were made to push the envelope, to prove the impossible possible.
now its can it sell 10M units?
no?
then were not doing it!
no one gives a sh*t about pushing the industry forward, they just care about lining their pocket just a little bit more.
Bringing in more people isn't always a bad thing…I mean, I'm not one of those people who has a death grip on a franchise, crying out "No, it can't appeal to anyone but the hardcore!"
However, it is the way they want to go about it. Simply stripping down the gameplay so that's its easier for newcomer's is definitely NOT an option.
Trying to make a long-running fighting game "accessible" isn't easy.
You can't just slap different difficulties in there and call it a day.
I wish them luck anyway, but I hope they do it right :/
I keep hearing this making games more accessible with an existing IP and I just ask myself WHY!
Make a new fruking IP if you want to dumb down the gameplay so that more people can play it. Because lets face it that is what they want. The lowest common denominator playing games are casual gamers who for lack of a better word either aren't good at games or don't want to learn how to be better at games.
It happened with Mass effect, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy and probably many more I'm forgetting. These games went from having tons of depth, to half of what their predecessors had, some people thought it was for the better in ME2 and DA2 but me and many other RPG lovers though the original ME and DA were leagues better than their sequels because there was more depth.
Now accessible doesn't mean it can't have depth, it is just usually what goes first when a game is trying to become accessible. Arcs system could just build in a lot of easy to understand fun tutorial that don't look like tutorials, or have a casual mode like Blazblue has so that the game isn't ruined for the hardcore fans.
I want to see what they do here, but I'm hoping they don't go and ruin another franchise to make some more money. At the same time though I wish games like King of Fighters and Guilty Gear were as popular as Street Fighter or mortal kombat. But part of why I think those games are so popular is because the brand has been along for so long people are familiar with it.
right on
Lots of knee-jerk whining in this thread.
I take it you all either a) don't play Guilty Gear and/or b) didn't follow the news about the recent loke test for Xrd Sign.
Cause if you DID play Guilty Gear, you would know that it's not the easiest thing to get into, and has only gotten more ridiculous since the last major iteration (Guilty Gear XX back in 2003).
And if you had done the latter, you would know that there's very little to worry about at this stage. In its current build, Xrd has jettisoned stuff that came after GGXX Reload, basically resetting it to Reload, while refining one major system (the Roman Cancel) to be easier to use but still have many applications. This is still a hugely complex game, hardly in danger of being "dumbed down". Please do more research before you start your crying.
As for how ASW plans on attracting more players, I'm not certain if they have an actual "plan" per se. But the main thing that they have going for them is that 1) this is a BRAND NEW entry in the series (it's basically Guilty Gear 3), and 2) it looks drop dead gorgeous. THey're using some tactics from SFIV by having the camera shift at certain points during combat and have mini-cutscenes for Overdrives, but so far they aren't really doing much out of the ordinary.
That said, one of the key means to bring in new players is timing, and I think ASW is going to fall in this regard. This game is likely not coming out until next year in the arcade, which means console players won't see it until 2015. And ASW is the type of company that would put it out on PS3/360 that late too.
Last edited by Ultima on 8/19/2013 10:32:02 AM
How the heck do you make an hardcore anime fighter more accessible and mainstream. Adding auto-combos won't do, you'll need to dumb it down a whole lot more than that which is scary.