design sketches for Bombergirl's Olive🇯🇵 her gun was built by TSUGU-RIN, the cute next-gen Browny bot from Contra Rebirth. there, there's your tenuous link to Contra
Bandai-Namco's Minoru "Oritech' Sashida & Takaharu Suzuki discuss their internal efforts to archive & preserve Namco's classic key art & the cultural importance of their work famitsu.com/news/202012/24…🇯🇵
(this interview's something of a followup to the CEDEC lecture Oritech gave a few months ago on this same subject—icymi, I broke that down at the time, and I probably won't rehash anything that overlaps with this interview)
unlike the arcade division, which stored things in various warehouses that weren't cataloged & were occasionally completely emptied upon Namco's various relocations, the home division had a repository of home game art assets that were maintained from generation to generation(>)
Musha Aleste, Compile's "Edo Metal"-themed vertical STG for Mega Drive, is 30 years old! it was recently included on the Japanese Mega Drive Mini but I guess the Genesis Mini had to make room for Alex Kidd, oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
icymi, Aleste Collection features a brand-new Aleste game made to Game Gear spec, developed by a small team of STG veterans including Kazuyuki Nakashima, artist and/or planner on MUSHA, Spriggan & Mahou Daisakusen (55:19🇯🇵)
out December 24: Arcade Archives Gradius III! game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1296…🇯🇵 they promised something special for this ACA release and they've revealed that, too: they've adding a custom mode that'll let you change various as-yet-unspecified settings & adds a stage select
I can only presume some sort of collision detection setting is one of the custom options... there is some precedent for this among ACA releases, they added a smaller hitbox option to Trigon/Lightning Fighters
Hamster's been sharing effusive but non-specific comments from the elite playtesters they've had working on ACA Gradius III, one per day
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lrt: for those who understandably checked out years ago, Unsung Story was purchased from the original devs by a contract studio who saw a chance to make a name for themselves by salvaging a project thought impossible to salvage... and they're kinda doing it? somehow?
I say "kinda" because most of the high-profile JP devs touted by the original studio are not involved & the game as it currently exists is a very loose interpretation of their initial concepts, but they've been very earnest and transparent & I can't help but root for em
the obvious difference with their version is the art style— Yoshida is not only uninvolved but the original devs burned him so hard that the new team deliberately chose a radically different art style so as to completely erase all suspicion that they're using any of his old work
Puyo Puyo series producer Mizuki Hosoyamada talks Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 inside-games.jp/article/2020/1…🇯🇵 I won't be able to offer a full summary until later, but he does explicitly confirm a Chronicles-style co-op boss raid mode as one of the future updates
Hosoyamada on balancing Puyo Puyo Tetris: PPT1 was balanced in-house by skilled staffers & pros under NDA, but for PPT2 they were more directly influenced by player feedback & brought in pros to share their opinions during the final stretch of development
that said... (1/3)
...when it comes to competitive versus games, there's no "correct" answer to game balance & it's something they're always thinking about, and while the pros have their own opinions, they make decisions taking into account the wide range of players of all skill levels (2/3)
the second EN-subbed "Sega Seminar" video is online this one features long-time Sega Ages producer & current classic hardware producer Yosuke Okunari giving an inside lesson on Sega's home software circa the Japanese Saturn launch