CyberAkuma

Well, there is this: - https://www.egmnow.com/articles/previews/hands-on-rise-of-incarnates/ We'll see if that holds up by the time they start talking about possibly adding in more characters. But for now, it's better than what I hoped when "F2P" came up.

Certainly looks like it could be fun. And until SE gets around to announcing a console port of Gunslinger Stratos (another Gundam Vs. style game from the makers at ByKing), I can see myself playing this, too. I'm definitely game.

It'd also help that the two front men behind Valkyria Chronicles (Producer Ryutaro Nonaka and Director Takaharu Terada) are in charge of this game, too. Frankly, I'd be more surprised if characters from other games they were involved with find a way into this game, somehow. I believe that House of the Dead III and Skies of Arcadia are on their resumes, for example. Terada even got a "Special Thanks" shout out on Shinobi (PS2). Any representation from those three series alone would make me giddy, let alone if they reach back any further into the SEGA catalog.

Pretty much. The next games SNKP puts out have to be part of a viable business model that will both allow SNKP to a) form a foundation that could stand to be expanded on for the next few years and b) shorten the lag time between releases. 16-17 months to make ONE KOFXII/XIII character, according to a quote by Producer Masaaki Kukino? Yeah...something had to give.

Same here. But after SEN/Edge of Destiny, especially, I definitely need more proof that they'll actually live up to that term. SS deserved much better than having the likes of SS3 and SEN be associated with it.

Very true. But I guess if the more that FB gets to develop their catalog, the better. And this game does look quite fun, in its own right.

Cool! Though, it's going to be kind of funny/sad if another licensed work outshines their original creation that they spent so much time on...

I'll say. It's certainly nice to see a dev and publisher that's not afraid to let us see, instead of the usual MO.

Well, to put the whole "Sega" issue to bed... - http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-09-18/atlus-games-hiraoka/business-to-continue-as-before TL;DR - Atlus has effectively become another Sega-Sammy subsidiary, much like Relic and Creative Assembly before them. And much like those two, it's likely just going to be business as usual. Now, as far as Persona Arena is concerned, the main thing I'm interested in seeing is what will happen in the future. Up to now, the games have been on NESiCA. But what if sequels eventually migrate over and join GG on the Sega's arcade hardware instead...?

Ideally, they could be following what I was hoping for months ago: Arc is taking this as the opportunity to really have a concerted effort to market GGXRD on a worldwide scale, in a similar way that Capcom did SF4 and its updates. I'd like to think that they can still have a great arcade following in Japan, while not forcing the rest of us to wait 8-12 months for ports. DLC pretty much means that they could have things where balance updates and even characters can be released in Arcades first and enjoy a run there for like a month or two before being made available for the home version, if they were at all interested in doing things this way.

And again, it all depends if they are indeed using DirectX 11. My hunch is that the answer is a "no", since they likely wanted to make for a game that could be safely scaled up and down, which feeds right into ASW's desires to likely/eventually port this game to as many places as possible. Remember, they were reportedly considering the Wii U and Vita on those exit polls at the beta test, after all! We already know that they're using quite a bit of wizardry in order to make for this "look", so I wouldn't be surprised if they spent all these years just so that it was designed to be comfortably scalable in this way, while also not "aging" that much by the time we get into the thick of the PS4 era. Oh, of course. The point I was just making was that what can be perceived aesthetically, is not always a reflection of how good the game may actually be technically. Take for example, the latest PS3 Atelier release: Would you believe me if I told you that game was rendered on the LTGL (Re: Dynasty Warriors) engine, of all things? And that it's all 3D? If this and XRD are the kinds of things that JP developers can do now in 3D, I may be finally ready to say goodbye to sprites...

Injustice/MK9 is more of a thing of bad artstyle (yeah, I like the games, even I don't like the art too...) that belies its actual technological accomplishments, in the same way that GGXRD "looks better" than it actually is because the artstyle is so faboo. Tech-wise, there's nothing about XRD that really looks above beyond what the PS3 could safely do at 720p, while PS4 could push it farther to true 1080p. One of things that's always worth noting is that "good art != good tech". Remember how some people couldn't believe that Tatsunoko vs. Capcom was a Wii game, back in the day?

Injustice is an example of how this doesn't have to be so. Crappy artstyles notwithstanding, it and MK9 are actually solid examples of how UE3 can be modified to run at 60fps. And of course, it is a much more feasible task when you only have to worry about two characters and some background objects on a "2D" plane. Additionally, we are talking about the same arcade hardware that powers the likes of Phantom Breaker and UNIB, so I doubt that was really pushing the RE2 to its limit.

Now, I just wait to see the fate of Robo Ky... If anything, I'm betting that PS3 version is the main version, and the PS4 port is a "port up", not unlike how most "cross-gen" titles are shaping up to be. Besides, I would think Arc would know better than to release a less than perfect port for where likely the majority of their audience will buy the game.

Hopefully, they're already developing the arcade version and console port alongside each other, so that the port won't necessarily take 9-12 months later to come out. And then cross-gen port that shit, so that they can get the largest audience possible. If they really are serious about trying to build up Western support for GG, they have to understand that over on this side of the pond, we're not interested in waiting that long while Japan gets to keep the game all to themselves.

...Hey. This isn't the Zenkai announcement I wanted!

Kidooka, much like other Presidents and corporate-level figures at other companies, says a lot of things. I'll believe it when I actually see a legit announcement. But I think he and the rest of ASW realize that thinking that their audience will all be willing to pay at least $400 to play their next game is overly presumptuous at best. Cross-porting is what I would expect, at the least. UE3 would make that easy enough.

I'd agree with all this. I suppose the only other thing I'd worry about is when we talk about online. I would guess that things would need to be made at least a bit "looser" just so that it would work with ASW's netcode better, correct?

Let's be frank, though: is 100 more pages of shouting over "Theory Gear" fanfiction that much better? Simply put, everything we're doing right now is just useless filler until we get our next info batch and/or we get more concrete details. And once we do, I'm sure everything will (eventually...) go to its proper place. Speaking of which, I really do hope that ASW will feel free to cite a bit of Capcom when it comes to interacting with the fans and keeping them reasonably informed. And by that, I of course mean their non-Japanese fans, as well. At least, again, assuming that El Presidente Minooru Kidooka is at all serious about his plans of "world domination".

You'd only have to look back at MK2011's successes. The story there wasn't anything special, and was something that you could clear in a day (or two, if some of the "Endurance" fights in MK gave you trouble). But it was how it was told that made all the difference, and the production values was what helped the game get so acclaimed by the press, and the casual base that the media caters directly towards. And of course, the game was full of mini-games and other extra content, as well (a lot of which was made a bit easier if you went through story mode, as an extra incentive). No to mention having every character from UMK3 (plus 2 "new" characters), each of which had some part in the narrative, even if they weren't all playable in it. So, don't get me wrong. Story mode is not the only thing that ASW should be focused on, as I would ideally love to see the initial console release as jam-packed with as much content as possible. But it definitely does help! And hey, if Ishiwatari really wants to have some type of Strategy mode extra in his game, maybe he could find some way to adapt the likes of BB's "Legion Mode" into something a bit more poignant, a la "Chronicles of the Sword" mode from Soulcalibur III. Earn-able costumes/costume parts would be enough of an incentive, right...?

I'd like to think so. After all, again, we're in a post-MK2011 world. There's certain things that the casuals are going to look for in their fighting games, now; one of them is definitely going to a well-done storymode, not another visual novel. If NRS was able to do some adequate storytelling using in-game assets on the Unreal Engine, I'd like to think Ishiwatari and his crew can do similar. And frankly, I'd rather have a 3-5 hour "cinematic storymode" to play through once, then upwards of 20-30+ individual stories that would likely become redundant after doing about 5 of them. Arcade mode endings with nice art, however, should still remain. But in any case, Ishiwatari is going to get few chances like this where he can really go hog-wild with telling the story he's been trying to build up over the last few years. He'd be silly not to take it...

Well, let's put it this way. At least over with BB, story endings boil down to one of two things. They're either a) one of the various other endings that "happened" (thanks to the funky Groundhog Day loops) or b) they're part of the "True End", which basically forms the basis for what the next official release uses as the basis for its SL. As far as fighting game narratives go, that's one of the more "straight-forward" means of trying to make sure that almost everybody has a decent spot in the overall narrative while also letting them have their own moments of badassery within their own individualized narrative. Meanwhile, over with GG, the main problem is that we don't really have any "True End" path that dictates exactly what happened and what didn't. And that's what I think could stand to change with GGXrd ideally being the means of them doing such. I mean, yes, it is what it is when it comes to fighting game storylines. But again, I think it would definitely be in their best interests to at least try to do something similar to what NRS was able to do with MK and Injustice. The stories were still terribad, but it's the way that they were told that likely will stick with people longer than the quality of the narrative itself. And besides, you have to have a proper frame of reference when you hear Ishiwatari talk about them being gaiden (see: http://gear-project.tumblr.com/post/29128148725/how-gaiden-works). TL;DR or TL;DC - The characters from the X/XX/AC series are all canonical; it's just that all of the various plot threads may or may not be. Considering that Ishiwatari hasn't been in the director's chair since #R, he could very well joss almost everything that AC+ did storywise and do something entirely different. Or he may work with what was there and use some of it to fit his overall plan. Who knows? On a completely different topic...is there at all a remote possibility that ASW might be continuing the nice trend of acknowledging their Western fanbase and maybe have GGXrd make a showing (at least a stage show) at EVO? As I was talking about on another forum...it'd be nice if the fact that ASW has an official western branch, had their US division twitter warn people to watch ArcFest for "something big" and actually had the Xrd trailer subtitled and in English was a start of a welcome trend where they were actually going to make a concerted effort to try and actually "globalize" their fighting games, in a matter similar to how Capcom has done it. (Which ideally would also mean no more waiting a year and some change while Japan keeps the game all to themselves.) It may be too little, too late for BB at this point, but maybe GG could be the flagship that launches this type of effort. At least, assuming Minoru Kidooka is actually serious about ASW's plans for "world domination".

The main reason I would want at least some aspects of AC+ to carry over, is because it actually shed some interesting light on some of the side characters. For example, the above noted thing regarding May finding out about her ancestry, and Venom allowing the Assassin's Guild to be dissolved (which would just do more to go along with what Slayer intended originally from XX) and FINALLY getting over both Zato and Millia is a nice thing, as well. Besides, since again, X/XX/AC is all "Gaiden" anyway, it's just up to Ishiwatari to decide exactly which parts he wants to incorporate into the next game. See, I was under the impression that GGXrd was going to serve as both a sequel to GG2 as well as the X/XX series, hence the name "Xrd" (3rd + X?). To me, that'd make the most sense, since this game actually represents the best chance Ishiwatari has to compile the GG storyline and all of its various threads together, pick the ones that work and then start again with a more "cohesive" story. The one thing I'll give BB is that it has at least somewhat more concise narrative, thanks to the central storymode which dictates exactly what happened. I'd assume that Ishiwatari would do something similar for his game this time. In fact, if what we saw with Millia and Eddie was at all an indicator of what we may be in for, maybe they'll actually make an effort to have something closer to NRS' storytelling. That'd go over well with trying to impress newcomers.

Until Xrd clears the air, we likely won't know which ending (or aspects of endings) were legit for any of the characters. At this point, I think the only ones that could be somewhat "confirmed" were Sol's Path 1 (he and Ky have one last fight before promising to meet again) and Ky's Path 1 (Dizzy leaves the Jellyfish Pirates and rolls with Ky, who becomes her new pimp). They're the only ones that plausibly lead up directly to GG2O. But even there, thanks to X/XX/AC being "Gaiden", Ishiwatari is free to roll with or joss almost anything.

Well, there'd be only one problem. That very ending actually had Venom disband the guild, and he and "Lil Eddie" became "hustlers" instead. (And he also killed Millia, but it's safe to say that didn't happen.) I'd actually prefer the "Hustler" ending for Venom, honestly. And there's nothing to say that Eddie couldn't have picked up some skills from Venom, anyway. It certainly would be interesting if we had yet another "brotherly rivalry" play out on the GG side this time.