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Tales Of Interview: Producer Hideo Baba Discusses Xillia, Bringing More Entries Over

Kimberley Wallace — Fri, 24 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Action-filled battles, bonding characters, and fantastical backdrops have been Tales' calling cards. Recently, the franchise hit its benchmark 15th anniversary. With Tales of Xillia on the horizon, we dive deeper into the upcoming release and take a look at the series' evolution. We had the pleasure of interviewing producer Hideo Baba, who discusses the push to bring more titles to the U.S., the new direction of Tales of Xillia, and how Namco Bandai sustains the Tales legacy.

We're seeing many RPG franchises fade. Why do you think the Tales series has lasted 15 years?

The unique evolution in the game design, the new gameplay provided for each title, the theme described in the storyline, the way of portraying the world, and the creation of attractive characters that play an important role in the fantasy world - I consider these essential elements of the Tales of series. They have been working together with the new features suited to the times to last for more than 15 years.

What are some of the challenges of keeping a series fresh after being around for so long?

What I always keep in mind is, "the reassurance in the freshness." This means I always consider the best balance between innovation and the basic strong points of the series, which allows [players] to enjoy the basic features as well as the new gameplay with ease. For example, the storyline and the world were created from scratch to enhance the brand new fantasy world and theme for each title, though some titles such as Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2 are set in the same world as an exception. On the other hand, we develop a battle system for every title where anyone can enjoy it with the simple and real-time control and feel exhilaration.

What are some of the biggest changes to the series from the start until now? How has it evolved through the years?

I think the biggest change is [the shift from] 2D to 3D in the game design, responding to the changing times. Tales of Symphonia, which is the most successful title overseas, was the first installment developed in 3D. The 3D graphics allowed us to change the way we express characters' emotions. With each new title, the character designs inch closer to lifelike proportions, so we include additional graphical effects to keep the cute anime and water color-style textures of past games.

Are there any special touches to Tales of Xillia to celebrate the series' 15th anniversary?

The most special touch is the first collaboration in the 15 years between two character designers who worked on lots of Tales of titles before: Mustumi Inomata (Graces, Rebirth, Destiny) and Kosuke Fujishima (Abyss, Vesperia, Symphonia). This first collaboration led us to develop two different main characters in the series for the first time.

In the 15 years, what has been your favorite installment so far and why?

I have been asked this question many times, and I always like to say my favorite title is the first installment of the series: Tales of Phantasia. Tales of Phantasia is the root of the 15-year history, and where the series' basic features were solidified.

Up next: The character creation process, entries that didn't make it over, and the mature art style in Xilla...

Not A Review – Neverwinter

Adam Biessener — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:35:00 GMT

Cryptic’s latest probably isn’t what most would picture as a Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG, but it works surprisingly well as a multiplayer fantasy action game. Plus, Neverwinter’s powerful creation tools have already borne delicious fruit in the form of player-crafted adventures.

The last two titles from Cryptic Studios, Star Trek Online and Champions Online, left me cold. Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons is a weird departure for the venerable tabletop role-playing system. The idea of combining the two into a free-to-play MMORPG didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but Neverwinter succeeds despite its questionable provenance by not hewing too closely to either side of its heritage. More of an action game than a tactical RPG and more of a dungeon-crawler than an MMO, Neverwinter has an identity of its own.

The forgettable story centers around the aftermath of the devastating Spellplague in late-period Forgotten Realms canon, and a subsequent undead siege that threatens the bustling Sword Coast city of Neverwinter. The single storyline that runs from character creation to endgame dungeons casts you as the hero who delivers the city from its ills, ignoring the MMO part of the game in classic hand-waving fashion. The uninspired questing isn’t awful, but the only use I have for the boilerplate fantasy adventuring in Neverwinter is as a backdrop for the genuinely entertaining combat.

The immediate gameplay is closer to Guild Wars than anything else out there. Like in ArenaNet’s exceptional franchise, avoiding attacks through positioning, lining up area-effect abilities, and juggling cooldowns are all critical skills. The strategy ends up being “sloppier,” for lack of a better term, but the chaos is fun in its own way, especially when every build of every class throws out explosive attacks that would be laughably overpowered in any other MMO.

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Nearly every non-trivial fight (read: dungeon bosses and not much else) involves waves of minions that must be dealt with while not letting the main boss kick anyone’s face in. The general idea is to mash your most powerful attack that isn’t on cooldown, dodge like a madman to avoid big-windup telegraphed attacks, and slap any loose monsters with whatever disabling effects you have available. Forget “tank-and-spank,” because even the Guardian Fighter can’t really tank in any meaningful sense and encounters are too chaotic to control anyway. Fortunately, every class has built-in mechanics that let them largely survive on their own without relying on allies to bail them out.

Player-versus-player matches channel the exceptional combat well, with two important caveats bringing down the overall experience. The emphasis on movement powers, ground-based targeting, and manual dodging strain Neverwinter’s netcode to the limit, even in these instanced five-on-five matches. Expect to curse at your screen as the game regularly fails to register a hit for a spell that looked like it connected on your screen. Also, the general wonky class balance (even by just-launched MMO standards) is a particular problem in PvP. Pity the poor souls playing fighters.

Combat is far and away the best thing Neverwinter has going for it. The ancillary systems that make up an MMO are mediocre at best. Gear is hideously boring, with passive stats that have tiny individual impacts on your character’s abilities. The auction house has been badly broken for most of the time it’s been implemented, with searches often returning nonsensical results. An exploit even allowed players to place negative-value bids that both won auctions and sent them the specified sum of money. Leveling is well-paced but sadly lacking in choices until you’re over halfway to the level cap, and even then you’re mostly choosing between small passive stat boosts and which flavor of “attack” or “disable” you prefer. Crafting is built around a neat paradigm that has you sending minions on offscreen tasks, but creating any worthwhile gear requires an absurd amount of grinding and effectively mandatory real-money purchases.

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The economy is one of the worst I’ve seen in years of playing MMOs. Two in-game currencies (astral diamonds and gold) are used for different items and services, and the real-money currency (zen) can be spent at the cash shop or bought from other players for astral diamonds. Most things worth spending astral diamonds on cost obscenely high amounts that require either selling rare drops from endgame dungeons to other players, purchasing via real money, or months of grinding. Many all-but-obligatory convenience items, like inventory and bank space, are extremely difficult to come by except through real-money purchase. The whole system is a hard-to-understand mess, and layers pointless complexity onto every phase of the game for no seeming purpose other than to sow confusion in players.

I’m not generally one to moan about publishers pushing real-money purchases in free games – these things cost money to make, and you’re getting the game for free – but Neverwinter grinds your face into its business model with increasingly uncomfortable regularity as you progress. Crafting is one notable area where it’s nearly impossible to make effective progress without dropping cash, but it’s hardly the only one. I find the ubiquity of blind-purchase “grab bags” particularly distasteful, preying as it does on a well-known foible in human psychology to encourage players with poor impulse control or self-discipline to spend more money. You still get an awful lot of game for free here (and thank goodness no energy meter or dungeons-per-day limit exists), and you can avoid most of the cash purchases, but the grab bags are pushed at you with distasteful frequency.

The powerful Foundry tools allow players to create modules for their fellow adventurers to take part in, and Cryptic smartly built it to scale content to the user’s level and give reasonable rewards in XP, money, and loot. My experience with it has been mixed, but the best player-created adventures are better than any of the “official” content, and the framework allows authors to be creative with branching paths and scripted enemy spawns. Finding the good stuff is still much too difficult, but Cryptic has acknowledged that problem and says that a better system for surfacing quality player-created content is in the works.

Neverwinter isn’t perfect and it’s not at all what I expected, but it’s fun. Each class is amusing in its own way, and blowing apart enemies with powerful skills is a blast even when the narrative excuse for doing so is so thin as to be translucent. Approach this as more of a multiplayer dungeon-crawler with the potential for cool player-created content than as a true long-term MMO with an endless endgame, and you shouldn’t come away disappointed.

For more on Neverwinter, check out our recent podcast episode dedicated to the game.

A Beta Open For Business

Neverwinter is still in “open beta” as of this writing. However, letting the public play, taking their money in the cash shop, and committing to having no further character wipes before “full” release sounds an awful lot like a game being “out” to me.

Microsoft Won't Abandon The Xbox 360 For At Least Five Years

Kyle Hilliard — Sat, 25 May 2013 18:03:00 GMT

Microsoft just announced its new console, the Xbox One (head here to read all of our coverage!), and even though the new console is coming this year, Microsoft won't be leaving behind the Xbox 360 behind any time soon.

Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president at Microsoft, told OXM that the company expects another 25 million Xbox 360 consoles to be sold over the next five years. "That's something we're shooting for, it's not a financial plan as such, it's just rough numbers if you will," said Mehdi, "To sell another 25 million, half of those will probably come from replacements, but half will come from new buyers."

And because of those new owners, and continuous owners, Microsoft will continue to support the system. There are more announced Xbox 360 games on the way, as well as promise of new announcements coming during E3 next month.

[Source: OXM]

The Biggest Stories Of The Week (May 25, 2013)

Mike Futter — Sat, 25 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Did you miss any of the big stories this week? Want to find out how the pieces fit together? You're in the right place. This week's big story was the reveal of the Xbox One (and almost everyone else just got out of the way of that freight train).

The Xbox One, follow-up PR, and the rage of a million core gamers

We've extensively covered this week's Xbox One news (you can see every story we published in our Xbox One Reveal Headquarters), but I want to draw your attention to a couple of key pieces.

There is still a great deal of confusion swirling around two key issues: used games (though we have a new statement from Major Nelson)and the console's connectivity requirements.
Our editors shared thoughts in print, and on this week's GI Show.
I wrote a lengthy opinion piece that broke down the successes and failures of Tuesday's reveal (hint: the big mistakes happened in one-on-one interviews after the presentation).

There's a lot of information right now on the hardware, Kinect 2.0 (with a new report suggesting additional functionality), the controller, the television functions, and more. We are still waiting on the thing that most of you are probably interested in: games. We've been told that Microsoft is working on 15 exclusives in the first 12 months, and we've known since the reveal date was announced that this week was about platform and services. E3 is where we'll be seeing the good stuff. This could be the first time in years that Microsoft doesn't disappoint with its keynote. A press conference light on Usher and creepy kids and heavy on new game announcements would go a long way to winning back the core segment of the market.

More news on Nintendo's E3 Plans

Bad news for us, good news for you. This is going to make coverage tricky, but on the first day of E3 (Tuesday June 11), Nintendo will be presenting its next Direct program at 7 AM Pacific. This week, company president Satoru Iwata teased a new Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and 3D Mario title. We're hopeful we'll have hands-on with those when we visit the booth later that morning.

Previews and Reviews:

Quick Hits

Deathstroke will be playable in Batman: Arkham Origins (though it's not clear exactly how yet). Also, you should definitely check out the first trailer.
Current Precursor Games chief creative officer and former Silicon Knights CEO issued a video message designed to defuse some of the allegations made against him and his former company.
Sony has teased the design of its PlayStation 4 hardware, promising a first look at the console at the company's E3 keynote on Monday June 10.
The disabled SimCity features are back.
A new Iam8bit art show is slated for next month. The exhibit will focus on art inspired by the games of the 1980s.
The first live-action Destiny trailer has been released. We'll see real gameplay at Sony's E3 keynote.
Square Enix America CEO Mike Fischer has departed the company.
You can enter to have your name and profile included in Ubisoft's Watch Dogs.
We had a chance to interview Erik Caponi, Lead Narrative Designer, of 2K Marin's The Bureau: XCOM Declassfied. We also interviewed Hideo Baba, Producer of Tales of Xilla.

Announcements and Release Dates

Sony has announced Freedom Wars for the Vita. Currently, a release is planned for Japan, with no confirmation of the title coming to our shores.
Crytek's Ryse is stepping back into the spotlight as an exclusive for Xbox One.
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition is coming to PC this summer.
A new, next-generation Need for Speed title has been announced.
Epic Mickey 2 is coming to Vita next month.
Ninja Theory's next game, Fightback, is coming to iOS and the Google Play store.
Hello Games' Joe Danger series is coming to PC later this year.

Your Xbox One Headquarters - All The Stories Under One Roof

Mike Futter — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:05:00 GMT

The live stream might be over, but we're still rolling out new information over the course of the day. Here are all of our stories on the Xbox One reveal:

Analysis:

Rumor Vs Reality: The Truth About The Xbox One

What We Don't Know About The Xbox One

Don't Panic: The Gamer's Guide To The Xbox One Reveal

Game Informer Editors React To Xbox One News

GI Show 158: Xbox One Reactions

Interviews and Reader Discussions:

Interview With Xbox One's Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten

Reader Discussion: Xbox One Or PlayStation 4?

Hardware:

Reader Discussion: What Do You Think The Name Of The New Xbox Will Be?

The Name Of The Next Xbox Is...