E3 2011

So this E3 is blowing me away with awesome content, not least of which is the announcement of VanillaWare's (Odin Sphere, Muramasa, etc) first HD offering, Dragon's Crown. A 2D side-scrolling action game that obviously looks gorgeous and will likely play beautifully as well since the PS3 and PSVita are loads more capable of handling the load than the PS2 was. These will be out in 2012 and apparently they will connect with each other (likely in the 4 player co-op some can be on the Vita and some on the PS3 and everyone will still be playing together like the Wipeout multiplayer they described.) Anyway, this is one of my favorite announcements of E3 so far as brilliant art direction makes my day. :)

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Source.

Oh, and here's the release vid!!!!! SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex2W-aRce84

Also, here is an interview with the head of VanillaWare:

George Kamitani, head of Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade developers Vanillaware, is not a man who forgets. When he comes up with an idea, he wants to finish it -- even if it takes a decade or so. That's the story behind Dragon's Crown, his latest game and one that has its origins in Princess Crown, a fighter title he developed for the Saturn in 1997.

"The idea for the game itself had its start around 13 years ago," Kamitani told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. "Dragon's Crown was concepted immediately after Princess Crown -- it was originally a Dreamcast project. I worked on [Capcom's] Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom before that, and ever since then, I've always been hoping I could work on something like that again. It was hard to convince a publisher to greenlight the idea, but I rewrote the project plan after finishing up Muramasa and finally managed to get Ignition to sign on with the game."

What's the goal of Dragon's Crown? "The challenge here is to advance the genre of games like Golden Axe and The King of Dragons, which I love, while still keeping them 2D," Kamitani said. "Hopefully we can work some new stuff in there that we didn't manage with Muramasa. For example, there's a red dragon boss that's sleeping atop a massive pile of treasure. If you try to take the treasure, he'll wake up and attack you. You can try taking him on directly, but it'll be a tough battle. You have the option of escape, of course -- he'll chase after you, but if you can make it over a stone bridge, it'll collapse under the weight of the dragon and he'll fall downward. That sort of thing. We want to have these sorts of rescues for the player when he's fighting difficult bosses. If the player comes across an enemy he's too low-level for, I want to be sure there's always a way he can survive."

Dragon's Crown is an online-ready 2D title featuring teams of player-controlled parties exploring a vast labyrinth, slaying foes and hunting for treasure. "It's still being fine-tuned," Kamitani said, "but currently, each weapon has a durability stat, and if you rush in with it, you run the chance of having the weapon blown out of your hands. You can pick it up again if it's right nearby, but it's possible you might lose it entirely, in which case you'll have to fight barehanded until a thief in your party picks up another weapon."

How will online play work? "Online, players can fight with any of the game's classes they like. There will be RPG-like elements, and you'll be able to look for more powerful weapons and learn assorted skills. You can't chat online, but there will be greeting and dying messages you can define." Dying messages? "This is still in the works, but as you play, the game gathers information about other players online, and when they die, their bones appear in your game. You can then see their dying message by examining the bones, and you can take the bones back to the temple and resurrect them to have the characters fight for you as NPCs. That's the plan, anyway."

Vanillaware isn't a big outfit, and Kamitani has a tendency to talk about every project like it's the last one he'll ever do. Judging by his tone in the interview, though, he's incredibly excited about finally bringing Dragon's Crown to life. "For someone as into arcade games as I am, Dragon's Crown is a project I absolutely wanted to make happen before I die," he closed. "I'm putting everything I have into this! We're working on a lot of other ideas we aren't talking about yet, but as always, we're short on people. Vanillaware is hiring programmers right now, so if you think you're up for it, let us know!"
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The character designs for some of the females gave me a good chuckle.

Not familiar with that developer myself anyway.
 
Gargantou said:
The character designs for some of the females gave me a good chuckle.

Not familiar with that developer myself anyway.
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Haha! Yeah, the character designs are ridiculous, but in a fun way. The animations go a long way to justifying the "excess," shall we say, in them. :)

I have been a fan of them for a while now, loving Odin Sphere and Grim Grimoire on the PS2 and Muramasa on the Wii. I just love the gorgeous 2D art and action. Hard to top such a lush visual style in my book.
 
The Amazon is going to give me nightmares :| I dunno, for me the visual style of that game looks awkward and unappealing.
 
Lol well at least for every pound of boob the Sorceress has is matched by muscle in the male characters. At least it's balanced.
 
Unfocused said:
The Amazon is going to give me nightmares :| I dunno, for me the visual style of that game looks awkward and unappealing.
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Sexy nightmares...

That game looks great though... I love the old Double Dragon-Battletoads-Streets of Rage type games. Just mindless destruction and glory. They were always tough too...
 
I like the the one class is just called "Elf" instead of archer or something along those line.
 
Anyone heard of Awesomenauts yet? YouTube it, please :D
 
I never played Prey 1 or even followed it that much.

But Prey 2 looks really, really interesting after having watched that.
 
I really don't like that colorful highlighting from the visor scanning. At least you can turn it off...
 
Remus said:
I really don't like that colorful highlighting from the visor scanning. At least you can turn it off...
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Yeah, that was basically the only thing I didn't like in this video. Other than that I really like the concept.
 
Remus said:
I really don't like that colorful highlighting from the visor scanning. At least you can turn it off...
Click to expand...

I did notice that. I'd much rather have something closer to what we saw in the cinematic trailer. But its still a ways away so hopefully the UI will be revised and refined.

Gun movement seems slow too, but that might have just been the player (in that case they need to get someone else to do the demo.)
 
I have no idea why they bothered to insert it into the dubious "Prey universe".
 
Samon Fish said:
I have no idea why they bothered to insert it into the dubious "Prey universe".
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Sequels make more money, look at Quake 2. But Prey was totally self contained. Whole game was on and about sphere, sphere was destroyed, Native Americans kick aliens ass, not so much US cavalry. Ill absolutely watch out for this
 
So, anyone got a summary of must-see trailers/footage from E3?
 
Samon Fish said:
I have no idea why they bothered to insert it into the dubious "Prey universe".
Click to expand...
I didn't really get it either...but I guess it makes it sound more appealing.

Gargantou said:
So, anyone got a summary of must-see trailers/footage from E3?
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http://e3.gamespot.com/

In the box titled "E3 2011 Live Schedule," click on one of the previous dates and you can click on the links for specific titles (interviews).
 
I don't understand you masochists, I felt Demon's Souls was a bitch to play as it is in terms of difficulty, and now you want harder? You crazy!
 
Some people are satisfied sexually when they've beaten an extremely difficult game after having played it for several days, if not months.
 
i typically have an overwhelming sense of relief i'd say :p
still not finished that one last level in super meat boy =/
 
The biggest thing for me is difficulty that practically forces the player to grind an area over and over again for gold/XP and such.

A game can be very difficult without requiring any form of grinding or leveling up.
 
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