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[Takao]

Site: http://zodiac.kobojo.com
Trailer: http://youtu.be/k7CzbkJhcrs
Interview + Pre-Alpha Gameplay (French): http://www.gamekult.com/actu/gk-live-zodiac-ps-vita-A138429.html

Embark on an exciting Journey into a world that was once ruled by powerful gods. Explore an ancient prophecy that will lead you to uncover your destiny. Will you be able to master the power of the 12 Zodiac Signs ?

Zodiac is the first top quality cross platform 2D RPG that units legendary Japanese RPG makers with top European RPG crafters. Developed by Kobojo, European veteran game developers and :

Kazushige Nojima – Story Writer
Hitoshi Sakimoto – Music Composer
Basiscape – Sound Design

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201409/18061583.html
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201409/19061749.html

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201409/19061783.html

Famitsu posted an interview with scenario writer Kazushige Nojima and director Julien Bourgeois.

Uematsu introduced Nojima to Kobojo, asking him if he'd like to work for them. So he arranged a meeting with Bourgeois who was in Japan at the time.

Gameplay systems came first and he is writing the story around the systems. He expects that sometimes gameplay will restrict what stories he can write but he intends to protect his vision. He wants to deal with love and hate aspects of human relationships amidst the concepts based on astrology.

The actual dev team is mostly in Scotland, a few in France and then there are the Japanese creators working in Japan. Thanks to the internet you can do work everywhere, Nojima just came back from visiting his parents in Hokkaido where he kept working on the game. Bourgeois also frequently stops by in Japan.

It's the first time in 6 or 7 years Sakimoto and Nojima are working on the same project but they aren't actually meeting much.

Game and scenario are still in the early stages, at about 10 %. Bourgeois doesn't want to rush the game and focus more on making a fully realized game, providing high quality and putting all their energy into the project.

They plan to use many features of MMORPGs but you don't actually play with other players simultaneously. Online versus modes aren't currently planned either. Multiplay is more like in social games where players can help each other out. There might also be in game real time events that occur only on specific occasions.

They want to make a typical Japanese RPG game, with the ease of use of FF, the versatile one button serves many functions style of Valkyrie Profile and the high quality 2d graphics of Dragon's Crown.

Nojima involuntarily started out writing the scenario to read like a localized Western game but then realized that wasn't necessary. So he stopped using the typical lines Western games end up having in Japan. Bourgeois comments that Nojima's scenarios enjoy great popularity in the West so he doesn't need to adapt to that market.

(dunno why they're demoing it on Vita when it just looks like a trailer)

Kobojo are only committing to PSV/iOS for now, but it sounds like additional platforms are expected too.

 

[Infinite Xero]

Wow, look at how oversaturated those colors look.

Or maybe the Vita 2000 has just spoiled me?

 

[baekshi]

Wow, look at how oversaturated those colors look.

you can play on your vita 2000 if you dont like that

 

[Necromanti]

That last picture is giving me serious Odin Sphere vibes.

 

[jiggle]

that reminds me
where's vanillaware

surprised nojima has time to do this on top of ffviir lolol

 

[MagnaderAlpha]

Wow, look at how oversaturated those colors look.

Or maybe the Vita 2000 has just spoiled me?

The color choices are very Honne-esque!

 

[Takao]

that reminds me
where's vanillaware

surprised nojima has time to do this on top of ffviir lolol

you mean X-3

 

[Qvoth]

2d mmorpg with what seemed like turn based battles?
hopefully it comes to android

 

[Mr. RPG]

It looks great, but I don't want a MMORPG. Why couldn't this have just been a single player game?

And damn, Sakimoto is in on it.

 

[Takao]

site: zodiac.kobojo.com

trailer on there too

 

[mao2]

Wow this looks really good.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Looks pretty cool

 

[DangerMouse]

Looks quite nice, and that music.

 

[Hours Left]

site: zodiac.kobojo.com

trailer on there too

Lovely.

 

[B.O.O.M]

The music and visuals are just top notch. Interest+1

 

[Takao]

Updated OP.

 

[Lupin the Third]

Zodiac misspelled in the thread title as Zodaic. Could a mod please fix maybe?

 

[Imouto]

It has a serious Vanillaware vibe. The sprite and animation are pretty smooth, too. I'm interested.

 

[vagabondarts]

This game looks amazing to me.
I doubt it comes over but if it does I want to play it

edit: nvm the site and the trailer have english. I love the look + basiscape audio.
bring it on!

 

[Redhood]

It play offline too doesn't it? The artstyle is amazing and would fab on dat oled.

 

[Takao]

This game looks amazing to me.
I doubt it comes over but if it does I want to play it

The devs are from France and the trailer's gameplay segments are in English.

 

[Mr. RPG]

The devs are from France and the trailer's gameplay segments are in English.

It feels like wasted potential.

Amazing 2D graphics and music, but ugh, an online game? This would have made a sweet single player turn-based RPG.

 

[vagabondarts]

The devs are from France and the trailer's gameplay segments are in English.

Yeah, I'm so used to awesome looking games not coming over (and this being TGS week) that I assumed as the trailer was starting and I posted too soon.
I love what I'm seeing!!

 

[Wilsongt]

Sakimoooooooootooooooooooo <3

 

[Sword Familiar]

According to one of the articles in the OP it doesn't seem to be an MMORPG in the traditional sense. It just says it has some MMORPG elements, like being able to form parties with other people online, The title says the battles are MMORPG-like or MMORPG-esque, but they are probably only referring to said online elements when they say that.

They also mention that, although you can play this game's story mode on your own, they made the game assuming that you're going to want to enjoy it with friends online.

I'm not sure if this means that you'll be fighting alongside other players online or if you're only "borrowing" characters from them, like in Dragon's Dogma. Perhaps some clarity on that might be in order.

 

[Suzzopher]

According to one of the articles in the OP it doesn't seem to be an MMORPG in the traditional sense. It just says it has some MMORPG elements, like being able to form parties with other people online, The title says the battles are MMORPG-like or MMORPG-esque, but they are probably only referring to said online elements when they say that.

They also mention that, although you can play this game's story mode on your own, they made the game assuming that you're going to want to enjoy it with friends online.

I'm not sure if this means that you'll be fighting alongside other players online or if you're only "borrowing" characters from them, like in Dragon's Dogma. Perhaps some clarity on that might be in order.

That's how it looked in the trailer.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I heard Sakimoto and came running, will wait for more details in the interrum.

 

[Ooccoo]

MMORPG

So much potential, but this genre is just a pain.

 

[2+2=5]

(dunno why they're demoing it on Vita when it just looks like a trailer)

Because on the OLED Vita it looks even more glorious!
In fact they didn't use the LCD Vita.

So much potential, but this genre is just a pain.

It's a MMO that can be played offline

 

[SerTapTap]

Not my genre, but damn it it doesn't look pretty. Major Vanillaware vibes.

 

[Takuan]

Ramza grew up

Trailer doesn't really show how it's an MMO? Looks like an RPG with side-scrolling dungeons. Totally Vanillaware-esque, I agree - but where are the boobies? No half-measures, you guys.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

That looked good.

 

[Mr. Virus]

The devs are from France and the trailer's gameplay segments are in English.

It's their new Dundee studio that're developing it. Like the Vanillaware art style and Sakimoto's on board, so pretty interested. Hoping it'll not be an F2P thing though .

 

[Qvoth]

&#12466;&#12540;&#12512;&#20869;&#23481;&#12399;&#12501;&#12451;&#12540;&#12523;&#12489;&#12434;&#25506;&#32034;&#12375;&#12289;&#25973;&#12395;&#12456;&#12531;&#12459;&#12454;&#12531;&#12488;&#12375;&#12289;&#12496;&#12488;&#12523;&#12364;&#34892;&#12431;&#12428;&#12427;&#12392;&#12356;&#12358;&#12418;&#12398;&#12290;&#26412;&#20316;&#12399;MMORPG&#12398;&#12424;&#12358;&#12395;&#12289;&#12458;&#12531;&#12521;&#12452;&#12531;&#12391;&#12497;&#12540;&#12486;&#12451;&#12434;&#32068;&#12435;&#12391;&#25973;&#12395;&#25361;&#12416;&#12371;&#12392;&#12364;&#12391;&#12365;&#12427;

maybe the word mmorpg on the title should be taken out, the quote basically is saying the game consists of field exploring and encountering enemies, and that like an mmorpg, you can party online to fight the enemies

i think it's not a full fledged mmorpg, maybe something similar to grand knight history but with more online aspects?

 

[Begaria]

*takes deep breath* *breathes out slowly*

Holy. Fucking. SHIT.

Sakimoto is one of my favourite composers, and that music in the trailer had my heart racin'. The game has that Vanillaware/UbiArt look that I love so much. It's...god, I want it. I read you can play this offline and by yourself, which is good for me. The exploration and combat looks awesome to. Looks like I might be picking up a Vita late next year.

 

[Qvoth]

i don't know about playing this offline, i think they meant playing solo
but they clearly mentioned how they want you to play this online with friends

 

[extralite]

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201409/19061783.html

Famitsu posted an interview with scenario writer Kazushige Nojima and director Julien Bourgeois.

Uematsu introduced Nojima to Kobojo, asking him if he'd like to work for them. So he arranged a meeting with Bourgeois who was in Japan at the time.

Gameplay systems came first and he is writing the story around the systems. He expects that sometimes gameplay will restrict what stories he can write but he intends to protect his vision. He wants to deal with love and hate aspects of human relationships amidst the concepts based on astrology.

The actual dev team is mostly in Scotland, a few in France and then there are the Japanese creators working in Japan. Thanks to the internet you can do work everywhere, Nojima just came back from visiting his parents in Hokkaido where he kept working on the game. Bourgeois also frequently stops by in Japan.

It's the first time in 6 or 7 years Sakimoto and Nojima are working on the same project but they aren't actually meeting much.

Game and scenario are still in the early stages, at about 10 %. Bourgeois doesn't want to rush the game and focus more on making a fully realized game, providing high quality and putting all their energy into the project.

They plan to use many features of MMORPGs but you don't actually play with other players simultaneously. Online versus modes aren't currently planned either. Multiplay is more like in social games where players can help each other out. There might also be in game real time events that occur only on specific occasions.

They want to make a typical Japanese RPG game, with the ease of use of FF, the versatile one button serves many functions style of Valkyrie Profile and the high quality 2d graphics of Dragon's Crown.

Nojima involuntarily started out writing the scenario to read like a localized Western game but then realized that wasn't necessary. So he stopped using the typical lines Western games end up having in Japan. Bourgeois comments that Nojima's scenarios enjoy great popularity in the West so he doesn't need to adapt to that market.

 

[Rubius]

I wonder why there is not more Tactical RPG MMO's out there. The only two I know of are Dofus and Wakfu. It seem like it would be a perfect model for Mobile and Portables since it's turn by turn, so latency wouldnt be that much of an issue.

 

[He1nekenP1ss]

The french website www.gamekult.com had a 30-minute interview with Kobojo about the game. An alpha build of the game is shown.
http://www.gamekult.com/actu/gk-live-zodiac-ps-vita-A138429.html
The interview was recorded before the TGS announcement.

 

[ethelred]

Looks beautiful, I love Sakimoto, I always enjoy getting new Vita games) (at least, on the exceedingly rare occasion when one interests me) but they lost me at MMORPG.

 

[Suzzopher]

Looks beautiful, I love Sakimoto, I always enjoy getting new Vita games) (at least, on the exceedingly rare occasion when one interests me) but they lost me at MMORPG.

They never say that. This thread says it's an MMO, the trailer and all other media say it'll have MMMO elements but it's a single player JRPG.

 

[CamHostage]

Looks great, sounds great. The only thing I'm not a fan of is the flash-assisted animation where the sprites are just squeezed to pretend they're swaying/breathing, hopefully that's early unanimated work that will see some tweaking.

(dunno why they're demoing it on Vita when it just looks like a trailer)

I'm not sure what's running yet either, but Vita's a great machine for indie developers to peddle their wares as they can take it right into an office or press event and pull it out of their pockets. Now that everything's mobile it's a little less sexy but still the quality of the screen and the presence of buttons and all that make for a great pitch that I don't think just a regular cellphone or tablet would do (if only Vita did video-out...)

 

[Qvoth]

http://www.4gamer.net/games/275/G027547/20140922002/

4gamer interview, i'll try and translate the more interesting stuff

the main character's class can be changed at any time during battle
nakama's (friends? allies? party members?) classes are fixed
maximum number of people in a party is 3, you can borrow 1 friend's character, and that friend doesn't have to be online for you to borrow the character
there will be some puzzle elements when traversing on the map

so yeah, basically this is one of those social f2p games, though this might not actually be f2p

 

[NolbertoS]

Looks interesting. Will there be a physical retail version out West or Asian region?? Don't want a digital of the game unless its necessary.

 

[TheFLYINGManga_Ka]

Reminds me of Dragons Crown but with turn based battles.

 

[djtiesto]

Looks awesome, especially that it'll have a Vita version. Interested in seeing how the Japan/Europe crossover will work too.

 

[Jamix012]

Will buy if there's a physical release. Looks promising.

 

[Nikokuno]

No Android love?

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Bump, but for a good reason: Siliconera got an interview with three of the makers: Julien Bourgeois the director, Mario Rizzo the CEO, and Kazushige Nojima, the writer.

Sakimoto is doing all music(?)

They mention Megaten battle design especially reguarding buffs and debuffs, but it's from a battle tech from MMOs EQ2 and SWG (Ben Skilley). Hope mixed with confusion, I guess?

 

[KTallguy]

Please please don't suck.

Bump, but for a good reason: Siliconera got an interview with three of the makers: Julien Bourgeois the director, Mario Rizzo the CEO, and Kazushige Nojima, the writer.

The link is broken!