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new FRAGILE [Wii] promotion video (Dec 26,2008)

Also, ask them . . .

How long has the game been in the works?

Are they interested in making a sequel or more games in this series?

What inspired the art style/ art direction as well as the story?

What are their expections for the title?

Are they working on any other projects right now?

(And, again, is there going to be a state side release? And When can we expect it?)
 

Arde5643

Member
Black-Wind said:
Also, ask them . . .

How long has the game been in the works?

Are they interested in making a sequel or more games in this series?

What inspired the art style/ art direction as well as the story?

What are their expections for the title?

Are they working on any other projects right now?

(And, again, is there going to be a state side release? And When can we expect it?)
A prequel should be excellent.


I think if they can expand this into anime (either OVA or movie) or novela, it should also help expand the title as a franchise to delve further into.
 
Here is an article on Dengeki which I though was interesting. It's from a Bandai-Namco conference in which some Fragile team members spoke of various subjects pertaining to the game. In fact, it's more of a game design and production round-table with Fragile as a background than a informations blow-out on this game, so you've been warned :p .

• Let's start with the speakers :

Producer : Kentarou Kawashima (Seven, Venus and Braves)
Art Director : Keiko Harada (Seven, Venus and Braves)
Main Programmer : Munehito Yasui (Baten Kaitos - Tri Crescendo)


• After much investigations, they found out that the average Japanese and European home game user identifies primarily three things in the games he plays, in this order : 1) Story and Characters, 2) World presentation, 3) Game system.
For example, he (the producer) thought at the time (of "Seven"'s development) that rendering the gameplay mechanics more and more complex could alone make for an enjoyable game, when he found out that in fact, stressing the game system too much only lead to a dead-end.
Another example he brought up was about...the ramen restaurants : why is it that some ramen shop are radically more popular than some other despite serving basically the same thing - noodles in a soup : it's because customers are paying, not only for the good diner, but also for the "experience" provided by the restaurant.
Which is why, he concludes, as for the game system and mechanics, so the means used to entertain the user wouldn't be overdone, the question asked must be : "Which experience do you customer feel like getting ?", and the answer from the customer could be : "If I play this game, what kind of experience should I expect ?"

• Comparison brought up by Kawashima : "Resident Evil" = "frightening" ; "Fragile" = "oppressive"

• Kawashima thinks that it's essential than the creator reflects in his games the feelings he experienced himself, which is why they personally went out to take shots of existing locations (such as the Kawaji Dam, or the Tokyo Metropolitan Underground Discharge Channel), while observing the atmosphere, and listening to the environmental sounds. All of this seemed to have given a fairly high quality atmosphere to the game.

• The game should last around 30 hours. And because Kawashiwa considers that these 30 hours are most precious to the user, he wanted to make them the most meaningful possible.

• Kawashima's cherished theory is that, if the consumer demands to personally experience something interesting, then the game creator should create interesting games from these individual experiences "First is to provides varied experiences, the technology comes afterwards."

• Here is another thought from Kawashima : do the typical game user has a better response to the story of the superhuman which literaly makes the world revolve around him, or to the story of the average person which is confronted to occurrences he cannot control ? Well Kawashima himself, in addition to preferring the latter type, thinks that games haven't explored this type of plot enough. He calls this line of thought "From action games to reaction games".

• Fragile has actually been in development for around 2 years and became a fairly big project over time. "RPGs need a lot of money", he says. As expected, they intend to recoup these development costs with the game sales, and derived products. But the distribution and advertising won't be cheap either.

• At the start of the Fragile project, the game was supposed to be set in Winter (as opposed to the current game, which is set in Summer), and the main character was supposed to be a Treasure Hunter that looked like this :





• A few elements survived the transition from the early project, such as the bonfires, the messages written on the walls, or the pointer/flashlight mechanics.

• The main programmer (Yasui) wasn't too hot on the battles as they were in the first prototype. He even proposed that the game would only consist of ruins exploration.

• Yasui worked hard with one other programmer to get the prototype version (the playable version which must allow the company to decide the fate of the project) up and running from the specification documents. So much that it was completed in about 4 months (he explains that his work on Baten Kaitos helped, as the Wii hardware is pretty close to the Gamecube), and the project could finally be greenlit.

• Seems like they had to change their art director at some point early, so Keiko Harada had the difficult task of inheriting her predecessor's work.

• A big work has been done on the sound flow, and the co-existence between the BGM and the environmental sounds.

• The project has been on schedule the whole time, so at the final development stage, they could actually afford to up the quality of the game significantly.


Aaand that's pretty much it, I think.

jesusraz said:
Okay folks, request time again - anyone got any burning questions for the dev team?

Whilst I wait for the Tales of Hearts interview to come back (end of Jan at the latest, I'm told), BanNam has given me the go ahead for a Fragile interview. So fire away if you have anything you specifically want to know and I'll try to get as many of your Qs in as possible...

I'll second the question on a localization.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
Interesting. Was the game originally first-person? That's... strange. And it seemed they almost got rid of the battles. We'll see if that was a good idea.
 

Arde5643

Member
ivysaur12 said:
Interesting. Was the game originally first-person? That's... strange. And it seemed they almost got rid of the battles. We'll see if that was a good idea.
If there are any battles, it shouldn't be like regular action RPGs - Ico meets Zelda would be more useful for battles since that means the focus is on exploration.

Simplified attacks with focus on using tools to defeat the enemies or solve puzzles involving enemies.
 
Damn it . . .

I hate seeing dumped concepts for characters cause you either fall in love with the dumped concept or you say "wow, they dodged a bullet!".

. . . I hope that character get's it's own spot light in another game in the series >_> (if there are more).
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
I wonder what Rei would have looked like in the winter setting...

Very interesting stuff. It's quite a nice change of pace to hear that a developer is actually putting some effort in a Wii game for once.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Regulus Tera said:
I wonder what Rei would have looked like in the winter setting...

Very interesting stuff. It's quite a nice change of pace to hear that a developer is actually putting some effort in a Wii game for once.

I still get the feeling it's going to bomb. :(

Japan has been extremely weary of trying new franchises lately. :/
 
ivysaur12 said:
Interesting. Was the game originally first-person? That's... strange. And it seemed they almost got rid of the battles. We'll see if that was a good idea.
I hope it is, because one of the "boss battles" they demoed around TGS was absolutely horrible.
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Eteric Rice said:
I still get the feeling it's going to bomb. :(

Japan has been extremely weary of trying new franchises lately. :/

That's why it has to come to overseas. If North America and Europe could save Zack & Wiki and No More Heroes, Fragile has a chance too!
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Regulus Tera said:
That's why it has to come to overseas. If North America and Europe could save Zack & Wiki and No More Heroes, Fragile has a chance too!

While other countries can save it, I think the big problem is finding a way to get Japan to try new franchises.

I'd rather a game be able to do well in Japan and everywhere else, instead of just everywhere else.
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Eteric Rice said:
While other countries can save it, I think the big problem is finding a way to get Japan to try new franchises.

I'd rather a game be able to do well in Japan and everywhere else, instead of just everywhere else.

I'd rather a game be able to do well everywhere else than just bomb one-hundred percent.

That is a fine worry though. I was sure Let's Tap! would prove Japan was ready for new original IPs in every regard, but we all know how that fared.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Regulus Tera said:
I'd rather a game be able to do well everywhere else than just bomb one-hundred percent.

That is a fine worry though. I was sure Let's Tap! would prove Japan was ready for new original IPs in every regard, but we all know how that fared.

I think Let's Tap actually would have done really well if advertised. From what I heard in another thread, it didn't even have a poster or anything. :(
 

Datschge

Member
Refreshing that the developer is already doing a post-mortem right after the game "going gold" instead waiting for the actual release. Thanks for the summary, Stormbringer.
 

Joule

Member
Any reason on why the setting changed from winter to summer? The original design for the main character is pretty cool.

Now I'm just thinking of a line of seasonal themed games if this does well enough. Let us hope.
 
Stormbringer said:
After much investigations, they found out that the average Japanese and European home game user identify ...

I wonder if the fact that they did inquiries into the nature of western gaming markets means anything for localization prospects.
 
jesusraz said:
Just what I was thinking. Hopefully the research was because they plan a Euro release...
It's mentioned later in the article that they did some market researches in America too, so I would think that yes, this could indeed hint to a Western localization
 
Regulus Tera said:
I'd rather a game be able to do well everywhere else than just bomb one-hundred percent.

That is a fine worry though. I was sure Let's Tap! would prove Japan was ready for new original IPs in every regard, but we all know how that fared.
This.

IDk wtf is with Japan but WW release is a much better path cause Japan aint being too nice to new IPs.
 
Looks good. Speaking of games that NA will never see, How about Disaster? Anyone know how that game is doing in Europe sales wise? Cuz if it does well in Europe, Nintendo said it MIGHT throw us a bone here in America, and let us get the game.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
perfectchaos007 said:
Looks good. Speaking of games that NA will never see, How about Disaster? Anyone know how that game is doing in Europe sales wise? Cuz if it does well in Europe, Nintendo said it MIGHT throw us a bone here in America, and let us get the game.

Honestly, just import it. Nintendo normally says "We're always evaluating games to bring over, yadda yadda stay tuned for more info" when asked about games. For Disaster, they make fun of the game and say it's unlikely. Those aren't good odds.
 

jesusraz

Member
Stormbringer said:
It's mentioned later in the article that they did some market researches in America too, so I would think that yes, this could indeed hint to a Western localization
Well, fingers crossed then. I hope they don't do a wait-and-see on the Japanese sales before making the final decision as the markets are so different that low sales there definitely do not always mean the same will happen in the West.

perfectchaos007 said:
Anyone know how that game is doing in Europe sales wise?
Well, the developer isn't too chuffed with its sales. But I still think Disaster could turn up as a late Q1/early Q2 2009 game in the US.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Honestly, just import it. Nintendo normally says "We're always evaluating games to bring over, yadda yadda stay tuned for more info" when asked about games. For Disaster, they make fun of the game and say it's unlikely. Those aren't good odds.

My Wii is not modded. I can't import since it's region locked
 
Stormbringer said:
Another example he brought up was about...the ramen restaurants : why is it that some ramen shop are radically more popular than some other despite serving basically the same thing - noodles in a soup : it's because customers are paying, not only for the good diner, but also for the "experience" provided by the restaurant.

fucking NAILED it.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Honestly, just import it. Nintendo normally says "We're always evaluating games to bring over, yadda yadda stay tuned for more info" when asked about games. For Disaster, they make fun of the game and say it's unlikely. Those aren't good odds.
From what I gather it's probly not worth importing and modding.

You might as well just skip this one . . . it bombed in JPN and the UK with sub par reviews so regardless of how Regg feels about it it aint coming over.
 

batbeg

Member
Black-Wind said:
From what I gather it's probly not worth importing and modding.

You might as well just skip this one . . . it bombed in JPN and the UK with sub par reviews so regardless of how Regg feels about it it aint coming over.

...have you read the GAF thread?

Dascu said:
Amazing game. The cutscenes are incredibly fun. The graphics could be better on some parts, especially the NPC models (except for the surprisingly well-done faces). The game is so damn epic though.

America's really missing out on something.

Frencherman said:
Finished it today, what an awsome game! The end was really epic and totally unexpected.

The bonus content has just motivated me to play it once again. I don't know why but this game truly reminds me to Resident Evil 4 in certain ways.

I am so sorry for you, american wii-owners :(

Haunted said:
Alright, after just finishing the game, I'll up my recommendation from "Play it if you like disaster and/or B-movies" to "Play it, period".

EatChildren said:
Jumped on the Disaster bandwagon and I gotta say, it's a hell of a lot of fun. I actually quite like the driving, the action is fun, and there is heaps of variety. The latter is probably the main reason to keep playing; scenarios change fast enough so they don't get too boring.

All just from the most recent page. Personally this was my GOTY, so I don't see where you're coming from here.

Edit: NVM, you're the one who called this game "kiddy shitty".
 

jesusraz

Member
Black-Wind said:
From what I gather it's probly not worth importing and modding.

You might as well just skip this one . . . it bombed in JPN and the UK with sub par reviews so regardless of how Regg feels about it it aint coming over.
Waa? Certainly not the case and from the feedback in the official Disaster thread here many others are seriously enjoying it. Considering the ease of getting The Homebrew Channel onto Wii, it's no major hassle to get this really enjoyable romp working on a US Wii.
 
batbeg said:
...have you read the GAF thread?
Yea, gaf can have great fans for any number of games. :lol
I still think the Matrix game was bad ass regardless of what most say! :D

But I clearly don't see the gaf push for this one that other low key Wii games have gotten myself.

All just from the most recent page. Personally this was my GOTY, so I don't see where you're coming from here.
Good for you my friend!

You liked it . . . Im simply pointing out that this game gets pretty shit/ sub par reviews (and I have also seen some Gaf impressions that say "decent but I wouldn't say you should import" from UK Gaf) and that he might want to think about that before importing D DAy and modding his Wii for it.

Edit: NVM, you're the one who called this game "kiddy shitty".
No, I called the game's graphics "Kiddy shitty" cause they look shitty for a game thats been in the works sence before the Wii was released/ revealed. (While, they do . . . looks abit like that area could have used some more time in the oven.
And don't try to toss my slang back at me! >_> )

Just saying that he might want to skip it. If he doesn't want to skip it than be happy that it's in english already.
 

Ramenman

Member
holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

This looked so awesome I had to bump this thread. Seriously.

And that damn song. Wow.
 

ivysaur12

Banned
I expected much worse from the battle system videos. Those crows look like they will be annyong though, but Wii-mote aiming = awesome.
 
Akai said:
I think many are still waiting for a localization announcement, if it ever comes... =(
yep, thats me.

Game looks cool, but I'm not going to get excited about something I will never get to play. Did that for Disaster DoC and Fatal Frame 4 and it makes me bitter.
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
Am I the only that wishes there was no routine combat whatsoever? Maybe boss fights, but it feels weird smacking crows and jellyfish.
 
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