News: Another Century’s Episode R Screenshots
Posted on : 08-04-2010 | By : Cacophanus | In : News
Hardware: PlayStation 3
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Over at Famitsu they have uploaded lots of very nice screenshots for the upcoming From Software developed and Banpresto published Another Century’s Episode R. There have also already been a fair few blog posts by Banpresto producer Terada-san about the game, with some of these being misinterpreted rather negatively.
It’s clear that ACER is in a similar position to the original ACE, where the line-up of mecha is quite focused so as to allow the development of the engine and other code tasks to have a chance to work out (as this is the first time the series has graced the PS3, so an all new code base would obviously be required). Bear in mind though that ACE featured a total of 9 series initially and ACER goes all the way up to 11 (ACE2 had 14 series and ACE3 had 17 in total in case you’re wondering).
That said, the screenshots thus far look absolutely bloody fantastic. The game is apparently around 70% complete too and a Summer release is planned for it.
It’s looking to be something really grand, especially since I hadn’t expected the series to come to the PS3 for a while, if at all. I didn’t really believe that The Final subtitle, because profits can force any series to keep going. Here’s hoping the combined story is a bit better than ACE 3, and that the original elements are on par with or better than the previous games (Long live the Gunark).
Summer release, thats alot earlier than I thought, damn looks like I might have to find some money out of nowhere to get it.
Game looks great already, I guess this will be the first of a new trilogy on ps3, I guess in that sense it explains the low roster.
I’m interested in how they’re going to handle the Aquarion; it has a bunch of different pilots and different configurations, which were sometimes changed mid-battle in the series, and I’m curious to see whether you’ll be able to change through all those forms on the fly, or if you’ll end up having to launch each variation individually as a separate unit.
I’m not much of a fan of Aquarion, but it looks like its inclusion could potentially lead to some very interesting game mechanics.
Aquarion is a swap out, functionally speaking, for Shin Getter Robo from ACE3. That worked semi-decently but was far too slow to be all that practical to be honest.
As for the low roster, not sure I agree really. As this is a reboot in terms of tech and it still has more series than the original ACE did back in 2005.
I think the “low roster” is just a mental mirage. My eyes look for Turn A Gundam, Layzner, Black Serena or Gundam X, doesn’t see them, and my eyes tell me there is a grand total of zero series in this game.
Still, the roster as they have it right now, while it might lack my favorites, does have a number of mecha that might work in interesting ways in terms of game mechanics, and I’d rather see something new than something that’s merely a rehash of the first three games, only with better graphics.
I said low roster obviously comparing it to ACE3 which is the last game, you can argue that it was the 3rd game and therefore it should have more punch so to say, but this is the ps3 and its a beast of a machine, Id expect it atleast to have the same or close number to ACE3.
It will be interesting to see how the new Gundam Vs game is handled, will they also drop the roster from what we saw in Next or will it be roughly the same? time will tell, Im still shocked 00 or Unicorn are not in there as they are the hotest Mecha series right now, Certainly in Gundams case and would have had a large increase in sales if they were in the game.
Although saying all that, we cant rule out DLC just yet, its a different ball game in Video Games these days.
I find it hard that they threw out all the stuff they learned from making the other 3 games, if anything they will build on what they already have rather than completely starting again, looking at some of the screen shots is already indicating this.
Looks really really good, I only wish it had online play, but thats a minor quibble.