#r&d1

[randomisedgaming]

Columns - Arcade - 1990 Developer: SEGA R&D1 Publisher: SEGA

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[atlusatlas]

Atlus’s Forgotten PS2 LAN Game Adventure

As with every developer that’s been in the business for a while, Atlus has its fair share of skeletons in the closet in terms of projects that never got off the ground, both in terms of games cancelled after being formally announced and those that not even got past the prototyping stage. Take this little PS2 venture that caused a minor stir when it was rediscovered in 2010 thanks to the above scan posted to the venerable Lost Levels forums. There’s very little to go off of here, but the premise is at least interesting, both in the context of Atlus in 2000 and where console video games were at in general with respect to utilizing networked multiplayer of any variety, local or online.

For a long time, it seems like this piece was the only known English coverage anybody had to go off and as a result, fueled a fair amount of speculation as to what it could’ve possibly been. Cerberus can clearly be seen in the screenshot here, leading people to believe if it was a cancelled game or something that evolved into, say, Shin Megami Tensei: Nine, given that game’s roots as an online game. While there’s at least some logic to these theories, they’re ultimately pretty off the mark. The reality behind this project is ultimately a little more complicated, which is why today I’m going to set out to compile what’ll likely be by default the most exhaustive (but still ultimately sparse) overview possible in English based on original Japanese research, with some details contradicting the contents of the PlayStation Magazine article.

For starters, this project had no formal name, but the photograph you see here from Game Watch Impress’ article at the time shows that, for display purposes, Atlus gave it a sexy title that literally translates to “Network Features Research and Development Piece.” (Japanese: ネットワーク機能研究開発作品, or Network Kinou Kenkyuu Kaihatsu Sakuhin) Developed by Atlus R&D1, Atlus’ primary development arm before it was split across Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and Etrian Odyssey, it was indeed shown off at Tokyo Game Show 2000 Spring, back when the convention was held twice a year in the spring and fall, rather than once yearly in the fall now, and appears to have been playable by both the press and the public.

As the name entails, it was a prototype of sorts designed to test the LAN networking features that the PS2 was capable of. According to that Game Watch Impress article, a total of five consoles were networked together; four of these were dedicated to an individual player each, while the fifth acted as a server that connected the other units together. That fifth PS2 also served as a spectating camera that could see what all of the players were doing as an outside observer and project the action on a separate screen. Like the PlayStation Magazine article mentions, Game Watch Impress was unable to actually see or glean any details about what sort of networking setup was utilized, although as later evidence will indicate, it can be safely assumed that it was indeed running on actual PlayStation 2 hardware, especially given that the show took place soon after the console’s Japanese launch. Unlike what PlayStation Magazine implies, however, a representative explicitly told Game Watch Impress at the time that no concrete decision had been made one way or the other as to whether it would ever be sold as a proper retail game, which obviously never happened.

Gameplay details are sparse, but not wholly unknown. Famitsu, as one might expect, was also present at the show and discussed the prototype very briefly in an online article. To hear them tell it, each player took control of Cerberus as they fought monsters that appeared in the gameplay field. Game Watch Impress’ article also mentions that it was a competitive multiplayer game, which can be surmised from the screenshot in the scan up top. It can pretty readily be guessed that it was a simple game where players competed to defeat the most monsters within a specific time limit.

As for screenshots, I did a lot of digging and could only find one small, but direct feed picture still lying around the Japanese Internet that I found in ASCII’s coverage of the event here. Given the spotty nature of old online Japanese game coverage, I’m posting it below as well for posterity so that it can hopefully be forever preserved.

Japanese press coverage of this tech demo stops here with it seemingly not ever being publicly shown off again. The story doesn’t quite end here, however. While at the time, Atlus’ public explanation for this prototype was that it served as a LAN gameplay test, it actually also served as a different testbed of sorts during Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne’s development. This wasn’t known at the time because the game was in a very nascent stage of development, with Atlus having only announced its foray into PS2 games a few months prior to Tokyo Game Show 2000 Spring. But in a making of documentary for the game contained on a rare DVD by the name of “Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Special DVD: Souzou no Kiseki” (Japanese: 真・女神転生III NOCTURNE SPECIAL DVD ~創造の軌跡~), none other than Katsura Hashino discusses this prototype years after the fact as a quick snippet of footage is shown. I’ve taken the liberty of subtitling the brief segment in question, which you can view below.

Essentially, in addition to testing the PS2′s LAN capabilities, the prototype also served as Atlus’ first real stab at creating polygonal assets for Shin Megami Tensei, not just in terms of how to bring Kazuma Kaneko’s demon artwork to life, but also how to animate it and make it move around in real time before ultimately arriving at the cel shading used in the final game after additional experimentation.

This is the point where the informational well ultimately runs dry for now. Whether development on this prototype proceeded much past the Tokyo Game Show exhibition is unknown, but unlikely. As for whether this demo would go on to impact Shin Megami Tensei: Nine’s development, given its initial announcement as an online Xbox game, is also disputable. Nine itself wasn’t announced in any capacity until August 2001, well after this initial showing of the PS2 prototype. While it’s likely that these experiences in developing a networked game helped inform initial development of Nine, Hashino’s wording here seems to imply that this prototype was squarely used for development work on the PS2 specifically and while Nine actually does appear in this documentary, it doesn’t otherwise get discussed in this context.

While I’m still curious enough myself to keep pursuing this and see if I can track down some sources who might know more about this prototype, as of now, this is quite possibly all that’s publicly known about it. Should I glean any more information, you can bet I’ll update this post accordingly, but in the meantime, hopefully this clears up what’s definitely been one of the more murkier pieces of Atlus development history.

Thanks for reading!

-Pepsi

[egsa]

Circuit Breaker Anniversary - Unbreakable Mug - celebrating the cult puzzle game Circuit Breaker and the spirit of independent gaming,. The 15oz Mug is perfect for the gamer or rebel in all of us.  https://www.zazzle.com/circuit_breaker_anniversary_unbreakable_mug-168184282447577711

[jacksconceptconcoctions]

Wine bottle concepts.

[jacksconceptconcoctions]

Research and Development #1

I spent most of this week, tweaking a few things, to make my story, characters, and world stronger.

I finally settled on a design for Hyacinth, the wife of Niles. I designed her to look a lot like Niles, so that people can automatically recognize that she is his wife. The sharp haircut was chosen to make her look like a spunky person, that likes to live a little bit on the edge. And by live a little on the edge, I mean having a side of onion rings with dinner, instead of french fries.

I also developed some wine bottle designs, that are iconic enough for the film, but don’t district from the main characters. When it comes to the lore of Hyacinth’s favorite bottle of wine, it is simply the wine that Hyacinth and Niles had on one of their many dates. The brand of the wine, can be seen on one of the portraits in the opening scene. 

Speaking of scenes, I started to board one of the scenes, which is available in my Dropbox. Everything is still rough for now, but I wanted to plan out how exaggerated the poses are going to be. My plan is to have really tight boards, so that the animators are not lost about posing, or the action that is being portrayed in the scene.  

That is all of the updates that I have for this week. Since the story, world, and characters were working from the last pitch, I am just planning on refining all the material, to make it digestible for a five minute pitch.

[nteamhero]

Metroid Prime vs Other M instead of Metroid series vs. Other M

I just figured out why there was such a negative backlash for Metroid Other M. Most of the criticism for Other M seems to be more focused on "Metroid Prime vs. Other M" than "The Metroid Series vs. Other M".

While Metroid Other M has its flaws, its generally a good game, and I walked away enjoying it more than most recent games in my other favorite series at the time of its release. I was also introduced to the series briefly with Metroid 1 on the NES, and later with the release of Super Metroid on the SNES in 1994.

After an 8-9 year gap since Super Metroid, with only Smash Bros. to keep up Samus' popularity, the series was restarted with Metroid Fusion while Metroid Prime was a first person adventure by a western studio. If we had gone 8 years since Super Metroid with no Prime series and only Fusion and Zero Mission with Other M following later, the fanbase reaction would have been different.

There are many players who are attached to the Metroid Prime series that is essentially a side story to the original series (and the story was basically finished with Super Metroid). The fan base expanded with new players coming in to the series with the first person adventure Metroid Prime instead of Super Metroid in the past, and the expectations were different. This is the feeling I'm constantly getting from reading forum posts. Prime fans will complain that the story from Retro's games weren't taken into account in Other M and Samus' portrayal is wrong, while the fans that actually liked Other M have experience with previous and older 2D Metroid games that Other M's creative staff is derived from.

So my point is if the Metroid series had gone from Super Metroid directly to Metroid Other M, there'd still be criticism over over too much story or linearity, but it would have been more well received because its more inline with the aesthetics of the first 3 games while evolving Metroid as an action game.

[metroide]

o começo, o jogo que veio 'do nada' para ser um dos maiores clássicos de todos os tempos

tudo começou basicamente com a Nintendo, seu console, o NES (Nintendo Entertainment System, ou Famicon, no caso do japão) estava indo muito bem, graças ao sucesso do grande Shigeru Miyamoto, famoso criador de jogos emblemáticos como ‘Super Mario Bros.’ e ‘The Legend of Zelda’ mas uma parte da empresa, a R&D1, queria inovar, fazer algo novo, algo mais sombrio, então surgiu METROID.

bem, vamos falar um pouco (talvez mais que isso) sobre o jogo, então aqui vão alguns fatos e curiosidades:

Samus Aran (nome da personagem principal) é uma caçadora de recompensas e seu nome ‘aran’ é inspirado no nome do Pelé: Arantes (isso mesmo); devido a um dos membros que trabalhavam no projeto do jogo ser grande fã de futebol

Metroid veio de uma junção de duas palavras: metro e droid (android), metro porque o clima, o visual e a velocidade do jogo lembrava a cidade metro e android porque a Samus parecia um, o nome acabou ‘pegando’ e se tornou oficialmente Metroid.