News: ACE R Game System Update
Posted on : 28-05-2010 | By : Cacophanus | In : News
Hardware: PlayStation 3
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The official site for Another Century’s Episode R has finally been updated with details on the game’s new game system. Apart from the relatively familiar “Tension” setup, which fires off a series specific special move (similar to the Combination Attacks in the last two ACE games), there’s also talk of new Charge Attacks. What’s most interesting though is the new “Chase Mode”. This will act as a point of interest camera angle for certain events and bosses in the game. This is so you don’t miss the full picture of what’s happening around you, something that partially happened with the earlier games as you were always locked onto specific enemies. Admittedly, you’ll still have the free look function but this sounds like a pretty cool addition. Finally, ACE R will also allow players to swap out pilots per unit, much like in the SRW games. That said having Kincaide Nau pilot the Hyakushiki seems a bit…odd.
It could be worse–it could be Beecha from ZZ Gundam piloting the Hyaku Shiki.
I’m a bit thrown off by the pilot switch. Is it just a cosmetic change when you decide to have, say, Amuro piloting the X1, or does he add some kind of new abilities?
Its nice to have the ability to do this, but still, seems kind of pointless. I do like the other new features, though. Gives the combat a more dramatic feel.
I feel like the free pilot thing is just a case of “because we can” though I wouldn’t be surprised if a pilot ends up being better in a unit other than their own.
The pilot change could also be there to even out issues with game balance that might arise because of fanboyish tendencies–with different generations of Macross variable fighters, it would be hard to keep the old VF-0 in use if the player was dead set on using Macross Zero’s characters once the Macross Frontier VF-25s were unlocked. With the pilot change system, the fanboy wouldn’t have to choose between the character they like in a gimped mecha or a character they dislike in something competitive.
Trying to balance the VF-0 and the VF-25 would be extremely awkward, because unlike a few of Universal Century Gundam’s mobile suit generations, the difference between the VF-0 and the VF-25 is just a straight line going upwards as technology improved.
You can get around the issue somewhat in Gundam in that Z Gundam, Char’s Counterattack, and Crossbone Gundam’s eras all had differences in weapon philosophy (transforming robots, heavy firepower/Newtype controlled funnel-using mobile suits, and smaller scale mecha respectively), which gives you a bit of wriggle room as far as game balancing while sticking to canon is concerned, but it would hard to justify the VF-0 being able to compete with the VF-25, just as early Cold War fighter planes would have difficulty fighting against newer models; the shape and idea is largely the same, but the technology of the later models just makes them all around better machines.
If the VF-1’s and the 30-year ahead YF prototypes went along fine in ACE3, I don’t see how the 50-year ahead Messiah could pose any problems to balance.