Video: Armored Core V Revision Footage
Posted on : 17-06-2012 | By : Cacophanus | In : Videos
Hardware: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
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We’ve been out of the country for the past few days, so updates to this glorious site have been delayed somewhat. Please accept our apologies on that front. Anyway, the recent Revision live stream for Armored Core V was archived pretty recently. The event was a pretty interesting one as it acted as a sort of post-mortem and general update on how the game has done (in Japan obviously). Unsurprisingly, From Software have been pretty on it in regards to listening to players and subsequently balancing the game further. Something that’s been pretty integral to the game, as the Official Partnership forum is actually linked into player’s profiles in game too. Sadly, Namco Bandai have been handling the Western release and they really haven’t been anywhere near as diligent. In any case, they covered a lot of ground in this session and even showed off a new toy prototype (shown above), that of Chief’s AC (with Giga Cannon no less).
Somewhat related, Namco Bandai did finally decided to do a soft patch to the game in the US and Europe a few days ago. This brings the stats up to the 1.02 patch in Japan, which hit in February. This patch also contains the slightly overpowered pulse machineguns, something the Revision live stream referenced when they went through all the patch changes. Unlike the Japanese version though, this seems to be a server side hack of sorts (rather than a proper patch). This means that if the dedicated servers are shutdown in the future (like with Chrome Hounds) we’d regress to the original 1.01 stats, with all the hellish nonsense surrounding gats, shotguns and heavy reverse joint legs. Hopefully, now that Namco Bandai have decided to get involved more, we’ll actually have some decent patch updates in the future. Especially as the Japanese version is on version 1.04 by now.
Anyway, we’ve embedded the full live stream archive below and it has some pretty nice shots of how they built the CG movies too.
Hmmm…Bandai seems to be pushing ACV figures yet we’ve haven’t seen anything from Kotobukiya yet on model kits.I truly hope if Bandai has the only rights to ACV they’ll eventually start making kits themselves.
On the point of the Western release debacle I think both sides dropped the ball.None of the back end support like the Official Partnership was ever ported over by Bamco and From Software never translated the multiple live streams they used to hype the game in a manner I’ve never seen them do before OR push Bamco to improve quality control of their own product.In situations like these transparency is valued yet I haven’t seen From Software say much beyond an engrish facebook post telling people to take it up with Bamco.
From Software aren’t responsible for the Western releases. That’s what happens when you sign a publishing agreement. Whilst they publish the games in Japan directly, in terms of the Western releases they are simply the developer. The full responsibility for the game’s issues in the West purely rests upon Bandai Namco’s shoulders.
This is quite true.With this in mind it raises two questions.
1.What were the terms of this deal to begin with?
2.Why is From Software so nonchalant about this?
1.It seems rather odd even for Bamco to act with such malaise towards a game within their care with such issues.Unless they never truly had to care to begin with.From Software never really had a connection to the western fanbase, could it be the deal was struck with the understanding that back end support like the Official Partnership and large scale patches were unnecessary,did From underestimate international interest?
2. While things may be out of From’s hands the least the could do is sound concerned about it. Their one sentence apology was them effectively shrugging they’re shoulders and saying “its not our problem”.ACV fans probably wouldn’t feel as jipped if From Software seemed more sympathetic to there issues whether they could do something about it or not.Its their game after all.
In short, the apparent lack of support and From’s apparent disinterest seem odd.Could this have all been the result of an intentional decision?
From experience of having worked in both publishing and development, it’s very likely that From Software were cut out of the Western side of things entirely. They’re only connection to the game would be the royalties they might get and even then that’s not always guaranteed (eg – Activision).
Whether From Software are angry or nonchalant is not really the issue here. They have no control of the game outside of Japan.