Famitsu recently interviewed folks from Bandai Namco and Monolith Soft about their forthcoming franchise crossover strategy RPG Project X Zone 2: Brave New World, the sequel to 2012’s Project X Zone. For those not in the know, Project X Zone — released in the west in 2013 — is a game that teams up characters from franchises published by Capcom, Bandai Namco and SEGA. The gameplay is grid based and focuses on utilizing your characters’ abilities to perform devastating combination attacks against enemies. The fan service is strong with this one and the game has been mostly well received. Fans were vocal with their suggestions about how to improve the game for a sequel and Bandai Namco paid attention.
In the Famitsu interview, producer Kensuke Tsukanaka, director Ichiro Morizumi and development producer Koji Ishitani dished on some of their hopes for the sequel as well as responding to the fans’ requests for changes and enhancements to the systems. One area where the fans wanted more detail was on the stories of some of the companion characters. Morizumi acknowledged that the first game’s plot moved quickly and environments changed too frequently to allow for a greater degree of narrative decompression but they’re putting an emphasis on slowing things down for the sequel in order to give the plot and character arcs breathing room.
Morizumi also expounded on the number of characters and franchises that would be utilized in the game. He stated that while the IPs in question won’t change much, you will see some surprise characters that players might not have predicted. He hopes that fans will respond positively to the unexpected appearances.
Players also suggested how to change the gameplay itself and ways in which the battles could be adjusted, such as with the number of enemies in a given encounter and a deeper leveling system that allowed for more nuance and customization. Ishitani said that such feedback is helping them understand what the fans want and they are implementing changes that they think will not only improve the existing gameplay but will also give players plenty of new features to experience. Additionally he said that they would clean up the graphics a bit so the actions and animations were easier to see.
Project X Zone 2: Brave New World will be available worldwide for Nintendo 3DS in Fall 2015, but no firm release date has been announced yet.
