Fantastic RPG “Gran Saga” Japanese online press conference report public first demo impressions and summary of the event “GRAN SAGA”

Ahead of the release, a media-oriented pre-screening event and demo session were held at Akihabara UDX. Here, we will introduce an overview of the event to all players.

Multiplayer can also be played on the MMO-type wilderness map, although the details are still unclear. It is also scheduled to support cross-platform play on smartphones and PCs.

In the production lineup, Yoshitaka Amano was invited for art, Yoko Shimomura was invited for music, and more than 80 voice actors were used for voice, which embodies the concept of “hiring one of ten thousand celebrities in all fields.” From the theme song to the joint PV, the goal is to achieve the highest quality in all aspects.

But if you only look at the motivation mentioned so far, it sounds a bit like empty talk anyway, but like this work was officially launched in South Korea on January 26 this year, it reached 1 million downloads on the day the server opened. “Etc., it has already had practical results.

Besides, as long as you see the image performance, you can fully understand the convincing power of the completion of this work.

In the first theme “Visual Experience”, while conveying the high degree of exquisiteness of the 3D image, it also explains the story and worldview at the same time.

It is in the era dominated by the black dragon Ismail (tentative translation, original text: イスマエル). The 12 knights armed with Gran weapons bestowed by the goddess defeated the black dragon and restored peace to the world. In the Kingdom of Ragnatia (tentative translation, original text: Kingdom of ラグナデア), young people who yearned for the hero “Gran Knights” joined the Order of Knights, spreading across the vast world. The protagonist of the story, the passionate young man Lars (tentative translation, original text: ラス) is also one of them.

On a certain day, he met with the magician Joy (tentative translation, original: キュイ) and his companions on the way to carry out a mission, and encountered a girl who was attacked by a mysterious monster and lost his memory. “. After experiencing the tragedy of his teenage years, Lars, who was raised by the heroes of the Knights, will meet many companions from now on, and will face the truth of his past and the memory of the girl.

The player character is a fixed character headed by Russ (the appearance can be changed), and they will wield the weapon “Gran Weapon” that hosts the hearts of the heroes of the past, “Gran Soul (tentative translation, original: グランソウル)” to fight the enemy. Sometimes it can resonate with the soul and transform into a heroic posture.

The completion of the game screen or video is as you can see, and the entire interface also attaches great importance to the world view and intuition. For example, the illustrations on the back of the book are connected to the story list. These system user interfaces that are easy to flow into inorganic text arrangement also have The exquisiteness of the development team.

An interview with Yoshitaka Amano, who is in charge of art, is also shown in the film.

Yoshitaka Amano also said about this work: “When depicting fantasy art works, I can only draw it when I believe it from the bottom of my heart. I extract the impression of fantasy from my brain and want to share it with everyone. Although the performance has “personal” Interpretation”, but even if there is a gap between performance and reality in interpretation, I would be very happy if I can stimulate your imagination between the two.”

In the second theme “Hearing Experience,” Yoko Shimomura, who is in charge of music, will talk about the most exquisite BGM and environmental sound effects.

As the chief music producer, Yoko Shimomura went to the Czech Republic’s Dvorzak Hall (a facility located in the Rudolf Concert Hall in Prague) in order to compose strong music that fits the thick plot and exquisite graphics, and recorded it there. Live performance by a large symphony orchestra.

The theme song “Life Story (命の物语)” is also composed by Shimomura Yoko, and the singing is performed by KOKIA. I would invite KOKIA because of Shimomura Yoko’s strong expectation that one day I can ask her to sing my song.

In the third theme, “Human Heart Experience,” one of the factors that give the characters a depth of relationship, “Character Voice”, a series of interviews with Kaji Yuki who plays Lars and Akari Akari who plays Celiyad Interviews.

Regarding Russ, Kaji Yuki mentioned that he is a young man who fits the protagonist and has a strong sense of justice. He has worked hard to interpret in order to convey his natural gentleness to the players. Regarding Seliyad, Guitou Mingli said that her performance will make the player feel her fear of losing her memory, but she is not only weak, but also able to see her strong-willed acting skills to perform the interpretation.

She also seems to have a natural side that is worthy of attention, such as the heroine of Big Stomach.

Then Hiroshi Suzuki, the product manager of GAMEPLEX, who runs the game, talked about the gameplay.

This is the “Arena” where the team battle system (タッグバトルシステム) can be used to bring out the characteristics of each playable character. There are more than five guild members in cooperation with the team battle system (タッグバトルシステム). In terms of content, such as “coming battle”, the human gameplay is also a lot of work.

In addition, related game systems will be mentioned later, but the system level such as clothing and mounts, as well as special functions for screenshots, seems to be quite substantial.

Although the film ends here, but in the venue, Hiroshi Suzuki appeared on the stage and conducted a question and response session at this time, so let the author continue to introduce it.

Suzuki Hiroshi (hereinafter referred to as Suzuki):What we pay attention to is that the overall production allows players to easily set goals in the game. In addition, if the game itself is not fun, there is no way for players to continue playing, so we are also pursuing pure fun. We will further strengthen these aspects through follow-up updates after the launch.

──What is the difference between this work and the previous MMORPG or RPG?

──From the perspective of Manager Suzuki, what is the greatest charm of this work?

──Is there any estimate of where the player demographics will fall?

Suzuki:Although this game looks like a very hardcore game, we have imagined many aspects in development to allow people who are not playing games to experience the fun of the story and characters. On this basis, and in order to keep the core players satisfied, we will continue to prepare rich content.

──Will you launch a large-scale battle mode like GvG?

main character

Non-playable characters (not listed in alphabetical order)

The comfort in the first try is amazing

After the end of the screening, a pre-trial session was held before the game was launched.

At the beginning of the game, a battle between the hero “Lyon” who saves the goddess and the black dragon “Ismael” who threatens the world is played through a video. Although it is a very subtle point, there is a (no effect on the progress) in the movie, and clicking on the screen will extract the operation performance of the soul of Gran, which seems very enjoyable.

※ Although there is no operation performance, the content of the video is the same as the prologue video below

The game is a third-person perspective. To operate the character to run on the map, or even fight the enemy, the basic gameplay is exactly the same as the current 3DRPG.

The operation method is to use the virtual joystick to move, and click various buttons to attack or use skills. The attack includes a series of operations that automatically move to the side of the target, but through the use of movement, a non-locking style action operation can be achieved.

Just click on the task list, whether it is a conversation or a crusade, it will automatically proceed, and the battle is also equipped with semi-automatic skill-led and fully automatic skill-casting.

Because of simplicity and no special actions such as jumping or avoiding, the battle is not complicated. In addition, it seems that you want to fight against the “omen” (pre-signal of range attack) in the MMORPG boss battle. It is expected that the offensive and defensive standard action RPG will be launched.

As for the plots experienced one by one through the above battles, please order the author to cut love first, let’s talk about the cultivation aspect first.

First, you can select three of the six main characters to form a team. Since the characters themselves can be re-formed at any time, you can choose at will at the beginning.

Among the character’s equipment, “Gran Weapon” bears attack power, active skills, and weapon appearance, while “Artifact (アーティファクト)” bears blood, defense, and passive skills. These two types of equipment are mainly cards collected through gashapon. In addition, there is also the presence of body armor and accessories.

Although it’s a very subtle point, when you skip the card drawing screen when you draw a 10-game capsule, only the unobtained cards will be transferred to the settlement screen in the state of fold, where it will again arouse the player “what will it be? Which new card is it?” The slight worry about turning over the card is very flattering.

Other content also has a wealth of convenient functions, and it seems that there are so many things that can be done. The progress of the game will not be stuck in the early stage, even if it is used automatically, it can be pushed forward like a bamboo. In the content of the plot department, a large number of bridge segments that occurred in the real world have also been written, and the depth can be imagined.

Since the playing time is not long, although I can’t describe it in detail, what impressed me after the trial is that in addition to the exquisite performance of the screen, the more impactful thing is that “all performances and screen transitions are very smooth. There is no lag” this point. Although the trial model is an iPad Pro with a high-performance device, during the game, in the movie, the system screen and all the performance scenes, such as the lag and processing delay that will damage the game experience, it will bring discomfort. Almost all sources have been ruled out.

Nevertheless, including the screen switching when playing the movie, there is hardly anything to care about in reading, and the game is very smooth from beginning to end. The author thinks that this should not be the advantage of the test environment. This comfort makes me really want to ask developers to inherit it completely to the official version.

“Gran Saga” Press Conference