Lost Planet

I trust you’ve already read Part 1 of my interview with game designers Tomoyuki Hosokawa and Kazuhiro Hikida (with Director Kenji Oguro sitting in).

In Part 2 we jump into the anchor, the addition of the melee attack, and design of the Vital Suits.

[Brian] Moving on to some Lost Planet gameplay design topics, why was the anchor put in the game? Were there any challenges you faced with implementing that into the game?

Click to read the rest of Part 2 of the interview.

[More:]

[Hikida] Lots of shooters have pretty limited vertical high/low mobility. But with the inclusion of the anchor, we were able to allow the player a lot more freedom on the vertical axis on top of horizontal. Thats one reason we introduced the anchor.

Also, the Vital Suits can jump pretty high, some very high. But we had to make sure that you can still progress through the game when youre on foot without a Vital Suit, like if yours gets destroyed. We couldnt give the human character super-human jump capabilities to match those of the Vital Suits, so the anchor solves that problem of insuring a player can still go on foot.

[Hosokawa] If you want to restrict a player from going somewhere, you just throw a wall up and thats it. What I focused a lot on was putting in things that made the journey and the view up to where you reach those walls satisfying.

The stages arent about looking up at the view so much as they are about looking down from above. Thats how I designed them. That kind of view, looking down on everything, is the most satisfying. Its like standing at the foot of Tokyo Tower and looking up, versus climbing to the top of it and looking down.

When I was a kid, when I would play outside with my friends, the best part was climbing up high and taking in the view. Were always looking up at things, but theres something special about looking down on the world from above. And thats something we wanted to recreate in Lost Planet.

[Oguro] Having the anchor and allowing the player to move around not just on the horizontal plane, but the vertical plane as well, thats one of the things that makes it a true 3D game.

[Brian] After the single-player demo released in May, you added a Melee attack to the game. What was the reasoning behind that?

[Hikida] The biggest reason we added the melee attack is because of the overwhelming feedback we received asking for it.

This was of course in May, and normally its unthinkable to add something like that so late in the development cycle. The reason we didnt have one in to begin with is because we wanted to concentrate on the shooting and action aspect of the game. But we didnt want to let the fans down.

Some people are saying that they think the melee is too weak. We thought about making it stronger, but didnt because we didnt want people to rely on the melee attack to kill enemies. The game is purely about the shooting, and we didnt want to take away from that. So its there as sort of a bonus add-on.

[Hikida] By the way, you can perform a melee attack with all of the human and Vital Suit weapons (when carried on foot). We gave them their own animations.

[Brian] The Vital Suits are one of Lost Planets more unique features. How do Vital Suits fit into the game?

[Hosokawa] Japanese people love robots, but the whole robot-loving culture isnt there in the West. Its pretty unique to Japan for some reason.

[Oguro] Actually, the game started off with everything being VSes, with no running around on foot. You just fought enemies using Vital Suits through the whole game. So the game underwent a big change when we decided to allow players to trek it on foot. Vital Suits are still a major, major focus.

To put it another way, in Resident Evil its possible to beat the game using only the knife. Its like a special achievement to do that. In terms of Lost Planet, beating the game without using the super powerful Vital Suits is like beating Resident Evil with only the knife.

Personally I find playing the game without Vital Suits a lot more fun. Its more challenging that way.

[Hikida] I think of the Vital Suits as another kind of weapon available to the player. In multiplayer, grabbing a Vital Suit early on gives you a bit of advantage. If youre playing teams, having multiple Vital Suits can give you a lot more firepower. But the game is balanced in such a way that its not merely about gaming skills. Smart players who know the maps, know where to grab the weapons and the VS, have a chance even if they arent super-skilled at the game. The Vital Suits balance that out. So the game is balanced in such a way that the Vital Suits throw off the balance a bit to even the playing field a bit.

[Brian] How else do the Vital Suits affect the game balance?

[Oguro] Well, when youre on foot youre small and hard to spot. Vital Suits give you brute strength, but theyre big so they stand out as easy targets. People playing the demo now might see the Vital Suits as giving an advantage because theyre so powerful. But once you get used to the game, your thinking changes. If youre good enough, you can be on foot and take down a Vital Suit. Its fun and really gives you a great sense of accomplishment. Theyre not so over-powering that you have no chance against them. I want people to have fun figuring out tactics to take them down.

[Hikida] Also, when using just the guns, if you get the drop on another player or youre better at aiming, youll probably win the fight. But even if youre not that good at aiming, you can compensate for that with the sheer firepower of a Vital Suit.

[Brian] What can you tell me about the different Vital Suit designs in the game?

[Hikida] There are 6 base models, with 22 models in all when you include all the variations and boss versions.

[Hosokawa] And each individual Vital Suit has its own unique characteristics. Rather than having a walking robot, a flying robot, and a sliding or skating robot, with just one unique thing each, we gave different models multiple characteristics to give the players more ways to play. So maybe a sliding robot can also fly.

You can also switch out the weapons on Vital Suits. Take the GTF-11 model, for example. You can attach a homing laser to give it some serious firepower, or equip the Gatling Gun for continuous fire.

…

Jump to Part 3 for the weapons and the conclusion of the interview!
Or jump to Part 1 to see how the interview started.



—Brian