Posted by Jereme Puik

GamePlasma's Jereme Puik had an interview with Jake DiGennaro from TopWare Interactive, one of the developers of X-Blades, at this year's New York Comic Con. Read on for the full interview.

So, X-Blades; what can you tell me about how the game has been going so far? 

Jake: It’s been going really well, it’s getting closer and closer to launch and gotten a little more publicity. Obviously, it’s a smaller title in regards to the publicity it gets. It’s not the kind of the game that’s going to break any barriers, or be a groundbreaking game, but the way its designed is its designed to be a fun experience that has a lot of visual stimulus, is quick, with pulling the player to the action, pulling them to the pace of the game and one of the things it does do really well, especially for a hack n’ slash is to give a continuous sense of progression and speed so that the player can constantly feel they're in the action. There are very few times where you’re pulled out at all, where the game slows down or where there are a couple of puzzles here and there. But, most of the time you’re in the thick of the action.

 

What can you tell us about the background of the game? 

Jake: This game was designed with a major influence from anime/manga, Gaijin Entertainment, a Russian team that are known for the I02 franchise for the flight simulator, got simulator of the year about 2 years ago, Stormhawk was another. A couple of years ago after they finished one of their sim games, they wanted to do something fun and they came up with this concept for X-Blades. The team was really big anime/manga fans, so they bought something that they could enjoy and work on. Not only with the influence like that they wanted the old school feel as well like Speed-racer-Esq., the cheesy over-the-top anime, so that’s why Ayumi is the way she is. Artistically what they did was take a Russian model and made her into an anime character. 

There seems to be a lot of attention based on the look of the game, can you comment on that? 

Jake: Obviously we’ve gotten a lot of attention based on the graphics, there’s different armor sets in the beginning of the game. The one’s everyone familiar with from the box art, there’s one where she’s wearing an outfit and there’s one where she’s actually wearing pieces of armor. It’s a portion of choice where you don’t have to look at the g-string the entire game. 

Is X-Blades more than just a RPG?

Jake: Absolutely, first, it’s an action-adventure game that brings in RPG elements to it and gives you a sense of accomplishment and progression, with a sense of growth. It doesn’t turn into a stale hack n’ slash like others have turned into over the years. The difference between the beginning of the game and end of the game is very mi-mute. We really tried to give it a sense of longevity with 7 different kinds of spells, 8 different gun abilities; you have augmented earth with regeneration, the extended special form falls along that nature. As you can see there’s collectibles throughout the game.  Not only do you advance through RPG elements by accumulation of experience but you always uncover items. I always compare it to the Phoenix menus from that of God of War, the difference though as to increasing your magic pool you also increase your combat abilities. There’s three different pieces, an air one, a gun one, and a melee and you unlock different abilities for standard combat. So, it’s expandable and completely up to the player. You can go through the game without picking up a single one, or you can take the time break the boxes and go through the levels. 

What can you tell us about the combat aspects of the game? 

Jake: To bring the aspects of combat to the game together you have your typical melee weapons, gun mechanics and magic attacks. We’ve taken a lot of time to make sure that they work together as one cohesive system as opposed to operating independently of each other which a lot of hack n’ slash titles have a tendency to do. There’s the melee element, the magic element, and it’s different. Very rarely in hack an’ slash games do you “slash, slash, slash” and then do you finish with some sort of magic attack or slash and break away, shoot and come back in. So, there’s a differentiation, like you sit back and shoot or run up and melee or use the powerful spells. 

How about the spell system? 

Jake: With regards to the spells, of all the time you are taking time to acquire these spells and build up their power and you never get a chance to use them when you really want too. In my opinion, I want to use the abilities instead of spending all this time accumulating and just tear through waves and waves of guys. What ends up happening is you have a magic pool that you only have so much magic, so you have a tendency to save it, wait for that big moment. In this game we went away from the magic pool system and used the Rage system which is starting to show itself in more and more games nowadays. And the idea behind is that through melee or gun mechanic by engaging in combat in that nature do you build that rage bar and then you expend rage and use magical abilities to use special gun mechanics, so basically, engaging in combat you build up magic and use that magic at the end of your combos or as a crowd control ability, and to augment your swords or spells. So, all the gameplay mechanics roll into one. 

How about that controller layout? 

Jake: With the controller layout we really tried to map each gameplay mechanic with all the buttons. There’s a level of simplicity behind the idea. For example, for magic a lot of hack n’ slash games in the past, the L trigger pulls up a sub menu for instance where you pull your magic from, and so it’s not equipped right away. So, essentially what we did with the game was there’s 4 mini-map spells that you can change at any point in time. You can change anything with the press of the back button and launch a spell quick. You don’t have to map it to your hot buttons before you use it. For example, I’m fighting an ice element and I want to use fire blades, I can use the back button if I have the rage activate it for use in the battle. You can change it on the fly, so at any given point, hit the back button it brings up the menu and choose which one you want to buy and it’s automatically equipped and throws you right back into combat. Before choosing you can either “Use”, if you want to use just once or “Equip” for permanent use.  

Do the unlockables coincide with any achievements/trophies? 

Jake: The list of trophies is readily available online so anyone can take a look at those. It’s the standard volume for Xbox 360 it’s 1,000 pts, obviously some of them will be very simple while other ones are more difficult and there’s a couple of them that are quite difficult. We’re not talking Call of Duty 4, the minute run of death kind of thing. But you know, there are ones that are going to provide some challenge and add longevity to those players that really seek after them and unlock all the different achievements. You do want that sense of challenge; it’s not like Disney’s Cars the video game where you can get 1,000 achievement points in 15 mins. The trophies are the same way and centered along the side of the achievements. 

What can you tell us about the background of the game? 

Jake: This game was designed with a major influence from anime/manga, Gaijin Entertainment, a Russian team that are known for the I02 franchise for the flight simulator, got simulator of the year about 2 years ago, Stormhawk was another. A couple of years ago after they finished one of their sim games, they wanted to do something fun and they came up with this concept for X-Blades. The team was really big anime/manga fans, so they bought something that they could enjoy and work on. Not only with the influence like that they wanted the old school feel as well like Speed-racer-Esq., the cheesy over-the-top anime, so that’s why Ayumi is the way she is. Artistically what they did was take a Russian model and made her into an anime character. Obviously we’ve gotten a lot of attention based on the graphics, there’s different armor sets in the beginning of the game. The one’s everyone familiar with from the box art, there’s one where she’s wearing an outfit and there’s one where she’s actually wearing pieces of armor. It’s a portion of choice where you don’t have to look at the g-string the entire game. 

Does the story follow along side the anime/manga? 

Jake: It does but it’s also more on its own. It does have a familiar story element to it. You know, cute girl, treasure hunter, beats up monsters, gets these long lost treasures, sells them for profit; stumbles across long lost map, goes to ruins to remove curse and it goes from there. It kind of extrapolates a little bit, but it’s a very old school, not cliché but very expected kind of a formula with the anime. 

Are there any details about multiplayer?

Jake: There isn’t in this game and the reason was that Gajin originally released it in Russia. It’s changed very significantly since we picked it up for them. We made a lot of improvements to the engine, fixed framerate issues because there was a lot of blur they were trying to put into view which hinders what the player is seeing on the screen. So, we really did get the chance to make the game that they originally set out to make. Add lot of depth, a lot of levels. The original didn’t include multiplayer and we thought extensively about adding a sense of co-oping or versus mode, but it’s kind of like when Bioshock came out, it’s always been about the single-player experience. For years and years some of the greatest stories came from that single player experience. I love multiplayer games but for some it’s just not meant for it. For this iteration of this type of game it’s not meant for it and it wasn’t designed for it. 

How about the gameplay length? 

Jake: The original concept was to make a fun in-depth game that lasts about 8-10 hours and bring the player in. 

Any details about future content about the game or sequels? 

Jake: We’re already beginning concept work on X-Blades 2 and one of the things we’re considering right off the bat, is to incorporate some sort of multiplayer or a sort of co-operative play. So, in it’s iteration as of now for X-Blades, there isn’t any plans to release any sort of expansion or things of that nature. There are plans to release downloadable content a couple of months down the road for players that finish it and are looking for more. Right now we’re looking to do around 8-15 new levels of the game based on the 8-10 hours of gameplay adding it up to 45 levels.

 

Will the downloadable content affect the story at all? 

Jake: Yea, it will further the storyline. In its current form there are 2 alternate endings depending on the decisions the player makes throughout the game. So, it does have a bit of replayability, different cinematic ending and there are obviously achievements related to that for players that want to go back.