Nachdem nun seit einer Woche die Demo zu Naruto: The Broken Bond auf dem Xbox Live Marktplatz erhältlich ist, gibt es auch wieder neues Bildmaterial. Der erste Teil des Anime-Abenteuers hat schon viele Freunde auf der Xbox 360 gefunden, so veröffentlich Ubisoft am 20. November den Nachfolger von Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, Xbox 360 exklusiv. Wir haben hier ein neues Entwicklertagebuch in Form eines Videos sowie zwei Q&As mit den Entwicklern und neue Screenshots. Alle News zum Spiel findet ihr hier: Naruto: The Broken Bond

Das Video: http://ubitv.de.ubi.com/index.php?vid=254

Q&As - Game Design

Interview with Alexandre Breault:

Q. How many characters are playable in the story mode and who are they?
A. You can control 11 different characters in the story mode. Those characters include Naruto (of course), Sasuke, Sakura, Neji, Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba. For the rest, you will have to find out by playing the game.

Q. Why did you choose to have multiple playable characters in the story mode?
A. We decided to focus on team work because that's an important part of the Naruto universe. The reason why we included team mates is that it is a good way to convey the feeling of being part of a Ninja squad. Also, it allows us to put more emphasis on the importance of friendship between Naruto and the other ninja and how they are stronger because they care for each other.

Q. How do the sidekicks help Naruto in his missions?
A. They will help in different ways. In the exploration part, each character has two jutsu which they can use to help Naruto overcome obstacles and evade traps. They will be able to combine those powers together in order to overcome more difficult obstacles. Other situations require the team to split up and carry out specific tasks in more puzzle-like gameplay. And there is obviously the fight aspect: team mates are able to tag into the fight to help Naruto while he battles enemy ninja. Being with team mates also give an extra edge to the player because he will also be able to unleash devastating co-op attacks.

Q. Will it be easy to control all the characters at the same time?

A. We worked really hard to make sure the team mates will never slow players down as they progress in the game. The first step through this was in designing and developing their navigation behavior. Our AI team did a great job in developing the path-finding of the team mates so they never have a problem following the player around. As to switching control between the characters in your team, we wanted to make it as accessible as possible. Players can select the ninja they want to control simply by pressing the correct direction on the d-pad.

 

Interview with Nicolas Monteilhet-Labossière:

Q. What are the main improvements that have been made to the combat system?
A. The great thing about having an online community is the possibility to get feedback and see what the frustrating problems are, as well as discovering new ideas to explore. We analyzed the Rise of a Ninja fight system when it hit the shelves and found three main aspects which needed to be improved.

The first aspect would be the lack of possible defensive action when the player is attacked in the air. After a while, everyone knew that at the moment you were sent up in the air, you would get slammed down to the ground, which gave your opponent enough time to do a jutsu and it was abused.

The second aspect was the overall speed of the dodges and the reversal attacks. Those two moves were done over and over again by players and gave players the ability to simply dodge attacks and just circle around their opponents to get the better attack opportunity.

The third major factor was the unequal use of the substitution per character. The amount of chakra some characters needed to have to execute a substitution would differ too much and be a huge advantage to some (ex: Haku) and a drawback to others (ex: Naruto). Mixed with the fact that the substitution was easy to pull off, it gave dominance to some characters.

So we mainly focused on fixing those issues with NarutoTM: The Broken Bond, which results in an aerial fight layer to give players new ways of attacking and defending in the air, re-calibration of the substitution to make it a bit more difficult and a more strategic move than a button mashing fest. On top of that, we decided to add a 2 vs 2 battle system with special co-op attacks in order to get the feeling of being part of a team with your friend just like in the anime.

Q. How many characters are playable in the fight mode? Who are the new characters?
A. Overall in the game, we have 30 characters, including the cast we had in Naruto: Rise of a Ninja plus all the newcomers that we encounter in the story mode of the game. All the characters we have are the characters fans expect to encounter in the series from episode 80 to 135. As to who they are, we don't want to spoil anything but let's just say that Orochimaru has some backup from the Sound village that will come and help him. We also have some nice secret characters that will show up near the end of the game, and even one variation of everyone's favorite ninja that was never seen in the anime!

Q. What are the key features of the online fight mode?
A. The main feature we are proud of for our online mode is the possibility to play 2 vs 2 via Xbox LIVE. We also found ways to promote teamwork in the fight mechanics online, so you will need to make sure to work with your friend to win the match.

Quelle: Ubisoft