After over 12 years in
development, Nioh plays like a compilation of every hack - and - slash RPG since the early 2000s, and while it's almost tempting to write off
most of the gameplay as being derivative of From Software's recent action RPGs, like Bloodborne and the Dark Souls franchise, there's so much more to the
game than that.
- for Sonic's 25th anniversary last year, Iizuka received a task to deliver some sort of product - the target was «dormant fans» who used to play the SEGA Genesis, but haven't really played any
games since - Iizuka met Christian Whitehead, which lead to the creation of Sonic Mania - there was talk of another port, but Iizuka thought fans would desire something new from the old
games - this is the first time Iizuka partnered with a team of devs spread across various countries - Iizuka said this team had a greater passion to create - this was in comparison to companies that set decisions on a pre-determined schedule (in meetings, etc)- the team had so many features they still wanted to add after the beta version was complete - since there were only a few spots with text that needed to be localized, they could bring the
game to more places quicker - the
game has Japanese, English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish support - the Studiopolis stage is included due to receiving the
most requests from the Sonic Mania
development team - Iizuka actually considered reducing the amount of stages at one point in order to meet the
development schedule - Sonic Mania doesn't really have much in the way of cut content like scrapped stages - since Sonic Mania was only distributed digitally, the team was able to continue working very close leading up to launch - this let them put in practically all ideas, and there are currently no plans for DLC - Iizuka recommended Flying Battery Zone for inclusion becaues he likes the music - he also likes when the player goes inside and outside the ship - Iizuka likes Mirage Saloon because the stage structure will be different depending on the player character chosen - Puyo Puyo gameplay was added because there was a Puyo Puyo
game released in the west for the SEGA Genesis - this
game was originally called «Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine», and the team thought it would make a fun boss battle - Iizuka didn't have plans to feature Blue Sphere in the special stages - the Blue Sphere special stages were brought over to Mania as a test, but ended up staying for the final
game - the team felt the need to continuously connect stages from various eras, which is doe with the Phantom Ruby story - for Sonic Mania, it was decided that the technological limit would be set at SEGA CD, - this is higher
than the Genesis but lower
than Saturn - in creating a SEGA CD - grade special stage, they would intentionally make SEGA CD - grade polygons
This year's conference promises more
than 1500 + attendees from 600 + international companies representing an intriguing mix of big established
game development studios as well as 100 + indie studios, countless representatives of investors and publishers as well as
most of the key tech companies from the
game industry.