Throughout this yr’s BitSummit occasion, I interviewed three of the unique builders behind the Chibi-Robo collection, together with composer Hirofumi Taniguchi.
I requested Taniguchi how he was approaching the composition of his soundtrack for koROBO, the crew’s new robotic sport that undoubtedly, truthfully has nothing to do with Chibi-Robo.
Taniguchi instructed me that though music expertise had improved within the almost 20 years since Chibi-Robo, and though his personal skills as a musician had developed, he intentionally determined to pare again the koROBO soundtrack and supply one thing less complicated and gentler.
“Typically easy is best,” he mentioned. And I instantly considered Sonokuni.
It definitely wasn’t the primary time I had considered Sonokuni since I’d performed it on the primary day of BitSummit, and it was to be removed from the final. Though at first look, the sport might not seem significantly groundbreaking, it’s been on my thoughts for the reason that pay session ended.
Sonokuni is revealed by Kakehashi Video games, however it’s the developer that’s the true story right here. Don Yasa Crew is a Japanese hip-hop outfit that’s extra used to dropping new beats than new builds, however Sonokuni is its try at making a online game that makes use of its music.
I briefly spoke to Don Sagawa, who was representing the crew at BitSummit, who instructed me the sport was initially impressed by Hotline Miami, and the top-down viewpoint makes that fairly clear. It doesn’t play the identical, nonetheless.
The principle precept of Sonokuni seems to be trial and error, as gamers be taught one of the best ways to clear every space. The part we performed consisted of a giant map stuffed with small rooms, every containing numerous enemies. When you enter a room, the door to the following one can’t be accessed till each enemy is defeated.
Your primary sword slash is sufficient to kill most enemies with one hit, however they don’t all simply stand there and offer you a free shot. Each enemy needs to be crushed utilizing a special approach, and you’ve got a couple of different methods up your sleeve to take care of them.
Some enemies must be killed inside a sure time, or they’ll immediately kill you with an ideal shot, so these are the precedence. Standing in the way in which could also be customary enemies who can simply be slashed, or inexperienced enemies who sprint at you at lightning velocity. These are prevented by holding down a set off to briefly decelerate time, permitting you to sidestep them then hit them whereas they get well.
Then there are enemies who fireplace blue pictures at you, which must be absorbed by your defend earlier than you possibly can method. Others pink pictures at you – in case you method them they’ll block your sword and kill you each time, so you need to use the sword to hit their pink pictures again at them to kill them.
It’s nothing revolutionary, however if you enter a room and there are one thing like seven or eight enemies, all of a mixture of these varieties, you’ll get worn out nearly immediately. It’s an excessive amount of to deal with unexpectedly.
Then you definitely cease and assume. “Properly, after I enter the room, the traditional enemy comes at me, so I’ll take him out first”. So that you try this, and as you do, a kind of quick inexperienced ones zips over to you and kills you.
So that you attempt once more, killing the traditional enemy, then shortly hitting slo-mo to side-step the inexperienced one. However as you chase him down whereas he’s shocked, you’re hit by a blue bullet. So now it’s good to take all this under consideration.
Lastly, in your seventh or eighth try at an ideal path by the room, you kill all of the enemies… solely to understand there was a time-sensitive one within the nook who kills you immediately. Then you need to rethink your complete technique, figuring out you need to transfer in direction of that enemy first.
This may occasionally sound infuriating, however the fight is so satisfying, and the sport is so acutely aware of the participant’s free time that it by no means actually is. As quickly as you die you hit a button and spawn proper on the door to the room, there aren’t any lengthy checkpoints you need to play by once more. It’s a die, attempt, die, attempt system and it nails the ‘another go’ vibe with gusto.
Then, on high of all this, there’s the small matter of a grimy, gritty J-hip-hop soundtrack blasting on loop within the background.
When all of it combines, and also you lastly handle to tug off an ideal run with the bass thumping and Japanese rapping ringing round your ears, you’re feeling cool as all possible hell.
“When all of it combines and also you lastly handle to tug off an ideal run with the bass thumping and Japanese rapping ringing round your ears, you’re feeling cool as all possible hell.”
Certainly, not solely did the sport win the VGC Media Spotlight award at BitSummit (basically the bodily model of this text), it additionally picked up the Excellence in Sound Design Award, which was determined by a totally separate occasion. So it wasn’t simply me!
There have been a lot better wanting video games at BitSummit this yr (Goodbye Seoul was lovely, and a really shut runner-up for our Recreation of the Present). There have been video games that had extra unique mechanics and tried to do one thing that had by no means been seen earlier than in a sport. I loved each single one of many 30 or 40 video games I performed over the whole three-day interval.
However generally, as Chibi-Robo’s composer put it to me, easy is best. And as I walked away from the occasion’s venue after its third and closing day, it was Don Yasa Crew’s sport that continued to linger in my thoughts, and should proceed to take action till the complete sport is out later this yr.
