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[Sesha]

Returning to this, it seems you may be right.

Via TreIII from the other thread, Neo_G was interviewed yesterday.

- They had him start working as lead game designer on XIV the moment he started working at SNK.

Wow. They're taking his hiring very seriously. Speaking of...

- He said that even though he is working on XIV, he was actually hired for the purpose of working on action games. Between what he and Oda said in this interview, it really sounds like SNK will be branching out of making just fighting games soon.

Megaton. Branching out to other genres is really smart. Although SNK's stable of franchises is legendary, SNK failed to branch out in the way Capcom did during the PS1 and PS2 era. I wonder if they looked at what Itsuno did with DMC and wanted something similar. Neo_G is certainly the right person for the job if so.

This definitely warrants a topic, by the way. Make sure to mention both in the title.

I'd love to do it myself instead but I was supposed to be in bed two hours ago.

 

[Dahbomb]

Also, speaking of mods, I recently chatted with someone on YouTube regarding DMC3's Instant Style Access mod, who said he'd tweaked it and implemented Dahbomb's style modifier idea for DMC5. Was that one of you guys?

That's dope.

 

[BadWolf]

Wow. They're taking his hiring very seriously. Speaking of...



Megaton. Branching out to other genres is really smart. Although SNK's stable of franchises is legendary, SNK failed to branch out in the way Capcom did during the PS1 and PS2 era. I wonder if they looked at what Itsuno did with DMC and wanted something similar. Neo_G is certainly the right person for the job if so.

This definitely warrants a topic, by the way. Make sure to mention both in the title.

I'd love to do it myself instead but I was supposed to be in bed two hours ago.

Done.

 

[Sesha]

That's dope.

I know, right? Your influence is extensive and wide-reaching, it seems. I had no idea something like that was even possible by modding DMC3.

Done.

That was quick. Or maybe it's just me that tends to be slow. Can't wait to read the interview tomorrow.

 

[direct_quote]

More stylish action games is a good thing, I felt with Platinum living the 3rd party only life atm that we weren't going to get any unique and risky ventures in stylish 3d action. Still hurt by there being no MGR2...

 

[Dahbomb]

DMC5 might still be the first big stylish action game on current gen consoles.

Wii U is last gen of course.

 

[Seyavesh]

released the alastor effects to go w/ thin red paste's dmc1 dante
http://s1.zetaboards.com/InfernalWorks/topic/6019499/1/

 

[Son Of Sparda]

DMC5 might still be the first big stylish action game on current gen consoles.

Wii U is last gen of course.

Nah, we already have two of those

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Guys this Onechanbara game is really crazy. It has mid-combo, on the fly, character switching!

Like.... HOLY SHIT! It's so insane. I need to see this thing in DMC5.

 

[Dahbomb]

Guys this Onechanbara game is really crazy. It has mid-combo, on the fly, character switching!

Like.... HOLY SHIT! It's so insane. I need to see this thing in DMC5.

Character switching has been done before.

You probably don't want character switching in DMC unless it's attached to a resource or its coupled with a resource. Would be extremely jarring switching between comobs constantly at that speed and frequently.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Character switching has been done before.

You probably don't want character switching in DMC unless it's attached to a resource or its coupled with a resource. Would be extremely jarring switching between comobs constantly at that speed and frequently.

That's true but it's the first time that I'm experiencing it in a stylish (and VERY fast) action game like Onechanbara.

I think they can pull it off if they put their minds on it. Even if it is just for a secondary mode like BP or something. As I said Onechanbara is extremely fast (way more than DMC4SE) and yet the character switching feels quite natural and satisfying.

I wish recording wasn't so shitty on PS4 so I could capture some gameplay videos for you guys from its combat system. This game really needs more love from action fans. It's not as deep as DMC or Bayo but it's still very fun and has a good amount of depth. Though, the enemy design sucks big time.

EDIT: Actually aside from combat and some interesting modes that it has (practice, customizable accessories, mission mode, quests) everything else about it sucks. Stages aren't even actual levels and more like different arenas that you fight in them. Graphics are early PS3/late PS2 levels and the story is.... I don't even know why or what I'm fighting, lol.

Though, the combat is so insane that it makes up for all that its missing.

 

[BadWolf]

From the other thread:

XLHGladiator playing Nioh.

 

[Dahbomb]

From the other thread:

XLHGladiator playing Nioh.

Nioh looks seriously great, like a hybrid Ninja Gaiden/Souls game.

Please be good, please be good etc.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

From the other thread:

XLHGladiator playing Nioh.

Holy mother of God! I didn't even know it was possible to play the game like this.

 

[GuardianE]

I'm wholly against character swapping in DMC5, personally. Maybe for a dedicated mode or something.

 

[CrimsonCrescendo]

I'm wholly against character swapping in DMC5, personally. Maybe for a dedicated mode or something.

Unfortunately, Devil May Cry 4 kinda opened

on that one. Nero's Devil Bringer and Exceed mechanics are ripe for expansion in a sequel, so I would hate for those gameplay systems to go by the wayside just because Capcom fucked around for 8 years and now it has to be all about Dante. I'm not saying that Dante shouldn't be the protagonist again, in fact I'd prefer that. But again, I'd love to see how Itsuno and team can expand Nero's admittedly bare bones Devil May Cry 4 tool set as it was a great launch point.

 

[Golnei]

More stylish action games is a good thing, I felt with Platinum living the 3rd party only life atm that we weren't going to get any unique and risky ventures in stylish 3d action. Still hurt by there being no MGR2...

It's great to see the genre potentially heading towards a kind of resurgence - even if Platinum seems to be heading away from working within it in any significant manner, I think it's a better state of affairs to have various teams at various publishers all working on diverse interpretations of the 3D action genre rather than so much of it being concentrated on a single developer.

Unfortunately, Devil May Cry 4 kinda opened

on that one. Nero's Devil Bringer and Exceed mechanics are ripe for expansion in a sequel, so I would hate for those gameplay systems to go by the wayside just because Capcom fucked around for 8 years and now it has to be all about Dante. I'm not saying that Dante shouldn't be the protagonist again, in fact I'd prefer that. But again, I'd love to see how Itsuno and team can expand Nero's admittedly bare bones Devil May Cry 4 tool set as it was a great launch point.

They weren't talking about multiple playable characters in general, just directly swapping characters in-game.

 

[CrimsonCrescendo]

Goddamn that Nioh game looks good. Too bad that wasn't what we got with Ninja Gaiden 3. Then again, anything would have been better than what we got.

It's great to see the genre potentially heading towards a kind of resurgence - even if Platinum seems to be heading away from working within it in any significant manner, I think it's a better state of affairs to have various teams at various publishers all working on diverse interpretations of the 3D action genre rather than so much of it being concentrated on a single developer.



They weren't talking about multiple playable characters in general, just directly swapping characters in-game.

Oh, well, my bad, lol. Should have read the whole page.

Then I guess GuardianE and Dahbomb and I are in agreement then.

 

[Dahbomb]

I wouldn't be against character swap mechanic if they are going to go all in on co-op for DMC5.

Like the campaign is always Dante and Nero together and you could control one of each character as two players or have an AI control one character while you play the other and you can swap control between the two.

That way casual players can play co-op online and not have to worry about trying to control two characters but experts can go to the next level and try to do multiple character stuff.


My list of issues with this are the following (and some of these can be rectified with clever designs):

*If the characters are occupying two difference spaces (and they aren't working as stand/assist characters off of each other) then there's going to have to be a screen pause when control/perspective changes. This can kill combat flow if you are just swapping characters constantly.

*If they want to keep this feature then I have to imagine that character swapping is a mechanic tied to a limited resource sort of like how it was handled in the Batman Arkham games with the 2 character sections. That way you can't just spam character swap button. I am ok with this to be honest but the extra resource has to be usable for something else other than character swaps.

*When one character is controlled by the AI then that creates its own brand of issues. AI characters can kill enemies before you want them to die off. This is an issue that somewhat plagues all co-op games with AI.

*Then the issue of score ranking and style ranking comes into play. Is the style ranking combined or individualized? If it's individualized then the better player will just try to kill stuff as fast as possible to deny the other player from getting the maximum points. If it's combined style ranking then both the AI and a weaker can hold back a better player. You don't want high level rankings or runs to be affected by the RNG of an AI.

*Enemy design, encounter and boss battles have to be designed with two characters in mind. IMO DMC still hasn't nailed this part of the combat with a single character and more characters provides more obstacles to overcome. Just look at a Souls game to see how a tough boss battles becomes a joke when one extra character is added in to the mix... the bosses are clearly equipped to handle only one character at one time.

*Then the issue of level design, platforming and puzzle solving/combat stuff comes into play. I think Capcom has mostly improved on this with the RE games but when the AI is concerned is some stuff always ends up being bad like if the AI fails to trigger some switch simultaneously or if another player lags behind and can't figure out what to do and prevents level progression.

*Of course the next issue is balance and adding in another character throws the entire balance of the game out of wack. Damage values and properties have to be adjusted to account for two players otherwise two players could spam a couple of moves and trivialize most encounters in the game due to stuff like stunlocks.

*The final issue and IMO the most important one is the technical issue. You have to make big sacrifices to implement a mechanic like this and if you do then you have to pay the price somewhere else. That means worse environments, enemies and visuals just so you can have enough RAM to calculate the toolset of the extra characters. We are also talking about online infrastructure here which results in extra challenges to account for (like netcode, if the host lags then that would affect the other player too).



I think if DMC wants to do this co-op thing they should do it in an ancillary mode to first see how it all works together. If it works then fine, implement it better in the next game if it doesn't then oh well... the main game isn't affected by it.

A game with bad forced co-op really hampers the experience. So if it's done then it has to be done very well.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

They simply can do what Onechanbara does and have only one character be on screen and give you the ability to switch him with the other (who just shows up from the back of camera when you push the button) mid-combo as fast as you change your weapons/styles. Instead of Co-Op, think of something along the lines of Tag Mode in DOA5.

That way you don't have to worry about AI controlled character and the problems that it brings with itself.

As I said, Onechanbara does it pretty good. There is even a system for switching characters at right time that gives them special combos upon their arrival. Not only that, but you can use certain combos before switching out a character that makes her stay a little bit longer (doing a few more attacks) while the new character shows up and you can use that to create certain set ups for unique attack situations. And they have an opposite system as well in which if you time it right, you can switch characters in a much faster (almost lightning speed) fashion.

That game has some really great ideas/systems in its gameplay. It's a shame that those are locked behind what looks like a very mediocre title from outside.

 

[Dahbomb]

The tag system doesn't really matter much.... it's basically just style/stance switch when you really think about it.

I think you can just make a new character who has a transform mechanic that gives an altered moveset when transformed (so like transforming back and forth between two characters). It would be like a super style switch.

 

[Seyavesh]

now to just wait for an ifrit model to release so i can start cleaning it up/totally give up when the gilgamesh alignments dont match up with ifrit

 

[Golnei]

now to just wait for an ifrit model to release so i can start cleaning it up/totally give up when the gilgamesh alignments dont match up with ifrit

Nice, that and the Alastor effects look great. Are you going to do a Nightmare Pandora next?

The tag system doesn't really matter much.... it's basically just style/stance switch when you really think about it.

I think you can just make a new character who has a transform mechanic that gives an altered moveset when transformed (so like transforming back and forth between two characters). It would be like a super style switch.

Like you said, it's very similar to style/weapon switching; to the point where I'm not sure if there'd be much of a point to a transformation character specifically beyond the visual flair. Maybe it'd work if they had a Double-esque setup, being comprised of altered versions of existing characters, just as stances rather than individual moves?

 

[CrimsonCrescendo]

Awesome job, Seyavesh!

On the picture itself: I sometimes forget that not only was Devil May Cry 4's motion capture pretty damn great for 2008, so were the visuals and textures considering it ran at 60 fps. MT Frameworks was a damn fine engine!

 

[Seyavesh]

Nice, that and the Alastor effects look great. Are you going to do a Nightmare Pandora next?

nah, i don't think they're particularly similar enough. i think it's just gonna be limited to alastor/ifrit

i really wish you could have weapon specific DTs somehow in the same way you can have costume specific effects/models (i've got dmc4 dante as regular, dmc1 dante w/alastor+ifrit effects on ex dante and whatnot) but i can't figure out a way to do that

it sucks having the alastor DT color when using DT'd kick13, haha. it looks super weird!

 

[Son Of Sparda]

The tag system doesn't really matter much.... it's basically just style/stance switch when you really think about it.

I think you can just make a new character who has a transform mechanic that gives an altered moveset when transformed (so like transforming back and forth between two characters). It would be like a super style switch.

Well, in case of Onechanbara each character has her own set of moves, weapons and abilities. Like one has the ability to parry, while the other can summon a Doppelganger and so on.

You can even use some of those after switching characters. Like, say you activate your Doppelganger and start the combo then switch to another character and continue your attacks with their unique move-set/weapons and then once again you go back to the first character, and she still has the Doppelganger activated when you bring her back.

I think switching characters would be a nice addition to DMCs combat, especially if they decide to do away with style system.

It's funny that at first a friend of mine suggested this idea to me sometimes ago and I was actually against it at the time. But after seeing how fun it is in Onechanbara, I can't help but wish that we could do something similar in the next DMC.

Actually, that transform mechanic seems like it would scratch the same itch so I hope if they don't do the character switching then they at least add something like that. I think Nero might be a good character to have this kind of mechanic, with his demonic arm and all. Just as long as it's not limited to a resource.

 

[Sesha]

So, the recent Epic Games thread has gotten me thinking. I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent and jump around, since we've bitten into these subjects before.

Apparently, Gears 3 cost $48-60 million to make, and Gears 4 was projected to cost $100 million. I wonder how much DMC4 and DmC cost. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the $30-50m range. No wonder Capcom wants DMC games to sell 4-5m instead of 2-3. Not excusing their actions, but I understand why they've acted like they have the past decade.

On a different note, I looked for info on how Capcom was doing back when the "Capcom has no money" rumors began. According to a post by self-permed financial expert Aquamarine, Capcom's market cap in June 2014 was 95.77 billion JPY ($940 million). I checked and they're at 169.38 billion JPY ($1.46 billion).

So, they are doing better. That's encouraging for their immediate future. But, after reading a bit in the old thread about their shareholders rejecting their stock takeover defense, and thinking about how SNK is doing, I'm starting to think that maybe the best thing for Capcom's long term and for fans of their IPs would be if they were bought up by some company. Not a console maker or a big Western publisher like some have suggested, but maybe a Chinese company like with SNK or some random Japanese company like how GungHo bought Grasshopper and Kadokawa bought From Software.

Or am I just talking crazy?

 

[Dahbomb]

Well, in case of Onechanbara each character has her own set of moves, weapons and abilities. Like one has the ability to parry, while the other can summon a Doppelganger and so on.

Again this is not something that is out of the norm for a DMC game.

Look at DmC for example.

You hold down Angel Trigger.. you have access to different weapons and abilities. Osiris/Aquila plus Air Dash, triple dashes and you can pull towards enemies (essentially a teleport).

You hold down Demon Trigger... you have access to Eryx/Arbiter and now you have Demon Dodge plus you can pull enemies in.

If you don't press anything then you are a 3rd character which uses Rebellion plus 3 different guns with no special dodge ability.


These three might as well be different characters because of how fundamentally different they are. It's not as fleshed out as it could be but the core idea is the same.

Or am I just talking crazy?

Not that crazy to be honest. It's probably too early for Capcom to be bought out. I think a company like PG is more likely to get bought out than Capcom.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Guys this Onechanbara game is really crazy. It has mid-combo, on the fly, character switching!

Like.... HOLY SHIT! It's so insane. I need to see this thing in DMC5.

I want a cross over with Oneechanbara so we can have Dante and Kagura trolling the entire game.

 

[Sesha]

Not that crazy to be honest. It's probably too early for Capcom to be bought out. I think a company like PG is more likely to get bought out than Capcom.

I could see Capcom being bought up before PG. PG is a work-for-hire dev, and there's a ton of those out there that are independently run, like Access Games, Eighting, Dimps, Bluepoint, Ninja Theory, etc. It's cheaper for a publisher to hire them for something than to buy them outright. Buying them would mean they would have to support them with salaries, benefits, etc., which would be costly. A way to mitigate that would be letting people go, but that entails losing a ton of talent, which would defeat the point of hiring them in the first place. Furthermore, Platinum doesn't have their own IPs and their titles are unreliable sellers.

I mean, it could happen, but I don't think any publishers see much value in PG as an in-house dev.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Or am I just talking crazy?

Honestly, I've been secretly wishing for something like that to happen for a while now.

I don't know how big SEGA is and how (un)practical this might be, but the way SEGA treats the studios that it acquires and let them do their own thing, makes me wish that they could do the same with Capcom.

Though, I don't think SEGA has enough money (and interest) to buy Capcom.

Again this is not something that is out of the norm for a DMC game.

Look at DmC for example.

You hold down Angel Trigger.. you have access to different weapons and abilities. Osiris/Aquila plus Air Dash, triple dashes and you can pull towards enemies (essentially a teleport).

You hold down Demon Trigger... you have access to Eryx/Arbiter and now you have Demon Dodge plus you can pull enemies in.

If you don't press anything then you are a 3rd character which uses Rebellion plus 3 different guns with no special dodge ability.

These three might as well be different characters because of how fundamentally different they are. It's not as fleshed out as it could be but the core idea is the same.

The core idea is the same, you are right. But still I find Onechanbara characters to have much more at their disposal than what we get from Angel/Demon stances in DmC. Different DTs, tons of combos, secondary weapons, unique abilities (besides the rush system that acts both as a launcher and teleport and is available to all characters), etc etc.

Honestly, that's what I want to see in the next DMC. Whether it comes in the form of character switching or super style as you suggested, I'll be happy as long as we get something like that.

I want a cross over with Oneechanbara so we can have Dante and Kagura trolling the entire game.

Yeah, that would be really crazy. Kagura looks like a female version of DMC3 Dante and I really like that about her

Also, Mission Mode in that game is something that NEEDS to happen in DMC5. That's soooo good and adds tons of replay value to the game.

 

[Sesha]

Honestly, I've been secretly wishing for something like that to happen for a while now.

I don't know how big SEGA is and how (un)practical this might be, but the way SEGA treats the studios that it acquires and let them do their own thing, makes me wish that they could do the same with Capcom.

Though, I don't think SEGA has enough money (and interest) to buy Capcom.

Sega is worth roughly twice as much as Capcom. Even if they could buy Capcom, which I don't know if it's possible, Sega buying Capcom would be like if Nintendo bought Capcom. They already have more IPs than they know what to do with. In Sega's case, aside from RE, MH and maybe SF and DMC, there's not a whole lot they would need to buy Capcom for. They wouldn't gain that much from it.

For a company to buy Capcom they would need to be big enough, and lack in areas that buying Capcom would cover. Something like Tencent, for example.

This is just my take on it, of course.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Sega is worth roughly twice as much as Capcom. Even if they could buy Capcom, which I don't know if it's possible, Sega buying Capcom would be like if Nintendo bought Capcom. They already have more IPs than they know what to do with. In Sega's case, aside from RE, MH and maybe SF and DMC, there's not a whole lot they would need to buy Capcom for. They wouldn't gain that much from it.

For a company to buy Capcom they would need to be big enough, and lack in areas that buying Capcom would cover. Something like Tencent, for example.

This is just my take on it, of course.

When I think about SEGA buying Capcom, I look at the way they treat Atlus and how they let them do whatever they want. I think Capcom getting that kind of treatment from the company that buys them would be the ideal outcome that anyone could wish for and SEGA has proven themselves in that regard. SEGA might not use all of the IPs that they themselves have, but they've proven that they let their acquired studios work on what they want. So, if SEGA was to buy Capcom (which I don't see happening either), then I don't think we had to worry about them limiting Capcom to certain IPs and things like that.

But yeah, if you are accurate on your estimation of SEGA's financial value then them buying Capcom seems extremely unlikely.

I don't know much about Tencent. Is that the same company that owns Grasshopper? If so, then that would be a good choice too.

 

[Sesha]

When I think about SEGA buying Capcom, I look at the way they treat Atlus and how they let them do whatever they want. I think Capcom getting that kind of treatment from the company that buys them would be the ideal outcome that anyone could wish for and SEGA has proven themselves in that regard. SEGA might not use all of the IPs that they themselves have, but they've proven that they let their acquired studios work on what they want. So, if SEGA was to buy Capcom (which I don't see happening either), then I don't think we had to worry about them limiting Capcom to certain IPs and things like that.

But yeah, if you are accurate on your estimation of SEGA's financial value then them buying Capcom seems extremely unlikely.

I don't know much about Tencent. Is that the same company that owns Grasshopper? If so, then that would be a good choice too.

It's less about them limiting Capcom, and more that there would be little reason for them to green light a bunch of projects. Even now Capcom barely does anything outside of RE, MH and SF in the console space, and the same would probably apply under Sega. Capcom doesn't really have that many franchises that Sega needs. Keep in mind Sega also does mobile and pachinko, which are important areas for them, and I think they actually outperforms Capcom in those areas. For a company to want to buy another, a lot of things have to make sense. If Sega buys a company Capcom that's worth half their own market cap, but only gains a handful of IPs they would actually use and make a considerable profit from, it's not a very good purchase.
For comparison's sake, take Tencent. They own Riot Games and 48% of Epic Games. Besides that, they do some mobile stuff and a handful of online games, but a lot of their stuff on those areas is via collaborations. They could gain a lot from buying Capcom. RE, MH, SF, DMC, DR cover areas they don't anything much in. They also gain a massive catalogue of gaming IPs that they make great use of for say online and mobile. Imagine Capcom characters in League of Legends, for example. There's also Capcom's pachislot ventures. I haven't looked much, but it doesn't seem like they have much in that area. So you can see, there would be a lot for them to gain buy buying a company like Capcom. This of course, my layman understanding. I'm sure there's contra- and also other pro-arguments to be made.

Atlus is a very small company. I don't know what they were worth when Sega bought them, but it was probably a lot less than Capcom.

GungHo owns GrassHopper. GungHo is actually smaller than Sega in terms of market cap, but is owned by Softbank. GungHo also owns Acquire, the Tenchu and Way of the Samurai developers, and GameArts, the Grandia guys.

I'm purely going by sourced Wikipedia info and public stock info. I'm no expert. But I hope I've given a representative overview. I'm glad I'm possible going to be studying economics next semester. All this Capcom talk might actually be useful in some way.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Capcom is around 5 billion if you want to buy them. That makes about 5 dudes able to buy them. Ideally if you want it in working order when it's bought, would be Sony,or Activision.

 

[GuardianE]

There's really no reason to consider Capcom selling out at this point. They're really not in the dire straits that people seem to think. They just expanded and purchased some internal development buildings, announced some new projects, have a new Resident Evil CG movie in the works... A rough patch or a single underselling product isn't going to make or break the company. Does that mean that an offer couldn't be made? Of course not. But Capcom is a lot larger than most of the companies that are being listed here, they act as both publisher and developer, plus they're not owned by a parent company like Atlus is. Atlus' purchase was a necessity due to the overarching failure of their parents company.

Again this is not something that is out of the norm for a DMC game.

Look at DmC for example.

You hold down Angel Trigger.. you have access to different weapons and abilities. Osiris/Aquila plus Air Dash, triple dashes and you can pull towards enemies (essentially a teleport).

You hold down Demon Trigger... you have access to Eryx/Arbiter and now you have Demon Dodge plus you can pull enemies in.

If you don't press anything then you are a 3rd character which uses Rebellion plus 3 different guns with no special dodge ability.

These three might as well be different characters because of how fundamentally different they are. It's not as fleshed out as it could be but the core idea is the same.

This is partially why I think that any character swapping should have its own dedicated mode, and be more than an afterthought. Style/weapon switching are effectively character switching in a lot of ways, so in DMC a swapping character has to be much more in order to be substantial. Fundamental changes to how a character works, and perhaps less universal or carryover mechanics. Maybe different gravity, weight, speed.

A more superficial reason I'm against character swapping in DMC is that characters phasing in and out just doesn't gel with me so much. I can't buy any in-universe explanation for it in a regular campaign. But toss it in an extra mode, sure.

 

[Dahbomb]

You can do a possessed mechanic where someone like Nero is possessed by Vergil and you can swap between Nero and Vergil mode.

I mean it's god damn DMC... if Capcom WANTED a mechanic in the game then it would be in the game. Lore reasons has little to do with it. If Itsuno wants a mechanic in the game but it doesn't make it in then it's due to technical limitations (like style switch in DMC3 for example).

 

[GuardianE]

True. I'd just rather there be a tag mode instead. That would just put my mind at ease. Like I said, it's totally superficial. Just my own issue with it.

And that's obviously completely separate and distinct from a co-op mode. Co-op mode is another can of worms, but I think something absolutely necessary for the series going forward.

 

[Sesha]

The thing about character switching is, like Dahbomb says, they can do it if they want to.

I'll try to illustrate one particular issue I see with it. I had a discussion a while ago with someone regarding style switching. I said that having instant style access and more command inputs would be better than having style switching. My counterpart argued they could have extra inputs and style switching, meaning twice as many moves per weapon per character, essentially.
The problem is, at some point it doesn't make sense to have multiple weapons anymore. If you have 20+ moves for one weapon, you might as well have multiple functions across one weapon. Sure, they could have tons of moves with multiple styles, weapons and characters, but scope becomes an issue. At some point, adding things isn't possible anymore because of budget and time.

So the issue becomes, that it doesn't make sense to have lots of weapons and styles if you have character switching. The reasons are scope of production/development, game balance and controller logistics.
For something like Oneechanbara it makes more sense to have character switching because those games otherwise lack the breadth and depth that DMC has, for various reasons. It makes more sense as a central mechanic there.

Optional modes for co-op and character switching could work. But for DMC, I see a lot of reasons that would make it difficult to realize as a central feature in the main game.

I'm tired so pardon if some of this sounds confused or nonsensical.

Capcom is around 5 billion if you want to buy them. That makes about 5 dudes able to buy them. Ideally if you want it in working order when it's bought, would be Sony,or Activision.

Are you sure? How did you arrive at that number? As I said, I don't know a whole lot, so I'm assuming you might know something I don't.

I don't think Sony or Activision are likely candidates for buying Capcom.

There's really no reason to consider Capcom selling out at this point. They're really not in the dire straits that people seem to think. They just expanded and purchased some internal development buildings, announced some new projects, have a new Resident Evil CG movie in the works... A rough patch or a single underselling product isn't going to make or break the company. Does that mean that an offer couldn't be made? Of course not. But Capcom is a lot larger than most of the companies that are being listed here, they act as both publisher and developer, plus they're not owned by a parent company like Atlus is. Atlus' purchase was a necessity due to the overarching failure of their parents company.

Oh, I'm not speculating they're doing poorly and they have to be bought. I didn't mean to give that impression. I know they're doing a lot better than people think. I'm just speculating loudly about the industry landscape and about the possibilities of someone buying Capcom.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

It's less about them limiting Capcom, and more that there would be little reason for them to green light a bunch of projects. Even now Capcom barely does anything outside of RE, MH and SF in the console space, and the same would probably apply under Sega. Capcom doesn't really have that many franchises that Sega needs. Keep in mind Sega also does mobile and pachinko, which are important areas for them, and I think they actually outperforms Capcom in those areas. For a company to want to buy another, a lot of things have to make sense. If Sega buys a company Capcom that's worth half their own market cap, but only gains a handful of IPs they would actually use and make a considerable profit from, it's not a very good purchase.
For comparison's sake, take Tencent. They own Riot Games and 48% of Epic Games. Besides that, they do some mobile stuff and a handful of online games, but a lot of their stuff on those areas is via collaborations. They could gain a lot from buying Capcom. RE, MH, SF, DMC, DR cover areas they don't anything much in. They also gain a massive catalogue of gaming IPs that they make great use of for say online and mobile. Imagine Capcom characters in League of Legends, for example. There's also Capcom's pachislot ventures. I haven't looked much, but it doesn't seem like they have much in that area. So you can see, there would be a lot for them to gain buy buying a company like Capcom. This of course, my layman understanding. I'm sure there's contra- and also other pro-arguments to be made.

Atlus is a very small company. I don't know what they were worth when Sega bought them, but it was probably a lot less than Capcom.

GungHo owns GrassHopper. GungHo is actually smaller than Sega in terms of market cap, but is owned by Softbank. GungHo also owns Acquire, the Tenchu and Way of the Samurai developers, and GameArts, the Grandia guys.

I'm purely going by sourced Wikipedia info and public stock info. I'm no expert. But I hope I've given a representative overview. I'm glad I'm possible going to be studying economics next semester. All this Capcom talk might actually be useful in some way.

You raise some good points. I guess I was looking at it purely as a Capcom fan, since SEGA does good by their studios and having a parent company like that would be ideal for Capcom.

Oh, so that's GungHo. Yeah, I remember people were quite afraid of them buying Atlus a few years ago. Not only that, but iirc a lot of guys were also scared of the possibilities of Tencent acquiring Atlus. In retrospect, I think GungHo turned out to be okay, judging by how they are treating Grasshopper. But Tencent still looks a little bit scary, imo.

Both Riot Games and now Epic are mainly focused on online titles and given how Tencent seems to be a company that is mainly focused on internet, I can't help but think that they might have had a huge influence over the directions that those companies took, especially in case of Epic.

I don't think anyone would like to see Capcom being focused on online only experiences.

P.S: Are you sure about the financial value of GungHo? Judging by the discussions that people had about how enormous they are, I was under the impression that they could easily buy companies like Capcom, or even SEGA if they wanted to.

 

[Dahbomb]

It doesn't matter what they use as a mechanic in DMC5.

As long as we can swag with impunity, I am down with that.

They have a lot of ground to make up since DMC4.. the market has changed dramatically since then.

I hope with the recent success of the Souls games that they also aren't shy from making the game difficult on the default setting (let the casuals have their easy mode).

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Souls games aside, I'm actually interested to see what kind of inspirations (if any) will DMC5 get from Dragon's Dogma.

One think that I really liked about that game was that every encounter (especially with bosses) felt really epic and breathtaking. I wonder if they can somehow bring that feeling to DMC.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Capcom's market Cap is around 1.4 billion so you can see how much aquiring them would cost. Of course Sony or Activision would be unlikely, but those are the two companies that could right that ship. Sega would be best placed to buy but they have shit structure themselves.

 

[Dahbomb]

Sega buying out Capcom would be the worst thing ever short of Capcom disappearing completely.

 

[direct_quote]

Activision would mean yearly DMC, but at a high cost..

 

[ShinMaruku]

Sega buying out Capcom would be the worst thing ever short of Capcom disappearing completely.

That would be the company with the best portfolio of games. Hell, sega right now is.

However Sega won't buy them, they would be best positioned to and have little changed, but really what needs to happen is whatever gets proper management of capcom will make a killing.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

Sega buying out Capcom would be the worst thing ever short of Capcom disappearing completely.

And why is that? Look at Atlus, Creative Assembly and Relic, do you consider those to be dead?

 

[RazMaTaz]

Would prefer a heavy hitter like Sony or MS to buy out Capcom. In fact MS buying out Capcom may give some confidence boost to their consoles in Japan, which, at the moment, is a fart in a hurricane.

Sony buying out Capcom would also be a dream. A Devil May Cry title with God Of War production values would be immense.

 

[Son Of Sparda]

I don't think anyone wants Capcom games to become exclusive to a single platform.

 

[Golnei]

Even if I'd prefer them to have some presence on PC, I can't see that much of a downside to having all of Capcom's catalogue exclusively tied to Sony platforms; purely from the point of view of a consumer. Whether that actually makes sense for Sony financially is another question entirely.