SNKPlaymore's KOFXIV was featured during stage presentation on opening day at the Taipei Game Show. Producer Tasuyuki Oda appeared on stage together with seasoned game veterans Gamerbee and RB to take questions from the host and show some gameplay.
http://www.twitch.tv/tgslive/v/38298680
The following are translations provided by The Madman's Cafe.
Producer Oda:
- "We're going to have 50 characters from launch, which is the most that the series has had. We've been having a crazy time making them."
- "As for the online, we want to polish it up and make it high quality while keeping in mind the issues that our past releases in the series have had."
- "The Ash chapter has reached its conclusion and XIV is going to be a new saga. Please look forward to the returning popular characters as well as the new characters and how they will get involved."
- "We're planning a gallery mode that features past artworks from the series, and we think everyone will be happy at the volume [of contents] in KOFXIV."
- "SNK has been out of game production after KOFXIII. We're starting off from scratch again, so we're taking this as a new challenge and stepping into a new direction (with XIV)."
- "We've assembled a new team of developers [for the creation of XIV], but we're completely starting off from scratch and building up knowledge. We're experiencing the hardships of creating something new and it's been pretty tough. (laughs)"
- "We hope to [have XIV] participate in various tournaments both large and small. It's something we'll need to think about."
- "We've been talking inside the company about hosting our own original tournament, but there's nothing solid to talk about for now."
- "We're working on XIV so that it'll be a very balanced game from launch, but we'll consider updates later on while checking on the reaction of players."
- "We've announced 3 new characters this time for Taipei Game Show, but we'll be releasing more info to come. Please look forward."
- When asked whether there's plans to hold an online popularity vote on what characters that fans want in the game, Oda replied: "You mean in the default 50, or as additional characters? Well it sounds interesting! We'll give it a thought."
Explanations on XIV's character concepts for those who've already been playable at the stage floor:
- Kula, Leona, and Iori are designed to play pretty similarly to previous iterations.
- Andy has some changes from the past; for example, he has a new twirling move in the air done by down and fierce kick.
- Kyo is likewise a bit different from before, and he has a new low-hit move available for his Rekkas.
Other notes:
- The meters are kept simple in XIV and this isn't going to change in the final product.
- During the presentation, Oda plays a bit himself, which can be viewed in Twitch's presentation archive.
- The Chinese language version of KOF14 was announced. It is likewise slated for 2016.
- The build shown at the Taipei Game Show presentation was in Chinese, but it featured the same roster from December's showing in LA.
- The slideshow shown during presentation said
無需追加DL which has the words
"free" and
"DL" in them, but it simply means that the 50 characters are available by default and there's no need to buy them as DL add-ons.
Reflex Tester
