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Posted by Video Game News Staff, Yesterday  | ||||
The Witch and the Hundred Knights Q & A
Playstation blog recently talked with the Prinny games team and the designer behind Disgaea and Phantom Brave.
Nippon Ichi Software is changing things up a bit with this batch of games. This will be fully 3D and offer real-time combat instead of turn-based. The theme will be more mature, and darker. A far cry from the Prinnies and Disgaea.
This game is a serious departure for NIS. Why make an action-RPG when the company’s legacy resides in more traditional JRPG design?
JN: NIS is definitely known for its RPGs and strategy RPGs, but our team wanted to try something new. Compared to a full-blown action game, an action-RPG is a smaller leap for us; NIS is always going to be known for our RPG expertise, so we didn’t want to hop into a first-person shooter or anything! It’s probably better to build on what we’re good at instead of doing something completely different. So that led to the premise of The Witch and the Hundred Knights.
But we wanted to make it unique, so rather than focusing on a single character or a traditional RPG party, why not have 100 units and see what we can do? So that’s where the 100 knights come from. They’re a bit like the T-1000, they don’t have a true body and can morph into anything they wish. You can morph a knight into a tesla coil to zap enemies, or into a weapon, or a shield, and other objects and characters. So that’s how the 100 knights help you.
The storyline premise sounds interesting. Can you touch on this war between the Swamp Witch and the Forest Witch?
JN: There are two witches that have been going at each other for hundreds of years. The Swamp Witch, who is seriously evil, decides to destroy the Forest Witch once and for all. She stumbles upon the remains of a legendary dark knight who died hundreds of years before, resurrects him and enslaves him. So the Swamp Witch is your master and you have to follow what she says.
Are there wrinkles in that story? Do you have to work for here, or can you turn against her?
JN: That’s all up to the player. You can be as evil as you want by pillaging villages and killing innocent NPCs, or try to help them and solve their problems. There are two different paths, and it’s all up to the player.
Is this part of a bigger push for NIS to try new and different things?
JN: Absolutely. We’re known for our RPGs, but there are a lot of gamers out there who love different styles of games. So we want to listen to what they’re saying and cater to these different audiences. Action-RPGs seems like a good place to start!
