June 22, 2009

Swing Away with PANGYA: Fantasy Golf's Mike Jones
By Louis Bedigian

“PANGYA: Fantasy Golf is back to its roots. It's not re-branded. It's pure unadulterated PANGYA.”

Outside of Korea, few gamers are aware of the PANGYA online golf series for PC. That could change very soon with the release of PANGYA: Fantasy Golf for the PSP, the series' first handheld release. "PANGYA started as a PC online game in Asia from Korean developer Ntreev," said Mike Jones, an Associate Producer at TOMY and the Project Manager for PANGYA in the US. "It was re-branded and reengineered by Tecmo and brought over for Wii as the Super Swing Golf series."

Jones worked with the developers to implement localized content, debug the game, make sure it was compliant with Sony technical standards, liaise with PR/marketing to supply assets, and perform other day-to-day duties. "The PSP version, PANGYA: Fantasy Golf, is back to its roots," he says. "It's not re-branded. It's pure unadulterated PANGYA, and it's a PSP-exclusive, so new characters and a new story mode have been developed for it. A lot of the gameplay elements are [similar to] the PC [version], but the PSP version has been engineered for the PSP from the ground up, so [you're getting] entirely different controls and mechanics."

PANGYA isn't a simulator. It would rather achieve arcade-style thrills than Tiger Woods-caliber realism. Thus, you won't find any real-world golfers in this game. But you will get to play as a dragon. "[We've got] a dragon you can play as," Jones reveals. "There are different armor sets that you can put on him. [The story explanation for this] is that there's this girl from the dark world who's a dragon but she's changed herself to human form and has come to PANGYA island. She's got a dark legion of bad guys that follow her. There are different versions of the dragon.

"[We also have] a 12-year-old foul-mouthed girl. She's a pretty interesting character. And then there's a character named Kaz who's kind of this dark one who's forgotten his past. He's the savior of the dark world and has a dead fiancé ghost that travels around with him. He'll awaken with dark energy later in the story in the game.

"And there's Uncle Bob, a retired police officer who got sucked into this other dimension. He loves fried chicken and doesn't know what's going on. So it's a pretty diverse cast."

With such an unusual cast, one has to wonder how they ended up participating in a golf tournament. "There are basically two categories of characters," Jones tells us. "[The are] human characters from Earth that have either been invited to the PANGYA tournament or have been trapped there somehow. Max's (a world famous tennis player) plane crash lands in sort of a Bermuda Triangle situation and he gets whisked away to the island. [Now] he has to learn how to play golf.

"Plus, there are the PANGYA natives, the people who live on the island. There are different tribes, [one] that looks like big bears, there's a sorceress crew, a mechanical clan, and they all have their own tournaments. Some of them run the shops, some of them own the courses, things like that. And then there's this whole set of PANGYA characters that come from the dark world."

Regarding the customization aspect of the game, Jones says that the game has two primary categories. "One of them is aesthetic," he says. "Then there are functional areas of customization, and those are your golf club set, your ball type, there's a ring accessory that augments your stats, and there's Papel, which is kind of a living bag that carries your items.

"As far as the aesthetic stuff, a lot of the characters have specific costumes. A lot of them have visual items like a hat or a shirt or pants. Sometimes they're sharable, like the Rudolph nose or angle wings, and all the characters can use them. But there are specific items, like Uncle Bob, he has a police uniform, that's unique to him.

"One of the interesting things about the aesthetic items is that they're not 100% aesthetic. Each time you wear a new costume or a new item you'll get lots of Pang, which is a currency, to buy more items, more equipment, so it's kind of positive feedback. You play the game, you unlock some stuff, you wear items in the game and you're awarded more items and currency and stuff like that. We have 18 characters and over 1,300 items."

All of those features are wrapped in several different modes, including a new story mode that is exclusive to the PSP version of the game. "The story mode [features] nine of the 18 playable characters," Jones explains. "Each of those characters has its own story, and each story intersects. It has all the staples of a fantasy RPG: different dimensions, the dark world, and draining the energy out of PANGYA island. [Story mode] is also where you'll unlock new characters. In the beginning you'll have two characters and you'll unlock all 18 as you go along.

"There's also a free round mode where you'll get to play three, six, nine or 18 quick holes of golf. It lends itself to the portable format well. There's a tournament mode with a series of tournaments for each course, and there are nine whole courses. All the tournaments are associated with a special item or club set or something like that. You'll win money (Pang) of course for winning the tournament but also a special item.

"There's a license mode, where you have to complete special objectives, such as getting a hole in one, be closest on a chip in, or earn a certain number of Pang in a certain number of holes. As you complete these objectives you'll get experience toward a license. And once you unlock a license for a course you can play in the tournament series for that course.

"The final mode is network mode, so you can have eight players locally (ad hoc), and you can do single- or team-based tournaments. And you don't have to wait for [someone] to take a turn [since] everybody plays simultaneously."

Share | Digg This | Glink It

---