Will Iron Phoenix be the Fighting Genre’s Answer to Halo?

by Louis Bedigian

 

“You really have to coordinate with your teammates.”

 

 

After getting beaten to a pulp at Sammy Washishushu’s Kung-fu Clinic in Japan, I found out that I had made a terrible mistake.  It wasn’t Washishushu-san who had summoned me – it was Sammy the Game Developer.  They too have a Kung-fu Clinic.  The thing is, Sammy’s clinic is all about revealing details on their upcoming multiplayer fighting game, Iron Phoenix. 

 

 

 

Sammy Washishushu’s clinic is all about pain and suffering.  My heart may heal, but the scars never will.

 

I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.  When I got the memo about Sammy’s next Kung-fu Clinic, I waited patiently for more information.

 

Three weeks later I began to wonder what was going on.  Was the clinic postponed?  Or had I somehow missed it?

 

As it turns out, this time it was Sammy Washishushu.  He wanted to apologize for beating the crap out of me, so he invited me to the Tokyo Game Show.  It was an all expenses paid trip, complete with pre-paid room service and enough sake to turn the whole GZ staff into drunken warriors.

 

AND I MISSED IT!!!

 

Months of counseling later, I found the will to go on.  Sammy the Game Developer invited me to another one of their Kung-fu Clinics and laughed hysterically when I told them what happened.

 

 

 

 

Two Can Play At This Game, But Let’s Get 16

 

Wanna slice and dice your opponents, but don’t have enough power to do it?  Then do what any sneaky warrior would do and ask for help.

 

Sammy: "There are special moves in the game that members of your team can pull off together, depending on if they have enough Chi.  If player 1 of your team sets up for a Team Kill move, you'll be notified by the color of effect that is currently coming off the player.  He will also have an exclamation point above his head, and you will also get an exclamation point above your head if you walk by the player and have adequate Chi to perform the Team Kill move along with him."

 

Live or Die, Just Play Online

 

Sammy briefed us on the five multiplayer modes being prepared for the game.  Two of ‘em you know better than the back of your hand: Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch.  The rest are all-new.

 

Ring Challenge

Sammy: "You have 16 players, only two players are fighting at a time.  It is one-on-one and the rest of the group is [watching] those matches.  You start at the lower level and work your way up to the top level, the top tier.  You can only score by killing while on the top tier.  It's sort of a mix between King of the Hill and Rocket Arena." 

 

With hammer in hand, I crush to pieces! 

 

Giant Kill

Sammy: "We are still balancing Giant Kill to make it fun, so things are changing.  Previously it was one giant, now we have a team of two giants.  It's basically 14 players against 2 currently.  So you have two giants.  They're stronger, they're not necessarily faster.  They hit harder and they have a little bit more Chi, and they do tons of damage to the normal player."

 

VIP

Sammy: "Each team has a Very Important Person (VIP).  If they're killed the round is over.  The VIP has the ability to revive fallen opponents.  If you get knocked down, the VIP has to find you on the map.  Basically he has to go over to the fallen teammate, and he's equipped with a Revive Scroll that has unlimited uses.  Standing over the character, he activates that scroll and that revives the fallen teammate.  So you really have to coordinate with your teammates, you have to protect the VIP, etc."

 

Tactical Weaponry

 

Sammy: "Nine weapons in the game, all of which have a different fighting style.  All of them have a different speed.  Some are very fast, some are slow, some are average.  All of them have different pros and cons given the situation.  Obviously slow weapons are gonna hit harder, but your attacks are gonna leave you a little bit more open.  Take the hammer for example.  Most of the attacks are splash damage-related, and they will take out a number of opponents in the area.  But it takes a pretty good amount of time to execute the larger moves with the hammer.

 

"Weapons like the dagger – fast, very, very fast.  Moderate damage, it has to offset how fast it is.  So you're not going to be taking a ton of damage off of an opponent but you're going to be attacking very quickly.

 

"There are certain attacks that work well when other teammates use them.  If you can get a good splash damage weapon that bounces the opponent up in the air, and you have a quick-moving weapon like the dagger, certain moves will allow you to get underneath a falling opponent so you can perform a larger juggle based off the opponent and based off the attack done by the original attacker.

 

"It gets a little tricky when you're using the same attack from the same weapons with your teammate and you're trying to coordinate.  A lot of these moves have a wind up time and a certain amount of time to execute, and you don't want to be doing the same moves over and over again with your teammate.

 

"That's not to say that the same weapons don't work well together – two really large hammer splash damage attacks would be pretty brutal." 

 

“(Gulp).  Is it me or does that guy have a spear aimed at my head?”

 

 

After the briefing, GameZone Online got the chance to ask some questions about the game.  Answers were provided by Tim Hess (Producer), and Brian Urquhart (Associate Producer).

 

In VIP, can you kill players besides the VIP and gain extra points?

 

Sammy: If you're on the red team and you go and kill everybody [on the blue team] but the VIP, there's now no one to protect the VIP.  The VIP has to run around trying to resurrect people so he can be protected again.  If it's just the VIP rolling around he's going to get taken over pretty quick.  If there's a sloppy team and people start spreading out, and it ends up being your team takes out one person from the other team at a time, they're gonna be slowly whittled away.  You really have to think of it as Capture the Flag with your flag missing and the flag in your base.  You have to send runners out to go kill the VIP and you have to have a defense squad protecting your VIP.

 

That's the only way that players can be revived -- if the VIP revives you?

 

Sammy: Correct.

 

Last time you guys said that you were thinking about adding more projectile attacks.

 

Sammy: We added one more dart: Arcane.

 

We have four projectiles in the game: one has a stun effect, one has a poison effect, one has a damage effect, and the new one that we added will deplete the Chi energy of the opponent.

 

This could really affect the ability of someone to pull off one of the ultimate attacks because they're not able to have enough Chi to achieve that attack.  So it gives you a slight edge.

 

If you happen to have the Chi/Arcane darts in your possession and find somebody who runs over the Chi power-up, and you know that he now has full Chi, you know that he's not full, and the potential for him to pull off a super has now been lessened.  You can keep [throwing] those darts and drain everything.  The actual amount of Chi that's taken away has yet to be determined.

 

 

Ready to kill…in unison!

 

 

How often do you get projectiles in the game?

 

Sammy: As often as they spawn.  They're sprinkled throughout the map, so you can go and get them anytime you want as long as they're there.

 

That's not including weapons, which are ranged as well.  Certain weapons can be used in the duel weapon attack as a ranged weapon.

 

Can you change the formation of the items, or set it up ahead of time so that there will be more or less of them?

 

Sammy: Not currently.  There is a way to remove power-ups from the game.  You'll have weapons but no power-ups.  No stamina pick-ups, no health, no Chi, no relics -- just weapons.

 

(To learn more about the relics of Iron Phoenix, check out our previous coverage.)

 

Iron Phoenix Kung-fu Clinic #1

 

Iron Phoenix Kung-fu Clinic #2

 

Before we had talked about the different teams where you could have eight versus eight.  Is there a way to have it so that 10 people can go up against six if those six are the best players?

 

Sammy: You'd be able to structure, with the addition of teams and tournaments, you could set up a tournament where you have six against 10 if you wanted to do so.

 

 

Kata Kang is no match for Mia B.  If I’m the one controlling her.

 

 

How have you guys been testing the game to ensure that it runs properly when it's released and thousands of gamers rush to play it online?

 

Sammy: By continually testing and working with Microsoft to ensure that it works with Xbox Live.  Issues might come up later on when there's hopefully hundreds of thousands of players.  We're playing the game, but right now we can only test as best we can with the amount of testers we have, and working again with Microsoft, and having Xbox Live matches against Microsoft, holding them against the development team in Taiwan.

 

How many different locations do you have people testing it at?

 

Sammy: Southern California, Northern California, Europe (UK), Taiwan, Shanghai, and Redmond.  We pretty much have the corners covered as far as lag over Xbox Live.

 

Now there's no split-screen, it's strictly one player per console, correct?

 

Sammy: Correct.

 

Is there a LAN mode?

 

Sammy: Yes, we support system link.  Up to 16 Xboxes, one player per Xbox, with voice [communication].

 

When will the public demo be released?

 

Sammy: Right now we're targeting the February issue of OXM (Official Xbox Magazine), which hits stands in January.  The demo will also be in the April issue.

 

 

On the next Bloodlock: a lawyer tries to free a man on trial, accused of a murder he didn’t commit.

 

 

You're releasing it twice?

 

Sammy: Yeah, one time before the game ships and one time after the game ships.

 

How much content will be on these demos?

 

Sammy: The content is limited to one map and a limited number of weapons and characters.

 

Will you have more details on the demo in the future?

 

Sammy: We have all the details right now.

 

Alright, then tell us everything that it has.

 

Sammy: [Laughs]  We're using the Great Wall level which we showcased at E3.  We have four weapons: Ash Blade, Dagger, Spear, and Ember Sword.   The characters are Derais, Natasha, Mia, and Kata Kang.  Some of the weapons and characters have changed since the E3 demo.

 

Death Match, Team Death Match, and VIP are the game modes being released in the demo.  And it's a Live-enabled demo with voice.

 

Thanks to everyone at Sammy and Kohnke Communications for having a wonderful conference call.