By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Nuvendil on 06 February 2018
Edit Thread
curl-6 said:
Nuvendil said:

If I were to hazzard a guess, I would say the bigger stumbling block was not having the hardware in their hands for half the process.  But I don't think the vission was at all limited here, it feels whole and complete.  It's mostly polish issues, mainly technical ones.  Which the first game had as well, but that was more a case of fighting against badly aging hardware. 

And the 40 man core team wasn't by themselves, as stated, they brought in assistance.  It would be good to see what the full team can do.  But then, you have to ask if the 60 missing here are merely rank and file, say, 3d artists, programmers, etc who mostly just do the work and don't impact overall design or are there major players in that 60 man group.  

It definitely had the feel (or rather, the look) of a game where the devs weren't entirely comfortable with the hardware, similar to a lot of games that release early on in the lifespan of their hardware, stuff like Dead Rising 3 on Xbox One, Perfect Dark Zero on 360, Resistance Fall of Man on PS3, etc.

Agreed, but they caught on quick though.  It's not like a lot of games on the early 360 where the devs were tripping over themselves to figure out how to use the hardware.  More like a second year game.  And I think some of it was design miscalculations.  I think they underestimated the impact on performance they would see in portable and failed to make the smart compromises they could have made for that mode.  I'm personally impressed most by Monolith Soft's ambition, which is why I count them among Nintendo's elite.  They could have just left the engine at X levels and reeled in their ambition for a more compact project than 2, I don't think anyone would have necessarily complained so long as it was good.  They didn't have to make such a big game and they certainly didn't have to overhaul the lighting, foliage system, implement per-object motion blur, create a new volumetric cloud solution.  Their willingness to pursue big projects regardless of the challenges that brings is something you don't find much in the industry these days.