December 2024 Update

Development Update

2024 is coming to an end. Whenever the staff in charge of updates gets a mail from the production team saying “Here’s the text and images for the monthly update,” they’re always shocked to see another month has passed, and now the end of 2024 is here. It went by so quickly.

This year’s last update comes to you from Ishii.

ARMED FANTASIA December 2024 Project Report

Chief Director Ishii here. It’s December.
On my way to work, I saw snow decorating Mt. Fuji in the distance, which made me feel like we’re really in the midst of winter now.

Luckily, it rarely snows near my office, but sometimes it does and public transportation gets paralyzed, which can be a problem.

Seems like people in Londenium won’t need to worry about things like that since the ground is mostly brownish… I wonder if it ever snows there at all?

I thought about checking with Kaneko regarding this issue, but he’s out in a meeting. The holiday rush is no joke, and our deadlines are also approaching. I’ll check with Sekiya instead since our eyes happened to meet.

Ishii: “Question. Are there places in Londenium where it snows?”
Sekiya: “Since it’s westernpunk, we have cold locations modeled after Western-esque situations, but how things look visually will ultimately be up to bee tribe. It’d be funny if it snows as much as it did in “The Hateful Eight.”
Ishii: “Thank you for the answer. But enough about that, help me out with this month’s project update.”
Sekiya: “What’s the theme this time?”
Ishii: “We’ll be revealing a bunch of designs of new anomalies!”
Sekiya: “Well, the people who like anomalies will enjoy that. But are you sure it’s okay to reveal so many?”
Ishii: “We’ll only be revealing the ones that are okay to show. I picked the safest ones at my own discretion. Incidentally, it’ll include some design art that bee tribe hasn’t checked yet.”
Sekiya: “No wonder I don’t know some of these.”
Ishii: “They’re still under development, so I’ll let people know that we aren’t sure whether or not they’ll all be implemented yet. Anyway, let’s go!”

Peluda

Ishii: “The first one is the Peluda. According to Kaneko-san’s order report, it’s an ‘ancient dinosaur from French mythology.’
Sekiya: “Looks like a porcupine to me.”
Ishii: “True, since it’s supposed to have thorns, we based its design around a porcupine. Also, since it’s supposed to be a ‘natural disaster-level boss,’ we gave it more of a kaiju-centric design’…although, I honestly can’t think of many anomalies who aren’t ‘natural disaster-level’…
Sekiya: “I think any model citizen would immediately think of the Tarasque when they hear the words ‘ancient dinosaur from French mythology,’ does this mean a Tarasque will appear in Armed Fantasia as well?”
Ishii: “What a shameless question. You already know the answer to that.”
Sekiya: “Well, it is a spiritual successor, after all… (making it obvious)”
Ishii: “Back to the Peluda, we’ve been seeing a lot of anomaly designs on four legs as of late, so we decided to make it stand on two legs after thinking about the overall balance. It’s cute to see four-legged creatures standing on two legs, isn’t it?”
Sekiya: Oh, like how in that famous portrait of Napoleon (Napoleon Crossing the Alps), the horse he’s riding on is standing on two legs?”
Ishii: “Wrong. I was talking about Tamanduas and Red pandas… We haven’t seen many kaiju-esque designs like this thus far, so it was fun to draw this one.”

Skeleton

Ishii: “Next up is the Skeleton.”
Sekiya: “You didn’t design this one, did you>”
Ishii: “It was designed by Yoshida-san, who sometimes draws illustrations for the monthly reports. The name is really hard to translate.” [*Translator’s note: This is because the name in Japanese is ‘sukeruton.’ ‘sukeru’ means transparent, and ‘ton’ is slang for pig, but when put together, it sounds similar to the pronunciation of ‘skeleton.’]
Sekiya: “It’s an undead type, and I heard that it’s based on a ‘true story’-type horror movie that Kaneko-san saw when he was a kid. It looks really cute.”
Ishii: “Incidentally, Yoshida-san stated its charm point is its tail, which sort of looks like a halo, or a mosquito repellent coil…but I feel like Yoshida-san doesn’t understand the connection between its name and its design. The #buta hash tag seems so decisive, it’s kind of scary…”
Sekiya: “Regardless of what Yoshida-san thinks, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a horrifying anomaly. I asked Hashimoto-san, the battle director, to make it pretty powerful.”
Ishii: “Even though it looks like this? If I’d designed it based on that order, it wouldn’t have ended up like this. It’s so fun seeing other people’s designs.”
Sekiya: “That reminds me…I feel like the art team once mentioned that they feel Kaneko-san’s idea of what is “cute” is abnormal, but this one’s properly cute, right?”
Ishii: “What are you saying?! All of our anomalies are cute!”

Vodyanoy

Ishii: “Lastly we have the Vodyanoy, which Wild Arms fans should recognize. It’s Kaneko-san’s nemesis, the kappa.”
Sekiya: “True, Kaneko-san always puts kappas in all his games.”
Ishii: “According to what he told me, he was attacked by a kappa when he was little, when he was at a local river with his friend.”
Sekiya: “Maybe that’s why he always puts kappa in his games as enemies…to inform people about how dangerous they are… But perhaps it’s a facet of his past that we’d better not pry into.”
Ishii: “The order this time around was to make it look like an unidentified, creepy entity, so I added a lot of alien-esque details to it. I think I managed to give it a humanoid shape but still make it look very alien.”
Sekiya: “In previous games it used kenpo, I wonder how it’ll end up in Armed Fantasia.”
Ishii: “We’re still working on that. It moves at high speeds by shooting out water jets from the shell on its back.”
Sekiya: “So like ‘water boxing’ instead of ‘drunken boxing’?
Ishii: I’m sure the designers will improve its design even more when they turn it into a 3D model, so I’m really looking forward to seeing it in action.”

Thank you for all your support this year

We’ve revealed a total of 10 anomalies so far, including the three in this update. Kaneko has gone out of his way to make sure Armed Fantasia features a ton of different enemy monsters unlike what you usually see in RPGs as of late. We hope you’re looking forward to battling them all!

December has only just begun, but our 2024 project reports end here.

It may be a little early to say this, but have a happy new year, and see you all next year.