January 2025 Update
Development Update
2025 has begun.
In Japan, a TV program called “Yuku-toshi Kuru-toshi” is broadcast at the end of the year.
The program features live broadcasts of New Year’s celebrations throughout the country, and you can see the “Joya no Kane” bell being rung and people doing the special “Ni-nen mairi” shrine visits at shrines and temples in various regions.
Every time I watch this program, I’m reminded that Japan has various climates.
While the air is dry in Tokyo, the Sea of Japan side of the country receives moist air from the continent and experiences heavy snowfall every winter, which is a rarity throughout the world. According to some statistics, the top three cities in the world in terms of snowfall and snow accumulation are all located in Japan!
May 2025 be a good year for you. The first monthly report of this year is from Sekiya.
Armed Fantasia January 2025 Project Diary
Director Sekiya here. I hope you’ll all continue cheering us on throughout 2025.
If we were still in the Showa Era this year, and things had never changed to Heisei or Reiwa, it would be Showa Year 100. (Sorry if this intro seems odd to people overseas.)
Incidentally, the 100th year of the Showa era is the year in which the film “NEGADON – the Monster from Mars” is set. So, for the first time in over 20 years, I pulled out the DVD from my video software shelf and watched it as my first film this year. Every little detail, from the Japanese retro-futuristic cinematography to the gimmicks of the giant robot MI-6 that fights Negadon are all filled with the director’s unique sensibility, so I enjoyed watching it even now.
I have to confess, though, that every staff member was really busy at the end of last year, so I don’t really have much material to report on this month.
We would have loved to have prepared a New Year’s illustration, but we were unable to coordinate that with our illustrator. So at the very least, hoping it can serve as an apology, here is a high model image of a snake-esque anomaly that matches the Chinese zodiac animal for this year, called the Ukonvasara. It kind of looks like a good luck charm, right?
(By the way, why did Mr. Kaneko name this design “Ukonvasara”?)
For this update, I’ll be delivering an assortment of little tidbits to you.
Chest Design
This is what the treasure chests in the field will look like.
You may think they look simple, like what anyone could imagine a treasure chest to look like, but there’s actually a long history leading up to this design.
The worldview of “ARMED FANTASIA” is rather sci-fi oriented, and filled with shiny mechanical props, so the treasure chests were also initially designed to match that aesthetic. However, when we placed them in those mechanical dungeons, they blended in with the background more than we wanted them to, making it hard for players to tell whether they’d found a chest or a mechanism, so we did away with the mechanical designs.
When you find a treasure chest, it’s more exciting if you can tell it’s a chest at first glance, so we decided it would be better if it was designed in a way that it would stick out when placed in a variety of locations. That’s how we ended up with this design, which would look right at home in a medieval fantasy setting. Incidentally, there are three grades of chests, and you’ll need the right keys to access the contents of blue and red ones.
Oh, and here’s some more treasure chest-related information.The mimic that appeared in the “Wild Arms” series will also appear in this title. However, the design has been completely redesigned, making it quite unique.
When the draft was submitted, the office became filled with excitement. “We’ve never seen a mimic like this before!” I want everyone to feel the impact we felt when seeing it for the first time, so I won’t reveal it here. Man, the anomalies that Ishii-san designs are so goofy! (Compliment)
Barometz
We also want design lines with a different atmosphere for other anomalies, so in addition to Ishii-san, our main designer, several other designers are involved in this project. This Barometz is an anomaly designed by bee tribe.
According to Kaneko-san’s orders, it was supposed to be “A floating sheep with twisted horns. In addition to its deformed body shape, it’s also fluffy and soft. In actual battles, it is a troublesome enemy that spreads various debuffs. Only at the moment of a powerful attack can someone see how dangerous its true nature is.”
The fact that its natural expression changes drastically when it’s attacking is one of its unique points.
You may be able to imagine this from what its name is based on, but although this anomaly looks like a sheep, it’s categorized as a plant-type. (Incidentally, the other sheep-esque anomalies that appear as palette swaps are categorized as wild beasts.)
There was also one more comment that Kaneko-san sent to the battle team as an additional note. “It tastes like vegetables when eaten.” But that has absolutely no effect on the game at the moment…
Scenario Adjustments
We are constantly adding depth to the text by adding more character information, supplementing story development, etc. Kaneko-san and I have been tinkering around with the text, and sometimes it affects the event planning, which makes Ishii-san angry. However, I would like to continue this work for as long as I can.
In the main character’s party, Sigurd is the quiet type, the type who stands in the background with his arms crossed. He lets the youngsters take the lead and doesn’t assert himself, so sometimes we find that only Strische is paying attention to him. So we’ve adjusted things so that Ingram and other party members speak to him of their own accord and pull him into things so that he doesn’t get left on his own. But when facing strong enemies, he sometimes goes all-out in true ‘chuuni’ fashion, so he’s a pretty complicated character from a creator’s point of view.
Battle Adjustments
Battles also continue to be tweaked in regards to the overall direction of difficulty.
We keep asking ourselves, how difficult should we make the boss enemies and other event battles?
It comes down to the taste of the person in charge, or up to how concerned we decide to make ourselves about modern players, or how attached we are to the anomalies that appear in the game. Even if we leave the parameters the same, the balance of the design can still drastically alter how the game feels to play.
We don’t want battles to be one-sided and tasteless, or on the other hand, we don’t want battles to always be painful and tedious.
At the moment, we want to maintain that the premise of the game is to use skills and equipment to solve puzzles, so the number of difficult bosses which require serious strategy will be limited to a specific number and placed only at key points in the story in order to make the game more memorable.
From our experience, we know that players always exceed the developers’ expectations, so there may not be that much point in trying to force limitations on things.
In the near future, I plan to hold a battle meeting with Hashimoto-san, who is in charge of battles, under the guise of a New Year’s party, in order to further refine the content.
That concludes this month’s update. Colds and flus are going around, so we’re trying to take care to not get sick as we continue our daily work.
Please take good care of yourselves as well. See you next month.
