There has been a recurring theme in the developer-based opinions of the recent year that people now associate the term “anime” with pink hair. I’m not entirely sure why this particular color has been pointed out, since mainstream anime typically does not have pink-haired characters. Most people who would casually group anime in this way would not know the more obscure characters that do sport pink/magenta hair, and the popular ones such as Sakura are harder to name than you’d think. This just irritates me since Arashi has dark pink hair and everytime I read this sort of comment it makes it sound like it is stereotypical of the art style – especially since she was designed in 1998 before anime was super popular, not to mention it’s just plain wrong like all preconceptions of anime or whatever term being discussed is.
Adding more options and responsiveness to the combat recently to make it more engaging, I was curious just how much people enjoy aerial combos that have become a stand-by of action-oriented games in the last decade. Final Fantasy XIII‘s fairly positive reviews seem to all include some sort of comment about the flashy combat animations, and (as Shadowdawn Genesis is influenced partially by) aerial combat has been included in almost all of the ultra-popular 2D fighting games since X-Men: Children of the Atom. Even Tales of Vesperia, the most recent U.S.-released game in the series includes air combos, though it takes almost the entire game to unlock them. This is just a thought as I could easily add this into the combo chain. In the meantime, I have added several moves to offense and defense to Arashi recently to give players more to play around with, namely more evasion and trick attacks to give a real experience to swordplay.
Also, if I haven’t already said so, I will be attending San Diego Comic-con for the entire convention. My main priority is to start spreading the word about the title, and if luck permits and I finish the animations I have planned this weekend I should be able to pull up a sort of teaser recording of the game in motion. I probably won’t get that lucky since it seems like my day job is going to have the weekend booked…
But if anyone wants to meet up next week in San Diego, just send me a message!
