If you frequent Japanese game sites, you’ll notice several of them now include western games in their coverage, which is a sign that they’re either becoming more accepted in that market or that the games press in Japan is having a little trouble with the size of their audience. Either way, games like Assassin’s Creed 2 and Call of Duty, and even analyst stories from the USA are now included alongside Japanese news.
Recently, Famitsu magazine actually went a step further and flew out to Ubisoft in France to get the scoop on Red Steel 2 and some other interesting stuff. Here are some interesting tidbits from the interview:
- In terms of content, the game is 95% complete. If you take debugging into account, it’s at about 90%.
- The new cel-shaded art style was a decision made to suit Wii MotionPlus integration.
– Movies like Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Kim Ji-woon’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird were used as sources of inspiration.1
- You’ll be able to dual-wield guns in the game at some point. This seems to be part of the additional moves you can acquire (using money) as you progress through the game.
- There are about 40 different types of enemies in the game in total, including bosses, spanning across three different clans.
- When the Famitsu editor asked how they came up with the Japanese names for the clans, the team replied they used Google. They were actually looking for words which didn’t mean anything in particular but Famitsu’s editor pointed out to them that "Kusagari" — one of the clans – works since “kusa” (literally “grass”) was once used for ninja. Lucky for them it fits. "Katakara," on the other hand, doesn’t mean anything.2
