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Interview with CJ Producer of "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms: The Storm of Time": Red Hare attacks in the form of a motorcycle

Dump Truck

2024-07-31

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Author: Mud truck

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The Seventy-two Transformations of the Red Hare

The famous Journey to the West scholar Mr. Zhang once called for adaptation to not be random and parody to not be nonsense. But for some reason, from Stephen Chow's classic "A Chinese Odyssey" to a popular column on a certain website, "If Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition soldiers were given porridge and pickled mustard tubers," the humorous interpretation of these classics has never stopped.

Arc System Works' "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms" is the best of these "nonsense" novels - yes, it's the "hot-blooded" series that has been passed down from the FC era to the present day, with all the crew members wearing airplane-haired bikers and punching each other at the slightest disagreement. In 2022, the 35th anniversary of the series, the protagonist "Guo Fu" travels back to the body of Guan Yu in the Three Kingdoms era, beating up enemy generals from the Yellow Turban Rebellion all the way to the Battle of Red Cliffs.

On July 19 of this year, the final chapter of the sequel, "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms: The Storm of Troubled Times", was officially released. Similar to the history, Guan Yu (Guo Fu) in this game finally has his own mount - a motorcycle named Red Hare.

After all, this is a "hot-blooded" series, so anything that happens is normal.

Thanks to Arc System Works for inviting us, we interviewed Kenji Sato, the director of the "Hot Blood" series, during this ChinaJoy. This producer, who is quite humorous in his speech, will answer some questions that players are interested in for us, allowing us to have a deeper understanding of this work that has nonsense written on its face.

Q: "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms" has always been known for its humorous stories. How does the new game further strengthen this feature? How do you ensure that the game remains interesting while showing the charm of the Three Kingdoms history? Why did you first come up with the idea of ​​making a new "Hot Blooded" series with the Three Kingdoms as the background?

A: The "Hot Blood" series has always been based on humor and laughs. Therefore, we also attach great importance to humor in this game. The "core laugh" of this game is the Red Hare in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". We designed it as a motorcycle, and the protagonist can ride this Red Hare "horse" to fight.

This game is our attempt to combine the "Hot Blood" series with the Three Kingdoms theme. We will use the unique way of the "Hot Blood" series to express and interpret the story of the Three Kingdoms.

The reason for choosing the Three Kingdoms as the background is that the Three Kingdoms theme is not only popular in Japan, but also in overseas markets, that is, the Chinese market. Therefore, we chose the Three Kingdoms as the background. If it is for the North American market, we will probably use the theme of zombies (laughs).

Q: The story of the previous game ended at the "Battle of Red Cliffs". Will the story of the new game continue from here? If it continues, will the ending of "defeat at Maicheng" be rewritten for "Guo Fu"'s "Guan Yu"? Will there be other bad endings?

A: The story of this game will start after the Battle of Red Cliff and go all the way to the Battle of Wuzhangyuan, which is the end point of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the traditional Japanese concept. Guan Yu will die in Maicheng in the original work, but it is a bit "weird" for Guan Yu (Guo Fu), the protagonist, to die halfway... Therefore, the plot of this game is based on the if line of "Guan Yu will not die".

Although some of the plots in this work may be different from history, the general plot of this work will try to follow the historical facts and there will not be a big difference. Therefore, there is no so-called Bad Ending.

Q: How did you come up with the idea of ​​combining the skill system with the background of the Three Kingdoms to design the "strategy"? Are there more designs for "strategies" in the new game? Are there any other more creative "strategies"?

A: The "strategies" in this game are based on strategies that have appeared in history, and the developers present them in a more funny way from the perspective of the protagonist Kunio. For example, this game implements a new strategy that can summon other generals - however, in addition to the generals, there may be other "somethings" that pop up when summoning.

Q: Is the basic gameplay of the game the same as the previous game? In addition to riding and summoning generals, are there any other major changes?

A: The gameplay of this game is roughly the same as the previous game, "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms". However, in terms of details, some improvements have been made to facilitate the player's play and to help them get started. For example, in the previous game, if you want to learn a special move, you need to go to the store to buy a special move book, and then use it in your backpack to equip it, which is quite cumbersome. But in this game, the special move learning has been optimized into a skill tree form, which is more concise.

Q: Regarding the general summoning system, how many generals can be summoned? Can those from non-Shu factions be summoned?

A: Of course, the number of generals that can be summoned at the beginning is 0, but as the player completes various side quests, the number can be increased to a maximum of 6. Of course, there are generals other than Shu among the generals that can be summoned.

Q: When summoning generals, will they appear as co-battle partners, or will they leave after using a big move? If it is the former, will all 6 generals appear, or will they appear individually?

A: The summoned generals will fight alongside the player as an ally. As long as the protagonist's energy bar is still available, they will fight alongside the player. Once the energy bar is used up or the player enters the next map, the allied generals will leave the field. In addition, summoning generals will allow all unlocked generals to appear on the field and fight the enemy together.

Q: In the previous game, players could grind for equipment over multiple playthroughs. Does this game also provide new content for players to play repeatedly?

A: Similar to the previous game, in multiple rounds, players can obtain more powerful equipment and choose more difficult divergent routes to play.

Q: Does this game have a save inheritance mechanism so that players who have played the previous game can continue playing?

A: Although there is no save file inheritance function, players who have save files from the previous game can get a special bonus - the player's Red Hare (motorcycle) will appear in a slightly enhanced form. In the trailer, we can also see that the evolved form of the Red Hare is the "Flame Wheel" that Sol Badge's vehicle in "Guilty Gear: Fighting" is.

Q: The story of Liu Bei's camp is about to end. Will there be some form of story expansion from other perspectives in the future? For example, Cao Cao's camp or Sun Quan's camp?

A: Although the "Hot-Blooded Three Kingdoms" from Guan Yu (Kunio)'s perspective will come to an end, we also have the possibility of producing "Hot-Blooded Three Kingdoms" from other perspectives in the future.

Q: The game introduction mentioned that "'Hot-Blooded Three Kingdoms' ends here?" Does this mean that this will be the last work in the series? Are there any other plans?

A: As I said just now, the story of Liu Bei's forces in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" ends here, but the series will not end here. The second and third generations may be launched in the future, but the specific plans are still under discussion.

Q: Will the “Hot Blood” series produce works other than those set in the Three Kingdoms?

A: As long as it is a theme that can be integrated with the style of the "Hot Blood" series, we will explore its possibility - I don't know if domestic players will be interested, maybe there will be "Hot Blood Water Margin" and "Hot Blood Journey to the West" in the future. But no matter what, "Hot Blood Dream of Red Mansions" may not be suitable (laughs).

Q: If a new player has not played the previous game, will there be any obstacles for him to directly enter this game? In this regard, will there be some system such as a synopsis in the game to assist new players?

A: In terms of the game itself, the player's character is reset to the original state, and there is no inheritance from the previous part, so there is no need to worry about this. In terms of the game plot, we have also set up a "library" function, which can be used to check the story of the previous game.

Q: Some players of the previous game reported that the judgment of throwing techniques was not stable. Will this game make some adjustments to this?

A: In this regard, the range of various attacks, including throwing techniques, has been expanded to a certain extent in this game, which should alleviate these problems.

Q: The Red Hare motorcycle in this game can be customized in various appearances. Is it possible that we can change this motorcycle back into the shape of a horse?

A: (Laughs) How should I put it? In this game, horses as mounts are unlikely to appear, but there will be some "something" similar to "horses", and players can go and look for it.

Q: From the Battle of Red Cliffs to Wuzhangyuan is a very long period of history. As the final chapter of the Shu Kingdom story in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", will the length of this game be longer?

A: The size of the game will be roughly the same as the previous one. Although the game cannot reproduce all of history, it will present important historical events to players in a condensed form.

At the end of the interview, Mr. Sato expressed his gratitude to Chinese players for their continued support, and hoped that everyone would try "Hot Blooded Three Kingdoms: Turmoil" and take this opportunity to learn about the "Hot Blooded" series.