Guilty Gear Strive artists explain biggest challenges bringing fighting games to life Arc System WorksWe sat down with Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s 2D artist, Shoichi Kitazono, and environment artist Genki Mamada, to quiz them about what exactly goes into creating the visuals for a fighting game. Guilty Gear Strive is the latest installment in the beloved anime fighting game series, hailed throughout the community for its heavy metal soundtrack and eye-popping artwork. Arc System Works, the game\u2019s publisher, is known for crafting gorgeous visuals that blend elements of 2D and 3D animation for a unique look that\u2019s difficult to replicate. We got the chance to sit down with the minds behind Guilty Gear Strive, who let us in on some of the unexpected work that goes into creating such an intricate-looking game \u2014 and one of the most interesting answers came from Strive\u2019s environment artist, Genki Mamada. Mamada told us that one of the biggest challenges in creating stages for fighting games is working with the system\u2019s camera. In 2D fighters, players really only get to move right, left, up, or down in a two-dimensional space, which imposes some interesting limits on the artist making it. \u201cFor fighting games, the biggest thing is camera work, actually,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s in a fixed position, and you can only really slide from one side to the other. That\u2019s a really particular point when making fighting game backgrounds. Even if you have a 3D background, there\u2019s only so far that you can slide, and only so far that you can show depth and detail with that. \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta be able to make it so that people can easily see not just the background, but also what\u2019s going on in there. That\u2019s one of the major points that you need to really think about when making a background for a fighting game, is the fixed point factor of the camera.\u201d That\u2019s not all; Mamada also explained that, as a background artist, he doesn\u2019t want to outshine the game\u2019s characters. After all, fighting games are heavily dependent on visuals for players to see incoming attacks. \u201cThe character is really important, so one of the biggest things is not to interfere with them,\u201d he added. \u201cThe story mode, the location that appears in the story mode, things like the battle stage location\u2026 if the world inside Daisuke Ishiwatari\u2019s head can be expressed in the background, I think the fans will definitely enjoy it, and they can discover a lot of things, but of course, characters are the most important part.\u201d Strive\u2019s producer, Ken Miyauchi, interjected to give Mamada some extra credit, thanking him for allowing Guilty Gear\u2019s characters to shine on the stages he created with elements like lighting. \u201cI also want to credit that the environment artist for making the character stand out on the stages,\u201d he said. \u201cfor example, with the lighting. If there\u2019s like a forest stage, and there\u2019s sunshine coming through the leaves, and then that drops the shadows on the characters, which makes the character have more life in the actual world of Guilty Gear.\u201d The team made it clear that a big part of creating fighting game backgrounds is also building upon the world of the game. There\u2019s a certain amount of storytelling that happens in these stages that allows players to get a glimpse of what everyday life is like for the characters they\u2019re piloting \u201cIf you take a look at our new stage in particular, you\u2019re trying to tell the world setting through the stages, whether you\u2019re going between the story locations or the battle stages themselves,\u201d Mamada said. \u201cIt needs to explain, \u2018What is this world?\u2019 \u201cWe take Ishiwatari-san\u2019s ideas for this world, and from that, create something that the fans can really love \u2014 something that they can enjoy exploring and searching through as they play through the game.\u201d Of course, there are certain intricacies involved in making Guilty Gear\u2019s characters, as well. These fighters boast some of the most complicated designs in the genre \u2014 but for concept artist Shoichi Kitazono, nailing down an attractive pose and overall form is most important. \u201cFor 2D character key art, I want to start with an attractive shape or an attractive pose for the character,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo of course they have their head, their body, their limbs \u2014 but how do you shape them in a beautiful way that is also a way that is them, the character?\u201d For Kitazono, his personal favorite piece of art he\u2019s made for the Guilty Gear franchise has to be of A.B.A., a returning character introduced earlier this year. \u201cMy favorite work is actually the A.B.A. artwork that I did,\u201d he told us. \u201cI really feel like her pose speaks to who she is as a character.\u201d It was enlightening getting an inside look at the creation of one of the world\u2019s most iconic fighting games \u2014 a title that Miyauchi says they want to make sure is the \u201cbest of all Arc System Works fighting games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guilty Gear Strive artists explain biggest challenges bringing fighting games to life Arc System WorksWe sat down with Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s 2D artist, Shoichi Kitazono, and environment artist Genki Mamada, to quiz them about what exactly goes into creating the visuals for a fighting game. Guilty Gear Strive is the latest installment in the beloved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}