Talking 500 battling creatures with Spectrobe's Kentaro Hisai

With around two weeks to go until the global release of one of the big original DS titles of the year, Disney's Spectrobes, we thought it only polite to catch up with its producer Kentaro Hisai and get his take on the game looking to out-evolve Pokémon.

Pocker Gamer: What was the inspiration for Spectrobes? Kentaro Hisai: The initial desire was to create a game with a huge variety of creatures. Then we concentrated on other features, such as fossil excavation, creature evolution and training, space adventure, and intriguing battles. Space and science stimulate curiosity, and games that are fun generally need to do the same.

As for the art direction, there were two inspirational elements – traditional Japanese art and modern Japanese manga and animation styles. The history of traditional Japanese art dates back some 2,000 years, and is globally popular even today. I thought it would be challenging and yet intriguing to express that style through modern manga and animation techniques.

There are plenty of creature RPGs such as Pokémon and Digimon, so how have you made Spectrobes different and better?

There are other creature collection games, but the excavation element and the real-time battle action are all new. We feel those two elements, along with a host of others, will definitely set this game apart from the two you mentioned.

For example, the excavation aspect is unique to Spectrobes. The players have to use the stylus to locate the fossils and excavate them. These fossils are quite delicate and are easily damaged or even broken. However, if you are able to deftly and cleanly pull them from the ground, you awaken more interesting creatures. This provides a risk / reward challenge.

As for the battles, the real-time aspect makes Spectrobes completely different from other creature collection games. There's not another one out there in which the player character can participate in the actual action. It's the player and the two creatures he's selected to manipulate versus a host of enemies. There's a lot of strategy to it and it's a lot of fun.

How easy has it been to design the 500 different spectrobes, and how have you designed them so that players won't just get confused and stick with the same ones?

Creature design is always difficult, especially with this many, but as I mentioned before, variety and quantity were our objectives.

We ultimately came up with close to 500 variations. Giving each their own individual characteristics, look and feel, and movements took a lot of time and a lot of collaboration. Then we had to name them – a task much more complicated than most would imagine. But the hard work has paid off. We've got this huge number of creatures, but people never confuse them.

Further, each of the creatures has unique attacks, unique support powers, and unique healing powers. Also, depending on the pairing of two spectrobes taken into battle together, combination attacks will vary. It's this variety that drives the player to evolve, train, and experiment with different creatures.

Will all 500 spectrobes be available in each game or will you have to trade to get access to them?

You can collect almost all spectrobes from within the game. In order to collect them, you have to excavate fossils, awaken them, feed them, and evolve them.

However, there are some special spectrobes that you can only acquire via the card input system and wi-fi download.

The card input system is a unique feature we're really proud of. You have to place the card on the lower screen, touch the stylus to the screen under the holes in the card in the order indicated, and then you will get the creature represented on the card.

And the card designs are way cool. I think they actually came out much better than anybody imagined they would. Different cards will be bundled with the game and others may be given out in the future.

As for wi-fi downloadables, keep an eye out for new information on how that will work.

Can you reveal anything?

We have both wi-fi download features and a stats upload feature. You can receive unique spectrobes and customised parts via wi-fi download. There'll be more news what will be available regarding that feature soon, keep an eye open for it.

As for stats upload, you'll be able to upload a portion of your battle stats and arsenal information to a special area of the website. There'll be some rankings and you'll be able to see what combination of spectrobes and items different players used to achieve their ranks. We're planning to have a pretty cool community site there.

Most people are used to turn-based RPGs, so why did you decide to go for real-time and how easy will it be for players to change their strategies mid-battle?

Turn-based RPG's have their own different fun factor. When we started contemplating battle systems, we were sure real-time was the best for this game. Spectrobes are reliable creatures, they fight well together, but they must have direction. The real-time battle was essential in order to appropriately convey these characteristics.

The player becomes the commander of the team and issues battle orders to the spectrobes The player can also attack, but with little affect as spectrobes are the only know weapon against the Krawl scourge.

Anyway, when the player is in the mix it feels more like hand-to-hand battle alongside your troops. But when he is slightly removed, it makes the player feel like he is wielding powerful battle allies that are fighting for their master. It's an exciting style of play and we're very satisfied with it.

How much of Spectrobes will be concerned with exploring and finding new creatures, compared to the amount of time spent in battles?

It depends on the player and the way they like to game, but 50/50 might be a fair approximation. Outside of the exploration and excavation versus standard Krawl battles balance, there is evolution and training as well as wireless ad-hoc, or what we call Matchmaker battles, that lengthen gameplay yet maintains that battle / non-battle balance.

Finally, what part of Spectrobes are you most pleased with?

I'm most pleased with the number of compelling features the game incorporates. A few of my favourites are fossil excavation with the stylus, cool and fascinating art design, and compelling and exciting real time battle with both intuitive and fun controls. I should stop, if I list all of my favourites, this answer will get way drawn out!

Anyway, I guess the most satisfying thing is that there is so much in Spectrobes that hasn't been seen in other games. Give it a try and I think you'll agree.

We will, thanks very much for your time!

Spectrobes is released on 16th March. See all our coverage, including extensive previews, via our Spectrobes product page.