SEGA has today held a demo event for their upcoming new Virtual-On game A Certain Magical Virtual-On at Animate Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. The new demo build confirms a 13th playable Virtuaroid which was not shown in the recently published new trailer, which is called the Bal-Bados and will be available as the second Virtuaroid for Index (who is currently confirmed to also pilot the Bal-RlooN).
As the producer of A Certain Magical Virtual-On, Juro Watari, also attended the event, Japanese media outlets such as Dengeki used the opportunity to interview him to gain more details about the game. We have translated the interview, which you can read right away.
Dengeki: Please tell us the current development status.
Watari: It’s already about 90% done. We just need to focus on detailed works like bug fixing and adjustments. The development is also wrapping up, so the workplace is in a frenzy right now (laughs).
Dengeki: You have held a demo event at Akihabara just now, but are you planning to hold more events where this game can be played in the near future?
Watari: If we only stayed in Tokyo then people in other regions wouldn’t be able to check it out, so I’d like to do that as well. Also, we have decided to publish a demo version on PS4 and PS Vita, so please kindly play that one!
The public demo will have the same version as the one playable in this event. You cannot play online battles, but you can enjoy the tutorial and CPU battles using 13 Virtuaroids. It’s planned to be published at PlayStation Store on December 14, so please wait for a moment!
Dengeki: Cyber Troopers Virtual-On is a series with a long history, but can players who are not too familiar with action games enjoy it too?
Watari: In order for this game to be playable to people who will buy because they like A Certain Magical Index, we’ve included a Story Mode that has been supervised by the original writer [Kazuma] Kamachi. The battle difficulty is lower in this mode, so even people who aren’t good in action games can also safely play it.
Dengeki: Currently there is a total of 13 playable units, but will there be more additions?
Watari: Anyway, for now, there are 13 units. Of course, everybody will scold us with critiques like “There’s no xxx character from A Certain Magical Index!” or “There’s no xxx Virtuaroid from Virtual-On!” so I’d like to do something on that…! First of all, we’ll have people play with these 13 units, and we’ll see the reactions from that.
Dengeki: Will every character from A Certain Magical Index get involved in the story?
Watari: While the playable characters are obvious enough, all NPCs including Othinus will also get involved in the story. For more details, you can play the story by yourself. The likes of Othinus and [Leivinia] Birdway still haven’t appeared in the anime yet, but they are deeply related to this story. So after talking with Kamachi-san and Dengeki Bunko, we properly added voices for them.
Dengeki: Approximately how much volume will the Story Mode have?
Watari: Let’s see… When people in the development team -who have grown accustomed to this game- played the game in a straight way, it took about 4~5 hours for them. However, the Story Mode here has an episode for each character, and their timelines are also scattered all over the place. Once you cleared a character’s story, you might be able to understand another’s story when you’ve replayed them; so if you’re taking that into consideration it’s going to take even more time.
Dengeki: Will the PS Vita version also support Ad-Hoc in versus mode?
Watari: The PS Vita version supports both Online and Ad-Hoc versus. Just like the PS4 version, you can also enjoy 2-VS-2 and Co-op. However, cross-platform multiplayer between PS4 and PS Vita is not supported, so please be advised.
Dengeki: Can you customize buttons and control schemes?
Watari: It is possible to assign buttons to some extent in the Options. After all, there are many fans of past series who would like to play with twin-stick controls, but since it’s difficult to reproduce that with the analog sticks, personally I think it’d be better if you don’t make too much fuss about that.
As noted in the interview, Dr. Watari is hinting that SEGA might add some post-release DLC of additional characters and Virtuaroid if A Certain Magical Virtual-On sells well after it gets released in Japan for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita on February 15. However, an English localization of the game has still not been announced as of yet.
[Source: Dengeki]
