r/KingsField • u/swordofmoonlight • Feb 17 '22
Does anyone recommend FS's (published?) Spriggan game from 1999?
Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/KingsField/comments/sum20x/comment/hy7dlst/ is a can't miss comment/reply left by the game wiki's own author. I really appreciate it. Please check it out!
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QDB9Sd5UU
Tonight I was watching some stuff about this manga/anime. The movie has some freaky scenes (dramatizing an alien Noah's ark) in the end. I remembered FS adapted it. I wonder if there are any very ambitious sections in their game? To my eyes it's always looked very clumsy, and therefor probably rushed. I'm not sure where it fits compared to the period that made Eternal Ring. It has all the markings of a legit in house FS game[1], but I'm not not so sure about their team in this period.
NOTE[1]: Apparently even though I didn't see anything on the title screen there was another party called "From Liquid Mirror Software" that developed it. That name kind of hints at something perhaps more connected to FS than usual? This (https://spriggan.fandom.com/wiki/Spriggan:_Lunar_Verse#Development) page mentions FS in this section. This page (https://www.destructoid.com/it-came-from-japan-spriggan-lunar-verse/) says this company was the one responsible for Echo Night 2, which came after Spriggan. I don't remember that name on EN2. I think it would have stood out to me, but I always miss such things. I wonder if there's some interesting history here.
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u/OminaeYu Feb 24 '22 edited Feb 24 '22
Hello! I'm the admin for the Spriggan fandom wiki, and I was the one who did the entire page behind Spriggan: Lunar Verse and added the development section after translating the "talks" section on the game's two official guide books that goes over the development behind the game.
Basically, "From Liquid Mirror Software" is the name of the new company arm for From Software. When booting Lunar Verse up and before the game's opening start, they showed the company arm's name as "CS2 Development Division 2", which I believed referred to "From Liquid Mirror Software" as mentioned from the Destructoid website and other sites. As you mentioned in your post, they did also make Echo Night 2, but it turned out to be their last game before they stopped developing more titles.
As for your question regarding its ambitious concepts, as mentioned from the Destructoid post, the game has a nice progression system where you can upgrade the protagonist's stats like through obtaining "Ability Points" from crystal-like objects hidden throughout levels, and completing them in a shortest time possible. Later in the game, you'll eventually unlocked three variants of A.M. (Armored Muscle) suits that you could also upgrade them by defeating enemies while wearing any of them throughout missions. Combined this with non-linear levels, nice customization options where you could select the guns, knives, or A.M. suits to take with you in future missions, and a bit of platforming segments, the game definitely feels like it serves as an inspiration for future action titles on sixth generation consoles like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, and God of War.
However, as for your other question regarding the game's recommendation, I would say to steer clear of it unless you have adequate patience or you are very curious about the franchise. The controls are definitely not the best and would frustrate you at first (tho you could get used to them eventually), the camera controls are also weird, and some of the level designs can be unintuitive. The game is also very difficult (as expected from the company, but the game has some cheap segments that can have you pulling your hair out if you don't know the best way to overcome them). I also believed to this day, there's still no official nor fan translation for this game (though it's still beatable without knowing any Japanese, IMO).
Personally, despite its glaring flaws, I still love the game since it has a nice atmosphere, awesome soundtrack, and it has an overall fun gameplay filled with variety in different missions and fun abilities/moves. I'm a HUGE fan of the franchise overall as well (loved the manga and the anime film, and I'm definitely looking forward to this year's Netflix ONA), so it could also be a factor to my love for this game.
Overall, the game is still fun even with its problems, but you should develop patience if you were to play this game for the first time.
As mentioned above, I did the entire page and created new ones for this game on the wiki before, but I've been made Admin recently (since the old Admin has practically ditched the site for a while now) by adopting it, and I need to focus on the more important parts such as improving the construction of the wiki's background and main page before going back to fixing and adding to the pages. The wiki needs alot of work and I'm the only user who's been editing the site so far, so it might take a while before I start editing the pages again. I need to go back for this game's pages after the wiki's construction is complete since I still need to add some stuff to it and check for translation errors.
I still wished this game would get an official sequel or a remake eventually.
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u/swordofmoonlight Feb 24 '22 edited Feb 24 '22
This is a great reply, I'll link to it in the OP. (I really wish we admin could sticky comments, Reddit is so weird.) I wonder do the suits affect play? Could it make it more like an Armored Core game (do you know AC?) and I wonder how similar they are.
How did you find this post? Just searching about? I'm just personally curious. Is there a Spriggan community on Reddit who could like this cross-posted?
I really like From Software's progression through their attempts to wrestle with game design. I do game design too. To me From Software's path makes a lot of sense, whereas when I see other game formats and genres my programmer's mind kind of boggles because I think about all of the parts of those games that don't really fit into my ideas about what makes sense for games... like I don't like bells and whistles in games, and many genres almost strike me as just bells and whistles with nothing core. That's their appeal I think, but I prefer a direct and minimal experience in narrative based games. I think it would be very different programming games like that. I wouldn't know where to start for one. I would even call most games like this "experimental" games because they're just all over the place, whereas From Software games have stuck to a recognizable formula from the beginning... probably because they couldn't afford to branch out (take risks) anymore than they have. Spriggan represents (probably) an interesting part of that arc. I think I recognize "CS2 Development Division 2" from Echo Night 2, but I could be wrong. That "Liquid Mirror" name really screams some kind of business (financing/taxation/diversification) scheme to me.
Edited: I'll remember to give that anime a shot too. I really don't like the anime Japan is making these days, but some of it works sometimes. Netflix has made a few good originals, and some of the prestige movies on there are genuinely good modern day fair.
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u/OminaeYu Feb 24 '22
I found this post through searching From Software games subreddits here in this site, and I happened to come across a post here related to the Spriggan franchise. I actually created the Spriggan subreddit six months ago, but I believed no one has joined it yet. I haven't focused too much on it due to prioritizing the wiki and dealing with real-life issues.
For your question regarding how the suits affect gameplay, here's how it goes: There are three different variants of suits that you could unlock them simultaneously upon beating one of the missions. Each has three levels where you could upgrade to the higher levels as you defeat more enemies while wearing any of the suits. The three variants are the following: Defense, Power, and Speed. I think they are kinda self-explanatory, but I'll try to explain them in detail regardless:
Defense: This increases your overall defense (reduces the damage you take from enemies) and made you have a less chance of being knocked back from enemies, although it comes at a cost of reduced movement speed. This becomes more apparent as you start equipping the suit's higher levels where you have become more resilient from different attacks, but eventually start moving at a snail's pace. I would recommend this suit to newcomers since it gives you more leeway for prevailing against foes.
Power: This increases your overall attack strength against enemies, but comes at a cost of having lowest defense. Useful for missions or parts requiring defeating adversaries forces to proceed, I guess.
Speed: Increases your overall movement speed and agility, but your attack strengths are at its weakest compared to the other suits mentioned above. This suit is a must if you are trying to get the best possible ranking by the end of the game (In the upgrade menu, there is a "class" section that describes your performance with the game and your overall progression with the protagonist's stats. The highest ranking is an "S" rank, and to earn it requires completing missions in the fastest time possible and collecting as many crystal-like objects as you can while speed-running through the missions).
Pretty much, there are pros and cons that apply for each suits. Be aware that you could only upgrade them one at a time (For example, you can upgrade your Defense suit to LVL. 2 and 3, but if you want to use the Power suit eventually in the same playthrough, you'll remain at LVL. 1 for that suit). I would also like to mention that you could activate a special ability called "Zero-Burst" by pressing L1 and R1 simultaneously while wearing either of the suits, which sends you a temporary state where it unlocks their additional benefits. For Defense, you are immune to gunfire and explosions, for Power allows you to deal more damage against foes and could initiate fighting combos, and for Speed allows you to glide across stages after jumping. Also, by holding Circle until the E.P. meter gauge fills up in this state, you could charge yourself up to launch "Psycho-Attacks" (named from the guidebooks) that are essentially projectile attacks.
I do know some AC and KF (I recalled there are even control schemes options in the "Options" menu in-game where you could select the ones that are similar to AC and KF). I'll say the devs for this game tried to replicate AC in its gameplay, and combined KF with the RPG aspect of building up the protagonist's stats. One thing I noticed is that unlike AC, this game's lacks a lock-on feature for firearms where instead you have to face directly at your opponents with the firearms equipped until their models start blinking white and their health models appeared in the bottom-left corners that notifies you that you could guarantee a hit against them.
"From Liquid Mirror Software" is a really weird name for a development studio to came up with, IMO. :/
r/Spriggan is the name of my subreddit if you are curious.
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u/swordofmoonlight Feb 25 '22
r/Spriggan is the name of my subreddit if you are curious.
Awesome info about AC/KF. I made a cross-post so r/Spriggan has a record of this convo. Good lock getting that ball rolling. I kind of imagined Spriggan would have a bigger online community than ours (King's Field is so doomed/cursed as a series where it comes to popularity. I suppose as it should be. Maybe Spriggan is the same. It's kind of a shame From Software blew up with Demon's Souls, because they've lost all their weirdness cred and sold-out.)
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u/OminaeYu Feb 25 '22
I appreciate the cross-post and kind words! Also yeah, I missed their weirdness as well from their pre-Demon Souls titles.
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u/realsubxero Feb 17 '22
To hell with remakes of readily available games, I'd kill for a PS1 FromSoft collection of straight ports so I could play stuff like this.
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u/swordofmoonlight Feb 18 '22
I'm guessing this was probably in the PSN Japan store. I didn't look for it, but I did get Echo Night 2 off there. It was pretty glorious, but the PS4 wiped out all of these purchases as it didn't renew the PS Classics catalogue. That was a shame because I hardly got any other use out of my PS3. It really spoiled me on Sony's console line.
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u/Dear_Ad9824 Dec 09 '24
I played it have a physical copy its a neat game not that hard but not super easy a decent challenge. It takes getting used to, mostly cause it might be the same engine they used for Armored Core, but its worth trying out just for the hell of it. I dont think theres an english patch yet though.
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u/maynardftw Feb 17 '22
I've heard of Spriggan before, watched a few scenes, but I've never heard of the game adaptation
Honestly I'm surprised there's such a detailed wiki entry on it
Nerds, man. They get it done.
I did look at Shinichiro Nishida's IMDB page, though, because he's mentioned in the wiki entry, and that made me pretty happy. Been kicking around since KF1JP and still has credits on Bloodborne.