Toushin Toshi 3 going 3D! - Benchmark demo released
(c)アリスソフト
The “3″ in Toushin Toshi 3 is going to stand for “3D”! A benchmark demo is available from the Alice Soft Homepage for you to test your framerate. I get 15~70 FPS depending on the various settings. I’ll probably play with a setting that gives me about 50 FPS (turning off shadow/glare/fog etc fancy effects).
The monster in TT3 benchmark
(c)アリスソフト
In Rance 6, Alice Soft introduced square-based 3D maps that was also used in later games such as GalZoo Island. However, that was just for the dungeon map, the enemies and battles are still all 2D-based and thus the games overall still didn’t have much hardware requirement. In Toushin Toshi 3, the enemies are going to be 3D models that can move, which noticably increases the minimum hardware requirements for playing the games.
I love Alice Soft. I love Alice Soft games. I’m slightly concerned with the implication of a major RPG title of theirs going 3D. Studio E.go! has already experimented with having 3D polygon enemies in RPG, and while it does make some of the battles more impressive-looking, I don’t think it improved the gaming experience much from the player perspective. On the other hand, designing the 3D monsters and making sure their animations work right etc takes additional development resources/costs compared to traditional 2D graphic-based enemies. On the regular gaming market we already have a flood of games too focused on 3D graphics and not enough about the gameplay. The last thing I want to see happen is seeing gameplay erode away as a cost of bringing fancier graphics on the one eroge company that I love most.
Final Fantasy was a great series. Final Fantasy 7, the first 3D game in the franchise, brought the entire series to new heights of popularity, especially outside Japan. It also represented a great split from the “traditional” Final Fantasy games, and even though Final Fantasy 9 was an attempt to “go back to the roots”, there are still groups of fans who felt any Final Fantasy that is in 3D is not a true Final Fantasy (not my personal opinion).
I don’t think Toushin Toshi 3 will be the equivalent of FF7. Alice Soft is probably not going to be trying to develope their market outside Japan (unfortunately), nor will the 3D graphics used in TT3 be dazzling enough to be ground-breaking. Alice Soft is already an extremely established brand that adding 3D graphics wouldn’t be enough of a gimmick to attract anyone who is not already interested in an AliceSoft RPG. I also don’t think having 3D in TT3 will be of a strong enough directional departure that creates a split in the fanbase.
Still, I hope the 3D does not distract unnecessary resources away from the rest of the game. I have faith that TT3 will be a really good game regardless. The main difference is whether it’ll be a GREAT game or merely a good game. There are a number of other titles contending to be the #1 eroge of 2008, and I want Toushin Toshi 3 to be the #1.
BTW, the two older games in the series, Toushin Toshi and Toushin Toshi 2 are both available free for download (permission granted by Alice Soft for free distribution). I still need to finish up the walkthrough for Toushin Toshi on the Alice Soft Wiki, and then I’ll start working on Toushin Toshi 2. They are both pretty good games, and I encourage everyone to check them out!
