If you kept on reading the thread you can see that this is no longer the case. The developer has already stated that the news surrounding the games release was misunderstanding. The game is being released in multiple forms, including physical release with various content (regular, Special Edition). And yes a F2P model where you can demo the game with just Jago and purchase additional content.
I just now saw it. I didn't get to read through it all earlier while working, but now this is much happier news ^^
A stupid typo on my part haha. Great to hear about them not going the digital route, that's just bullshit and I'm kinda erked that Namco's doing the same with Tekken Revolution... but then again it really looks like a recoat of TTT2 with tweaks. It'd be good news though for people who've never played KI beforehand, or even fighting games for that matter and are wanting to not splash out the money for something they can't trade-in in the future ( sigh ).
Here's a giant email a buddy of mine sent me concerning KI (this guy tends to know everything about anything related to MK or KI): Six confirmed characters so far: 1 - Jago 2 - Sabrewulf 3 - Glacius 4 - Cinder 5 - Fulgore 6 - Spinal Only Jago and Sabrewulf have been shown in gameplay, but Glacius will be shown, playable, in two weeks. Every character has their own level. The goal is to take 50% of what made each character great, and update the other 50% to make the game appropriate for a modern audience (story/look/whatever). The original Killer Instinct composer, Robin Beanland, has to personally approve every song before it makes it into the game. The game development is being overseen by Rare's Ken Lobb. Ken Lobb was one of the primary game designers of Killer Instinct 1 (one of only 4). He also did several of the character voices. For Killer Instinct 2, he served a secondary role in the game design, but still did many of the voices. Double Helix built a new development team specifically for Killer Instinct. The developers are primarily new to the company, but have worked on several other fighting games such as Street Fighter II Turbo, Skullgirls, and Weaponlord. The game's storyline takes place AFTER Killer Instinct 2. It is not actually a reboot, but actually Killer Instinct 3. There is a story element explaining the difference of appearance for Jago, why Sabrewulf no longer has metallic arms, and how Cinder is "alive." Eyedol and Gargos are at least mentioned in the storyline, unknown if they appear. The combo system has been updated from Killer Instinct 2 so you can create more combos as opposed to being limited to potentially a single combo opener (in the case of Fulgore for example), to an auto double, to a linker, to a combo ender, etc. Now they expect many combos to be unique to the individual play styles of the players playing the game as the goal was to allow creativity. Unlike the original games, not all characters are "in your face fighters." They are now balanced for specific roles. There are ranged zoning characters, grapple characters, rounded characters (Jago), in-your-face characters (Saberwulf), defensive characters (Glacius), and everywhere in-between. The environments react to the battle as you fight. Finishing moves are not currently in the game, but may be added for the final release depending on fan feedback. They are concentrating on the core fighting mechanics, running it through intensive play testing, having professional fighting game players conduct private play tests, and they are going to take Killer Instinct on a "play tour" to allow the general community to experience the game in an arcade cabinet, and to get feedback. They are opening a lot of decisions to fan response and community feedback. If there are characters, costumes, levels, finishing moves, or other features that are in high demand, they will "do everything within their power to ensure it makes it into the game." The initial release of Killer Instinct is being referred to as, "Season One." The game can be purchased as a whole at the normal retail rate (speculated to be $59.99), or pieced together with only the components you want (eg. a professional gamer only plays as Spinal, they can just buy Spinal, saving them money). No word of a physical release as of yet. Jago's entire single player/multiplayer is offered for free in an attempt to hook players that might be intimidated by the intricate fighting system set up. There is a series of 40 tutorials in the game to help teach players the ropes of the combo system and how to play individual characters. The game is being designed to be both a competitive fighter as well as a more approachable one. It will make appearances at a number of tournaments this year including events such as EVO. An arcade stick by Mad Catz will be available at launch. There is a focus on adding more female characters than just the original three (Orchid, Kim Wu, and Maya). Reactions from playtesting at E3 have been mostly positive with many actually stating that it plays "better" than the originals. No one has been able to playtest the game with anything but the arcade stick thus far, so it is impossible to get initial impressions of the Xbox One's d pad for fighters. Several new characters are being added to the roster and very detailed backstories are being drafted. Due to the download nature of the game, it is widely speculated that the initial release will be 15 characters or less.
Considering what system it's on the game may as well not exist. Too bad arcades are dead, I'd at least play this in an arcade...if there were still arcades.
from the above video: Erm, no. You had to match your opponents move with one of your own in a 'rock-paper-scissors' style. So you had to 'learn' the other characters to be able to break their combos. I thought that this was one of the better features of KI1, but can understand why they had to simplify it. Hopefully there'll be a 'Pro' mode or something that reinstates it.
That video CombatRocked linked has me beyond excited for this game. Loved Ki1 and Ki2, and this looks like it will be an improved reboot of those two games.
Hopefully it will turn out to be a great game. Really like old franchises come back. Sadly this will be digital distribution only and for a console that doesn't respect consumer rights.
The video has me really pumped! I don't know what to believe just yet about it being just digital. Seeing conflicting things while reading. I don't think i'll touch it if it's digi only.
the 1st KI I reckon if coming out on the N64 could have been made arcade perfect; as I have the game on mame I notice that the file size is around 91meg. toward the N64 end of life and games like resi evil 2 being 500 odd meg I can see that technically with the 1st game could have had "all" features maybe not at launch as games ironically ended up being 64meg so the reason the hard drive was used in the arcades is flash memory was extremely expensive at that time The N64's console's release was delayed and the game was instead ported to the snes existing console running off a 32meg cart. KI was one of if not the 1st arcade game to use an internal HDD in addition to the game's PCB .This like I said above was to store massive amounts of data for the use of the pre rendered sprites for characters which were developed on the silicon graphics computers. the backgrounds on most levels bar the rooftop stages were pre-rendered as much like abe's odyssey (ODDWORLD) on PS1 which simply adjusted the picture based on the current location of the player or players. KI processer was around 100mhz KI used the same CPU as the N64, a MIPS R4300i. So its for all these reasons I believe they could have achieved it; the game may have been £70 when released if they were going for arcade perfect. KI2 was I think a larger game so to make it cheaper they decided to take the pre rendered stuff out and I think KI GOLD was just 64meg too so gameplay more or less intact as to make it cheaper to buy. Personally I would have rather more expensive arcade perfect games. I think people would have spent £70/£100 at the time on the games if they were arcade perfect that's what everyone wanted. Developers should have realised that
You're confusing the numbers. The N64 had cartridges in from 4 Megabytes to 64 Megabytes over its life span. In Megabits, that would be from 32 megabits to 512mbits. Killer Instinct for the arcade had an approximately 128 Megabyte hard drive image. That would be 1 Gigabit. Twice as large as the largest N64 cartridge ever manufactured. And commercial N64 cartridges did not use "flash memory". They used MaskROMs. They were custom, not a standard part. But they most certainly were not flash. Yes both systems used the same CPU. But the graphical hardware is certainly different. Resident Evil 2 on N64 showed off FMV so that was certainly possible. Could the N64 handle the backgrounds like the KI Arcade hardware? I'm not sure. So both memory capacity and graphical hardware performance are a possible issue. Also KI didn't have the CPU doing sound, pretty such the DCS sound hardware is a separate system freeing up CPU processing time. The most immediate problem for the N64 and an arcade quality KI port was memory. The arcade KI had 128 megabytes worth of data accessible very quickly. Maybe if the N64 DD had been successful you could have seen KI with some down scaling. And KI Gold was I believe 8 megabytes. That's only 1/16th the size of arcade KI1's hard drive data. KI2 I think had something like a 512 megabyte hard drive image. Making KI Gold something like 1/64th the size.
Totally agree. There is NO way the N64 hardware by default could ever handle producing a visually perfect port of KI1. When it came to quality in arcade to home ports, The N64 was a joke. I'm suprised the console even has handful of arade ports to its library (Magical Tetris Challenge, MK4, Hydro Thunder, Cruis'n USA etc).
Not until the end of the system at least, and let's face it, they were aiming at it being a launch title. RE2's FMV was jpeg quality and required some fine balancing against the CPU clock. Can you do it without that? As an example of really crappy FMV, boot up StarCraft64 sometime. As an aside, I'm somewhat impressed that the game is effectively built using predominantly PC-formatted code. This wasn't the most efficient thing, and probably not the best, but it did work and is an impressive port. I suppose you could avoid processing power on audio if it was ported into whatever constitutes the 'native' format the RDP is fed by the RSP. You could probably use dirty tricks to avoid video processing, since that seems to be the universal answer to running sprite-based games on N64. They did all sorts of crazy things at the end of the system's life. Anyway, it certainly wasn't feasible or cost-effective. Given infinite time and resources, could you build a monster cart that could stuff everything in there and magically run it all remotely close to full speed? Maybe. KI:3 is looking great though!
I saw the video and was very disappointed, looks like it'd run on the original xbox fine or if not the 360. Nothing strikes out to me as looking good. I've still got KI1 and enjoy it so I'll stick with that.
I'm of the mind there is no new Killer Instinct. Besdies Arc Systems works, is going to do a PS4 exclusive fighter. I'm not sure if that's Guilty Gear Xrd or something brand new. So who cares about KI now....
Arc System Works FGs and Rareware (now Rare/Double Helix Games) FGs are completely different... To imply that one is a substitute for the other is silly.
well when I said flash memory, I only meant solid state really I didn't know about the mask-roms thing either but thanks for clearing up the megabyte to megabit issue.. you learn something new everyday. However had the memory been available in storage in solid state at the time cheaply like it is now.. the N64 should still handle it as they graphics as they were pre rendered ie not real time so the hardware should not matter like the PS1 with Oddworld like I originally mentioned but seriously thanks again. I just checked the size of Mario 64 from my emu and sure enough it was 8meg haha
