What were they thinking?

[RadioMars]

I've been reading a lot of reviews and comments and I thought: "people are always talking trash, but you know what? I can still enjoy it. I can just ignore them and appreciate the content for what it represents". This is what I thought until I got to level 3. And oh my god it looks like TRASH. It's garbage. It looks like baby's first modeling expirience. It looks like a 10yo went into a Little Big Planet level editor and slaped some primitives together. It looks like they asked their kids to make the assets, because even the worst 3d artists I've worked with managed to put at least some effort into their assets. It was so lazy and generic and uninspiring and I don't really know if there is anything redeeming beyond this point. I mean I would be embraced to put this crap into my portfolio. It's literally some primitives slapped together. How tf can a game on Unreal Engine 4 (an engine known for how easy it is to make somehting look good) look significantly worse than a game from the generation, when such tools didn't even exist? This is shame. Hire real artists and fire these dumplings. Or at least show them a few youtube videos on hard surface modeling and material creation. Whenever I reach level 3, the only feeling I have is a strong wish to educate those amateurs.And the goofy stupid ass music that plays during this abomiation of a level only adds to frustration.
Just launch R-type Final and compare the warship levels and what they represent. In the first one it's gloomy and menacing. It looks and sounds like everything is going to end and we are all going to die. This one looks like we are all going to die from boredoom and embaracement. I really hope they are going to fix this lasertag vomit eruption. I think t's really possible to accept the rest of the game and move on, but this example feels like the game degraded into something generic and dumb. There is no wierdness and dread of R-type final. There is this stupid flat fanfare, which is supposed to make us feel what? Heroic? We were already above this mediocrity in R-Type Final, where they made us feel something much more complex and fresh. It's a shame that something that is supposed to be an improvement fails so much in such an important aspect of the series, which is a very thick and disturbing atmosphere. It's just gone. "Just shoot at the purple glowing cube. What else do you want? Here, I'll even stretch it for you a little bit, so it looks like a warship"

[Wampa_Stompa]

sucks for you

[RadioMars]

Originally posted by Wampa_Stompa:

sucks for you

He said while chewing on his molded cheesburger

[Butt Force]

Agreed, level 3 has got to be the lowest point in the game's visual presentation.

[Vahnkiljoy]

I implore you to invest in the Enter key OP, that is a horrible blob.

[HighLanderPony]

You might be right but please:

Formatting, spelling, and punctuation.

[Mazdi]

Although you speak in a very negative tone, i can totally get your point.

There have been moments where R Type Final 1 DEFINETELY looks better than 2. Hell, i even think that R-Type Delta'2 stage 2 was the series pinnacle in terms of atmosphere, dynamic music, eerie tone, action, etc.

Stage 3.0 On Final 2 looks GOD AWFUL, like, it looks 100% unacceptable, the lowest point is the boss battle, the core (weak point) is like a solid red sphere rendered on fullbright, no texture no nothing, no effects, it looks like a clown's nose LMAO, the cannons look like plastic cylinders, the turrets look like something out of bionicle (very toy-ish, poor modeling) the whole game after stage 1.0 falls appart terribly on this department.

The underwater level, i think it was 4.0. Is just so bland, short and boring, there's this part where you enter a room full of these... spiky things with 1.000.000 HP, shoot them (because it's not like they're gonna retaliate) and then exit.................. #GaMePlAy

Coming back to R type Delta's comment, it's water level has 3 different phases, waterfalls, the whole vertical part with the pillar falling, it looks oh so beautiful, so sinister and vicious but so great.

It's come to my attention that Granzella really hasn't played Final 1 enough, i mean there's some inspiration on it, but that inspiration falls short, they really need to dive themselves in on all of Irem's software concept art portfolio and try it allllllllllllllllllllll over again, because this stage 3.0 boss gave me a really bad aftertaste after spending the money, it's the first time i felt that a game looking this bad took a seroius shot on the whole experience.

[CZI]

I've read that stage 3 design is from story (Ai designed ship). So it looks more plane than other stage. But I wish better design too.

Kujo-san worked on Final (1). It's pointless to claim that they did not play.

Other than that, I'd recommend to write feedback to dev team directly, if you have strong opinion.

https://www.granzellagames.com/contact/

[aviOct]

I agree, stage three is scandalous, absolutely sub-par, both in visual design and actual gameplay. On the other hand, I'm mostly enjoying the rest of the game, and some of the ending levels put Final II above Final I, in my opinion.

[RAWRmonger]

Mechanically, I don't have a problem with stage 3.0. I would only alter the lasers to make more noise and letting out a thin ray before shooting, as warning.

Aesthetically? It's ugly. The blues with the red moon (and blue fog, fog?) behind it just don't mix well. I can't relate it to neither a human-made nor Bydo technology, was it trying to be sterile?

Lore wise, I also don't know what they were aim for with stage 3.0.

[TouyaShiro]

Can I just point out that the battleship raid is a series tradition and that *most* if not all of them have a similar core to the one you see on the boss Distraction in Final 2? (Yes, Distraction is the name of the boss all of you are so viciously harping on - justifiably - for its textures.) Even if the stage had more noticeable textures throughout it compared to what they have right now, I feel like that part wouldn't have changed, but that's just me...

The underwater stage is Stage 5.0, for the record, and Stage 4.0 is the one where you encounter those shielded turrets (and apparently the stage that was seen all the way back in its first playable appearance at TGS 2019).

Originally posted by ❧︎❃︎❂︎RazormoN❧:

It's come to my attention that Granzella really hasn't played Final 1 enough, i mean there's some inspiration on it, but that inspiration falls short, they really need to dive themselves in on all of Irem's software concept art portfolio and try it allllllllllllllllllllll over again, because this stage 3.0 boss gave me a really bad aftertaste after spending the money, it's the first time i felt that a game looking this bad took a seroius shot on the whole experience.

As CZI points out, there is absolutely no way that the older staff of Granzella Inc. can't have played it enough; Many of the people who are part of Granzella Inc. were former members of Irem Software Engineering, and many of the ones who worked on R-Type Final 2 (including Kazuma Kujo himself) date back as far as R-Type Delta (several of those from Delta and Final's staff having "unfinished business of their own" according to Kujo in that Game*Spark interview).

It is worth noting at this point that some of the game's development was apparently outsourced, and that every stage in itself was handled by different teams within Granzella Game Studios, which alongside those who were given the chance to design their own Bydo via Kickstarter reward tiers would probably explain why every stage in this game - including those from the Homage Stage Course - have a set of Stage Credits which you can view at any time as soon as you unlock the stages in Score Attack (and, of course, appearing in the credits if you beat the Main Course). The fact that different teams were assigned to do different stages would probably explain a lot about the inconsistency between their difficulty and quality.

Kazuma Kujo mentions in the Game*Spark interview that he was worried about the younger members not getting what R-Type was about, but was pleasantly surprised to see that they did when he had them play the older titles. https://twitter.com/gosokkyu/status/1389423843983331334?s=20
Funnily enough, he's also mentioned on a recent blog entry that he's constantly being asked by the young member who's in charge of the Crazy Machines homage stage about why he designed certain things in the original version of the stage the way he did back during Delta's development, to which he's in a pinch because:

• He can't remember exactly why.
  
• The reasons are too embarrassing for him to admit, some of them being linked to his own feelings at the time.
  
• He made it that way on impulse, with no real rhyme or reason.

If you want to read the entry in full, here you go. https://www.granzella.co.jp/contents/diary/diary/id-4968/

You be the judge on all that I've mentioned above, and send Granzella your feedback - you may have your own feelings about the way games have the model where they're not done until they say it's done after their initial release, but if you want things to change, that's the best way to do it. Kujo's prepared to work for up to 2 years on this game if he has to, and already has a roadmap for the next year, according to that same interview.