During a recent hands-on session with the game, my fears about the title's content were assuaged. When I saw an early build of the North American version this past February--the game has been out in Japan since late last year--I noted that things looked clunky; the monsters and buildings fell in choppy animations that made it look like the game was running slowly. The localized version was still in early stages, but based on the interactions between Godzilla and his opponents, I felt like I was watching a simple beat em up in the Godzilla skin.
But what I initially thought was game lag is actually a stylistic choice from the developers, a deliberate decision to slow down the action into small segments that allow players pause to watch the destruction. According to Godzilla producer Shunsuke Fujita, this design choice is meant to mimic the look and feel of the classic Godzilla television show. It's less about the visual drama, and more about recreating the monster's origin point.
"It was the 60th anniversary of the Godzilla series last year. The basis of making this game was really on that, on the lore of the original Godzilla and how we could celebrate that," Fujita said, noting the most important element of development was making the game faithful to the old shows and films.
"It was important to recreate the atmosphere of the movies and, also inside of that, being able to control Godzilla, to be Godzilla," he added. "What is Godzilla? Godzilla is destruction, destroying the city, that's really what it's about. So having that ability was really important. That's ultimately why the game looks the way it does.
"Everyone who first sees Godzilla, most people see it when they're a kid, and he just looks so cool. I didn't want to make a game where you had to fight against Godzilla or destroy him, because people don't want to destroy Godzilla. They want to be him."
Playing as Godzilla feels powerful, despite the choppy animations; his two bigger attacks, a tail whip and his famous laserbeam, deal big damage to enemies and buildings. You do start the game as a smaller Godzilla with the goal to destroy buildings and earn extra meters on your height (you can grow up to 100 meters this way), but you never feel handicapped. You are never weak Godzilla trying to earn his place. You are always the giant, strong Godzilla.
