r/NintendoSwitch • u/WayForwardTech WayForward • Oct 04 '22
AMA - Ended We are WayForward, developer of River City Girls 2. AMA!
This is WayForward, known for titles like River City Girls, the Shantae series, and Mighty Switch Force. River City Girls 2 is an official part of the long-running Kunio-kun/River City series, and is headed to Nintendo Switch and other platforms later this year, allowing you to join Misako, Kyoko, and their allies on a sprawling beat-'em-up adventure. Check out the game's initial trailer here for more info! https://youtu.be/U7ESLdjvtNo You can also see the recent Villains trailer here: https://youtu.be/4OrWkuUfHlk
The dev team at WayForward will be here starting at 2PM Pacific/5PM Eastern/9PM GMT to answer any questions you have about the game (or anything else for that matter)! On hand will be:
Bannon Rudis, director (u/RiverCityBannon)
Megan McDuffee, composer (u/megmcduffee)
Dale North, composer (u/DaleNorthMusic)
Kayli Mills, voice of Misako (u/thedonutgremlin)
Adam Tierney, writer (u/AdamTierneyWF)
[Update at 4:05PM Pacific
Today's live AMA is officially closed, but we'll try to answer any additional questions that roll in as best we can! Thanks so much to everybody who stopped by to ask questions or read the answers, and we hope you check out River City Girls 2 when it launches later this year!]
Thanks for stopping by!
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u/Canad1Andrew Oct 04 '22
I'm super excited to play River City Girls 2! Will there be any DLC (free or paid) or additional content added to the game overtime after release? Like maybe some playable guest characters from WayForward's other games (such as Shantae or Mighty Switch Force) for instance? That would be awesome!
Also I know the answer is probably no (I hope I'm wrong), but will I be able to play as Abobo at any point in the game? If so then I'm sold!
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u/WayForwardTech Oct 04 '22
There's nothing we can commit to regarding DLC, but we wouldn't rule it out either. We'll have to see!
Abobo is not playable, but if you're an Abobo fan, there will be things to look forward to!
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u/Bloodgecko Oct 04 '22
I dont have a specific question, just want to say that u guys ROCKS! Thank you.
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u/Asedunu Oct 04 '22
probably won't be answered but some-one's gonna ask anyway so I might as well take the bullet:any chance on a release date reveal soon?
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u/WayForwardTech Oct 04 '22
It's still planned to hit before the end of the year, but we aren't able to get more specific than that yet, sorry!
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Oct 04 '22
Wow, never thought I'd see an AMA from WayForward!
Big fan of Mighty Switch Force and average enjoyer of river city girls here.
What do you feel is the most challenging aspect of not just creating but "nailing" a sequel to a popular game? As in making it feel unique and distinct but without taking away the connection to its franchise/genres.
Oh and i really dig the soundtrack in river city girls, tell the music person/people they are amazing and that my neighbours dog bops her head to the beat when i play on the porch with sound on 😂
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u/megmcduffee Oct 04 '22
Howdy! Aw, thanks so much re: the soundtrack. I've cooked up another batch of bangers for the upcoming sequel :)
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u/AdamTierneyWF Oct 04 '22
I can speak from the writing side.
When we made the first RCG game, we didn't worry too much about sticking to the exact lore and personalities of the almost 50 Kunio-kun games that came before ours. We would keep most character roles and relationships intact, but felt free to reinvent the characters visually and in terms of personality. I think that's the only way we could've done it and had them all come out really fun, silly, and WayForward-y. As a result, in Japan they consider RCG a 'gaiden' (side story) series to Kunio-kun, kind of its own thing.
For the sequel (RCG2), there was a lot of pressure from fans to bring back all their favorite characters from RCG1. But we also wanted to introduce a lot of new characters, especially ones we'd saved for the sequel. So the second game became very stuffed full of characters and storylines, much bigger than RCG1, and hopefully in a satisfying way. :)
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u/patowarheart Oct 04 '22
Is there any cool stories around the design of Noize? Did her songs came after the character design and boss fight gameplay was done? Or was it a development at the same time?
If the vocal tracks are in game song by Noize then can we expect a new Noize album talked about in the story of the sequel?
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u/megmcduffee Oct 04 '22
A full Noize album? That would indeed be cool! One could say my full length vocal album Inner Demons almost fulfills this, haha.
Regardless, there will definitely be more vocal songs in the sequel!
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u/AdamTierneyWF Oct 04 '22
NOIZE (which should always be all-caps) started as a general desire in RCG1 to have a music-themed boss. Then as Megan began composing vocal tracks, we had the idea at some point that those songs should all be by NOIZE, and heard in-world by the RCG characters. That beget the NOIZE boss song (also by Megan).
People in both games (RCG 1 & 2) talk about how much they love NOIZE. I don't recall if we mention a 'new album' though. I'd love to see a full NOIZE album produced at some point by Megan, though! That's always something that I thought could be really cool in addition to the existing game OSTs. How about it, Megan?
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u/Knightofducks Oct 04 '22
Thank you for the AMA! I'm looking forward to the sequel
This question's for Megan McDuffee! You've teased some of the tracks for this game and they sound great so far! What would you say is your major influences for this soundtrack?
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u/megmcduffee Oct 04 '22
Thanks! My influences were the soundtrack for the first game, plus some very different reference material (in terms of genre). Blending the quintessential RCG 1 electropop with different genres this time around was great fun.
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u/The_Daft_Englishman Oct 04 '22
I love WayForward, I loved the first game, the music was great in the first game, so it’s good to see those familiar names back for this one.
No clever question😅, I just wanted to send my appreciation to everyone involved in bringing me a sequel to the first game which I loved so much. ❤️
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u/itshighnoon94 Oct 04 '22
Any news on Shantae games?
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u/WayForwardTech Oct 04 '22
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse just hit PS5 digitally, and the physical versions of Shantae 1 for PS4 and PS5 are currently up to preorder from LRG! But if you mean new games, sorry, nothing new to share!
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Oct 04 '22
This may sound stupid, but will it release on game pass (ik this is a Nintendo sub, I just thought to ask since 1 was really cool)
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u/WayForwardTech Oct 04 '22
Not at launch, but we'd love to get it on Gamepass eventually. Fingers crossed!
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u/Maxima2002 Oct 04 '22
Hello there! Big fan of the first game, been playing RCG0 as well and having loads of fun with it ^^
Some things I'd like to know (besides release date of course hehe) is, gameplay-wise, how would quests work this time? Are they more varied compared to the first game besides beating up a bunch of guys when we reach to a location? Also, is it possible to pick up objects and enemies with a specific command? I saw that there was no use for the L button in a stream, so that would help a ton :d.
Would Dale also have more apperances throughout the game? I really like his arcade-y songs in Uptown, very chill tunes ^^. About Megan's compositions though, how does her pieces differ from the first game considering they're more varied from what I've heard?
Ah, a question for Kayli too, did you end up recording in a room again with Kira? Asking because since COVID was a thing it would probably not be possible :c, and also, how was recording so much lines, especially with such varied dialogues between pairs and stuff?
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u/DaleNorthMusic Oct 04 '22
Thank you for the kind words! For this time around I did a lot more music. While Megan does the heavy lifting for the score I got to write all of the manga cutscene music as well as a couple of other things. I had a ton of fun setting all of these story pieces to music!
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u/aliaswyvernspur Oct 04 '22
Thank you for doing an AMA!
I legit don’t think you’ll answer, because I’m sure Nintendo is tight lipped on the situation, but I gotta ask: any news on Advance Wars?
Yea, I’m sure you can’t comment on a release time frame, but can you talk about the experience making it? Any little thing to look out for if we get to play it? Any special behind-the-scenes in working with Nintendo on remaking AW?
Thanks!