I want to say Future Club; I am supporting them. Wanna know why? So if some of you have been off the loop, back in September 21, 2020, the former Lab Zero Games employees who left Mike Z have formed and created Future Club. They said that they are gonna make a fresh new development studio where Mike won't be a part of accordingly. A year has passed since their inception. Plus, we were wondering if they are gonna pick up where Lab Zero Games left off during the development of Skullgirls and Indivisible.
Well, the bad news for Indivisible is that they have no desire to hire Future Club at all. It's not just the game has bombed really hard in sales. It's also the fact that it's an IP issue among Indivisible, which is a development studio owning the IP and they can't do crap about it. In fact, they aren't even sales reliant to it.
The game was going places and stuff, but no, Mike Z had to be a craphead to do this much damage to it. He had to let all of the other employees' work on the guest characters that took blood, sweat and tears and all of the money from thousands of backers go to waste. All he had to do was admit he was wrong. It's not cool. It's unforgivable. Not to mention Antoine and Sangmu; they are the two remaining characters who couldn't be implemented in time for release and have been kaput along with the guest characters.
And then, I learned that if there is a social media campaign that has enough fan support, 505 might have a change of heart and put Indivisible under the Future Club umbrella so not only the guest characters can be finished. It's so Autumn and Hidden Variable can put Ajna into Skullgirls with permission from 505 and conciliation would be the cherry on top.
Speaking of Skullgirls, we know that it will continue getting future content for years to come because Autumn Games owns the IP, not Lab Zero, which is a safe and a good thing, believe it or not. It's also because Autumn has terminated their contract and cut ties with Mike Z. They are currently working on Umbrella diligently and they will also develop the remaining mystery characters in the Season 1 Pass and beyond. It's crazy on how the Season Pass has been established for 2nd Encore in over nine years since launch.
So far, they tuned up and fully integrated all of her unique sound effects, threw in her official banner for NMO/SGCS Arena, added several new moves and added new frames for when Hungern is Overstuffed. There are a few goals left to be met before the Beta phase; fully integrating Umbrella's VO, which is in the process, getting her stage that hopefully uses the day and night time variants finished, implementing one more super, adding more of her palettes and getting the rest of the sketchy frames tied down and colored. I am loving every second of her Alpha phase. I heard Umbrella has a fatal counter and knockback-inducing Distortion Drive that caused knockback. It's not a Bionic Arm-esque Distortion Skill, but close.
Here's to her Beta phase and her PS4 release in bringing Active Angel upon Umbrella's entrance to the max and seeing what general gameplay and balance changes they are gonna make to the "Active Angel" update in the Beta phase. Well, to the minimum. It is gonna be released for Steam and PS4 because the Nintendo Switch and Xbox are still being left behind.
Since the Season 1 Pass first released on Steam and PS4, Nintendo Switch is lagging behind because the devs are experiencing unique technical complications on the platform and they are still unable to provide a release date to when the Switch will ever get the Season 1 Pass. They are still hoarding their Nintendo eShop points for it for so long. Now, they are interested in porting their game to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, but they can't share details about it yet. For now, the launch party is gonna be for Steam and PS4 players.
The interesting thing to this is when a character's Alpha phase goes live and when I play that theme upon the entrance of a character who is in Alpha for the first time while watching the Skullgirls Slapfest, it has given me some SSF2 vibes. Mostly in its "Beta" level because of the new HUD first introduced in Beta and got a makeover in 1.2 and its new font. And that's the point of the character's Alpha phase to give players a chance to try them out early. If you Skullgirls Steam players out there don't have the Season Pass, you won't get to try Umbrella out until her Beta phase.
They call themselves "Future Club" because they need to think about future games that they are gonna develop and the future of Skullgirls, which is staying bright regardless of the Lab Zero fallout, but not Indivisible since the defunct developer owns the IP and the sales have bombed.
You know what would be awesome? Since 505 has no desire to hire Future Club because of sales that bombed, I think Kemco should hire them to develop an RPG because they are the publishers of their RPG IPs while Future Club specializes in 2D animation, right? Kemco should hire Future Club to develop an action RPG that involves the following.
-3D world with 2.5D sprites and third person view.
-Fully English voiced story with six (three male and three female) characters with each of their class. Can switch between characters.
-Wild Arms 3-style prologue where you choose which character's prologue. Clearing all six of them will get you to the main story.
-A part of the story similar to the meeting of Johnny Appleseed in Wild Arms 5.
-Battle system similar to Trials of Mana, but with all six characters in battle.
-Final Fantasy XIII's Crystarium-style Skill Tree. When defeating an enemy, you will earn points that are spent in a menu where you display the character's Skill Tree. A certain amount of points is required to learn new skills, new magic and increase maximum stats. When a character has maxed out their Skill Tree, they can evolve their class to expand it.
-The use of magic and skills.
-New Game Plus.
-ESRB rating of Teen for Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes and Use of Alcohol.
I'm gonna go over couple of approaches for wanting Future Club to develop an RPG. First off, the Johnny Appleseed thing. Have you played Wild Arms 5? It was a great RPG I played when I was younger and my favorite part of it is when the heroes were tasked to meet with Johnny Appleseed for a special mission. Great folk tale story, by the way. I figured that I would want an RPG to have that.
Another obvious approach to go over. Trials of Mana's battle system was great and I think it's time for an idea of an RPG I want from Future Club to have that, but must have all six characters in battle.
Next up, you played Wild Arms 3, right? It has the prologue where you must first finish the prologues of characters before proceeding to the main story with all six characters.
As always, I will support Future Club and best of luck to them, even though they aren't developing Indivisible and I am sorry that their work on the guest characters had to be shut down like this because of Mike Z, who ruined what should've been an incredible franchise and a brighter future for the game.
I will be looking forward to Umbrella's full release on PS4 and seeing who are the next Season 1 Pass characters are. I got my high hopes for Minette and Feng to get their spotlight as I support them. Any thoughts? No? Maybe? I think it's cool to me.
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