The developers behind Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection has provided some insight into the reason for using RE Engine for the release.
RE Engine is powering Capcom’s big games these days. It’s behind the likes of Pragmata, Resident Evil Requiem, and much more. Even Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection ended up using it, which might be a surprise for some given that the package is comprised of old titles made for the Nintendo DS.
In an interview with Automaton Media, director Akira Oda had this to say about the decision behind using RE Engine with Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection:
Unlike the Mega Man X series and the Mega Man Battle Network series, which had high recognition and strong sales, the original Mega Man Star Force series ended on a less-than-stellar note.
Therefore, in developing this game, simply porting it wouldn’t convey even 10% of the fun the original version had to offer; drastic design changes were necessary. And yet, we faced the extremely challenging task of doing so efficiently within limited costs and timeframes, while also designing it with multi-platform release in mind.
Fortunately, we were able to assemble a team of top-notch members from within the company, and after considering “what kind of engine would allow them to efficiently solve difficult problems while also receiving smooth responses from environmental support and other sources?”, we decided that adopting RE Engine was the only option.
Lead programmer Naoki Kusumoto also said the following about the production advantages and strengths of using the engine for remasters:
“One of the main objectives of re-releasing titles is to expand awareness of the IP brand, and it is necessary to reach out to generations who did not play the games at the time. Therefore, it is essential to have a wide range of platforms on which the games can be played.
The RE Engine is an engine that excels at expressing photorealistic 3D graphics, but at the same time, it has a mechanism that makes platform deployment easy. Platform support costs are high in many cases, but the RE Engine absorbs those costs, making it possible to deploy to various platforms while maintaining high quality at a low cost. For this reason, it is an engine that offers many advantages, especially for re-release titles.”
On the topic of engines, we recently heard from the director of Final Fantasy 7 Revelation about why that game is sticking with Unreal Engine 4 instead of Unreal Engine 5. Those comments can be found here.
Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is now available on Nintendo Switch.
Related