Aces at Operation: "Digital Hollywood" was a special talk hosted on March 1, 2014 at Digital Hollywood University's Surugadai Campus in Ochanomizu, Tokyo. The talk was centered on Kazutoki Kono, his history with Bandai Namco Games, and presenting Ace Combat Infinity. Keiki Kobayashi was another guest at the event, who briefly discussed his work on the Ace Combat series and played a few songs for the audience.
Lecture
The first part of the lecture consisted of Kono introducing himself and his work with video games in the past, which goes as far back as Rage Racer, followed by Ace Combat 2, all the way to his production role on Ace Combat Infinity. He revealed that, during development of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, he had come up with the idea of creating a "Project Aces" to lead the development of Ace Combat games.[1]
On the subject of Infinity, Kono revealed that the number of participants and feedback entries during the international beta test was more than double what they were expected. He mentioned the following improvements for the game:[1]
- Strengthening the enemy units, including an Aigaion-class heavy command cruiser with a red paint scheme (see Moby Dick Pursuit II)
- The Challenges system
- Randomize the placement of enemy units
- Make it easier to search for rooms
- Re-do the Aircraft Tree
After discussing the game, Kono played a video containing the three beta trailers in Japanese. After that, Kono played a slideshow of various Infinity development images, among them the red Aigaion and a portrait of Nagase as well as some goofy shots of the developers themselves.
Kobayashi then took the stage, talking briefly about his role on the series before introducing three other musicians - Yukari Nakamura on violin, Mariko Takei on viola, and Takanori Goto on guitar - who would accompany him on piano to play "ISAF", "Zero" and "The Journey Home" live for the audience. While talking about his music, he noted that the idea for "Zero" came about when looking at "The Unsung War" from the Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War Original Soundtrack and comparing its final mission track to the duel between Cipher and Larry Foulke at the end of Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War. He felt that a flamenco guitar would be best suited for the kind of fast-paced duel action he wanted to convey through the music, but wanted to keep the story and the lyrics from "The Unsung War" intact.[1]
About 3/5th of the way through Zero, Kobayashi instructed the audience to clap through the rest. Kobayashi and the guitarist then performed some improv while Kono got the screen back on to show some more information.[1]
By the time the livestream ended, 20,000 people had opened the page and over 9,000 comments were posted.
Twitter Contest
On March 3, 2014, Project Aces announced a contest through Twitter. From March 3 to March 14, Twitter users who live in Japan who followed the Project Aces Twitter account and retweeted their tweet announcing the contest would be entered in a drawing to win the sole copy of the sheet music that Kobayashi created of the music that he played during the conference. The winner is to be selected at random starting on March 17, and must respond to instructions provided through Direct Messages.[2]
Gallery
Promotional image
From left to right: Viper, Goodfellow, Omega and Nagase
A sketch of a 1986VG1 Ulysses asteroid striking the United Nations Forces during Operation Bunker Shot
A screenshot of Test Flight
A developer with his screen blurred out
Notes on a whiteboard
A desk with an object blurred out
A representation of the Aircraft Tree
The Aircraft Tree's graphical update
Unknown development notes
A flyer for Ace Combat Infinity with a section blurred out
Testers playing Ace Combat Infinity
A developer exclaiming at a screen that has been blurred out
A list of Challenges, a previously-unknown feature of Ace Combat Infinity
Tokyo Martial Law; note the alternate set of targets
A screenshot of searching for rooms in Ace Combat Infinity
A developer working on Ace Combat Infinity
A development paper of the MQ-90 Quox and ASF-X Shinden II
A development paper of the upgraded version of the MQ-90 Quox
A paper with renders of a single Stonehenge railgun
Various sketches of the OLDS
Character sketches, from left to right, top to bottom: Goodfellow, possibly Slash, Edge, Omega, Viper
Keiki Kobayashi on piano, Yukari Nakamura on violin, Mariko Takei on viola, and Takanori Goto on guitar playing Zero
