About a year ago I spoke to the main man at SideQuest Studios, Marcus Pukropski about the company and it’s exciting new project, named Soldner-X: Himmelssturmer, which was a very interesting, not to mention well received blaster in the style of classics such as R-Type and Gradius.

12 months on and here we are again, only this time we have a sequel (not to mention an easier to understand name for those outside Germany). Just what can we expect from Soldner X 2: Final Prototype and will it maintain that high level of graphical sheen we saw when the original hit the Playstation Store last year? Time to gear up and ask the boss before lift off….

Billy Withers:

It’s hard to believe that only this time last year we were talking about the first Soldner and now, 12 months on, we have a sequel. Was it very difficult to cram another full game in over such a short time?

Marcus Pukropski:

It’s been a lot of dedicated hard work over the last twelve months, but so far we are very pleased with the results. We’ve had plenty of ideas left when finishing the first Soldner-X game, plus an engine we could build on, so we didn’t have to start entirely from the scratch. But this surely doesn’t mean that Soldner-X 2 is going to be a quick cash-in, it’s really a brand new game with new content.

Right now about 80% of Soldner-X 2 has been completed and we anticipate to release in Spring 2010, which means the total project time will be not less than 15 months.

BW:

What made you come back to the brand and not do some original content first?

MP:

Originally, we’ve had a few ideas for different projects but finally decided on continuing with the Soldner-X brand. On the one hand and as I mentioned earlier, there were so many ideas left we still wanted to realise and on the other hand the overall feedback was the deciding part that made us work on a sequel.

BW:

How was the feedback and reception for the first Soldner?

MP:

Soldner-X was our first game, so we knew it wouldn’t be easy to make a name for ourselves. The overall reception and feedback was mostly positive. Soldner-X was the second best-selling game in the US PlayStation Store in its month of release (only beaten by Street Fighter II HD) and the majority of reviews acknowledged the game.

BW:

Some people commented that the weaponry in the original game lacked a little bit of firepower. Has this been tweaked for the new title?

MP:

The weaponry system in Soldner-X was quite complex, weapons had different effects on different kind of enemies, the right extras needed to be collected and it was always important not to lose the weapon upgrades, especially towards the end of the game.

With Soldner-X 2 we have now tried a quite different approach. The weapon power bar has been reversed, which means you can no longer run out of weapon power. On the contrary, you can now collect “power up” items, which will increase the power of your weapons. Apart from a visual difference, the power increase has mainly an impact on the range of a weapon. Moreover weapons will no longer have different effects on different kind of enemies.

There is a lot of other fine tuning which are supposed to make the game more accessible.

BW:

Will we see something new from the team now that the second game is finished?

MP:

There are some ideas we have for different kind of projects, but we won’t fully evaluate this until after Soldner-X 2 has been completed. At the moment our main focus is on Soldner-X 2.

BW:

The 1080p HD graphics were very impressive on the first outing. Do you feel you’ve been able to improve on what was already a great looking game?

MP:

Yes, absolutely. As you may remember, the original Soldner-X started out as a PC release. We wanted to make the game compatible with older and less powerful machines, so we were quite limited in terms of visual appeal. When we ported Soldner-X to PS3, we made several improvements but the PS3 hardware was new to us and our main focus was on improving gameplay.

With Soldner-X 2 we are getting more out of the PS3 hardware. Our backgrounds are now running in 3D, boss enemies are bigger than ever and all enemies are drawn with much more details. We have also incorporated a lot more special effects, such as the new limit attacks.

BW:

What other improvements are you particularly proud of?

MP:

New to Soldner-X 2 is a dynamic score linked difficulty system, which adjusts to the player’s performance. This performance is reflected in the “Play Rank”. Depending on how good (or bad) you play, the rank will either go up or down. On a low rank you will encounter less enemies and bullets plus you will have more room for error. On a higher rank the game will become tougher, which however will also result into a bigger score multiplier.

Other new impressive improvements are the 3D backgrounds that I talked about earlier, a new bullet pattern system (which will ask for quick reactions and good skills), a new chaining system (which works quite different compared to the one found in Soldner-X), limit attacks, online replay functions and really a lot more.

BW:

Do you think SideQuest Studios will be staying in the PSN/XBLA area or do you see a jump to more mainstream commercial releases?

MP:

Our focus will remain on downloadable releases, which allow us a cost effective worldwide distribution.

BW:

OK, if the staff had to take a maximum of 3 old school shoot ‘em ups to a desert island (excluding the Soldner ones of course) what would they be and why?

MP:

Just three? That’s tough. I’d say Einhänder because of the quality appearance and classical flair, the Gradius series (in particular Gradius V) because of its still challenging difficulty and well balanced gameplay and Death Smiles to have a more modern title too.

BW:

With one older genre seen to, do you feel there should be another style of game not seen in a while brought back to the limelight?

MP:

There are a lot of classical genres that me and my team are interested in. A lot of games nowadays tend to give priority to visual and technical appeal, often neglecting actual gameplay.

There is a possibility to step into something else for our new project, but I can’t talk about this yet.

BW:

Has there been any PSN games which have impressed you and the team over the past 12 months?

MP:

Speaking for the whole team, the following games left a lasting impression:

Shatter has been an impressive mix of audio visual appeal and classic gameplay.

Flower has been quite innovative and unique, although we are all not big fans of motion controlled games.

Bomberman Ultra has been an excellent multi-player game.

And of course Final Fantasy VII which is a true classic.

Apart from this, I also downloaded a number of DLC for Disgaea 3 and Cross Edge.

BW:

Time to hand the floor over to you. Say what you wish to the gamers out there reading this right now…

MP:

A wonderful Christmas time and a happy New Year. Don’t forget to watch out for Soldner-X 2 in 2010. :)

BW:

…and finally, what is Christmas bringing you this year?

MP:

A short break from development. :)

We are hoping to keep a very close eye on the Soldner sequel and will be keeping you updated with any developments and info on the game as it prepares to set off on it’s mission in Spring 2010.

I, for one, cannot wait.