The cute Final Fantasy-themed racer Chocobo GP arrived on the Nintendo Switch last week, and while it’s got some solid kart racing mechanics, fans have voiced their concerns about the game’s prize pass, which acts as a season pass.
It’s not your traditional kart racer in that sense, where you can unlock everything with relative ease. It’s now got to the point where the team has issued a lengthy message – explaining what to expect from Chocobo GP moving forward, along with some of the actions that have already been taken.
The game’s producer, Hironori Okayama, also mentioned how the team is taking player feedback on board:
“We have also received many comments on how to provide additional DLC. We take this seriously and will continue to do our best to provide updates that will satisfy everyone who purchases.”
Reddit user Sat-AM shared a rough Google translation of this latest update on the Nintendo Switch subreddit. Here’s the full breakdown:
1. They’re aware of and working on fixing the online issues.
2. They sent out 500 Ithril and lowered EXP requirements on the pass as an apology to players, meaning the lowered EXP requirement may not be how they do future passes. If you had enough EXP to be at a higher level, you were automatically leveled up.
3. Major updates and changes will come with season changes, so there will likely be no future adjustments for season 1.
4. Future seasons will include 2 new characters (1 on the pass and 1 for gil).
5. “Items added to the Gil Shop will be added each time the season is repeated,” sounds like they’ll be keeping Gil-bought characters in the Gil Shop for future seasons, but it could also mean that they are planning to repeat seasons eventually.
6. Characters on the pass may be available to be purchased “directly” with mythril or gil after the pass has been run.
7. New courses will be released for players on both the full and lite versions in Season 2.
8. More mythril shop items (costumes and BGM tracks) are coming mid-season.
9. Currently, Ithril can only be obtained via login reward, but starting in Season 2, it will also be a pass reward.
10. Balance changes are coming in Season 2, including changes to characters and base mechanics. They’re not touching anything before then unless it’s broken enough to need an immediate fix, though.
11. they are taking player feedback about DLC/microtransactions into account when planning for future updates.
12. They seem to primarily be concerned with the average player being able to get to level 100 (out of 200) over the course of a 2-month pass.
13. Current EXP gain is balanced so that players with a 1:1 win/lose ratio in GP mode will receive roughly 1 level per GP mode run with the stickers provided by the pass. The line after this (“In this way, our new basic policy is to create an environment in which it is easy to obtain additional characters simply by purchasing the product version”) implies that they essentially find this suitable, and may be keeping the current EXP gain rates for the pass.
14. More cosmetic/BGM sorts of things will be coming to the Ithril shop and the pass as high-level rewards.
15. Changes being made to the Lite version are “to make it easier for video distributors to hold events,” so this might be indicating that they may be allowing Lite players to access the host’s roster, as “events” is probably in reference to tournaments. It may also, however, be in reference to allowing non-GP online play, or something else entirely.
We’ll be sure to let you know if Square Enix eventually shares more information in English. You can find out more about the game’s season pass problems in our previous story:
What are your own thoughts about Chocobo GP so far? Are you hopeful the experience will improve in the future? Leave a comment down below.
