Greetings to all patrons new and old. It's time again to offer suggestions and feedback re: what you'd like to see translated in the next few months. I'll still be referring to the previous voting posts, but it's never a bad idea to post again what you'd like to see translated. Also, if multiple people suggest the same interview, it's more likely to get translated, so feel free to second other people's suggestions. And as always, don't hesitate to ask questions about the interviews if you're curious about their content/length etc.
To vote, please take a look at the list here: http://shmuplations.com/patreonlist/ and leave a comment on this post letting me know what you'd like me to translate.
Hi all! Thanks for bearing with me through the somewhat irregular update schedule of the last few months. The good news is that, 12 dentist visits later (haha), I've finally made a complete recovery from all those health issues I had in the Spring, and have pretty much caught up with my backlog of work/real-life stuff too.
Now that Tokyo is starting to ease covid restrictions, I should be able to make a trip or two to the Diet Library for some additional research later this month (things change quickly, so hopefully there's not another surge in cases before I can make it there). I will probably focus on magazines from the early 2000s; if anyone has specific things they'd like me to search for, feel free to mention that in the comments as well.
Other than that, I've got a Front Mission: Gun Hazard interview collection in the works here, and I'd like to translate something to commemorate Koichi Sugiyama's recent passing. Our editor GSK also informed me about the new Sin and Punishment release for Switch, and he even dug up some interviews--if this interest you, let us know here!
Last year, we published a huge cache of Skies of Arcadia developer interviews which were commissioned by a very generous individual, who then gave his permission for them to be shared with everyone on shmuplations. You may recall that this was only the first batch; well, just in time for Skies of Arcadia's 21st anniversary, here is the remaining second half! Scroll down to the big "PART II" header to find the new additions.
As before, this is a "free post", and in the next couple days we'll have another voting thread for the end of the year, so stay tuned!
For our final update this month, I've got three interviews to share. The main one is for Namco's seminal lightgun shooter Time Crisis, but because it ended up being a little shorter than expected, I went and translated two additional small interviews (for Cool Boarders and Emerald Dragon, which I've appended to the Short Cuts collection linked above).
Sorry for the late update--had a lot on my plate here this month, but we will have another voting thread next week (plus an update to the huge Skies of Arcadia feature we ran last year!)
Originally printed in the March 2000 issue of Arcadia, this interview with director Tatsuya Nakae and producer Yoshihiro Sudo covers the making of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the final 2D iteration of Capcom’s beloved series of crossover fighting games whose over-the-top “hyper” game systems, tag-team mechanics and detailed renditions of popular and obscure Marvel and Capcom characters bore heavy influence on fighting games and comic book illustrators alike.
Over the course of the interview, Capcom’s developers discuss the new additions to the roster, some of their bolder aesthetic choices, their new open-ended game systems, the considerations of console/arcade inter-operability and the integration of online multiplayer — a first for a Capcom fighting game.
This 2001 interview with Nintendo Dream magazine saw Camelot Software Planning co-founders Hiroyuki and Shugo Takahashi discussing the creation of Golden Sun, a Nintendo-published RPG for the Game Boy Advance whose unique “psynergy” system and cutting-edge visuals drew great acclaim from players and critics alike. In the interview, the Takahashi brothers cover, among other topics, their prior experience working on RPGs like Dragon Quest and Shining Force, the concept of centering an RPG on “super powers” and their desire to buck the conventional RPG template.
This Street Fighter II developer interview originally appeared in vol. 62 of Gamest, about six months after the initial arcade release. By that time, Street Fighter was exploding in popularity in both Japan and abroad, and the nascent fighting game scene was starting to find its footing. This interview focuses on that early community aspect more than development secrets (that territory has now been mostly explored for SFII, though there’s a couple new gems in here too).
Originally published in the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine, this 1999 interview saw Treasure alums Mitsuru “Yaiman” Yaida and Koichi “Kafuichi” Kimura discussing the conception and development of the frenetic side-view omnidirectional 2D shooting game Bakuretsu Muteki Bangai-O, with a particular focus given to the game’s deliberately classic and unadorned game design, as well as the inspiration behind the game’s notoriously off-the-wall characters and tone.
Also included is a short interview with Treasure president Masato Maegawa, which further contextualizes Bangai-O as a game developed in defiance of the contemporary trends towards safe, big-budget 3D game development.
This assortment of Final Fantasy X developer interviews originally appeared in a special edition of V-Jump magazine in 2001. These interviews mainly cover on the art and design side of FFX, with a special focus on the novel south asian aesthetic and the new opportunities presented by the PS2 hardware and voice acting. I’ve also included a selection of concept art with accompanying commentary from other designers.
(This is a pretty long interview, but it's actually only a small selection of the FFX stuff in my archive, so I'll probably translate more of these in the future!)
This in-depth Hellsinker interview first appeared on jp.ign in 2019. Befitting the notorious complexity of Hellsinker, it’s one of the more high-level and abstract conversations featured here on shmuplations. Creator Tonnor has a very “meta” way of analyzing the STG genre and Hellsinker’s design choices which makes for a fascinating, if not occasionally inscrutable discussion.
This interview was commissioned by yukkuritime, who generously gave their permission for it to be hosted here.
(this one is a "freebie" courtesy of yukkuritime... and we've still got the three patron interviews coming up later this month)
This 1989 feature, originally published in Gamest magazine, is part 3 of a 12 part series covering various aspects of console and arcade game design. We published part 5 (a three-person interview) earlier this year; this section focuses on enemy behavior algorithms, how to measure player improvement, and many other subtle points of game design. Filled with gems of wisdom that still hold true today, it serves as both essential reading for aspiring game developers and sage critique of Japanese game development of the era.
This pre-release Persona 2: Innocent Sin interview originally appeared in The Playstation magazine in 1999. Although fairly short as far as developer interviews go, it’s got lots of good info about Kaneko’s monster and character designs, story themes, and changes and improvements from the previous game.
...aaaand since this interview turned out to be a bit shorter than I'd hoped, I also translated another Persona interview from 1996, which I've appended to the existing Persona feature here: http://shmuplations.com/persona/
This Metal Gear Solid interview with director Hideo Kojima and designer Yoji Shinkawa originally appeared in The Playstation magazine in 1998. The candid conversation largely focuses around Shinkawa’s work, including how he was hired at Konami and the designs for the mechs and characters of Metal Gear Solid. [[Note: This is the "Designing the World of Metal Gear" interview that a patron had requested. I'll probably have some more Metal Gear/Kojima stuff to add in the coming months as well!]]
Greetings to all patrons new and old. It's time again to offer suggestions and feedback re: what you'd like to see translated in the next few months. I'll still be referring to the previous voting posts, but it's never a bad idea to post again what you'd like to see translated. Also, if multiple people suggest the same interview, it's more likely to get translated, so feel free to second other people's suggestions. And as always, don't hesitate to ask questions about the interviews if you're curious about their content/length etc.
To vote, please take a look at the list here: http://shmuplations.com/patreonlist/ and leave a comment on this post letting me know what you'd like me to translate.
Hey all! I didn't get quite as much done last cycle thanks to my health problems, but I should have a couple nice extras posted soon to even things out. I'm about ~95% back to full health here btw... fingers crossed that I don't relapse or develop something chronic (which happens to a small percentage of thyroid infections). I also finally began getting this root canal treatment--which was actually the start of all my problems, and I could write so much about that, haha. Suffice it to say that if ever you move to Japan or abroad, be sure to bring your medical/dental records with you. I probably could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd done that.
In any event, I'm hopeful that by the end of October I'll be able to make another trip to the Diet Library and resume my hardcopy research. Here in Tokyo they've continued to extend the states of emergency, mostly I suspect as part of the lead-up to the Olympics, so once that's over I'm hoping things will return to a semblance of normality and I can get back to work there. Until then, thanks for your continued support!
These rare Lennus developer interviews were originally featured in The Super Famicom magazine and the official guidebook. Clumsily localized as “Paladin’s Quest” in the West, Lennus is mostly remembered today for its striking visual aesthetic, owed in large part to illustrators Hiroyuki Katou and Keisuke Gotou.
Director and writer Hidenori Shibao sadly passed away in 2018; his archived personal webpage contains additional design notes about the making of Lennus and Lennus 2, which I hope to translate in the future (along with a “Chronicles of Lennus” timeline feature that gives some great background lore).
This lengthy developer interview for Dreamcast cult-classic Elemental Gimmick Gear was originally featured in the official Japanese E.G.G. Complete Guide. E.G.G. was a joint development between Birthday and Hudson, and it is the Birthday staff featured here discussing the inspiration, design, and unique mecha models created for the game. The team’s affection for the character is on full-display, making it all the sadder that a sequel was never made.
In 1989 renowned Gamest editor Zenji Ishii ran a large special feature on Irem, of which these two developers interviews were a part. The first is a roundtable interview with several Irem planners, mostly focusing on their planning process and including some interesting design notes about Ninja Spirit and Image Fight. The second half is a candid chat with then-President Yoshiyuki Takashima. It too contains a few design tidbits about R-Type and Spartan X, but mainly focuses on Irem’s unique approach to arcade development.
This candid Shining Force II roundtable interview, conducted only a couple weeks after the game’s release, originally appeared in the Megadrive Fan Attack Special book. The team discusses the challenging (and lengthy) development schedule which overlapped with the Gaiden games, the improvements to the battle AI, story and thematic ideas, and other behind-the-scenes stories.
Originally published in the 1995 Capcom Illustrations mook by Gamest, this roundtable interview chronicles the formation, purview and early processes of Capcom’s design room, an internal department dedicated to illustration and visual design and the incubator for Capcom’s most talented illustrators, both then and now.
Additionally, this interview also contains some of the earliest public insights from many of Capcom’s most famous and enduring artists, all of whom continue to work at or with Capcom to this day: SHOEI, Kinu Nishimura, SENSEI and a very nervous BENGUS.
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Sorry everyone for the late updates this month--I should have one or two more before the end of the weekend. Unfortunately the health problems I mentioned last month continued (and worsened) into May. After that toothache resolved I experienced a mysterious fever for 2.5 weeks before the doctors here finally pinned it down as a subacute thyroid infection. I got on corticosteroids last week to bring the fever down and have finally been able to get some work done in the meantime, but I'm definitely behind the 8-ball this month. Assuming my condition continues to improve I'm hoping things will be back to normal for June. Thanks everyone for your patience and ongoing support (and special thanks to our editor GSK, who actually translated this latest Capcom piece).
This unique interview featuring Koei’s historical strategy/simulation games was originally published in the May 1988 edition of BEEP! magazine. Instead of the usual developers, Koei chose to send two senior PR/sales representatives to talk about their games; it was still common then for companies to hide the identities of their programmers for fear of poaching. Surprisingly, there’s less blatant shilling than one might expect, and I’ve included some of the original illustrations from the article as they add a nice humorous touch.
In translating this interview, I realized that despite the prolific number of historical games Koei produced, I have very few of their developer interviews in my archive. I suspect there may be more in the PC magazines, which my initial research didn’t encompass, so I will be looking there in the future.
...hi all! sorry for the late post again. I had some unfortunate medical issues (my little euphemism for excruciating pain, haha) this month that put me behind the 8-ball once again. An abscessed tooth, several unsympathetic Japanese dentists, and a short course of antibiotics later and I'm back at it... next month will hopefully be back to the regular weekly updates!
This interview was originally taken from the Game Shokunin book (a collection of developer and industry insider interviews published in 2007) and focuses on planner/designer Yukio Takahashi’s work at Namco. The majority of the conversation centers around the developments of arcade horror-shooter Baraduke and the singular horror-platformer Genpei Toumaden.
Often considered the “black sheep” of the Castlevania GBA series, this Harmony of Dissonance interview with director Takashi Takeda and producer Koji Igarashi was originally featured in the Japanese NTT-PUB strategy guide and covers the game’s design and conception.
Though much of the conversation is rather broad (surprisingly so for a strategy guide interview), readers may be surprised to hear how much Takeda loved the early Famicom Castlevania games and tried to incorporate elements of their design. I’ve also included the brief composer commentary from the HoD OST at the end.
Greetings to all patrons new and old. It's time again to offer suggestions and feedback re: what you'd like to see translated in the next few months. I'll still be referring to the previous voting posts, but it's never a bad idea to post again what you'd like to see translated. Also, if multiple people suggest the same interview, it's more likely to get translated, so feel free to second other people's suggestions. And as always, don't hesitate to ask questions about the interviews if you're curious about their content/length etc.
To vote, please take a look at the list here: http://shmuplations.com/patreonlist/ and leave a comment on this post letting me know what you'd like me to translate.
Hi all! Not much to report this cycle; I've been busy again with a good deal of non-shmuplations gaming work (look for my credits in the new Cotton Reboot), but things have quieted down now and I should be back to the regular weekly update schedule. No new additions to the archive either, but I've updated the lists so everything should be in order for your voting (and in my clean-up I discovered this Yoshitaka Amano interview had somehow gone missing from the main index, in case you didn't read it the first time around).
Other than that, depending on how the votes turn out, I'm thinking about translating the additional (and more in-depth) Breath of Fire III and Shining Force II strategy guide interviews, and possibly the lengthy Yukio Takahashi interview. I'll try to post more commentary on people's votes this time as well. Thanks again for all the continuing support!
In this 1998 pre-release interview for Dreamcast launch title Blue Stinger, Climax Graphics president and designer Shinya Nishigaki shares how the project got started, thoughts about genre, and his approach to level and world design. I’ve also added composer Toshihiko Sahashi’s commentary from the Blue Stinger OST.
Being a pre-release interview, the commentary here is admittedly a bit light and promotional in nature, but in the course of translating these I discovered a more in-depth interview in the Blue Stinger jp strategy guide, which I hope to translate in the future!
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Sorry for the lateness on these last couple translations--I've been running a bit behind the 8-ball ever since the New Year. Next week I'll post the new voting thread for April/May/June, and in the meantime, I'll be doing some archive/site maintenance to make sure lists and indexes are all up to date. Thanks again for your patience and support!
Taken from the 11/21/2002 issue of Nintendo Dream, this lengthy interview with long-time Star Fox series steward and character designer Takaya Imamura covers his early works at Nintendo, the conception of the Star Fox series, the backstories behind many of its characters and his recent forays into external collaboration, with a particular focus on his work merging the world of Star Fox with Rare’s unrelated action-adventure game Dinosaur Planet.
Incidentally, Shigehisa Nakaue, the Nintendo Dream employee featured in this interview who worked with Imamura on the Star Fox Adventures prequel manga, would join Nintendo soon after this interview took place, and he currently works as a primary illustrator and character supervisor for the Super Mario series, succeeding the renowned Yoichi Kotabe.
The first of these Fantasy Zone interviews from 2002 looks back at the making of the popular Mark III port, made by prolific console port director Mutsuhiro “Mucchan” Fujii. The second, from 1997, catches up with the original arcade team after the release of the Sega Ages port of Fantasy Zone. It offers some additional insight (as well as precious concept art with developer comments) and works nicely as a companion piece to the longer STG Gameside interview with Ishii.
Kenji Terada was a writer who, in addition to his extensive work in various 1980s anime series, also wrote the stories for Square’s first three Final Fantasy games, Dark Wizard, and Meremanoid, among others. This first interview is a candid chat with Namco luminary Masanobu Endou from 1988, just before the release of FFII. I’ve also added a shorter FFII interview with Terada and Sakaguchi from the GSLA, as well as an excerpt of a 2015 interview where Terada reminisces on his early experiences with Square and the game industry.
In this 2000 interview from Game Maestro volume 4, legendary artist and designer Akira “Akiman” Yasuda reflects on his origins as a developer, his early days at Capcom and his work on massively popular and genre-defining titles including Final Fight and Street Fighter II, with a particular emphasis on his awakening to the essence of game design growth from mere “dotter” to fully-fledged game craftsperson.
Also not that I’ve omitted the latter half of the interview in which Akiman talks exclusively about Turn A Gundam; if there’s sufficient interest, it would be fun to translate in the future.
These two interviews chronicle the development of Vampire Savior (aka Darkstalkers 3), the third and most enduring entry in Capcom’s influential monster-themed fighting game series. While it introduced many well-received game systems and the popular new characters Jedah, Lilith, B.B.Hood and Q-Bee, Vampire Savior remains the last substantial Darkstalkers game.
These two Breath of Fire III interviews originally appeared in The PlayStation magazine just prior to the games release in September 1997. Although five members of the team are listed, the majority of the interview is centered around director Makoto Ikehara, who had been involved as a planner since the first game, and would go on the direct the next two sequels as well. Topics covered include the transition to the PlayStation, new mechanics, and how the Breath of Fire series fits into the larger context of RPG game design.
In this 1992 feature, originally printed in The Super Famicom magazine, four prominent game designers — venerated Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto, Chunsoft’s Kouichi Nakamura, Sonic! / Camelot Software Planning’s Hiroyuki Takahashi and Red Entertainment affiliate Ouji Hiroi — discuss the contemporary state of RPGs, their expectations for the future of the genre and the thoughts behind their latest RPG (or RPG-adjacent works): The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Dragon Quest V, Tengai Makyou II and Shining Force.
