http://shmuplations.com/tss-megagun/
In this 2018 interview, Twinkle Star Sprites creator Yoshiuyasu “Casio” Matsushita and Rival Megagun creator Justin Rempel came together to discuss the creation of their respective games, their mutual respect and the trials and tribulations of working in the somewhat niche subgenre of head-to-head STG.
(note: this interview was translated by shmuplations' edi...
http://shmuplations.com/imadethat/
From the October 1991 issue of Famitsu Tsuushin magazine comes “I Made That!”, a breezy feature that introduces the names behind a bakers’ dozen of then-popular or trendy games, with a little insight into their creation and game development generally. While the content here is fairly light, it does offer a rare glimpse of certain lesser known personages, such as Yoshihiro...
http://shmuplations.com/vampire/
This Darkstalkers interview with planner Junichi Ohno and Capcom producer Noritaka Funamizu was originally featured in Gamest magazine in 1994. While not especially long, it goes into some nice detail about the new game mechanics, the unusual characters, and the team's efforts to differentiate themselves from Street Fighter II. I’ve also added a selection of concept art (most fro...
http://shmuplations.com/persona/
In this interview for Dengeki PlayStation magazine, key members of Atlus’ development team discuss the making of the PlayStation RPG Megami Ibunroku Persona, a high-school-themed spin-off from their long-running Shin Megami Tensei series of dungeon crawlers that found wide acclaim through its adoption of contemporary, youthful character designs, fashionable music and narrative th...
http://shmuplations.com/frontmission/
This collection of interviews chronicles the creation of the Super Famicom strategy-RPG Front Mission, a game published by Square in 1995 to critical acclaim and one that continues to receive sequels and followups in various genres to this day. Developed in partnership with Toshiro Tsuchida’s now-defunct studio G-Craft, the developers discuss the game’s hard sci-fi se...
http://shmuplations.com/valkyrieprofile2/
Taken from the Valkyrie Profile 2 Ultimania guidebook, this interview offers a wealth of insight into the making of the second game in tri-Ace’s cult Norse-themed action-RPG series, direct from several of its lead developers. Of particular focus is the sequel’s shift to full 3D graphics and all the opportunities and challenges that ensued from cinematics to an...
I've got two interviews for this update, since Oddworld ended up being on the shorter side. Enjoy!
http://shmuplations.com/oddworld/
This short Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee interview from 1997, with American creators Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna, was originally featured in The Playstation magazine. It mainly discusses the design inspiration behind Abe, as well as the way the charac...
http://shmuplations.com/soniccd/
This collection of interviews—two conducted immediately prior to the game’s initial release in 1993, and another in commemoration of the series’ 20th anniversary in 2011—offer some insight into the conception and development of Sonic CD from many of the game’s developers, including composer Naofumi Hataya, character designer Kazuyuki Hoshino and director and original Soni...
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 y...
2020-03-04 00:40:54 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/michiruyamane/
(direct video link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTHJR0k88RU)
This charming 30 minute documentary interview with long-time Castlevania and Konami composer Michiru Yamane was originally featured on a bonus DVD included in the massive 18-disc “Castlevania Best Music Collections BO...
http://shmuplations.com/nextgen/
These six developer interviews first appeared in the 5/93 edition of Famicom Tsuushin, in a special feature focused on new up-and-coming game designers (the original tagline was “Move over Horii, Sakaguchi, and Miyamoto! It’s our time now!”). Famicon Tsuushin also adorned each short interview with a photo of the developers at their desks, which I’ve included as well.
http://shmuplations.com/sormusic/
These four Streets of Rage composer interviews were originally featured in the 1991-1994 issues of BEEP Megadrive, Megadrive FAN, and Marukatsu Megadrive magazines. Beginning with the first game, composers Koshiro and Kawashima discuss the influences and process of writing these beloved and seminal OSTs.
As the early 90s saw “traditional” chiptune music starting to giv...
http://shmuplations.com/dragonquest30th/
(direct video link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0rRgdQ1kK0 )
This documentary special, featuring interviews with main Dragon Quest creators Yuji Horii, Koichi Nakamura, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama, originally aired on NHK at the end of 2016 to celebrate Dragon ...
http://shmuplations.com/daimakaimura/
In this interview, conducted at the 1988 AM Show arcade trade event, Makaimura/Ghosts’n Goblins creator Tokuro Fujiwara and greenhorn Hiroshi Yamamoto discuss the making of Daimakaimura/Ghouls’n Ghosts, the impending sequel to Capcom’s 1985 smash hit arcade game, and how both an influx of new blood and new arcade hardware allowed the team to more fully realize t...
http://shmuplations.com/boktai/
In this 2003 interview, former Konami creative Hideo Kojima discusses the production of, and inspirations behind, the Game Boy Advance title Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand, an isometric vampire-hunting adventure game with stealth elements that makes heavy use of both a photometric light sensor and a real-time clock chip to simulate the in-game presence of the sun.
Boktai woul...
http://shmuplations.com/snkartists/
In this 2001 interview, conducted at the very peak of SNK’s original tenure, designers Hiroaki and Tonko (along with an unnamed SNK rep) discuss their history at SNK, their influences as illustrators, the nature of their day-to-day work and their contributions to now-classic games like Garou: Mark of the Wolves, The King of Fighters and The Last Blade series, as well as the...
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 y...
2019-11-30 08:36:58 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/success1989/
This “Success Story” feature originally ran in the 3/89 issue of BEEP magazine, and as the name suggests, offered interview profiles of twelve different game designers. It’s light fare overall, but their candid and sometimes critical advice for aspiring game developers makes for some interesting reading now.
In addition to big names like Shigeru Miyamoto, there...
http://shmuplations.com/zanac/
In this lengthy 2015 interview, Compile alum Takayuki “Jemini” Hirono discusses the making of their popular vertical STG Zanac, a game that made waves with its use of dynamic auto-adjusting difficulty, relatively wide variety of weapons, and high-speed scrolling. Zanac also cemented Compile’s long and fruitful association with shooting games.
For as much popularity and suc...
http://shmuplations.com/ffxi/
These pre and post-release Final Fantasy XI interviews were salvaged from the GSLA archive, and offer a broad look at the early evolution of Square’s pioneering console MMO from conception to launch and beyond. Naturally, these interviews do not address the game’s continuing legacy: the game outlived its own five-year roadmap by over a decade and is still online to this day, with the...
http://shmuplations.com/legendofvalkyrie/
This interview with Legend of Valkyrie character designer Hiroshi Fujii and main designer Koakuman originally appeared in the 1/91 issue of Hippon Super, and was later republished (with additions) in the World of Valkyrie illustrated book. Fujii discusses his early days at Namco, how he got involved with the first Adventure of Valkyrie game, and his sophisticated ...
http://shmuplations.com/secretofmana/
These lengthy Secret of Mana interviews with creators Hiromichi Tanaka and Koichi Ishii were originally published in Hippon Super magazine. The questions cover all aspects of the game, but focus especially on the team’s desire to break the mold of conventional RPG gameplay. The origin and inspiration behind the characters, Flammie, and “mana” itself are all touched ...
http://shmuplations.com/bubblebobble/
In this 1988 interview for BEEP! magazine, the late Fukio “MTJ” Mitsuji discusses his start at Taito and the conception of many of his early works, including the extremely popular Bubble Bobble and its spiritual followup, Rainbow Islands. Despite MTJ’s enduring reputation as a Taito mainstay, his tenure was relatively brief; less than a year after this interview too...
http://shmuplations.com/fatalfury3/
This informative Fatal Fury 3 interview was originally featured in Neo Geo Freak magazine. The first half covers mechanic and system changes from the previous games, including the addition of an additional plane and oversway moves. The second half centers on the characters themselves, five of which were new for this entry. Finally, a nice collection of concept art showcases t...
http://shmuplations.com/vagrantstory/
Hey guys! I've added the rest of the excellent Ultimania Vagrant Story developer interviews, this time with the Sound, Programming, Planning, and 3D Graphics teams. I've appended them to the Yasumi Matsuno interview I translated last month. I actually have a couple more Vagrant Story interviews from magazines in my archive (the mid to late 90s was a good time for this kin...
http://shmuplations.com/shortcuts/
There are a number of interviews in the shmuplations archive which, while too short or slight to be featured on their own, nonetheless contain interesting tidbits of information that merit translation. In many cases, these are the only developer comments that exist for these games. In the future I’ll be aggregating these shorter interviews here, beginning this month with Soul...
http://shmuplations.com/lufia/
These Lufia developer and composer interviews come from three sources: a 2016 interview with composer Yasunori Shiono celebrating a live orchestral performance of the Lufia II soundtrack; liner notes from a 2006 Lufia cd compilation; and finally, a series of questions asked to director Masahide Miyata at two fan events in 2012/2013.
...sorry for the last-minute updates th...
http://shmuplations.com/sonicteam/
This interview with Naoto Oshima and Yuji Naka was originally featured in the January 1997 issue of Sega Magazine. While it was titled “The Story of Sonic Team” there, it is really more an account of Naka and Oshima’s early days and the first Sonic the Hedgehog development.
I’ve also included a selection of design commentaries on all three Megadrive Sonic games, w...
2019-08-31 11:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/vagrantstory/
These two Vagrant Story interviews from 1999 were originally featured in the Ultimania guide, but have (surprisingly) remained untranslated until now. After modestly disavowing his “auteur” reputation, Matsuno is gradually coaxed by the interviewer into an interesting discussion of Vagrant Story’s conception and design, with humorous anecdotes about Ogre Battle and ...
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 y...
2019-08-01 06:09:08 +0000 UTC View Post