http://shmuplations.com/historyofsquare/
This “History of Square” interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi was originally featured in a 1992 bonus edition of Dengeki Super Famicom. Square had only just released Final Fantasy V, so it’s really an account of the first 8 years of the company history, peppered with some humorous anecedotes from their early days. Please note that the italicized text is from the ori...
http://shmuplations.com/soldierblade/
This Soldier Blade interview from 2012 was originally featured in a 20th Anniversary e-book released by one of the game’s designers (and ardent fans), Hideki Yamaguchi. The interview itself is with designer and planner “Ukiuki Uribo”; the somewhat regretful tone may come as a surprise considering the popularity and high regard of Soldier Blade among PC Engine fans in t...
(since both of these were on the shorter side, I've bundled them into one patreon post this month... enjoy!)
http://shmuplations.com/megamanx4/
In this 1997 interview for Sega Saturn Magazine, several key members of Capcom’s Mega Man X4 development team discuss the making of the game and the benefits and challenges of shifting the series to new hardware, as well as answering some of the common questions co...
http://shmuplations.com/chunsoft30th/
Chunsoft founder Kouichi Nakamura reflects on thirty years of game development in the first part of a lengthy interview with Famitsu, conducted in commemoration of Chunsoft’s 30th anniversary. Nakamura offers plenty of insight into Chunsoft’s varied catalog, from mainstream hits like Dragon Quest and the Mystery Dungeon series to their early forays into self-publishing a...
http://shmuplations.com/psychicforce/
In this 1996 interview, several developers describe the inspirations and goals that drove the creation of Taito’s idiosyncratic free-flying fighting game, Psychic Force. Subsequent to this interview, the game found modest success in arcades and spawned several sequels, revisions and spinoff games, but it was perhaps most successful in attracting an atypically large percent...
http://shmuplations.com/historyofsunsoft/
This detailed article (generously donated to shmuplations by sharc) is excerpted from a lengthy biography written in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Sun Denshi and originally published in The Mid-Japan Economist Journal in 2011.
While it’s primarily focused on detailing the growth an...
http://shmuplations.com/terranigma/
In these three interviews, several collaborators discuss their work on the cult 1995 action-RPG Terranigma, Quintet’s final Super Famicom title and the last game in a spiritual trilogy that includes Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia. Over the course of these discussions, Quintet explains their attraction to the action-RPG format and outlines their efforts to encapsulate and evo...
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 (which you can access here and here), so if you've already posted some choices there, this is optional--but it never hur...
2018-08-01 21:09:14 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/tomba/
In these interviews, former Capcom developer and Makaimura (Ghouls ‘n Ghosts) creator Tokuro Fujiwara discusses the making of the Tomba! series at his new studio, Whoopee Camp, and his stance on the fundamental pleasure of action games with reference to the broadening audience for games and the contemporary trend towards 3D graphics.
While some of Fujiwara’s comments could be r...
http://shmuplations.com/maegawapuzzle/
This 1998 article sees Treasure president, programmer, and puzzle aficionado Masato Maegawa outlining his history with puzzles (video or otherwise) and expounding upon the broad categories by which puzzle videogames should be categorized and evaluated. One wouldn’t necessarily expect a member of an over-the-top action game developer like Treasure to be so enamored ...
http://shmuplations.com/mysticark/
This thoughtful interview with Mystic Ark director Shinji Imada originally was published in Game Hihyou magazine in 1996. Imada, a former Irem developer, created his own studio “Produce” in 1990, which went on to create a few classic, albeit largely forgotten RPGs for Enix, including Brainlord and Elnard (aka The 7th Saga).
The conversation largely revolves around diffe...
http://shmuplations.com/miyamotohorii/
Just weeks after the launch of the Super Famicom, Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda series producer Shigeru Miyamoto and Dragon Quest series producer Yuji Horii sat down for a breezy chat about Nintendo’s new hardware and the potential future of their respective franchises.
Of course, neither party was willing or able to divulge much about their current projects...
http://shmuplations.com/metalsladerglory/
In these two lengthy interviews, illustrator/mangaka Yoshimiru Hoshi discusses the making of Metal Slader Glory, a cult graphic adventure game developed for the Famicom in collaboration with HAL Laboratory (and later remade for the Super Famicom), with a particular emphasis on the technique and craftsmanship behind the game’s lavish, limit-pushing visuals.
<...
http://shmuplations.com/demonscrest/
This short interview with Demon’s Crest creators Tokuro Fujiwara and Masahiko Kurokawa first appeared in the November 1994 edition of Famicon Tsuushin. It mainly covers the creation of the Red Arremer character and the challenges of trying to hybridize action and adventure gameplay. Fujiwara’s remarks about new possibilities for the action genre foreshadow his subseque...
http://shmuplations.com/alundra/
These two interviews from the late 90s discuss the genesis and development of Matrix Software's much-beloved Playstation action-RPG Alundra and its sequel, Alundra 2. While the sequel turned out to be the less memorable game, it is interesting to note the design continuity discussed by the developers, particularly in terms of difficulty and gameplay that rewards players with a sense of acc...
2018-05-30 19:30:24 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/battlemania/
This long interview with Vic Tokai alumnus “Takayan” details the history of the cult developer and sheds light on several of their more well-remembered games with a focus on Takayan’s own Battle Mania series, a pair of off-the-wall Mega Drive shooting games that defied adversity to establish themselves as VIC Tokai’s most beloved and sought-after titles.
...this...
http://shmuplations.com/sonic/
This collection of interviews chronicles the conception and development of the original and wildly successful Sonic the Hedgehog game, with comments from core team members Yuji Naka (programmer & team leader), Naoto Ōshima (designer & art director) and Hirokazu Yasuhara (planner) as well as the art director for the game’s sequel, Yasushi Yamaguchi.
Of particular note is ...
http://shmuplations.com/akiranagai/
This interview with former Sega director Akira Nagai was originally featured in the excellent 2001 book “Sega Arcade History.” It examines the very early history of Sega and tracks the development of the arcade in Japan, from “gun corner” to “game corner” and finally to “game center.” He also comments on the well-known Invader Boom phenomenon, but points out seve...
http://shmuplations.com/tacticsogre/
These two interviews for Tactics Ogre and Ogre Battle, respectively, cover the history of the developments and the reason for changes between both games. Today, with the “SRPG” being a well-established genre of its own, it’s easy to overlook how many innovations the Ogre Saga games pioneered, in both a gameplay and narrative sense.
In an interview with 2018-04-12 17:32:17 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/supermariorpg/
This October ’95 interview with Super Mario RPG director and then-Square employee Chihiro Fujioka sheds some light on the collaborative process and the division of duties between Square and Nintendo, with a particular focus on expressing the “essence of Mario” within the parameters of seemingly dissonant structures like isometric game maps and conventional RPG tropes...
Greetings everyone,
Now that shmuplations has been back for a month, I first wanted to say thank you again to everyone who has supported the site--for both new patrons and those longstanding supporters who stuck with the campaign through my absence. It's put major wind in my sails to see people enjoying the work again, and I've taken a number of steps with guest translators and editors to keep things running smoothly in the future.
This month I'm going to try that informal voting p...
I had a little extra time this month and decided to close March out with not one, not two, but three Phantasy Star interviews!
Phantasy Star IV - 1993 Developer Interview
http://shmuplations.com/phantasystariv/
Phantasy Star II - 1989 Developer Interview
http://shmuplations.com/psiirelease/
Phantasy Star - Composer ...
2018-03-26 16:35:22 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/bluesphere/
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere has never officially been released in the West, but this lengthy, candid interview with the young tri-Ace team offers some nice insight into how it was made. While a complete French fan translation apparently exists, there doesn’t seem to be a way to play it in Englis...
http://shmuplations.com/guardianheroes/
These two interviews, conducted and published in 1995, shed light on the inspirations, motivations and goals of lead designer and illustrator Tetsuhiko “HAN” Kikuchi during the development of Treasure’s Sega Saturn melee action game Guardian Heroes.
Of particular note is HAN’s antipathy towards the adversarial nature of vs. fighting games and his drive to lead t...
2018-03-08 18:48:50 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the ways I hope to avoid future discontinuity in shmuplations is by having guest translators I can call on for those times when I either can't work due to other obligations, or simply want to take a break. This is something I really should have done awhile ago, but, well, lesson learned...!
To that end, if you (or someone you know) have experience as a Japanese translator and would like to be a part of this important work in sharing and preserving Japanese game history, please send me a...
2018-03-06 11:03:07 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone,
After a long and difficult year, I've decided to return to my work on shmuplations. I would first like to offer a sincere apology to those who tried to contact me during that time. What follows is something of an explanation, but the short version is that I burned out hard from the workload--and combined with some rather typical but nonetheless debilitating personal problems, for a long time I wasn't sure if I would be able to resume working on the site at all.
Many...
2018-03-01 07:59:24 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/cave15th/
This interview first appeared in the March 2010 edition of Arcadia magazine. While the machinations of Cave have been covered exhaustively on shmuplations, this interview still manages to have some new, meaty conversation about the design of Dodonpachi, Esp.ra.de, and Ikeda’s early days at Toaplan. Be sure to check out the short game-by-game commentary from Ikeda at the end!
http://shmuplations.com/bloodlines/
This short interview with three of the lead members of the Castlevania Bloodlines (aka Vampire Killer) development team was originally featured in BEEP! Megadrive magazine in 1994. It was conducted in the middle of the development (following a delay), and while slightly promotional in nature, does contain a few nice comments on design. Notably, it is the only developer interview I’...
2017-02-27 19:51:01 +0000 UTC View Post
http://shmuplations.com/clockwork/
This small, fun interview with Noriyoshi Ooba, the producer of Clockwork Knight, was originally featured in Sega Saturn Magazine (the successor to the famous BEEP! and BEEP! Megadrive publications). The interview actually takes place just before the release of Clockwork Knight 2. In a goofy twist, the magazine editor thought it would be fun to dress up as Tongara and roleplay his ...
http://shmuplations.com/miyamoto1989/
This short but insightful interview with Shigeru Miyamoto first appeared in the seminal book of video game history, “terebi game denshi yuugi taizen” from 1989. The interview captures Miyamoto in the early limelight: not yet the legend he is today, but more of a bright star among other contemporary developers. What is interesting is how clear his vision was for open, toy-like...
2017-02-26 17:21:47 +0000 UTC View Post