From www.wired.com Game Devs Plan to Save Japan By Chris Kohler | Also by this reporter 02:00 AM Jun. 24, 2005 PT Every May at the E3 video game convention, the Entertainment Software Organization touts the American video game industry's continued growth -- from $4.4 billion in sales in 1997 to $7.3 billion in 2004. And around the same time every year, its counterpart in Japan, the Computer Entertainment Suppliers' Association, has to explain to the press why the Japanese game market is moving in the opposite direction In 2001, gross software and hardware shipments from Japanese companies totaled about 1.46 trillion yen. In 2004, they were about 909.1 billion yen -- a drop of over 37 percent. This isn't merely attributable to the fact that the PlayStation 2 and GameCube hardware are getting on in years, as software shipments have dropped as well. The declining bottom line is felt by everyone in the industry. But in the end, game designers are in charge of creating the products that will get the industry out of its slump. At E3, Wired News spoke to three of Japan's biggest names -- Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and former Nintendo designer Masahiro Sakurai -- about their futures, and how they hope their new games will become the next generation's breakout hits. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the latest GameCube version of Nintendo's long-running fantasy adventure series, wowed Los Angeles crowds with its realistic, gritty graphic style. And that's precisely what Eiji Aonuma had in mind. "Making video games is a business," said Aonuma, "and so you have to strategically consider what markets you're going to appeal to. With Twilight Princess, we had meetings early on with the North American localization team to discuss things like character design, particularly with Link. We're focusing heavily on the American market, and hope it will appeal strongly there." But the switch to realistic graphics from a more cartoony style hasn't been without its speed bumps. "When you shift to realistic graphics, you can't fool the player any more," Aonuma said. "It no longer makes sense to have the player swing a sword with their left hand, killing an enemy that's on his right. "We're definitely seeing how hard it is to work with realistic graphics. If I'm showing something realistically, then I have to show the results in a realistic manner as well." Although Aonuma asserts that the gameplay of Twilight Princess isn't designed for any one group of gamers, one of the sequences shown at E3 -- a dramatic horse-mounted battle -- was the most fast-paced and action-oriented ever seen in a Zelda title. He is quick to caution, however, that this does not mean the entire game will be full of blazing action. "When Link gets off the horse and back down on the ground, the action is going to be a bit slower. And the reason for that, again, is that with realistic graphics you have to express the world realistically as well. You have to be able to feel the weight of Link's sword as he swings it," Aonuma said. If the emphasis is on realism, why not incorporate voiced dialog? "I feel like it's not suited to the Zelda series," Aonuma said. "When the player is reading text on the screen, they're inserting a part of themselves, their imagination, into the reading. They fill out the world. But with fully spoken dialogue, everything about the character becomes fixed in place, and you lose a bit of that imaginative aspect. "That said, I've always felt that if we can use voice in a way that's new and unique, it could be very positive for the Zelda series. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that in time for the E3 demo, but we do have some ideas that we're thinking about." Aonuma is also hard at work on two more entries in the Zelda series, for the Revolution and Nintendo DS. Though he shied away from giving out details, he confirmed that the DS title will be primarily controlled with the system's touch screen and stylus pen. Aonuma isn't the only Japanese game designer pondering what happens when the fantasy adventures the country loves collide with high-def technology. A few years ago, Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square Enix, the Japanese publisher where he had created the breakthrough RPG series, Final Fantasy. "When I quit, my intentions were to retire," said Sakaguchi. "And the first year, I really enjoyed myself. I watched any movie I wanted, read books, listened to music. But by year two, I started to feel that I wasn't going to be satisfied with life unless I was being creative. So he formed his own independent game development studio, called Mistwalker. At E3, he announced that the company's first two games, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, would be published by Microsoft Game Studios and appear exclusively on the Xbox 360. "I didn't go back to Square Enix," said Sakaguchi, "because I wanted to spend more time in pre-production, so I could be fully satisfied with my story-line concepts. But building a large team costs a lot of money. Normally, to avoid those costs, I'd want to finish the story line sooner. But I didn't want that, either. "So I formed Mistwalker, which is a small company -- only about 10 people. There are many things that we can do that larger companies can't. That's the style I sought." Much of the work on Mistwalker's first two games will be outsourced. The character designs for Lost Odyssey are being handled by Takehiko Inoue, Sakaguchi's "drinking buddy" and the creator of the popular manga Slam Dunk and Vagabond. And the world of Blue Dragon will be brought to life by one of Japan's most popular artists, Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball). "Toriyama had great story ideas that inspired me to throw all my ideas away and start from scratch," Sakaguchi said. "I've noticed that fresh elements in games are lacking. Before, I could experience something new five or six times a year. Now it's like a repeat of the same kind of experience. So with these two titles I'm trying to offer fresh, surprising excitement. "Next-generation machines have the power to create incredible graphics and sound. But I'm not stopping there. I want to have all sorts of things that aren't immediately visible; interactive elements that will surprise the player with their reaction. And I don't want these things to be sparse," Sakaguchi said. "I want them to be high density. It's a different direction than Final Fantasy's been going." Although it is quite rare for Japanese to leave their jobs -- societal customs dictate that they remain at the same company from graduation through retirement -- many game designers like Sakaguchi have gone independent in the last few years. Another is Masahiro Sakurai, whose games include Kirby and Super Smash Bros. Melee. "The Japanese industry is struggling because of too many similar games," said Sakurai. "People play video games to be stimulated by new things. But the games today are just sequels to existing franchises. So although graphics and sound improve every day, people aren't impressed by that any more. Sakurai's latest creation -- a puzzle game called Meteos, created in collaboration with newcomer indie Japanese dev house Q Entertainment -- ships on June 27 in North America. "The falling-block puzzle game genre is something that hasn't evolved in decades. You see blocks falling, and you line them up and erase them. For decades it didn't need evolution because people were already satisfied with the way it was. I wanted to create a game that was more than that; something people had never seen before." Sakurai isn't particularly encouraged by the North American game market's success. "Walking on the E3 show floor today," Sakurai said, "how many shots did you hear fired? It seems like America is mired in the shooting-game genre. You can't just bring that to Japan and tell consumers, 'This is a shooting game. Enjoy it.'" But Sakurai's thoughts on hyper-realism differ from those of Aonuma and Sakaguchi. In an industry where even Zelda has to be more realistic and detailed to stay relevant, Sakurai pines for a return to the game designs that, decades ago, captured so many imaginations. "When I was little," he said, "what I loved about games was the absurdity; their complete separation from the real world. Here, when I hold a pencil, it drops to the table when I let it go. But in the games I played when I was young, the pencil would just float. That's the kind of thing I used to love. "But these days, everyone is pursuing realism. When a soldier jumps, he only jumps the height that a normal human could. Not several feet in the air. I enjoy games that are not realistic in that way. So when you punch somebody in Smash Bros., he goes flying." Much like his former boss Shigeru Miyamoto, Sakurai hopes to bring in a new audience of non-gamers. "I intend to create games that can be played by both core gamers and light users," he said. "'Something unprecedented' is what I always want to be making."
It's a sad day for gaming when the creator of Final Fantasy has to get design ideas from the guy who made DragonBall... I thought Meteos and Lumines were done by Tetsuya Mizuguchi of Rez and Space Channel 5 fame, not the Smash Brothers guy?
the dragonball series, while admittedly cheesy, brought storytelling through animation to new levels. Not only was the story involved, interesting, and sometimes funny, but the artwork was amazing and it was evident that a lot of time and effort was put into the program. What you also seem to be forgetting is that dragonball consists of not only cartoons but comics, which have been said to be superior to the show. Anyway, I trust the creator of such a great game like final fantasy won't be influenced by just anything and that there is something good that he sees in that dragonball guy
Also, don't forget that without Toriyama, there wouldn't be Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger as we know them.
Actually, I'm not forgetting anything. I know DragonBall in all its abominable iterations began as manga, which still retains the inexplicably annoying character designs that often make playing through Chrono Trigger a bit painful. As far as the involved, interesting, and funny storytelling goes, I've never seen it. Then again, the series was designed to appeal to 10-12 year old boys. Which is what a lot of the raving fans seem to be forgetting. EDIT: (Kyuusaku replied before me) There would still be Chrono Trigger, and Dragon Quest, they just might not look the same. Who knows if it would have turned out better or not - I've made an uneasy peace with the CT character designs as they're a part of what the game is, but it still bothers me that one of the best games of all ever could have Toriyama as the character designer.
gah...what a bunch of morons. a 'shooting-game' may not be popular in japan right now, i wouldnt know. but i dont see why someone couldnt make a 'shooting-game' and have it become popular in japan. how many people havnt watched an over the top violent japanese movie with massive lengthy gun battles? and shit, they think their new zelda game has realistic graphics...it looks like a fucking cartoon, who are they kidding. they say that because their game has realistic graphics everything inside the game has to be realistic...which it doesnt, and from what ive seen of their game isnt. they talk about bringing something new but at the same time tell wired that they have to limit themselfs to these preconceived notions on how a game with realistic graphics should play or can play. "When the player is reading text on the screen, they're inserting a part of themselves, their imagination, into the reading." the only thing im inserting when i have to read pages of text off my t.v. are fingers into my eyes. "That said, I've always felt that if we can use voice in a way that's new and unique, it could be very positive for the Zelda series." i get it, everything has to be unique and new. not well done, not polished, but unique and new. cant use voice in a zelda game unless its unique and new, fuck making a solid game people will enjoy. im going to go back to the whole realistic graphics thing...it takes more processing power to render models using cell shading than it does to render models with hi resolution textures. it will allways be true that the next generation of consoles are better suited to make more incrediblly detailed worlds in the abstract than all the consoles before it. imagine how great it would be to play through a game that looked and felt more like a painting than the plastic barbie doll bumped mapped shit you saw at e3. why doesnt someone do that? because they are morons, because they think they know how a game should play. the next generation of games do not have realistic graphics, what they do have is more detailed graphics. these guys are just making excuses. i believe the stunted creativity and narrow minded perception of people like these two nitwits are the reason we dont see truely unique and new ideas made into solid games.
It's leftover from first year Japanese and the drooling, overweight fanboys who believed DragonBall was the pinnacle of Japanese anime culture and would have no qualms explaining why no matter who was interested (or not, as the case most likely was). Dragonball to me personifies the nerdy, American 'otaku' mindset, so the association of Dragonball/Toriyama with anything really lowers its appeal for me. So yeah, I dislike it with a passion. Bad mental association. *shudder* But aside from that, on a serious note, the show really isn't as good as it's made out to be. I said before - the target audience is pre-pubescent boys. Sure, stuff like that is fun to watch occasionally - hell, I watch old episodes of Transformers with friends every now and then, but I'm not going to attempt to make it out to contain any semblance of epic storytelling or amazing humor.
