Spoke to a few of you guys in the Shoutbox about this while I was working on it, finally finished the first 3 parts. I'd written a four-part history on the Shenmue saga before (first part here) and decided to do something similar on Mizuguchi after the Rez VR announcement. Part I covers Mizuguchi's early life and his work at Sega up to Sega Rally Championship 1995. Part II looks at his subsequent racing games Manx TT Superbike, Sega Touring Car Championship, and Sega Rally 2. And Part III looks at Space Channel 5. Really looking forward to Part IV where I'll look at Mizuguchi's masterpiece Rez as well as Space Channel 5: Part 2. Thanks to Switch at Shenmue Dojo for translations for Part III.
Oh man, that was a great read. I think some of the translation maybe wrong. Part 3 seemed to suggest that Michael Jackson was in Space Channel 5 part 1 when he was in fact in Part 2.
Michael is in part 1, but because he was a last-minute addition he just has a small cameo in the last stage (which I played for the first time a couple of nights ago since I suck at the game) compared to the larger role he has in Part 2.
Thread of the year! I remember of the Sega VR, what a dream, I thought it will change our way of playing I think I saw the Atari red version on ebay about 10 years ago
Really cool write, thank you! And he's right Michael appears in the last stage of SC5:1. BTW after all that buzz SC5 only sold 80k in US :-( Really sad.
