Retro Developer Interviews - The Making of Your Favorite Games

[GlitterBerri]

Hi there,
I'm a Japanese to English game translator and I run a website called GlitterBerri's Game Translations (http://www.glitterberri.com).

I have a lot of retro game interviews I'd like to share with the community, and I'll try to keep them all in this thread, as I update regularly and don't want to spam the forums. For now, try these on for size:

1987:
• The Creation of R-Type (http://www.glitterberri.com/r-type/the-creation-of-r-type/)

1989:
• A Discussion Between Miyamoto & Dragon Quest's Horii on ALttP & DQIV (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/miyamoto-horii-discussion/)

1991:
• The Men Who Made Zelda: A Link to the Past (http://www.glitterberri.com/a-link-to-the-past/the-men-who-made-zelda/)
• Miyamoto on A Link to the Past (http://www.glitterberri.com/a-link-to-the-past/development-interview/)

1993:
• The Spirit of Sunsoft (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/the-spirit-of-sunsoft/)
• Link's Awakening: Staff List Interview (http://www.glitterberri.com/links-awakening/staff-list-interview/)
• Star Fox: Message From God - Developer Interview (http://www.glitterberri.com/star-fox/message-from-god/)

1994:
• The Making of the Famicom (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/how-the-famicom-was-born/)

1995:
• Yuji Horii & Hironobu Sakaguchi Talk Chrono Trigger (http://www.glitterberri.com/chrono-trigger/v-jump-interview/)

1997:
• Pokémon Gold & Silver in Early Development (http://www.glitterberri.com/pokemon-gold-silver/pokemon-2/)

1998:
• Developing Ocarina of Time (http://www.glitterberri.com/ocarina-of-time/1101-interviews/)
• Link's Awakening DX: Staff Questionnaire (http://www.glitterberri.com/links-awakening/staff-questionnaire/)

2000:
• Creating the Chrono Cross Events (http://www.glitterberri.com/chrono-cross/event-team/)
• Creating the Chrono Cross Battle System (http://www.glitterberri.com/chrono-cross/battle-team/)
• Making Pokémon Red & Blue (http://www.glitterberri.com/pokemon-red-blue/)

2002:
• The Wind Waker: Designing the Characters (http://www.glitterberri.com/the-wind-waker/zelda-box/)

2003:
• Yoshio Sakamoto Talks Metroid (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/yoshio-sakamoto-talks-metroid/)
• Konami: The Nintendo Era (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/konami-the-nintendo-era/)
• An Inside Look at Konami's Nintendo Games (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/konami-nintendo-games/)
• The Man Who Made RE & Ghosts'n Goblins (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/tokuro-fujiwara/)
• The Development of Pacman (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/the-development-of-pacman/)

2005:
• Shadow of the Colossus: Extended Developer Interview (http://www.glitterberri.com/shadow-of-the-colossus/extended-developer-interview/)

2008:
• Special Interview With Koji Kondo (http://www.glitterberri.com/ocarina-of-time/special-interview-koji-kondo/)
• Event Planner & Story Writer Kazushige Nojima Talks Final Fantasy VII (http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-vii/nojima-interview/)

2011:
• The Music of Mr. Gimmick (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/the-music-of-mr-gimmick/)
• The Making of Mr. Gimmick (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/making-mr-gimmick/)

2012:
• Final Fantasy VII Staffer Talks Unused Sidequest & JRPGs Today (http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-vii/letter-to-a-staffer/)

Have something awesome that you've always wanted to read in English? Commission a translation here (http://www.glitterberri.com/commissions)!

[GlitterBerri]

R-Type (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Type) is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game produced by Irem in 1987. It spawned a long series of sequels and spinoffs that are still being released today.

In this interview, the small team of developers for the original title discuss the issues they encountered while making the game. They also drop a few pieces of interesting trivia. Here are some examples:

• The look of ship with its attached Force power-up got its inspiration from dung beetles
• The programmers were very aware of the existence of another space shooter, Konami's Gradius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradius)
• Developers worked hard to come up with outlandish and interesting designs for weapons
• The "R" in R-Type stands for ray, because there are many types of ray weapons in the game

Read the full interview here (http://www.glitterberri.com/r-type/the-creation-of-r-type/).

[TonyTheTiger]

Miyamoto: How about a game where you get to be a mother-in-law who bully’s your son’s young wife? It’d be like in Star of the Giants where the wife wouldn’t submit to you and you’d have to compete with her by trying to throw her out of the house within a certain number of months.

Suspiciously specific, Shiggy. Suspiciously specific. :hmm:


Horii: “My wife walked out on me! Where did she go?! What should I do?” Talk about funny.

:yipes:

[lkermel]

I love these interviews !! Thanks GlitterBerri for uploading and translating them !!! :)

[GlitterBerri]

Mr. Gimmick (http://www.youtube.com/embed/zYcf2yUgblc#t=125) (AKA Gimmick!), Sunsoft's last 8-bit title, is a little-known cult-classic for the Famicom and NES that only saw release in Japan and Scandanavia. Though it didn't sell well, it's still praised by game fans for its eye-popping graphics, grievous difficulty, and high-quality music.

In this interview, a prequel to The Making of Mr. Gimmick (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/making-mr-gimmick/), composer Masashi Kageyama looks back at his time working on the game. His answers touch on the following subjects:

• What the Mr. Gimmick soundtrack means to him
• The variety of unusual musical influences present in the game's BGM
• His struggles composing within the hardware limitations of the Famicom
• His current activities, 20 years after the game's release

Read the full interview here (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/the-music-of-mr-gimmick/).

[FoxNtd]

No original texts? I'd prefer them over translations... :(

[GlitterBerri]

All the interviews listed have links to the sites containing the original text in their top paragraph, where I cite the source. :)

[FoxNtd]

Really?? :)

I'm going to have to take a closer look then!

EDIT: Having trouble finding where the Sakamoto/Metroid interview is... :|

[schnuth]

These are really great reads. Thanks for translating them, I'm fascinated by these sorts of amazing interviews. Great job!

[xelement5x]

Very cool batch of interviews, I look forward to reading through all of them!

[GlitterBerri]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you're enjoying them.

By the way, many of these were commissioned by game fans, so if you have something you want translated, hit me up (www.glitterberri.com/commissions).


Having trouble finding where the Sakamoto/Metroid interview is... :|

You can read it here (http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words/metroid/metroid.html).

[FoxNtd]

Thanks Glitter. :)

All I could find was a page for Metroid listing the ending script/credits. I gotta spend time to read these, should be great!

[GlitterBerri]

In a newly-translated short, a programmer working at Konami in the 80s shares his thoughts on the development of some of the company's early titles. The list includes:

• Track & Field
• Castlevania
• Gradius
• Gradius II
• Ganbare Goemon: A Tricky Journey
• Ganbare Goemon: Gaiden
• Twinbee
• Konami Wai Wai World
• Getsu Fuuma Den
• Antarctic Adventure

Read the full short here (http://www.glitterberri.com/developer-interviews/konamis-nintendo-games/).

(In addition, I've added quite a few more interviews to the top post, including ones that concern the Zelda, Chrono, and Pokémon series, as well as Final Fantasy VII and Shadow of the Colossus.)

[GlitterBerri]

In a new article on GlitterBerri, I track down a certain Final Fantasy VII developer to ask him about the unused Travelling Salesman side quest cut from the game. He also comments on the making of the highly acclaimed PSX title, and details his thoughts on why JRPGs are being derided today.


"These days, development staff have been focused on emphasizing their games’ presentation. Unfortunately, as a result, there aren’t any games being made that have the power to surpass FFVII. As hardware improves, it becomes very difficult to create JRPG-type games, so I think that’s one of the reasons JRPGs have been criticized as outdated and stale by the American game media. (Certainly, much as it pains me, I can’t help but observe that present-day Final Fantasy doesn’t compare to the visuals and real-time aspect of games like Uncharted and Call of Duty.)”

(The letter is at the bottom of the page, following an introduction to the unused sidequest.)

Read what he has to say here! (http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-vii/letter-to-a-staffer/)

[delafro]

Good stuff, thanks. I wish that I had the time and skill to do something like this!

[GlitterBerri]

Star Fox time! I chose to celebrate the upcoming 20th Anniversary of the SNES game by translating this 1993 developer interview.
Did you know that...

• In addition to the Japanese staff, 5 British employees worked on the game, some of whom chose to stay on in Japan?
• Koji Kondo took a number of factors into account when it came to designing the sound for the new 3D environment, such as object distance and how the atmosphere would affect the hum of the engine?
• A fight once broke out amongst the staff about whether the tails of the stingrays that appear in Sector Y should bend or not?

Full article here (http://www.glitterberri.com/star-fox/message-from-god/)!

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey everybody,

There is a person on Shmups Forum (blackoak) who has translated interviews with some game developers, like Toaplan, or Husdon's Takahashi Meijin (the most recent) there. Some of them are linked here:
http://www.emphatic.se/?p=1076

Hopefully I'll have a moment later to compare these with those to see if there is any overlap; hopefully not, but it seems a good idea to get as much translated as possible.

Thanks for the translations, I'll have a look. These are always great to see.