We ask Nagoshi about his thoughts on RGG Studio’s new projects
On August 26 2017, at a special press conference, RGG Studio announced three new projects at once. They were: Ryu ga Gotoku 2’s extreme evolution Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 (PS4 December 7 2017); a collaboration with the masterpiece manga Hokuto no Ken, Hokuto ga Gotoku (PS4 February 22 2018); and in simultaneous development with a home console game, the first title from the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project, Ryu ga Gotoku Online (PC, iOS, Android 2018). We interviewed the Sega Games development head Nagoshi Toshihiro ahead of Tokyo Game Show 2017.
*This article is an extract of one published in a special edition of Weekly Famitsu on September 14 2017.
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Q: At the press conference on August 26 2017, you announced three new projects in development. What does this mean for the development of the Ryu ga Gotoku franchise in future?Nagoshi: As we said in the announcement, Ryu ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta. was the end of Kiryu Kazuma’s story, but the Ryu ga Gotoku series is not finished. So what I thought was, “We have to somehow show new development.” What that means in terms of the announcement of those three titles the other day is that each in a way is a different development. To put it plainly, Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 is an application of “the existing IP”. Hokuto ga Gotoku you could say is a “sideways development”, using the Ryu ga Gotoku game engine and development know-how on other works. And the first instance of the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project that we announced, Ryu ga Gotoku Online, shows that “We are always up for a new challenge”. Of them all, we consider the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project to be the strongest symbol of “the next era of Ryu ga Gotoku”.
Q: What exactly do you mean by “the next era of Ryu ga Gotoku”?Nagoshi: The fact that we announced the first instance of the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project for PC and smartphone might have been misunderstood; we didn’t mean to imply that PC and smartphone would be the main part of “the next era of Ryu ga Gotoku”. While we announced Ryu ga Gotoku Online at the event, we’re already focusing on a title aimed at home consoles. In other words it’s not Kiryu Kazuma’s story; you could call it a new series of Ryu ga Gotoku, featuring a new protagonist called Kasuga Ichiban, the start of which is Ryu ga Gotoku Online. I believe you can think of the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project as comprising various games featuring a new protagonist.
Q: So, that explains the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project. Incidentally, the new protagonist Kasuga Ichiban, what kind of person is he?Nagoshi: Our protagonist until now, Kiryu Kazuma, though he might have been a naughty kid at one time, when we met him in Ryu ga Gotoku he was more of a capable person. Someone who knows himself, and can deal with even hostile people with tolerance. Of course, we filled in Kiryu’s youth later, but when we met him he gave a strong impression of being already mature, I think.
Q: That’s certainly true.Nagoshi: In the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project, we decided we wanted to redo the story of a chinpira. Because his way of life is completely the opposite of that name “Ichiban” [“First/Best”] he develops a name complex, and we thought that would be an interesting story to tell. You could say he was beaten by his name. I think the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project, being the story of the growth of such a man, should be a success story.
Q: I see. That’s really different from Kiryu’s image as a protagonist, isn’t it.Nagoshi: Since Ichiban has such a complex, that makes him reckless. He’s a completely different character from capable Kiryu. Even if we made him a person who could rival Kiryu in the same sort of situations, if we don’t make him different from the great man, the player would probably end up saying, “Yeah, Kiryu could have done that.” We wanted to make the new protagonist someone that would make people think, “Kiryu is great, but I like this guy too.”
Q: I’m looking forward to seeing how a completely different protagonist from Kiryu lives his life in Kamurocho. By the way, is it okay to think of the setting for the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project as being next door to where Ryu ga Gotoku has been up until now?Nagoshi: Sure. The Ryu ga Gotoku series has always been linked to real time, so you could say that it’s about what happens next door after Ryu ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta. In Kasuga Ichiban’s story too of course, Kamurocho is familiar, the organisations called Tojo Kai and Omi Rengo are still deeply involved, but we’ll go into more detail about the situation later.
Q: I’m curious to find out, but in the meantime, can you tell us about what kind of game Ryu ga Gotoku Online is?Nagoshi: Right now it’s using a mainstream card battle format. What makes smartphone games unique is that they’re easy to play, and quick to get addicted to; those are two things this era demands. At the moment, in development, they’re working on adjusting the balance.
Q: The console game’s characters and world will look different from the smartphone game, which isn’t unusual, but the smartphone game will be released first, with the console game following after, and that’s pretty unprecedented. What made you decide to do it that way?Nagoshi: We’ve really quickly diversified the game’s IP. Now, whether it’s a console game or a smartphone game, whichever platform we’re working on, we’re happy as long as we can get people to play the games. Even if we never said, “We make nothing but Ryu ga Gotoku console games”, maybe it would be better to change that way of thinking. Basically, I believed that with Kiryu’s story finished, it was our one chance to introduce a new protagonist.
Q: Really, with the Ryu ga Gotoku series with Kiryu as protagonist being so completely a console game package, it might have been difficult to develop a smartphone game otherwise, right?Nagoshi: I think that’s part of it. But saying that, we didn’t create the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project as a smartphone game with a hastily thrown together protagonist. If we’re introducing a new protagonist, doing that via a console game would require a great deal of development work. We haven’t revealed yet whether the title of the console game in the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project will be Ryu ga Gotoku 7, but one thing I can say is that we see this project as worthy of taking its place alongside the numbered games in the series. For a while, we’ll be focussing on announcements about Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 and Hokuto ga Gotoku, so you can expect more to be announced about the New Ryu ga Gotoku Project in the future, I think.
Q: So that’s the true meaning of the statement that “Kiryu’s story is finished, but the story of Ryu ga Gotoku is not.” So next, I want to ask about the PS4 release Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2. The original, Ryu ga Gotoku 2, was impressive for having such a short development period, with its release coming so soon after the first Ryu ga Gotoku. Looking back on Ryu ga Gotoku 2, Nagoshi-san, what sort of game do you see it as?Nagoshi: Though I didn’t really pay much attention to coverage of the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2 at the time, honestly Ryu ga Gotoku 2 wasn’t meant to have such a short development period. Even so, having produced the first Ryu ga Gotoku, the producer Kikuchi (Kikuchi Masayoshi) insisted, “Since we accept that creating a new IP would be difficult in these circumstances, while we have that energy we should make it our priority to put out the best possible sequel we can as quickly as possible.” There was also a counter viewpoint: “We did it properly once, so rather than rushing it, we want to make it our priority to do it properly again.” There were also voices saying that.
Q: That must have made it a hard decision to make.Nagoshi: At that time, as the PS2 was maturing, its successor the PS3 was about to appear in the marketplace. As it would take time for the PS3 to mature in the marketplace, I thought we should release a PS2 sequel before that. But the timing meant there wasn’t much time to make the sequel, so it would take a lot of processes happening at once to do it in that one year period.
Q: One year from the planning stage is really not much time!Nagoshi: What’s more, building on the experience of having finished the first Ryu ga Gotoku, we thought Ryu ga Gotoku 2 in general would be a smaller workload, being the second volume … (laughing). While working on Ryu ga Gotoku 2 in that short one year development period, I think the joy of seeing the first one become a hit energised the team somehow, that was an important factor. After that, looking back on how the Ryu ga Gotoku series developed, though the first one being a hit was great, creating that sequel in just one year was even greater.
Q: So the production of Ryu ga Gotoku 2 in no time at all decided the future of the Ryu ga Gotoku series. If you’d been careful and taken time over Ryu ga Gotoku 2’s development, the development after that might have been different.Nagoshi: I think it would have been very different. We can talk about “what if”, though really nobody knows, but at least I’m sure we wouldn’t have continued making a game a year.
Q: It’s because you succeeded at such an extreme challenge, right?Nagoshi: It sure is. Though we were exhausted afterwards (laughing).
Q: And so, more than 10 years later, again, what kind of title is Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 going to be?Nagoshi: In 2016, using the first Ryu ga Gotoku as a base, we released Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami. What I felt at that time, while revising the parts of the images and production etc. that were badly done 10 years ago, was that I was happy to finish it off and perfect it. As for Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2, it’s the same with that, because the development of the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2 suffered at that time because of technical limits and time limitations etc. – to properly complete what we couldn’t complete, you could say that’s the games’ tagline. Other than that, the added scenario in Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami was popular with players, so we wanted to put effort into an added scenario in Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 to answer those expectations, I think.
Q: You mentioned the added scenario at the presentation. Since it seems to concern the fan favourite Majima Goro, I’m curious about the contents.Nagoshi: Despite Majima’s part in the first Ryu ga Gotoku being limited, his unique presence made him a popular character. Because of that, in Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami, we added to his part, but in Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 we thought maybe we could add a scenario that would allow Majima to be more active. The staff immediately agreed. While I think Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami’s extra Nishikiyama sections increased the amount of drama, being able to play as Majima and enjoy his battle action this time is something else entirely. Also, the episode continues the story of Makoto, who appeared in Ryu ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho, so you can look forward to that.
Q: That’s really exciting! Then, while so much time has passed between Ryu ga Gotoku 0: Chikai no Basho and Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2, they both feature Sotenbori, so I’m curious what has changed.Nagoshi: While the current phase is almost close to complete, we made Sotenbori from scratch in the latest Dragon Engine. Like with Kamurocho in Ryu ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta., we’ve been able to make the detail so much richer, so you can look forward to that.
Q: I see. Incidentally, when it comes to the feeling of playing the game as a whole, is it fair to say that Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 will have the same feeling of texture that Ryu ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta. does?Nagoshi: Well, both Battle Mode and Adventure Mode feel the same to operate as Ryu ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta. so yes, that’s okay to say. The environment is seamless, so comparing it to the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2, moving around is so much more enjoyable now.
Q: And then Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 has brought together an amazing cast too.Nagoshi: Since I was in charge of the casting for Ryu ga Gotoku 2, I more than respect what those people were able to create, but there were some cases where I wanted to go in a different direction. However, while there were some roles where I thought, “it would be interesting to change it to a completely different character,” there were also some where I only asked to change the appearance. This time too, casting was hard; though I did enjoy the process, I still had to choose. For example, with Hakuryu-san, I’d been thinking I wanted to use him since Ryu ga Gotoku, but hadn’t had the chance before now.
Q: Speaking of the cast, in Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 you did Face Capture on every member of the cast. At the time of the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2, that wasn’t possible, was it?Nagoshi: That’s right. While capturing an image close to the real person has become routine because of Face Capture, at the time when we were making the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2, we weren’t confident in the technology. We did consider the possibility of limiting it to cutscenes, but thinking about the action scenes etc., the game as a whole, we decided it was better to keep it consistent. We had to wait for the PS3 era to be able to do it properly.
Q: So with Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2, you got your revenge.Nagoshi: Including Face Capture, Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami 2 uses all of RGG Studio’s latest technology and know-how. Because of that, the game is bigger than expected. While I might be repeating myself, even just the amount of talking in this title is terrifyingly huge.
Q: All the developers went to so much trouble, I’m really starting to get excited! Though we can’t discount what you accomplished with the original title, in the end it fell far short of perfection, didn’t it?Nagoshi: Apart from the story, of course. What we accomplished with the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2, somehow shaking off the limitations of the time, there were still problems doing it again with today’s technology. It’s sometimes misunderstood, though; even though the previous work exists, that doesn’t mean the workload needed to finish it is any smaller (laughing).
Q: I see (laughing). Though that doesn’t necessarily apply to the HD version, which was remade in the second generation platform environment. Incidentally, what about the theme song?Nagoshi: This time we asked the energetic artists SiM to write the opening and ending songs for us. When we made Ryu ga Gotoku Kiwami, we asked Inaba Koushi to create a song tying into the original Ryu ga Gotoku theme of revenge, so this time we thought it would be good to continue like that and have representative music. With the conflict between yakuza from the east and west, we have a fantastic human drama. For such a game, I wanted something that created a feeling of exploding fireworks. While Shonan no Kaze have written a lot of music like that, many musicians of the younger generation play the Ryu ga Gotoku series. SiM of course are among them, and their music has a lot of energy, so I thought I’d ask them to do it. Also when I met with them to ask them to do the music, they knew the whole story of the series, so I didn’t have to explain the game (laughing). I’m really grateful to them for putting so much effort into such high motivation music.
Q: We already got to hear some of the music in the teaser trailer, and it really fits the passionate drama of the game. And then … the surprise collaboration, Hokuto ga Gotoku!Nagoshi: We were talking about possible sideways development of the original Ryu ga Gotoku engine, and the idea of Hokuto no Ken came up. Then I realised there was good affinity – “If we do it, we could collaborate on casting too,” so I had Hara Tetsuo-sensei listen to Kuroda Takaya-san’s voice. I was so pleased when he absolutely loved it. Also, as this game is a collaboration with Hokuto no Ken, we’re not doing the same kind of music tie-up with artists that we did for Ryu ga Gotoku until now, so Hokuto ga Gotoku’s theme tune is Ryu ga Gotoku’s theme Receive You. It’s a really hard metal arrangement.
Q: Exciting. So, the final question: which of these three titles will we be hearing more about first?Nagoshi: The press conference in August was a thorough announcement. As for the appearance and game elements, what we showed was only an introduction. You can look forward to finding out much more at Tokyo Game Show 2017.
Fuente:
FamitsuTraducción:
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