http://ds.ign.com/articles/650/650604p1.html
[ IGN enters the interview room in the basement reception area of Treasure and takes a seat, having sampled Gunstar Super Heroes for a few minutes ]
IGN: Is that going to be playable at TGS?
Maegawa: Yes.
IGN: Is the game complete?
Maegawa: We've already finished the master version.
IGN: Finished? So that means you'll give me a copy to take home today, right?
[ ... silence ]
IGN: Uhh... moving on.... First off, I'm going to ask a shocking question. Gunstar Super Heroes is a sequel, and Treasure isn't usually known for making sequels. During the 32-bit generation, the company didn't have any sequels at all, and now with GBA, you have Guardian Heroes Advance and Gunstar Super Heroes. So what's up?
[ everyone in the room laughs about about how often Maegawa is asked this ]
Maegawa: There are two things that we have to do to make a sequel. First, we have to gather the original's development staff. This time, we had a chance to gather the staff of the original Gunstar Heroes, so that's why we made Gunstar Super Heroes. The next step is, I speak with team members and ask them what they want to do. There was an opinion from the team -- they wanted to make a sequel to Gunstar Heroes.
[ SEGA agents go on to explain that, contrary to popular belief, Treasure doesn't actually have a policy of not making sequels ]
IGN: Why did you chose the GBA instead of the PSP or DS, both of which are more powerful.
[ This is apparently another question that Maegawa gets asked often ]
Maegawa: We wanted to make a completely 2D game.
IGN: So do you feel that the Game Boy Advance is the place for 2D games, compared to the PSP and DS?
Maegawa: DS would have also been okay, but development started quite a ways back, when there wasn't any information about the DS.
IGN: How long has Gunstar Super Heroes been in development?
Maegawa: It's taken three years. Initially, we started off the project with a small number of people, and towards the end we gathered more people together. It's not the case that we were in crunch mode for three years.
[laughter]
Mr. Maegawa is the boss of Treasure.
IGN: Gunstar for the Genesis, your first project as Treasure, had a tiny development team with just seven staff members. Does the same hold true for GSH?
Maegawa: We initially started with three people for the first one or two years. Towards the end, we had about ten people working on it. So, maybe you can say expanded.
[laughter]
IGN: A lot of games today have a staff in the hundreds and budgets of over 10 million dollars. Do you prefer making smaller games with small teams or would you rather work on a larger project?
Maegawa: Our concept for creating games is to call upon the characteristics and originality of all team members. When making a big title, you just can't do that.
IGN: Do you personally work on the games yourself anymore, or do you have more of a management role?
Maegawa: I don't program anymore. As far as direction, I'm not really the person for that. I now do things like negotiations and so-forth.
IGN: Getting back to Gunstar, what was the main focus in going from Gunstar Heroes to Gunstar Super Heroes?
Maegawa: We, first off, wanted to focus on the visuals -- we use 3D for some areas. We also wanted to create many different stages. Also, instead of creating just a shooter like the original, with this title we added score attack features and time attack features. These features give the user a challenge -- they have to use skills to play.
IGN: Of course, bosses are a big factor in Treasure's games. What kind of bosses can we expect from GSH?
Maegawa: Including Seven Force, we have different bosses for this title. From the first stage, you can see the multi-jointed bosses. There are many super bosses.
[A note for the young ones. Seven Force is the boss of the underground mine level in Gunstar Heroes. It gets its name because it goes through seven transformations before you finally manage to defeat it (unless you play normal mode where you get just five transformations). The forms are all multi-jointed, screen-filling, wildly rotating beasts that still look cool today -- and look even cooler in the new form in which they appear in Gunstar Super Heroes on Game Boy Advance.]
IGN: "Super" bosses, eh? Does that mean that Seven Force has more forms now -- like Ten Force?
[laughter]
Maegawa: There was actually some talk of doing that. In the design document, we have "Seventy Force" written, along with drawings for all seventy transformations. To make [Seventy Force], it would probably take a year though.
[laughter]
Maegawa: Actually, we originally [referring to the original Gunstar Heroes] created Seven Force as "Five Changer." But during development, we realized that maybe Seven Force would be better.
If we had one more year to develop this game, maybe we could do Seventy Force.
[laughter]
GBA sequels: Advance Guardian Heroes & Gunstar Super Heroes
IGN: What kind of things do you consider when designing a boss?
Maegawa: If we say "multi jointed" boss, it sounds like a robot. But we don't want to make things look like a robot -- the movement is not smooth. So, we think about implementing animals or humans in the bosses.
IGN: Gunstar Super Heroes is single player only -- why is that?
Maegawa: When you're working at pushing the Game Boy Advance technology to the limits, if you have a two player mode, you have to get rid of things, lessening the number of enemies for instance.
IGN: So you're maxing out the single player experience. Would you say you've maxed out the GBA?
Maegawa: Definitely.
IGN: So will this be your last GBA game?
Maegawa: It's very likely that this will be the case [laughs]. Likely.
IGN: Treasure does a lot of stuff with Sega in terms of publishing. Do you prefer working with Sega?
Maegawa: In our first three years, we worked only with Sega, so we know people at Sega. It's easy for us to work with them -- more comfortable.
[A note for the young ones: Sega published most of Treasure's early Genesis games like Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy, although the company has expanded since then and now works with many companies, including Nintendo, Bandai and Konami. Treasure itself is a completely independent developer. ]
Atro Boy came off quite well in the hands of these guys.
IGN: Bleach is another Sega published Treasure title. Is this your first DS game?
Maegawa: Yes.
IGN: It resembles an older four player simultaneous fighting game from Treasure -- Yu Yu Hakusho -- which I played every day in college instead of studying. Is it by the same people?
Maegawa: It's not exactly the same. However, the game system is similar to Yu Yu Hakusho, so people might think they're similar.
IGN: Bleach uses the touch pen only minimally -- for switching characters and selecting items. Outside of Bleach, what other ideas do you have for using the touch pen?
Maegawa: When the plans for the DS came our way, we had quite a bit of talk about ways to use the touch pen. To be somewhat straight, using the touch pen results in a very specific type of game. We tend to make concepts for games that are played with the D-pad and buttons. We'll use the touch pen, but only at the level where people who want to use it can use it. In general, we'll complete a game, then add touch panel support as bonus features.
IGN: Treasure makes a lot of action and fighting games. Have you ever wanted to make an RPG, or something with a story?
Maegawa: We have a small staff, so we probably couldn't make an RPG. Also, the field we excel at is action and shooting. We feel that it's good to compete in the area that you're good at.
IGN: It's been announced that you're making Xbox 360 games, and we've heard some buzz that your first game for the platform will be 2D. Can you tell us what you can do with 2D games on a powerful system like Xbox 360?
Maegawa: Your information is incorrect. (THE BIG FU)
IGN: Ahh... well, in general, if you were to make a 2D game on the Xbox 360, what could you possibly do with all that power?
Maegawa: For making a completely 2D game, the Game Boy Advance and DS are fine. For next generation systems, including Xbox 360 and others, we'd do 2D with polygons -- that is, the visuals are 3D, but the game play is 2D.
IGN: Closing up, and going back a couple of questions, the reason I asked if you'd be making an RPG or a game with story is that Treasure's characters are really cool. Do you have plans to expand your characters via tie ups with toys or anime.
Maegawa: We don't have that in mind. Of course, among people who make games, characters are important, so there are many places that have plans for character goods and so forth, but I actually don't think about this all that much. We want to make games, rather than gradually build up the characters, so we don't have that in mind.
IGN: Alas... this interview will be ending on a sad note.
Maegawa: [laughing] We may make some goods for promotional purposes, but that's about it.
IGN: Here's my business card with my address. Yoroshiku!
Maegawa: Understood.
