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[tetsuoxb]

Mizuguchi did a really long interview in the lastest issue of Continue magazine in Japan. (Which also has a 15 page interview with the producer of Tekki/Clock Tower)...

In it he confirms for the first time that Q is producing a game based on an idea with a developer outside of Japan.

He also hints that his next game will be revealed sometime around e3.

To be honest, this is the best interview I have seen with Mizuguchi.... hats off to the staff at Continue. They even interview other Q staff members, but nothing really comes out of it that would be of any interest to Johnny Nighttrain, as it is mostly about how they work.

Other gems - He wanted to make people cry with Lumines. He has no interested in making an RPG.

I am polishing my translation skills, so tomorrow I am going to translate the interview; however, I am not going to post it online until I get an OK from the editor of Continue. I will keep people here advised.

 

[imastalker co.]

you're still miffed about that? i call a truce.

in any case, im totally looking forward to the translation.

 

[SolidSnakex]

"In it he confirms for the first time that Q is producing a game based on an idea with a developer outside of Japan. "

Let it be Harmonix.

 

[JackFrost2012]

Let it be Harmonix.

But ... I LIKE Mizuguchi's games.

I played Amplitude last night and I want my $2.00 back.

 

[8bit]

"In it he confirms for the first time that Q is producing a game based on an idea with a developer outside of Japan. "

Let it be Harmonix.

No thanks. The music selection in both Frequency & Amplitude is somewhat wanting.

 

[ourumov]

Even though I loved REZ, Lumines and SC5 (this one the most)....I wish this title is more action-oriented.

 

[imastalker co.]

maybe he'll hook up with Minter.

 

[DECK'ARD]

A Minter collaboration would be great.

Bring Unity back from the dead, and introduce the Japanese to the joy of yaks.

 

[Chittagong]

He wanted to make people cry with Lumines.

PSP success total OAers crying

 

[D2M15]

Let it be Harmonix.

HIGH FIVE

 

[JackFrost2012]

HIGH FIVE

SYKE

 

[tetsuoxb]

SYKE

In Sho Nuff's absence, I will have to say:

OHHHHHHH SSSSSSSNNNNNNNAPPPPPPPPPPP!

 

[jarrod]

Unity PSP would work well I'd think. Seems like a perfect fit really.

 

[8bit]

I can't really see Mizuguchi willingly working with Minter after Minter's derogatory comments about Rez. Perhaps if Minter had produced a game other than Tempest at an Ozric Tentacles concert in the past 10 years, he'd be in a position to crow.

Also, Minter's working on something that was shown to his friends at Retrovision recently, but not anything that's been revealed to the public at large.

 

[JackFrost2012]

I can't really see Mizuguchi willingly working with Minter after Minter's derogatory comments about Rez. Perhaps if Minter had produced a game other than Tempest at an Ozric Tentacles concert in the past 10 years, he'd be in a position to crow.

Wow, I didn't think my opinion of Minter could drop much lower. Thanks!

EDIT: do you have any of these comments?

 

[8bit]

IIRC, in the Edge where Unity is revealed he belittles Rez as 'Panzer Dragoon with its trance trousers on', and says something about how Unity will be more experimental in comparison.

 

[FortNinety]

Mint talked shit about Mizu? OH NO HE DIDN'T!

Seriously, as much as I love Minter's work, all he really had done thus far is take a game which he didn't even concieve and add LSD to it. So he really shouldn't talk.

 

[tetsuoxb]

Mint talked shit about Mizu? OH NO HE DIDN'T!

Seriously, as much as I love Minter's work, all he really had done thus far is take a game which he didn't even concieve and add LSD to it. So he really shouldn't talk.

In Sho Nuff's absence, I will have to say:

OHHHHHHH SSSSSSSNNNNNNNAPPPPPPPPPPP!

 

[JackFrost2012]

IIRC, in the Edge where Unity is revealed he belittles Rez as 'Panzer Dragoon with its trance trousers on', and says something about how Unity will be more experimental in comparison.

for values of experimental = unreleased!

god, I can't believe someone like Minter would talk shit about Rez, what a zarking asshole. Fie upon thee, Minter!

 

[tetsuoxb]

From the yakyak.org forums - Jeff Minter on Lumines:

Right after I moaned about not gettng it yet it arrived Very Happy.

Only had a few goes so far - I can feel that it will hook me... takes a bit of getting used to at first, you have to force yourself not to play like it's Tetris Very Happy.

I also like that you can select your character as a sheep, goat or cow, and that said character bops away to the tunes and looks surprised when you get a big bonus Very Happy.

Not so impressive was the fact that I played one challenge game, one one-skin game (that game mode sounds like a small spliff!) and it then crashed on the "Now Loading" screen.

Excuse me if I think that crash bugs in very light, normal use are a pretty piss-poor show. We'd've never got away with that at Atari...

Like I said, showed off my psp in Game, lots of oohs and aahs but everyone seemed just as enthused about the DS, there were certainly zero comments along the lines of "well that's it for the DS then"... people seemed equally curious about both systems.

Third go on Lumines, got up to 48K odd and unlocked a bunch of "skins". Weird when it starts flashing someone's teeth at you Very Happy. Once you stop trying to play like Tetris it starts to grow on you Smile.

Hmm, starting to really like this game now Smile. I had one flukey (or instinctive maybe) game on about my 3rd go, then for ages couldn't get near that score again when I was trying to play more consciously.

Now I'm getting more of a proper handle on it and really enjoying it. The blocks with the little stones in are ace - you switch from making clumps to trying to connect everything of one colour in a nice big network and then nuke it all - watching everything that remains fall into lovely big high-scoring blocks of the other colour. Lovely Smile.

And I love the way my cow bops while I'm playing and squeaks when i do well Very Happy.

I can't hate the guy now.. but I am interested in the real quote he said about Rez. I wonder if he was just being bombastic for the press.

 

[Lord Error]

Let it be Harmonix.

One can only hope.

How can some people not love Frequency and Amplitude is beyond me

 

[JackFrost2012]

One can only hope.

How can some people not love Frequency and Amplitude is beyond me

I love games, I love music, and I double-plus love music games. I can't stand Harmonix's broken, unfun, soulless, musicless torture devices.

Please don't make me pull out the 3-page dissertation on why Frequency and Amplitude are abominations to God and man.

 

[tetsuoxb]

Im not going to stoke unfounded rumors... but Miz and the CEO of Harmonix are on the same panel at GDC.

http://www.cmpevents.com/GD05/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=4760&Mgt=0&RVid=0

 

[jarrod]

I dunno, Minter's Rez comments might've been a bit of a low blow but they're not exactly off base. Rez pretty much is like Panzer Dragoon with a shifted aesthetic.... not that surprising considering the majority of Team Andromeda ended up at UGA.

 

[tetsuoxb]

I dunno, Minter's Rez comments might've been a bit of a low blow but they're not exactly off base. Rez pretty much is like Panzer Dragoon with a shifted aesthetic.... not that surprising considering the majority of Team Andromeda ended up at UGA.

So then he could have said that Rez was a trancy Star Fox...... How far down the rail shooter lineage do you have to go before you start awarding originality points.

 

[imastalker co.]

didn't the Rez team consist of like, 13 people though. from what i remember reading on the UGA site, it took the guys 3 years to make the game.

in any case, i don't remember Minter straight up talking shit about Rez, he was just saying that in Unity, the game really would be different every time you played as far as visuals and music went, as opposed to Rez, where only the way sound effects were busted out would be different every time you played. not an exact quote, but it was along those lines.

 

[john tv]

WTF is all that "Very Happy" crap?

 

[8bit]

Emoticons.

 

[jarrod]

So then he could have said that Rez was a trancy Star Fox...... How far down the rail shooter lineage do you have to go before you start awarding originality points.

Sure, the basic game design in all three are pretty similar. Maybe Minter felt the Panzer Dragoon comparison more applicable because they both came from the same company, or maybe because both games relied largely on an engaging novel aesthetic? Either way, I'd like to see the context and language of the original quote before jumping to conclusions.

 

[Lord Error]

I can't stand Harmonix's broken, unfun, soulless, musicless torture devices.

Well, you just made me cry. Feeling HAPPY NOW!?

The best way to describe how I feel about those two games is that they gave me the closest to a feeling that I'm playing some kind of instrument that plays the whole song - without years and years of learning how to master it. It's a joyfull bliss, that moment when you don't even have to think what you are doing, and your mind seems to be decoding the pattern by itself, and your fingers doing their work, and music keeps coming. For sure simpler than, but much like I'd imagine a musician's understands the notes without really trying to identify them, and his fingers playing without him needing to look where they are at the instrument.

You can write 30 page dissertations if you want, but that feeling will stay there, and you have obviously not seen any of that, if you think those games are just some kind of torture devices.

 

[Odnetnin]

add me into the can't wait for this surprise hit! to be released at E3. I think the greatest asset to Mizuguchi's title is style and pizazz. Both SC5 + REZ had oodles of that.

 

[JackFrost2012]

You can write 30 page dissertations if you want, but that feeling will stay there, and you have obviously not seen any of that, if you think those games are just some kind of torture devices.

See, what you just described is the feeling I DON'T get when I play one of Harmonix's terrible "music" games. When I play Bemani, Guitar Freaks, Taiko, Donkey Konga, Space Channel 5 1+2, Parappa, Um Jammer Lammy, Gitaroo Man, I feel like I'm playing a song.

When I play one of Harmonix's terrible terrible awful games THERE IS NO FEELING OF PLAYING A SONG. You can only play a single instrument for 1-2 bars before you have to change instruments, and for the vast majority of the song most of the tracks aren't playing. The resulting experience is completely unmusical - it takes everything which makes music music and reduces it to such core components that they're no longer able to interplay with each other to give the player a sense of musicality or satisfaction. I keep waiting for the music to start, but before it can, the song's over.

This is without even getting into the flawed and over-simplified three-button, no-chord gameplay, the terrible linear song progression requiring you to complete all tracks regardless of your preferred genre, and the eye-searing Voodoo 2-era aesthetics.

I know good music games, Marconelly, and Harmonix does not make good music games!

 

[FortNinety]

Add me to the list of those who couldn't stand Frequency and Amplitude. The whole thing was extremely cold and awkward, but they had a good thing going. If anyone refine what they started, it's Mizuguchi.

 

[D2M15]

and Harmonix does not make good music games.

Who was it that said there was no such thing as a game for everybody in last week's blinkered THE GAMES YOU LOVE HAVE NO MERIT I'M RIGHT YOU'RE NOT Spongathon?

Anyway. When I talked to the Harmonix guys last (there is *so much* of Looking Glass in Boston right now, it's uncanny) they were hugely open to the idea of a Mizuguchi collaboration - of course, who wouldn't be? - and I'd love to see them beatbox it out.

But much to the relief of half of this thread, I'm pretty sure that's not Q's next scheduled project.

 

[Lord Error]

See, what you just described is the feeling I DON'T get when I play one of Harmonix's terrible "music" games. When I play Bemani, Guitar Freaks, Taiko, Donkey Konga, Space Channel 5 1+2, Parappa, Um Jammer Lammy, Gitaroo Man, I feel like I'm playing a song.

But HOW can you feel that with some of those games? SC5 is a brilliant game that I love, but there's no way in hell you can feel like playing some kind of instrument while playing that game. Parappa, same thing...

I also don't understand the "waiting for the music to start" comment. If you are playing it with a half-decent skill, you will have most of the song active most of the time - and when you have all of it active it's part of the accomplishment.

Also, how can you say that they just reduced it to basic components? I again ask you to just look what is expected from you in SC5, Parappa, Donkey Konga, Taiko... It's is so basic compared to skill and strategy that you need in Freq/Amplitude. I don't hold that as a knock against those games as I love them all, but it's true.

I know good music games, Marconelly, and Harmonix does not make good music games.

Oh please, don't act like I'm the only person in the world who thinks these games are good. Last I've checked, they've been very well received both critically and among fans of the genre. Sure, they sold like crap, but so did half of the games that you said you like.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait, the Rez guy is the one behind Lumines?
Shit, now I can't believe any of this Lumines hype.

 

[Lord Error]

Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait, the Rez guy is the one behind Lumines?

Well, same guy is behind Space Channel 5 1 and 2 and Sega Rally if that helps any.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Well, same guy is behind Space Channel 5 1 and 2 and Sega Rally if that helps any.

Don't know shit about Sega Rally, but both SC5 games were at least interesting, even though totally unplayable by me. (I lack the rhythm) Still, I hate Rez with an undying passion.

By no means is this going to make me cancel my pre-orders, I'm just, well, a little weary.

 

[Tain]

The best way to describe how I feel about those two games is that they gave me the closest to a feeling that I'm playing some kind of instrument that plays the whole song - without years and years of learning how to master it.

But Beatmania's been doing that better than Frequency or Amplitude have since 1997.

I think Frequency and Amplitude are decent games, but I can easily see how people couldn't like them. They're basically a simplified BM/Pop'n with a gimmick in the form of multiple tracks.

 

[Shig]

*prays for SC5 pt. 3*

 

[Wario64]

Speaking of Space Channel 5, whatever happened to that lawsuit from Lady Miss Kier for using her likeness personality for Ulala?

 

[Koshiro]

Speaking of Space Channel 5, whatever happened to that lawsuit from Lady Miss Kier for using her likeness personality for Ulala?

If you ever saw the 'evidence' reel on her site, you'd see how much bullshit it was. (well, the evidence reel, it really doesnt help her case, just makes her look stupid).