http://finalboss.uol.com.br/fb3/ctu.asp?cid=28185&hid=1
Finalboss: Mr. Ueda, we will start out with one question for you and then ask Mr. Kaido a question and after that direct our questions to the both of you.
Mr Ueda you started out at Warp a very small independent videogame developer. How different is it going from one of the smallest to one of the biggest videogame companies in the world.
Fumito Ueda: Well, the work ethic is about the same, we work with a small team so the actual work remains more or less the same for me. The difference, I think, is how the game is handled after it goes on sale. When you're in a larger company, it's not really an area of concern for us since they handle most of the work from there on.
Finalboss: Mr. Kaido then. Your first game was Sarugetchu/Ape Escape. Are you still involved with this series at all?
Kenji Kaido: No, I have no connection with the series at all anymore. The person in charge of that is a completely different producer. I was involved as director through most of the first game and part of the second. I soon became involved full-time with ICO and since then the series has been out of my hands.
Finalboss: The following questions are for both Mr. Kaido and Mr. Ueda.
Ico and Shadow are both very minimalistic games, with very little sound and music. The art style of Shadow in particular reminds some people of Sega's Panzer Dragoon series, among others. Have other titles like this influenced the art direction of ICO and Shadow at all?
A: Even though internationally ICO is acclaimed as a very good game, the sales weren't quite as good as we had hoped they would be. Upon analysis, we decided that some of the themes present in the game were a bit difficult to communicate to a casual audience. Thus we changed the graphical presentation a bit in Shadow to make the themes easier to understand. Perhaps that's why you're getting such a feeling.
Finalboss: Is that why you decided to leave less to the players imaginations and direct their emotions more trough the use of music and sound instead of the relative silence in which Ico folds out?
A: It's not that simple, the interface of the games are different, the games themselves are different as well so thats why we felt it would fit Wanda better to do it that way.
Finalboss: In ICO, you get sort of a more "eastern" vibe, whereas in Shadow, there's a bit more of a "European" style feeling, with more medieval thematic elements...
A: The world design in Shadow isn't really supposed to represent any sort of specific place, though. In terms of aesthetics, I really just tried to convey a sense of beauty. I think that when a lot of Japanese people think of what a beautiful landscape would be like, they'd imagine something that looks more European. I think this might be a influence, if it is though it wasnt something we consciously tried for, we just wanted to make something we feel is of beauty.
Finalboss: Going from that, both Ico and Wanda despite being fantasy games have a certain believability to them, both are also very imaginative games. So much so that a lot o people have started comparing the quality of your games to those made by Nintendos veteran R&D1 team. How do you feel about that comparison?
A: Thats a difficult question to give a reply to, so we would rather not do so.
Finalboss: OK then I am probably not supposed to ask this but I will do so anyway, being creative people what do you think of the Nintendo Revolution controller?
A: (laughs) This is something people sometimes try to ask and up to now we have never replied to that.
Finalboss: Up to now?
A: Well yeah, I do have an opinion about it off course, the technology in that I think it'd be good for people who are not into gaming, or perhaps those who have "fallen out of the loop", so to speak. It is quite interesting.
Finalboss: What are games you've played in the past that have had an impact on you?
A: I have been playing games as long as I can remember. This list of games I love is much too long for this interview, but one I distinctly remember liking very much was an old Apple II title called Lode Runner. There were a bunch of games on the Amiga as well, like Lemmings, Flashback, and Out of this World which inspired me to become a game designer.
Finalboss: Do you think a game like Shadow would work on the PSP?
A: We can't see doing something like a Shadow sequel on the PSP, but we do think we might be doing some software that would be more suitable for the system.
Finalboss: The team is very small so it lacks the manpower to work on two systems simultaneously, so has there been a decision yet to put the next game on the PS3 or instead on the PSP?
A: The key thing is not the platform but the ideas and concepts we come up with and this in combination with Sonys strategy for those platforms will decide if we go wit the PS3, PSP or even both. This is conceivable but in that case we would need to expand the team beyond its current capacity. The key thing though is coming up with a new concept and taking things from there.
Finalboss: Shadow and ICO are similar in style but are very different in terms of the way they play. You just said that your next game will have a different concept from the other two, but do you want to continue using the sort of stylistic precedent you've set in ICO and Shadow?
A: Hmmm, well, we've been so busy finishing up Shadow that we haven't really thought too much about it yet. There is always the possibility of some elements carrying over, yes, but at this point it's much too early to say anything concrete.
Finalboss: So who exactly is the target audience of ICO and Shadow?
A: ICO I think has more gender-neutral appeal, while Shadow is more of a boys' game. As for the target age... from about 12 to 30, I think.
Finalboss: In Japan, the first release of the game comes with a special NICO DVD(NICO was the working title of Wanda).Are there any plans to release it separately or as a special pack in the US or Europe?
A: You should ask that to the respective PR departments really because we have very little to do with those decisions but as of yet I dont think there are plans for this.
Finalboss: ICO originally started development on the PS1. Why did development switch to the PS2?
A: The first reason is that we were concerned that the PS1 wouldn't have the horsepower to do what we wanted to do with the game. The PS2 was on its way to becoming the standard, so naturally, we switched development to that. We originally wanted to do a simple upgrade of the game up to PS2 standards, but we ran into a lot of little snags along the way, so it was much more work than we anticipated.
Finalboss: Everything in ICO and Shadow is fantasy, but there is an odd familiarity to it with places that we know dont exist yet feel like we have seen before, what kind of research was done to achieve this?
A: Well, we don't really fly around and observe scenery in different locations like a lot of other large developers do. What we usually do is look at pictures and artwork, and then base our designs on our personal recollections. Perhaps that's why things appear to be so familiar - it is inspired by things we have actually seen ourselves.
Finalboss: When designing the colossi in the game, did you design them around a specific gameplay concept, or did you make the colossi designs first and then find some way to implement them into the gameplay?
A: Basically the starting point in our designs was trying to decide in what way the player would attack and defeat a particular colossus. Though most of our work on them went into developing the game mechanics related to each one, we also tried to figure out what would leave a lasting impact visually. We were making changes and improvements and fine-tuning of the game mechanics right until the very end of development.
Finalboss: I mentioned the Panzer Dragoon games earlier and just like the Panzer Dragoon games, the characters speak a language that does not exist. How do you decide on how this imaginary language should sound and how the characters are to convey certain emotions in a language that does not exist?
A: We have a basic script of all the different things that are said in the game. There is a certain logic to the grammar of the spoken language, but it's pretty difficult to explain here in such a limited amount of time.
Finalboss: Back to the sound then, ICO was a very quiet game, with very little music to warn the player of impending doom or drive their feelings in a certain way. Shadow, however, has much more orchestral sound designed to direct the feelings and emotions of the players and thus leaves much less to the imagination of the persons playing the game. Why this pretty big change?
A: The instrumental orchestra works better with conveying the emotion in Shadow, I think. I mentioned before that this is more of a "boys'" game than ICO, I think the orchestral BGM gives the game a stronger feeling of combat and intensity. ICO, in comparison, played in a closed environment that was much more limiting then the environments in Wanda and was a more minimalistic game as well. So its more needy to have more direction for the players in that regard.
Finalboss: So you're basically saying guys have less imagination and need more direction when playing games?
A: Uh... yes. *laugh* Well, no not really.
Finalboss: Thank you both for this interview.
FinalBoss would like to thank Mr. Ueda and Mr. Kaido for their attention and for being so kind, and Ali Hasan (aka Fishie) for conducting this interview. If by any weird reason you still haven't had the chance to check their games, do not hesitate: read our reviews for the games developed by this killer duo.
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