[Note: You are currently reading Episode 3 of the Creators' Roundtable. Read Episode 1 and Episode 2 if you haven't yet.]
Kando: For a story we knew that we wanted to throw the player right in the action, with things he had to do without explanation. That was our aim.
Arakawa: Those were the two things we were sure about. Throw the player right into the game and use two screens somehow.
Hasegawa: The world that was limited, a situation that has to be solved in limited methods.
Kando: As if the main character is being constantly chased and cornered.
Hasegawa: We wanted to express this sense of urgency.
Kando: We wanted twists after twists in the story. We wrote the initial plot and had [scenario writer Sachie] Hirano write a script. We talked it over and had him write again. We then had [scenario event planner Yukari] Ishida proofread it as well, and then I re-read the script once more – it has been read by many eyes.
Hasegawa: To make the story more mysterious, we really had to...
Kando: Yes, we really put a lot of energy into it. It took a lot of time to make the story coherent.
Arakawa: You change one thing and so many other things have to be adjusted.
Hasegawa: Yes, that was pretty intense.
Kando: We created while trying not to add too many new things to the world setting, while at the same time expanding the story.
Hasegawa: The three of us set up the world when we began the project. We wrote the plot, mixed together our ideas of the world setting, the last boss, the ideal main character, etc. We then gave it to Ms. Hirano to flesh it out. And when it’s completed, it wasn’t too far off from our initial ideas, and I’m really excited since it’s almost exactly like how I imagined the game would be like (laugh). We put a lot of effort into the things that aren’t even apparent.
Kando: We got pretty heated for those actually (laugh).
Hasegawa: We wanted to reference things that actually exist in our world, since it is set in the present. We wanted the game to follow the rules of the world we live in.
Kando: We wanted to make that clear.
Hasegawa: And Hirano and Ishida did a great job in fleshing it out.
Kando: The pace of the work for the latter half was amazing.
Hasegawa: [Background art director] Mr. [Takayuki] Ohdachi was pretty amazing as well.
Kando: Shibuya.
Hasegawa: I was really shocked by it.
Kando: That crazy angle…
Hasegawa: That skewed view of Shibuya.
Kando: I couldn’t have imagined it if I tried.
Hasegawa: Mr. Ohdachi first commented that a present-day setting would be too boring. We insisted that we wanted the game set in the present, and that was Mr. Ohdachi’s answer. When I first saw his art I was astounded.
Kando: His artwork reflected the taste of today’s Shibuya, very fantastical.
Hasegawa: That was impressive.
Hasegawa: I remember going on location hunts (laugh).
Kando: I went location hunting quite often (laugh).
Arakawa: I remember saying how fun it’d be to do battles here while walking around (laugh).
Hasegawa: We really went often.
Kando: We went at least two to three times during the first half of development. We got on the roofs of buildings without permission and took a bunch of pictures (laugh). We decided on a definite location for the game after that, and the Ohdachi group went there even more often, a week or two.
Hasegawa: He took a lot of pictures, trying to find the coolest angles.
Kando: It also had a lot to do with how close we were. Our office is in Shinjuku, so Shibuya’s right there.
Hasegawa: It’s only 10 minutes away or so on the Yamanote Line train.
Kando: Mr. Ohdachi visited Shibuya every morning and checked out areas that he found interesting, and then went to work (laugh).
Arakawa: That’s amazing, since he was doing this while working on KINGDOM HEARTS (laugh).
Hasegawa: That’s the most amazing part about it (laugh).
Kando: Yeah, really! That’s when they had the KINGDOM HEARTS crunch time.
