http://www.famitsu.com/news/201508/01084708.html
Turns out Reisläufer translated another review that is equally interesting
Turns out Reisläufer translated another review that is equally interesting
Reisläufer;173702844 said:I started working on a translation, here's the part I have translated so far, will be able to continue tomorrow. I did this really quick, let me know if something doesn't make any sense.
o Getting a lot of cheers at the Sony Press Conference at E3 2015
――Were you astonished when the announcement was made at E3 2015 at the Sony Press Conference? How did you feel when you experienced a whole lot of people cheering and applauding at the event?
Ueda: Since a lot of time had passed I feared that a lot of people had forgotten about specifics of the game or even its title. The timespan in which we didn't publish any information about the title has been really long, so when I saw how big the reaction was I was honestly very happy.
――Knowing it be rude, I've still got to say that, although I was hoping for news concerning "Toriko“, I wouldn't have thought that we'd get details such as the timeframe of release. What was the reason for the stop of new information, if I may ask, was it that the development wasn't going well?
Ueda: One can't say that only the status of the development has lead to this situation. "Toriko" is a title owned by SCE, so the time of release is influenced to a big part by SCE's sales strategy.
There was also the jump from the PS3 to the PS4, the porting of the PS3 code lead to a bigger chaos than we imagined, that's also why it took that much time. So it's not the case that the development took that much time only because of technical problems.
――Well then at what point of development do you stand at the moment in percentage?
Ueda: It's hard to answer this question in percentage. I don't know how the readers will react to what I'm going to say, if they take it as a plus or look at it more negatively, but the level we showed in the E3 trailer was something that we had originally created for the PS3 and had been already finished in July 2010. We ported it to the PS4 brushed it up and showed it via the trailer.
――So it was something that had already been created this early. I'm a bit relieved to be honest. What if that's the only thing that has been worked on this whole time, I wondered (laughs).
Ueda: That said, there are still some technical problems that we haven't cleared until now. There are also things where we couldn't render a thing that worked on the PS3 by just porting it to the PS4. Concerning such things there are still several problems left.
――I guess it's not that easy that everything just works because of the high specs of the new hardware. Are there things from the original plans that became possible to be added thanks to the PS4?
Ueda: There are some things but not a lot at present. The game design hasn't changed after all. We were able to up the resolution by porting to the PS4, but concerning the graphic style we are going for it's a „universal“ one that doesn't depend so much on processing power or the CPU etc.
That said we're still working on improving the graphics so together with the unique game design I hope everyone is looking forward to a great game.

o Do the boy and Toriko head for the sky?
――In "Toriko" the two main characters are the boy and the strange birdlike creature called "Toriko" but only the boy is actually playable, is that right?
Ueda: That's right.
――Something that caught my attention in the trailer was the peculiar violet sign attached to the cart the boy was pushing. It seemed like Toriko has an aversion against it?
Ueda: That is correct. If you run into things that Toriko doesn't like the boy has to get active and make changes to the situation in order to advance. They haven't been introduced yet this time but there also enemy characters in the game. If the player encounters those the boy alone will not be able to handle them.
That's when Toriko's turn has come. Both have to rely on each other to be able to advance, that's the basic structure of the game.
――The word "maneater" makes quite an impact, will there be any brutal depictions in the game?
Ueda: There are a lot of things I can't talk about yet, concerning such depictions, I have to leave the answer to your imagination.
――By the way, Toriko, although quite big, has an air of youth around him, will he mature over the course of the game?
Ueda: "Maturity" has a lot of implications to it, which changes await you during the game is something I want everyone to experience while playing the game.
――It's strange for me as a reporter to say this, but i really feel that it is a waste to hear specifics about the game in advance. I strongly believe that regarding your games the experience of playing them yourself is absolutely central to them.
Ueda: I guess they are the most fun going in completely blind. That's why I don't want to give away too much at this point.
――I think the E3 trailer included exactly the right amount of news. It got you interested in what will follow and you did get a clear picture of how the game works.
We actually showed another video, different from the trailer, at the E3 show floor with more calm scenes in it. I think you will get an even better picture of the game's feel seeing it. If the right time comes, I would like to show it to all of you.
――Will the levels this time mainly have a vertical orientation?
In general the idea is to get upwards I think, yes. But of course there are other levels that are more open, also scenes wherein Toriko can run rampant.
In ICO and SotC there were quite a lot of scenes that made people with fear of heights uncomfortable (laughs), in the trailer we showed, the scenes were of this kind too, but not all levels will be like that.
――In the scene where the boy makes a giant leap towards Toriko the slow-motion effect got my heart racing.
There were two big jumps in the gameplay video we showed this time. They differ from each other and Toriko's reactions differ accordingly. Furthermore, Toriko will not catch the boy in any given circumstance.
The first jump is shown in order to foreshadow the feeling of insecurity of the second jump. The implementation of the slow-motion effect into the final game is currently still under consideration.
In situations of great danger like this it is said that in reality too the surroundings are seen in slow-motion. So I put the slow-motion into the game as a factor of reality but whether we really use it through the whole game is something we will have to work on from here on adjusting it in accordance to the balance of the whole game.
o What!? Ueda (and the team) were trying to speed things up!?
――Still, it's seven years since the first announcement and ten since your last game came out, I'd like to know more about the reasons for the development taking this much time, if that's okay. For example, were there instances where planned things steadily got blown up with new ideas during development, or was it more that the things you planned from the beginning took this much time to create?
The latter really. Looking back, "ICO" took us four years. It was my first work as a director, I had little experience, there were things that we had to do by trial and error and there was the changing of platform too [PS1 => PS2]. Each of these took quite some time.
――Next was SotC on the PS2, right?
At the time of developing SotC the skill of the team had gone up to a certain extent and everyone came forward with ideas, we tried to do something new and challenging with SotC.
This approach also took some time. One thing was the big worldmap, we needed a program that made this possible, the second thing were the two AI characters that had to act smartly (at the same time).
――Two?
The horse of wander, Agro, and each colossus. Both AI's had to act naturally and precisely to the player's actions.
――I see. So since there were two AI characters, there were two tasks that needed to be done, simply speaking….
Right, which took us some time (laughs). So with repentance in mind we thought the next game will be the one where we'll do better.

――Hm? The next game, you say?
Yes, the game design of "Toriko" was thought of in order to shorten the development cycle in comparison to our previous games.
――Heh, so that's how it was!?
Different from SotC we aimed for a more linear approach this time, we thought by doing this we wouldn't need that much time to build the world.
And by concentrating on Toriko regarding AI of non-playable characters we thought we would need less time too, and also be able to up the quality. So the game design of "Toriko" came from our wish to shorten the time of development.
――But then it didn't really turn out that way… (laughs).
…it took us quite some time, yes.
――It's really rude to say this but I'm quite surprised hearing that you worked on the game thinking "let's do this in a timely manner“. I thought to myself that things must have turned out the way they have because you work in a way where you're very particular about everything investing a lot of time to get something right.
I totally understand people having gotten this impression, but that wasn't the case. We're trying to get the game done fast and we always want to deliver it to the people as fast as possible.
――I guess the seven years must have been long for you too then?
It was a long time, yes. The development time of ICO and SotC felt long to me too. The team members and me are quite confident about our abilities, so we talked a lot about being able and needing to develop games more quickly.
――That said, I can't really picture a future wherein your titles get released in quick succession.
I want to develop every single game with great care of course and I want the players to feel strongly about them. Still, it was quite unexpected for us that "Toriko" would take that much time.
――Working so long on the same game, did you encounter times during the development when you wanted to start working on another game?
There were times, yes. There were also time were I thought about actually doing it. Naturally I wasn't working on creative things the whole seven years, there was a also a long time gap in which the game got ported to the PS4 and the creative side totally came to halt.
――Was it hard to keep being motivated about working on "Toriko"? I guess there were times when you got tired of it or even lost the courage to go on.
There were times like this, of course. In those cases you have to get in touch with outstanding creative works. Excellent films or games or anything of high quality.
I was able to keep my motivation by thinking things like "will the game we develop be able to match this" "will our game be able to impress people the same way". I get a good lot of encouragement out of observing the audience being touched (by such works).
――Observing the audience?
Observing the audience seeing a film for example, how they have fun and are touched by what they see. It's a way in which I can reassure myself that there are people that feel the same way I do about those things. It makes me think that I have to give my best as a creator too because there is this audience out there which is looking forward to my work.
I don't know a lot about it but "Star Wars" strikes me as especially great in this regard. I can see that a lot of people are already pretty excited (for the newest film) just by seeing the trailer, and there must be a lot of people who feel very strongly about it thinking "I have to stay alive until I can see this film". I wonder if my games have a similar effect on people.
――You must have come up with a lot of new ideas, there must have been a lot that has piled up in the meantime.
That's correct. But since the game design of "Toriko" had already been finished I didn't have the intention to include new motives/ideas that had come up in the meantime that much. But apart from that there are a lot of new ideas I came up within the last few years, I hope I will be able to make them a reality in the future.
――It looks like you founded the studio Gen Design in order to get more chances than before to make those ideas a reality, are you thinking about maybe doing stuff outside of games too?
I have commented on this before, but concerning my approach to games, it's not that I build a game while having the worldview and story already in place. First I know what game I want to make and from there I come up with a matching story. I think that I wouldn't be good at creating only a world and a story.
[The Famitsu interview has more detailed infos on the reasons for the founding of Gen Design]
――The story and worldview of your games are often featured but hearing what you say I think I can clearly see that your games are not built on the basis of an already existing story. So you build your games by doing the game design first while taking the workload into account and then you build a story on top of it. There might be a lot of people that feel towards this as if the yellow and white part of an egg have been switched.
People often reference the worldview and story of my games but I truly believe that I can only create something starting with the game design first.
(HTA #3)
