These two Blazing Star interviews from 1998 discuss the stage design, characters, and its relationship with Pulstar. The first interview was featured in Neo Geo Freak magazine, and the second was conducted by Japanese fans at an old forum. I’ve also included the story and character descriptions. The character info has never been available in English before, and helps clarify the cool Matrix-y story, which actually informed much of the stage and boss design.
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Battle Garegga – Arrange OST Composer Commentary
This composer commentary on the Battle Garegga remixes for the Saturn port was found at the old Raizing homepage. It’s a light piece and comes off mostly as a Garegga/Namiki love-in, but is a fun read given the big names involved. I’ve also added Namiki’s commentary from the Battle Garegga THE MADNESS liner notes, which I had translated awhile ago, but never officially posted.
Battle Garegga – Story, Characters, Setting
I translated the Battle Garegga backstory for STG Weekly #18. The story was much more “intense” than I expected, and there were some funny dramatic readings on the show. I’ve pasted the entirety of the text below here, but for the period-appropriate experience, I’ve also mirrored the original HTML files from Raizing’s website.
T3-KAMUI Battle Garegga Interview (2001)
This brief interview from the August 2001 issue of Arcadia with T3-Kamui, the current Battle Garegga WR holder with Gain, is a neat window back in time. Kamui has since demolished the 19m score she talks of here, and continues to play Garegga today. In 2013 attended Stunfest in France and demonstrated her awe-inspiring skills and international shmup camaraderie.
Battle Mania – 2004 Developer Interview
This long interview with VIC Tokai alumnus “Takayan” details the history of the cult developer and sheds light on several of their more well-remembered games. Originally featured in the book “Lost Games”, the main focus here is on Takayan’s own Battle Mania series, a pair of off-the-wall Mega Drive shooting games that defied adversity to establish themselves as VIC Tokai’s most beloved and sought-after titles.
Battle Bird – 1987 Developer Interview
Battle Bird – 1987 Developer Interview Battle Bird was a stereoscopic 3D arcade game with a proprietary cabinet, developed by Irem with assistance from their sister/parent company Nanao. Its exact history is quite hazy, as it appears very few cabinets were produced, but this short interview helps shed some light. It doesn’t answer the mystery… Continue reading Battle Bird – 1987 Developer Interview
Basiscape – 2010 Composer Interviews
Basiscape is a video game music composition group created in 2002 by Hitoshi Sakimoto. While still active today, several of the members interviewed here have since quit the group or are no longer listed on the website (Namiki, Abe, Kamikura, Iwata, Chiba), and new composers like Rikako Watanabe, Masaaki Kaneko, and Miki Ito have joined.
Assault Suits Valken – Staff Round Table Interview
Originally featured in the Assault Suits Valken Official Guide Book, published by ASCII, this round-table developer interview was previously hosted at gosokkyu.com. Compared with the other Valken interview at shmuplations, this one features more people and goes into greater depth about the making of the game, the various challenges the team faced, and which parts they’re particularly proud of.
Athena – 1993 Developer Interview
This short interview from Gal’s Island 2 (a Gamest mook series from the early 90s that focused on female game characters) covers the creation and character design of Athena. Although never very popular in the US, as an early “game character” Athena had a certain cult following in Japan, and continued to be used in SNK’s fighting games. I’ve also added a very short commentary from the developers of Psycho Soldier, the 1987 “sequel” to Athena. It’s mainly just them griping about devhell.
Assault Suits Valken – 1993 Developer Interviews
This is a collection of two short Assault Suits Valken interviews: the first from the 10/92 issue of Hippon Super, and the second from the 5/93 issue of Famicon Tsuushin. They make a nice companion to the other Valken interview hosted at shmuplations. I’ve also added the liner notes of composer Masanao Akahori, a translation of the official Assault Suits “technical readout,” and a selection of concept art.