Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter – 2002 Interview

—So, I've been playing Dragon Quarter...

Ikehara: It's difficult, isn't it?

—It's tough! I was shocked that I couldn't even win the first battle. Once I won, though, I got more and more into it, and I couldn't tear myself away. (laughs) Now, to start with, could you tell me what the two of you were in charge of for this game?

Ikehara: I handled the broad direction of the game, as well as the scenario, cutscene direction, etc; I built from the plot and wrote all the dialogue, and also put together all the storyboards.

Yoshikawa: I was in charge of general design, character modeling, supervising the animations and tweaking and balancing the overall look of the world.

—Were you directly involved from the key animation phase?

Yoshikawa: That's right—I handled all the character design, including reference materials, and also provided the final illustrations, as well as monster designs and world/behind-the-scenes setting designs.

—Breath of Fire is a fantasy RPG series that Capcom's been making since 1993, but when did the two of you get involved with the series?

Ikehara: I joined the company while the original game was in development. I joined as a lowly planner… from there, my "Lifetime of Breath" began (laugh), and I've been working as a planner up until V. Since Breath of Fire III, I've also played the role of director.

—So you've been working on BoF for a while, then?

Ikehara: Yeah, it's been almost all BoF for me.

Yoshikawa: Aside from the first game, I've worked on each game in the BoF series from the moment of conceiving the look and design of the characters.

—When did Dragon Quarter begin development?

Yoshikawa: Around two-and-a-half years ago, in April of 2000.

—Two-and-a-half years ago would be back before the PlayStation 2 was released, then.

Ikehara: The name of the console had been made public, but the console itself hadn't yet being revealed.

—What were you goals when deciding to make a new BoF for PlayStation 2?

Ikehara: First of all, we knew we wanted to make big changes to BoF: not only was the platform changing, but the visuals were set to change from pixel art to real-time 3D graphics.

—I think the biggest change is evident in the battles—I really enjoyed the sensation of being able to freely move with the analog stick while fighting enemies, like in an action game. The lack of any sort of grid or turn system makes it feel very fresh.

Ikehara: The battle scenes were devised by a dedicated planner and programmer who worked in tandem. In the beginning, the battle scenes were more typical, but I didn't want the character movement to feel different between battles and running around on the overworld, so I had them completely remake it. From there, they came up with the battle system seen in the final game, which allows for free movement.

—In this BoF game, you're always braced for battle as you walk around on the overworld, which gives it the sort of tension you'd expect from an action game.

Ikehara: A lot of people were telling me that there ought to be a clearer separation between the game's RPG and action elements… but to the contrary, I heard that sentiment from so many people that I thought, "nuh-uh, this is what we're going with!". All my hesitation disappeared.

—The "D Counter" is introduced in the first part of the game, and it goes up and down as you fight or walk around, right? The manual says that you'll get a game over if the D Counter reaches 100%.

Ikehara: The counter doesn't decrease at all, it just continues to slowly increase until the moment of disaster. That said, the amount added by simply walking around isn't too much to worry about.

—But, it's always creeping up...!

Ikehara: It preys on your psyche, huh? (laughs)

Yoshikawa: You can't just wander around the town willy-nilly.

Ikehara: Well, you don't really need to worry about it suddenly shooting up just from walking around in town. It's better to keep moving than to act paralysed.

—There's also the Scenario Overlay system (SOL): when I game-overed right at the beginning and restarted, I was shown a different cutscene, and that was really surprising. As you continue to restart and retry, you'll be treated to new event scenes.

Yoshikawa: The team set out to make something that'd be fun and challenging, but opinions were split about the fact that dying was necessary in order to progress.

—How long do you think it would take to reach the ending?

Ikehara: I think a speedy player could probably beat the game in 19~20 hours.

—And that means restarting over and over (laughs)

Ikehara: If you play this game like a regular RPG, it's going to kill you right away, so yeah, I expect people will be restarting over and over (laughs).

—Nowadays, a lot of games won't let you die that easily, but in this new BoF, death is always one step away.

Yoshikawa: The last game, Breath of Fire IV, was a game that didn't really put the player at risk of hige wipeouts, so I suppose this game's a little reactionary that way.

Ikehara: A lot of old games wouldn't hesitate to demolish you, right? Even so, my memories of those old games are fond ones. I think the essence of the thrill of games comes from that game over—that heart-pounding feeling.

—Dragon Quarter has a lot of restrictions—you can't carry many items; you can't walk around for the sake of it; you can't save frequently—but that feeling of scraping by with what you can manage gives the game a survivalist vibe.

Yoshikawa: The fun comes from that feeling of effectively prepping and executing on a strategy. We wanted to capture that sensation with this game.

Ikehara: I think older games presented the notion that the player should think for themselves: "I did it this way, but this other player did it another way". For example, instead of earning enough money to immediately buy the next set of equipment, a player might choose to grind and save, leapfrog to buying a super-strong weapon and then steamroll through the next section; because players all had unique ways of playing the game, it made it fun to talk to each other about how they played, and we thought it'd be nice if this game could also be experienced that way.

—You've also assigned an ID number to players' save data so that it can't be copied. Was there a particular reason for that measure?

Ikehara: These days, it's very easy to backup data from memory cards, yeah? In that case, there are some players who will copy their save data and cheat by copying their save files—when they're killed by an enemy, they'll simply copy over the save file from before the battle. We wanted to close the door on that sort of thing.

—Wow, that's harsh!

Ikehara: Sure, but it creates a totally unique sort of thrill. If you're playing while all the while thinking, "if I die now, that's three hours down the drain…" then the experience is going to carry a different kind of intensity. I mean, getting a Game Over makes me mad, too (laughs).

—What were your initial aims for this game's visuals?

Yoshikawa: We wanted to see whether we could somehow capture the warmth of hand-drawn illustrations and the charm of pixel art and express them via 3D graphics. We went through a lot of trial-and-error in figuring out how to extend those 2D touches into the world of 3D.

—Did you use "toon shading (cel shading)" in order to recreate that 2D visual feel?

Yoshikawa: At first, we were going to use a typical toon shader, but that look had become quite run-of-the-mill by that point and we didn't think the audience would be particularly taken by it, and it also had the issue of forcing a disparity between the character data used in-world vs. in event scenes, so we didn't end up using it. We ended up using regular shading, but with a particular processing effect on the character outlines, with the intention of giving them an illustation-esque finish.

—You went with an underground setting for this game—the low ceilings create an oppressive, claustrophobic-feeling world that's very different from the wide-open worlds of previous BoF games.

Ikehara: Once we decided on the underground setting, we started gathering materials on urban planning in order to ascertain whether people could actually burrow and live in subterranea, and whether air circulation might be an issue. Geothermal heat exists undergriund, so proper air conditioning is crucial; conversely, that temperature-controlled enviroment has its own unique properties. We researched these materials and gradually developed our world to the finest detail.

Yoshikawa: I'm very particular about the little details, but Ikehara is, too. When we actually started creating areas, I'd give very specific instructions: "this part's underground, so it doesn't make sense for there not to be pipes running through here".

—When you walk on a floor filled with piping, your footsteps make a unique sound.

Yoshikawa Even if it's all the way underground, if those pipes aren't present, it robs the scenes of their realism.

Ikehara: There are people out there who fixates on these kinds of tiny details, y'know? For example, if you look online, you can find websites by people who are obsessed with gas tanks, or playground equipment, or who take photos of the Expo Tower every single day… it's interesting to look forensically at things we're used to seeing but don't really think about. I've taken to that feeling, and I've recently found myself constantly snapping photos of fire hydrants (laughs).

—Fascinating! Thanks to all that detailed work, the world of Dragon Quarter is suitably dense. By the way, how many staffers worked on this game?

Yoshikawa: Around 40 people, I think. There were around 20 graphic designers alone.

—So you had 20 people working just on the visuals?

Yoshikawa: We did work with subcontractors, but there were around 20 graphic designers from the Capcom side: there were 10 members in charge of "objects"—people in charge of things like human characters, monsters and the insects that move around on the overworld—and around 10 staffers who worked on the "scroll", ie the backgrounds and environments.

—In this game, the 3D-modeled characters also need to actually emote and "act" in the cutscenes, so it must take a long time to create a single character, right?

Yoshikawa: It takes a really long time. It doesn't take too long to make the NPCs that populate the town, but the player-characters took anything from 6 months to a year to make. When you factor in the cutscenes and the specific animations required for those, you end up working on them constantly from the start to the very end of the process.

—Are there specific people in charge of each character?

Yoshikawa: Each character was put together with one modeler and one animator.

—Two staffers team up on a single character... it's similar to when an actor is cast in a TV drama and spends a lot of time devising the nuances of their performance.

Yoshikawa: After two years of constant development, our skills became finely honed, and we selfishly started to think that we could take things further, so we completely remade everything once or twice (laughs). That cut-and-try process led to us having to scrap and start over. It simply took time.

Ikehara: For the sake of the production, the player-characters need to be developed at the very beginning, but towards the tail end of development, the team's skills had developed to such an extent that the NPC townfolk that were made much later were more detailed than the player-characters. Therefore, from the director's perspective, if the townspeople are that high-quality, then the player-characters ought to be even better (laughs).

—This time around, the facial expressions of the characters are very lush. The range of emotions conveyed just by the characters' eyes and the movement of their eyebrows is extremely wide.

Yoshikawa: Nothing we're doing—technically, but also in terms of direction—is especially difficult. Rather, it was more a case of working by feel, and naturally choosing expressions based on intuition.

Ikehara: I'm actually playing through the game right now, and I'm picking up on all sorts of details I didn't notice when I was formally reviewing the content: for example, going with a very deformed look for the characters helped to emphasize their facial expressions to a greater degree than I'd realized. Similarly, I think that honing on on a limited pool of detailed facial expressions helped to bring their emotions into focus and made them easier to convey.

—I thought the way the subtitled dialogue was animated was very effective, also.

Yoshikawa: Ah, we took a lot of influence from manga with those. I tried to incorporate the unique strength of handwritten lines as seen in manga; we experimented with this approach a little in BoFIV, and I decided to keep going with it this time as well.

Ikehara: I read a lot of manga—Taiyo Matsumoto's work, Masamune Shirow's stuff and others. At the moment, I'm into Harold Sakuishi's BECK.

—Ah, the rock manga! That's an amazing manga that makes you feel the music through pictures. So manga was the key... I feel like my perspective on Dragon Quarter has shifted a little. You both got your start on BoF, so you've been working together for almost 10 years now, huh?

Ikehara: That's right, we joined in the same year. Both of us got out start when we were tapped by the BoF team.

—What games were you both into as kids?

Ikehara: I started out on computers… it had to have been Dragon Quest, I guess.

—What kind of computer were you using?

Ikehara: [Fujitsu] FM-7. I used to play Black Onyx. I mostly started really enjoying games after getting into game consoles; I mostly used the computer to make games with my younger brother.

—What kinds of games were you making?

Ikehara: A competitive strategy game—the main character was a robot, and when you moved your units into a forest, they couldn't be seen, so while the first player was taking their turn, the other player had to look away from the screen (laughs). When their turn was over, you'd switch. We never finished the game, though (laugh). It was mostly programmed in BASIC, with a little assembly.

—That definitely sounds like a game from that era (laughs). How about you, Yoshikawa?

Yoshikawa: I wasn't allowed a computer, so I played Game & Watch. Later on, I got into Dragon Quest and Wizardry… and after joining the company, I was really taken aback by Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen.

—Nowadays, do you use a computer when drawing illustrations?

Yoshikawa: Yeah. I used to draw everything on paper, but it took a really long time, so now I draw the main lines in pencil and then scan it into the computer, and start the coloring process from there.

—Are the visuals seen on the game box, posters, etc also your work?

Yoshikawa: Yes. While everyone was doing their final sweep on the game before going gold, I was busy drawing all the key art; I somehow managed to do both at the same time.

—You also designed the monsters, right?

Yoshikawa: Right, I also drew the original designs for all the monsters. Because this game's set in the underground, there are a lot of insects, and I incorporated a lot of elements from cave and deep-sea creatures. I was also very conscious of drawing a wide variety of artificial monsters.

—Ikehara, how did you go about devising the story?

Ikehara: This time around, I gave what I came up with to another planner, and then I looped back and embellished on the direction of their material. I usually do everything on my own, but the scale of the work had gradually gotten larger and larger.

—So you conceived of it on your own, then?

Ikehara: It's less that I came up with ideas, so much as they just came to me.

—Gotcha. How has the reaction been to Dragon Quarter since it released?

Ikehara: They seem to be enjoying it quite a bit. It seems to be confusing people who went in expecting a traditional RPG, however.

—So, a mixed reaction, then?

Ikehara: Well, before now, the BoF series was so focused on walking the conventional path that the response to the games were also straight down the line—for example, if four people were to score one of the previous games, the average scores would be 7/7/7/7. For this game, I really wanted to make something polarizing—like, 9/5/9/5—and so this game very intentionally has a lot of jagged edges.

—The word "innovative" really applies to Dragon Quarter.

Ikehara: Here on the site, though, it feels like there's still more to be done. Hehehehe…

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