Metal Slug 2 - 1998 Developer Interview
This lengthy Metal Slug 2 interview originally appeared in Gamest magazine. Planners Akio Oyabu, Meeher, and KINTE (who is enigmatically credited as "Special Thanks") discuss their motivation for making a sequel, the differences between MS2 and the original game, and various aspects of the character and stage design. Also be sure to check out shmuplations' other collection of Metal Slug interviews if you haven't!
Akio Oyabu - Planner
Meeher - Planner
KINTE - Special Thanks
—Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today. Let's get right into it. Given the massive popularity of versus fighting games and the relative scarcity of standard action games in the arcade... why did you choose to make an action game like this?
Meeher: We had a real fear that, if we didn't do anything, pure action games were going to disappear from the arcades. We also thought it would stand out more precisely because there aren't many games like it today.
Kinte: Another part of it is that we made the first Metal Slug to target the overseas market. This time, we wanted a "rematch" of sorts with the domestic Japanese market.
Meeher: Our team has been making shooting and action games for a long time, so it would be weirder for us to suddenly pivot and try and make a fighting game with big sprites—something we're totally unfamiliar with as developers. Our mentality was, let's keep refining what we already know how to do.
—Did you begin making Metal Slug 2 right after the first game?
Kinte: Yeah, but we didn't really get down to business until January of last year… let's just leave it at that. (laughs) The first Metal Slug was very popular so we knew right away we wanted to make a sequel, but our production team is quite small and we had a lot of other unrelated tasks that needed our assistance, so we couldn't get to it for awhile.
—Once again the level of detail and polish on Metal Slug 2 is extremely impressive. I imagine the development must have been very difficult.
Kinte: I would say the first game was more difficult for us, actually.
Meeher: Yeah, being the first, we had to create all our designs from scratch then. And there were a lot of rejects and failures along the way.
Akio: I remember how hard that was.
Meeher: In the first game, originally the Metal Slug tank itself was the main player character. We got pretty far into the development under that premise, thinking we were done, but eventually we decided to go in a different direction and had to re-do everything.
—Really? I didn't know that.
Kinte: It seems obvious but we realized that characters with faces are a lot more memorable and relatable than those without.
Akio: We had to remake a lot of the maps too, including all of Stage 2. We were able to re-use some assets I guess, so that part wasn't too horrible.
Meeher: Yeah, there were maps we largely re-used. As you can imagine, we created those maps under the premise that you'd be going through the levels in the Metal Slug tank exclusively. Thankfully though, because the Metal Slug was always meant to move in an organic way, like a living creature, it wasn't much of a problem when we switched to human player characters.
—The way the stages are ordered in Metal Slug 2, it gives the impression you're on a journey northward...
Meeher: That actually wasn't intentional, it's just how it turned out. In the beginning of the development, what is currently Stage 4 (the Hong Kong stage) was supposed to be Stage 1. However, we were late in finalizing the data for that stage, so it didn't work out that way. We always want the first stage to be the most carefully balanced in terms of difficulty, so we spent a lot of time on the setting for it. In the end, however, the desert stage got finished first, and that became Stage 1.
—It also feels like the war has spread to various regions.
Meeher: The first Metal Slug had a very "military" vibe to the graphics and setting, which was great for making everything feel cohesive, but we wanted Metal Slug 2 to have more variety. In the first game it felt like you were confined to a single region, so this time we wanted the fighting to be on a worldwide scale. And this is a tank game so you've got to have a desert stage… actually, we felt that way in the first game too, but we couldn't come up with anything so we didn't put a desert stage in that one.
We were a little worried that fans of the first game would feel alienated by these changes, but there's no point for us to make exactly the same thing twice, so we took great care in making sure Metal Slug 2 feels distinct.
—Looking at the concept illustrations, one can see that the world and setting of Metal Slug has been created with meticulous care. Do you do a lot of pre-planning, creating all that stuff in advance, and then using it as a blueprint for the development proper?
Meeher: It depends. We didn't have a lot of extra time for this development, so many of the things were created straight-away as in-game assets, without concept illustrations.
Akio: The concept illustrations you're referring to, those were done by our designer MAX D, of his own volition. I think he likes making those drawings more than the actual pixel art!
—Even the guns have very detailed concept illustrations.
Meeher: Ah, for the girls' revolver, I gave specific instructions about that one. I knew an old-fashioned break-action revolver like that would really send the gun otakus to heaven. (laughs)
Akio: The designer didn't like it. (laughs) He said "No one's going to be able to tell what that is when it's a pixel sprite!"
—Speaking of which, the characters' animation patterns are extremely detailed.
Akio: I think this is what takes, as a 2D game, to compete with polygon games today.
Meeher: I had absolute faith that the animation of the girls having their hands go numb from the machine gun fire would bring the house down.
Akio: The designers hated it though. (laughs)
Meeher: Also, when the female characters are comparing their bust sizes, and Eri-chan sees that Fio's breasts are bigger, and she gets despondent… that's another winner. (laughs) We had other interactions between the different male and female characters, stuff that would have shown their personalities and compatibility, how their relationship was developing… but for some reason that stuff got cut, sadly.
—Was it planned from the start that the four characters would have different abilities?
Meeher: Of course, yeah. We struggled to come up with actual ideas on how to differentiate them, though. We didn't want to do the usual, obvious stuff, or end up with a situation where one character is clearly the strongest and always gets picked.
—The portraits on the character select screen are also very intense... they leave an impression.
Akio: The in-game sprites are pretty small, so we wanted the character select portraits to make a splash. So I thought, OK, if they look outlandish and shocking, that'd do it… (laughs)
—I remember in the first Metal Slug, you drew some concept art for a girl character with glasses, who kind of looked like Fio.
Meeher: Girls with glasses are the best, right?! That was one of my must-have details. You can't see the glasses on her sprite, though.
Akio: Meeher was saying "Eri sits like this, OK, and Fio sits like this!" and suddenly he takes out this book with visual examples. I remember there was a big crowd around him as he explained this.
Meeher: I tried to make Fio look like an airhead… how'd I do?
—I was surprised when she took out a blanket and started having lunch!
Meeher: There were other animations too, like where her machinegun overheats and she has to exchange the barrel, or the way she holds her gun with both hands, or how she reloads her shotgun like Sarah Connor from T2… I thought those would make her look more feminine.
Akio: Unfortunately, it was like, "do we REALLY need these animations?" and a lot of them got cut.
Meeher: We were going to make two of the characters be hidden characters at first. But the designers complained. "What?! You're telling me this character I drew thousands of animations frames for, they might not even get seen?!" So we decided to make them all normally selectable.
Akio: It was about 6000 frames, I believe…
—That's more than your average versus fighting game.
Meeher: Well, the sprites aren't the same size, so a simple numerical comparison doesn't really mean much.
—The enemy expressions are richly varied as well.
Meeher: I think the rifle soldiers are especially well done.
—Those bosses have a lot of clever attacks too. How did you come up with the boss names and their various attacks?
Meeher: That's a secret… actually, it's nothing special. (laughs) As for their general shape and form, we tried to select things that were distinct from the first Metal Slug bosses.
—Which boss was the hardest to design?
Meeher: The Stage 2 and Stage 4 bosses were a challenge. The Stage 4 boss' attacks, in particular, were the hardest to design. We had a lot of ideas for it: having little tanks form a linked ring around you… or doing the stereotypical thing with lava rising up from below, but with submarines hidden within… or having lightning strike from the clouds above.
—Can you tell us about boss 3, Dragon Nosuke?
Meeher: We had a mountain of problems with this boss as well. Right to the end, it gave us nothing but trouble. After we finished him, we felt it would be more interesting if it was a fight with the Slug Flyer, so we worked with our staff members who were shooting fans and created a kind of shooting game boss fight. Your experience of the boss will change a lot, I think, whether you fight him with the Slug Flyer or not.
—How did you come up with the Slug Flyer, by the way?
Meeher: After we finished the first Metal Slug, we read through the feedback postcards from users, and one of them said "If you make a sequel I hope you let us fly around in a jet." And that got me thinking. "An airplane, eh…" In the Metal Slug games, even if you're in a vehicle, you'll lose it if you take just one hit, so if we wanted to have aircraft, I knew it would have to be on a stage with no ground terrain. Personally, I wanted to make a high-octane, dogfight scene… Also, you can only do this with two players, but did you know the other player can ride on the jet's wings? It's risky but it can be a good tactic!
—I recall you showing us early in the development a version where the Slugnoid could float in the air.
Meeher: Yeah. You could hover by pressing the jump button repeatedly… we were torn on whether to include that or not, up to the very end. Ultimately we felt it would ruin the jump-jump-jump tempo, so it got removed.
Akio: Of all the stages, I think Stage 2 was the hardest to create, overall.
Meeher: We knew that stages that scroll vertically weren't very suited to co-op play. When the player below is too slow the scrolling gets stopped, and when the player above jumps too high, it makes the player below fall and die. But we included it anyway because we thought it was interesting and wanted variety in the stages.
—In the Hong Kong stage, there's a lot of neat effects with the items, like the food rotting or the hatching chicken eggs.
Akio: When those chicks turn into hens, the hens will lay more eggs, and gradually you'll get a whole line of chickens. As you're the first thing they see, they think of you as their "parent" and will follow you all over.
Meeher: It's got the appeal of an ikusei (rearing/raising) game. However, when I saw the slowdown that was being caused by having tons of chicken sprites everywhere, I wondered if we'd gone too far. (laughs)
—It's amazing how many different names you created for the POWs.
Meeher: In the first Metal Slug we advertised that there's over 1000 POW names, but in reality the arcade version only had 980. For the console version we upped that to 1000. We had to outdo ourselves this sequel, of course, so now there's 1001!
—What is the "June Bride Almanac" that appears in the story a reference to?
Meeher: Military otakus will know about this, but it's a parody of Jane's Almanac, a series of publications about military armaments. I'm not a weapons otaku myself, but I thought it would make the world of the game seem more expansive if I used unusual names like that.
—Can you tell us about Rumi?
Meeher: She first appeared in the Playstation port of Metal Slug, Another Story, and we decided to include her here to create a link between the worlds. Partly, too, it's that I simply wanted to have more female characters in the background.
The first version of Rumi that we created, however, was very different from her current incarnation. She wore an outfit that looked like something out of Cutey Honey, and she would appear out of nowhere, blow a kiss, drop items for you and then leave right away. We created artwork for her and everything, but we felt like she didn't really fit into the rest of the game. The finished Rumi is kind of clumsy and blundering… the total opposite of that first version!
—In Stage 6, there's a cool character who appears just one time (I don't want to spoil it for players). Is it a policy of yours to include things like that, things that only show up once?
Meeher: Yeah, that is something we're very explicit about. For us, it's precisely because something will only appear once that we want to splurge on the animation frames. This how it's supposed to be. (laughs) For as long as I can remember, I've been thinking about ways to make crazy, outrageous things happen during the battles. I don't want to create ordinary stuff that the player expects. I want the attacks and stage gimmicks to be wild too, to surprise the player. I'm basically a "setting otaku", so I like to create really detailed explanations and lore for everything after the fact, but at the same time, I don't get too hung up having a specific kind of world or atmosphere. Is this interesting? Is this cool? That's what I ask myself, and then afterwards I find a way to justify its existence in the game world.
—How are the controls this time?
Meeher: Lately the trend in games has been to give the player more and more freedom with the controls. In Metal Slug, however, while we certainly could allow the player to shoot diagonally, restricting it to horizontal makes it easier for newcomers to understand, and easier to pick up and play.
Kinte: Right now polygon games are predominant, but the polygons are merely an aesthetic choice, and that isn't our goal. We want to keep exploring the possibilities of side-scrollers, without getting hung up on whether its polygon or 2D or whatever.
—Please give a final word to the players.
Kinte: We've put our hearts into Metal Slug 2. We hope you enjoy it to the very end.
Meeher: As long as you enjoy it, we're happy. That's my only question for everyone… was it fun? We don't want to be making games that are just "whatever". We want the characters to feel like they're alive, like there's blood coursing through the veins of this game. Regardless of the genre, we want to make games that remain in your heart long after they're finished.
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