Power Instinct 1 & 2 - Developer Interviews
These revealing Power Instinct interviews were originally featured in Gamest magazine and cover the making of the first two games. The Atlus developers here are mostly pseudonymous, though a couple have since been identified (namely planner Keiko Ijuu and composer Toshikazu Tanaka). Their conversation covers the usual bases and hopefully helps shed some new light on this quirky, oft-overlooking fighting series.
Keiko Ijuu – Planner
Toshikazu Tanaka – Composer
MakoMKII – Programmer
SuperK – Balancing
―Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to talk with us today. How long did the Power Instinct development take?
Ijuu: We started in earnest around February of last year (1993). The sound team began working in July.
―What was your overall goal for Power Instinct?
Ijuu: We tried not to pay any attention to other fighting games, and just focus on making something that would satisfy us first and foremost. I'm very satisfied with the level of polish we achieved at the end.
―Power Instinct has fewer characters than most other fighting games released recently.
MakoMKII: We wanted Power Instinct to be ready in time for the AM Show in the Summer, so we calculated backwards and determined that 8 players would be the limit if we were to make that deadline.
―The character designs are rather eccentric, too.
Ijuu: Yeah. The designers have added a lot of their own personal touches, and the designs reflect their interests. It's like, what the heck are these old women doing in a fighting game?! And actually, at the start of the development, one of the designers had drawn some sketches of Otane or Oume and left them on their desk, and a passerby saw it and said "nice!"
But then when we showed it at the meeting, half the people made disapproving faces. In a desperate bid to placate them, the designer said, "OK, how about this… she'll have a secret move where she transforms into a younger, cuter version of herself", and that was how the "transforming grandma" thing came about. So the fact that she turned out to be so popular with fans was honestly a surprise to us.
―That's funny, since today one can't imagine Power Instinct without those beloved grandmas! Now for a more gameplay-oriented question: was the double-jump something you planned to add from the beginning?
Tanaka: Yeah. We wanted players to feel like they had a lot of room to fight―not just a horizontal but a vertical space to move within. The double jump was perfect for that.
SuperK: Initially, only certain characters could perform the double jump and air throw. But then everyone started complaining about how they wanted their favorite character to be able to do that too! So in the end we gave the ability to everyone.
MakoMKII: We wanted the aerial battles to be one of the selling points of Power Instinct, and I also considered adding an aerial guard, too, but everyone was against it so that idea never panned out.
―I feel like the overall damage is set very low in Power Instinct. Was that intentional?
SuperK: Yeah, it was. We wanted the fights to be longer. For example, originally the Dash Attack did double damage, but during our playtesting, players were chaining combos out of the dash attack and killing their opponent just from that damage. We didn't want cheap tactics like that so we lowered the damage. We took great care to remove cheap stunlocks, and we reduced throw damage too.
―Regarding the button layout, was it always four buttons?
MakoMKII: No, at first we thought Power Instinct would be a three-button game. Punch, Kick, and Throw... and depending on how long you held the button down, it would be a weak or strong punch. Ultimately we settled on a four button layout though. To have 6 buttons, we would have needed to include a sub-harness for the PCB controls, so we settled on four thinking that this would mean wider distribution at arcades.
―Is there anything you were unable to accomplish in Power Instinct, that you might want to do in a sequel?
Tanaka: Maybe improving the overall level of presentation. I'd wanted to put a bit more work into the backgrounds. We had a lot of ideas for the sound, too. And I had wanted every stage theme to have lyrics.
MakoMKII: I wanted the vs. CPU fights to be much easier, but we didn't have time to make those adjustments and the difficulty was left fairly high, which is a shame. That's something I'd like to improve on next time.
―Lastly, could you give a word to readers about how they should approach Power Instinct?
Ijuu: We just want people to play it freely. Don't feel constrained by conventions and whatnot.
Tanaka: As the sound designer, I hope people like Reiji's stage theme and find themselves humming it while they play.
MakoMKII: I hope that players focus their efforts on the head-to-head versus fighting and enjoy utilizing the double jump and dash attack to full strategic effect.
Power Instinct - 1993 Developer Interview
taken from the GSLA archive
Our goal with Power Instinct was to create a fighting game with special moves that anyone could execute. And a good sense of speed. Also, each staff member has certain complaints about the existing fighting games today, such as the controls or the unreasonable way the CPU acts, and I'd like to remedy those with Power Instinct. And if we can't create something superior to those games, then at least we can make something that stands shoulder-to-shoulder.
The first thing we did was create the characters. One of them was an old granny, and I thought to myself, well, what kind of person is she… but all I could come up with was that she was wealthy. Then I got the idea that maybe this old woman was worrying about who would inherit her wealth, and that gave me an idea for a succession war amongst wealthy people, as the general framework for the game. Also, I was kind of sick of fighting games where the stages are basically a "world tour" of famous tourist spots. But if the Gouketsuji clan were rich, they could have the money to build an amusement park (Otane Land) and we could create whatever stages we wanted there.
Initially, Reiji's stage background was just a plain factory, but I asked the composer to write a "cheering" song for it, and he came back with something perfect, right on the nose. But then it seemed like the plain factory background was too bare, so we added those cheering people. There were lyrics for it too, and I was thinking I'd like to do something similar for all the stages, but memory limitations made it impossible. For Annie's stage music, for example, I had this idea for a song that would be like, "the sermons of love", with the lyrics reading like lines from a preacher's sermon, stuff like "LOVE WILL REDEEM US ALL!"
The sound effects took a long time to pin down. We have commercial sample CDs with recordings of breaking glass and things like that, but for Otane's "face suck" transformation throw, there weren't any sounds of skin being suck. The sound person stayed late one evening after everyone had left to think about it. When I came to work the next morning, he had finished it. I asked him what happened, and he told me that he recorded the right sound by sucking on his own hand around 3AM. I remember I said to him, unironically, "it would be more realistic if you sucked on your upper arm instead of your hand." (laughs)
One thing I really wanted for Power Instinct was for there to be a lot of female characters. First we decided on a cute type, then we made an opposite muscular type. Then we wanted one more female character, and it was like, "any woman will do", and I said ok, if that's the case, how about an old woman? But everyone was like "NO!" (laughs) Ultimately I got my way, but to convince the staunch holdouts I said she would have a special move where she transforms into a cute teenager, and that's where her kissing "face suck" move came from.
The first male character we created, by the way, was White Buffalo, because with his painted face and imposing musculature his personality was easy to create. Next came the monk, Thin Nen. After that was Keith, Hattori, and finally Reiji. The reason Reiji was last is because there are a lot of "karate master" style characters in other fighting games, so it took us some time to find something that would distinguish his personality.
For Power Instinct 2, I want to improve on the first game without destroying what made it fun. Specifically, for the one-player mode I want the CPU controlled opponents to move in a way that more closely resembles a human player. Character-wise, we plan to bring along all the characters from the first game, but many years will have past, and I want the designs and artwork to reflect the passage of time. There will be new characters too, of course. Since this is the story of the Gouketsuji clan, after all, hidden branches of the family tree may come to light. (laughs)
We're planning for one of the newer characters to have a mask, by the way. It's fun to think of how this will be incorporated into their moveset. I don't feel like we need anymore "hardcore", orthodox fighting characters after the first game, so the sequel will probably have more of an "anything goes" kind of feel.
Power Instinct 2 - 1995 Developer Interview
originally featured in Gamest magazine
―What would you say are some of the key themes for the Power Instinct 2 development?
Atlus: Doing the things we didn't get to in the last game, and carrying on the same atmosphere and vibe. The other big thing in Power Instinct 2 that we've focused on is the visual impact: making sure players know from one glance of the screen that this is a new and evolved sequel.
―Visually it does look fabulous, and I can tell how much work you've put in. What were some of the challenges you faced there?
Atlus: Challenges, eh… (laughs) To be honest, this time we initially had an issue with the stage backgrounds, so midway through they all had to be redrawn. This meant that the music was actually finished ahead of the backgrounds―the upside was that this allowed us to focus on making sure the backgrounds and music were really tightly synced.
―Ah, so that's why Hattori and Kurara's stages have all that neat stuff going on.
Atlus: There's actually a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes stories about the backgrounds, their music and visuals. The folk music that plays on Hattori's stage was originally intended for Keith's stage.
―Whoa, really?
Atlus: But folk music didn't seem to fit with Keith's character, so we updated Hattori's stage to use it. Once we added lyrics it really worked for a ninja character, so ultimately it was a success. We selected the singer for that music by holding an in-house audition at Atlus―the finished result is really quite something!
―Speaking of Hattori's stage, those two guitar players in the background look incredible. For a couple sprites it's kind of weird how much personality and presence they have...!
Atlus: Not only Hattori's stage, but we put a ton of effort into those kinds of visual details in all the stage backgrounds this time. The backing band in Angela's stage, for instance… that took a TON of work. If you look closely you'll notice that the drums, bass and guitar are all animated in-time with the music. Even the snare and cymbal hits in the song are reproduced in perfect synchronization with the graphics.
―The backing dancers in Kurara and Keith's stages are a sight to behold, too.
Atlus: For Keith's stage background, we had originally planned to animate it to look and feel like a musical, but when we saw the finished result it felt… off. (laughs)
―Most of the stages have vocals or weird voice recordings. What was your intention there?
Atlus: We just didn't want it to feel like all the other generic fighting game music out there. We intentionally wanted it to sound weird, and we decided early-on that vocals were a must-have to effectuate that.
But there were tons of problems making it a reality. (laughs) They had to record in the development room when no one was around, and we couldn't find people to sing the parts so at one point we actually drew straws and forced some of the Atlus staff to sing the parts… then one time we were recording at someone's home and the neighbors complained--it was the music for Thin Nen's stage and from the monk's chanting they thought we were some cult religious group!
―Next I'd like to ask about the new characters.
Atlus: The first thing we decided was that we wanted to create a character who would match the old grandmas. So we made an old man (Kanji) who would stand in opposition to them. Then, as we thought about what kind of character would have an impact that would surpass those grannies, we realized it had to be a MAGICAL SHOUJOU GIRL! There was an overwhelming consensus at Atlus on that point, and that's where we came up with Kurara.
―Did you know she would have a transformation at the start?
Atlus: Yeah. But the most difficult part in creating Kurara was deciding what she would transform into. We prepared several mock-ups, and each had their strong points so we were pretty lost. Finally we settled on the form you see today.
―It's very... flashy. (laughs)
Atlus: Originally she was going to transform into more of a stewardess or nurse outfit. But the female developers objected loudly to this idea, so we shelved it for a later time. (laughs)
―Too bad...
Atlus: Oh?
―Um, nevermind. By the way, when Kanji begins a fight, there's some mysterious substance being injected into his body... what is that stuff?
Atlus: It's an IV feed. Originally we had planned to have him being pushed out in a wheelchair by a nurse, but that was a little too much, so we went with the IV dripfeed there instead.
―Where did the idea for Kintaro's dog come from?
Atlus: We absolutely wanted a masked character this time. After a lot of back-and-forth, we decided to use a dog since dogs are, after all, man's best friend. At first we thought Kintaro would transform into a full stuffed animal, but that was going to be too difficult, so we only went with the masked dog look.
Also, the reason we made Kintaro is because we wanted a wider range of ages for the fighters. There's both young and old in the Gouketsuji clan―even a baby wouldn't be out of the ordinary―so that's where Kintaro came from.
―Was Sahad added as the "magical boy" counterpart to Kurara?
Atlus: No, he was originally supposed to be a straight-laced, "serious" character, but somewhere along the way he became that shady looking guy. No one realized how strange he was becoming… an unfortunate character. (laughs)
―Power Instinct 2 uses a whopping 229mb of memory. Why so large?
Atlus: We wanted to level-up the presentation, starting with the sound and visuals. We also wanted ample space for the staff to realize their ideas.
―You say everything has been upgraded, but what are some specific areas you've improved?
Atlus: Well, the space required for the music alone would be enough to fit in two whole shooting games. (laughs) I thought there'd be more than enough space at first, but the staff ran wild and before I knew it we were running out again.
―What do you mean "they ran wild"...?
Atlus: At Atlus, as long as the development teams are meeting their goals, we don't question how they're meeting them. This has invited excessive fooling around, and the result is that our precious memory gets all eaten up by their shenanigans. (laughs)
―But that passion is also what's made Power Instinct 2 such a great game.
Atlus: All's well that ends well, you could say.
―On that note, I have to ask... how in the world did those loser portraits with the scribbled-on faces come about?
Atlus: Um, actually… the thing about that… we'd originally planned to prepare individual loser portraits for each character, but as the ROM delivery deadline grew closer we found ourselves running out of time. So instead we made those silly ones. They were done in one pass, all of them in a single day.
―Amazing. Do you have any final words for players on how best to enjoy Power Instinct 2?
Atlus: We think every player should discover their own individual way to enjoy Power Instinct 2. The developers stuffed a lot of playful elements into it, so have fun!
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