Psychic Force 2012 – 1999 Developer Interview

Takeshi Kamimura - Producer/Designer
Hiroshi Aoki - Director
Kojiro Modeki - Designer
Tsutomu Matsuda - Character Designer

—When did the original concept for Psychic Force first come about?

Staff: It was during the peak of the Street Fighter II craze. The project started with the idea of doing a 2D fighting game centered around aerial combat. It was just an idea then though... we weren't continuously developing it from that exact point onward. 1

—What kind of gameplay did you imagine?

Staff: The very first idea was a game that featured both ground and air elements, where your feet were on the ground but you could also fly into the air. Basically, the aerial combat was meant to differentiate it from traditional fighting games. But when we actually started refining the mechanics, it ended up becoming entirely set in the air.

—Was it already titled Psychic Force back then?

Staff: Back when it was a 2D game, the working title was Psychic Fire. The actual development of Psychic Force began as a resurrection of that old project, but the title Psychic Force came along much later.

—What do you mean by resurrection?

Staff: Well, in the simplest terms, Psychic Fire was a failed project that had been shelved. We had only done a tiny bit of experimental testing, and it wasn't even close to being a fully formed game. This was back before we made Kaiser Knuckle, so the original idea came about when we didn't yet have any experience making 2D fighting games.

—Considering the era, that sounds like a remarkably groundbreaking idea for a fighting game.

Staff: Yeah. Back then, differentiation was everything, so in that sense, it was quite novel. You could even call it a bit reckless.

Saying it was "shelved" makes it sound neater than it actually was, though. In reality, we weren't seriously developing the game itself, it was just a kind of prototype or test. When the other teams at Taito got busy we were told to go help them out, and that was the end of that.

—So how did this project resurface?

Staff: It happened after we finished Kaiser Knuckle. When the time came to make another competitive game, our company was putting out a piece of hardware called the FX1 that could handle polygons. So we were told to come up with something using polygons.

By then we had already been thinking about making an omnidirectional, "all range" fighting game. Originally, it was meant to be a robot game. However, we felt it would be hard for players to emotionally invest in robots, and some of the gameplay mechanics didn't seem like they'd work well with robots. So when we had to choose between a robot game and the Psychic Force—or rather, Psychic Fire—concept, the robots ultimately got axed and Psychic Fire was the one left standing.

—So there was a genuine possibility it could have become a robot game.

Staff: Since that's what we were leaning toward initially, it absolutely could have happened.

—Why did you change the title from Psychic Fire to Psychic Force?

Staff: The change to Psychic Force actually came from feedback overseas. We were told that to an international audience, Psychic Fire conjures up images of a fire-based shooting game, so Force would be better. When we pitched Force to the team, everyone liked it, so we just went with it. I recall it being a pretty simple decision like that. It was quite a long time ago, though.

—Were you already thinking about a sequel when you were developing the first Psychic Force?

Staff: Not at all. We started playing around with the idea of a sequel while we were in the middle of porting Psychic Force to the PlayStation.

—Psychic Force 2012 takes place two years after the events of the original game. Was that setting and timeframe one of your first ideas?

Staff: We didn't have anything specific in mind at first. Originally, we hadn't planned on setting it two years later.

—Then what led to that...?

Staff: To be honest, I wanted to go with an entirely new cast of characters, but well, things happened. (laughs) A mix of business demands and my own lack of brainpower helped shape the direction we took, and we ultimately decided that setting it two years later would be best. I thought it worked out well because, on a personal level, I was excited to see how the characters from the previous game would be reinvented after two years.

However, I've always felt that having the exact same characters fight again with just different backgrounds or minor system tweaks—the way fighting games from other companies have done it—is a bit boring. So, half the roster became new characters. I felt bad for players whose old favorites were gone, but that desire for freshness was stronger. We ended up cutting three characters.

—What was the reason for choosing Sonia, Brad, and Genma as the characters to be cut?

Staff: There isn't any deeply profound reason. It's just that when mapping out the story, Sonia was the first one where it felt unnatural for her to appear. Actually, at first, I wasn't even planning on including Burn either. So we were originally going to cut four characters.

As for Genma, he visually and conceptually clashed with the new character, Gades. Plus, I wanted to separate them by silhouette, and I figured we had enough older guy characters. That's how the old characters ended up being phased out.

—Why Brad?

Staff: In terms of the world and the narrative… it felt highly likely he would just end up repeating the exact same patterns again. I wanted to bring a breath of fresh air into the mix instead. Brad isn't the only character repeating himself, but he was the first one who struck me that way. And as for Sonia, frankly, her lore established that she didn't have much time left to live, so it would have been strange to just trot her out again.

—Previously, when we gathered our unresolved questions about the lore and asked you about them, we received a reply stating, "There is no lore or setting beyond what has already been published."

Staff: I saw that, but the truth is, there really isn't anything else. Nothing at all. That's why it's better if you pick out a few points and ask me directly right here… If it's something floating around loosely in my head, I can answer it.

—In that case, as the point fans are most curious about, could you tell us about Keith's true intentions?

Staff: To be perfectly honest, I think it's fine for players to imagine whatever they like. Keith probably doesn't give a definitive answer in 2012 anyway. That's why I think he winds up with contradictory endings. It's an open question whether he's even operating under his own free will… I wanted to emphasize that state of internal confusion and his suffering.

However, something much closer to his true thoughts is expressed quite clearly in the audio dramas we've released, so you can safely consider those to be official canon.

—How do you go about creating characters?

Staff: At the very beginning, I would design them by overlapping them with existing anime characters. But those traits fade away over time, so by the end, almost no trace of the original inspiration remains. We start by mapping our image over a model character, and then gradually inject our own originality. We barely even remember the original source material now.

—What kind of media did those image sources come from?

Staff: All sorts of things—anime characters, manga characters, you name it. Whenever I vaguely feel like we need a certain type of character next, I'll give them a temporary name. But later on, once their design and profile have been solidified, everyone pitches in ideas to come up with their final name. From that point on, we only refer to them by that new name, so whatever the original joke or reference was gets entirely buried in the past.

—So it's still possible for fans to try and guess them.

Staff: Yeah. I think those guesses will vary depending on the player. So feel free to imagine whatever you like on that front.

—While putting this book together, we had the opportunity to look through various materials, and we noticed that despite having an incredibly deep cast and world, there is an immense amount of lore left completely unestablished. Do you think leaving this information out actually widens the scope for imagination and fuels creative fan activities like doujinshi?

Staff: I absolutely believe so. In fact, the first Psychic Force was exactly like that. The PlayStation port of Psychic Force included endings that we came up with internally, but when the game originally launched in arcades, it didn't have any endings at all. When we decided to add them later, we opened it up to submissions from the users, and we received thousands of entries.

Even though the only available information consisted of magazine write-ups, the background stories in the official guidebooks, and whatever character personality could be gleaned from win and lose quotes, fans still spent so much effort figuring out what kind of endings these characters would face. Seeing that made me realize that rather than forcing information onto the players, it's better to provide just the necessary amount and leave the rest to their imagination to let things grow.

We did include a Story Mode in 2012, but we intentionally avoided revealing the characters' true motives, where they were born, or even their nationalities. I think it's best to leave those parts up to the imagination.

—We were also quite curious about Might's detailed background...

Staff: A profile was probably made for him, but it wouldn't have contained a lot of specific detail. We don't really write that stuff down on paper to be saved either. Truthfully, if we wanted to build the characters in that way, we could have, but we deliberately chose not to. I thought it was better to let people speculate. Just like the previous game, we've provided enough pieces for fans to form a picture. For instance, even if you don't know what year Might came from or who his father is, you know he came from the future and that he's aware he is a clone. If you speculate from there, you can construct your own version of Might.

—You mentioned nationalities a moment ago, but I heard a rumor that Setsuna is Pakistani...

Staff: That's actually a pretty famous story. Kyousei Tsukui, who voices Keith, mentioned on an online message board, "I think he's Pakistani," and that just spread like wildfire. (laughs)

—And so, before you knew it, he became Pakistani?

Staff: The internet is so powerful that it even ended up written in gaming magazines as a fact. (laughs) We were left scratching our heads like, "What on earth is this?"

—As if it were official lore?

Staff: They didn't definitively state that he's Pakistani, mind you—it just said that there's a rumor he might be. Also, our PR people occasionally make things up on their own whim. Like declaring that Burn absolutely loves bananas. (laughs) Lore is constantly being generated in places we in development don't even know about, leaving us completely out of the loop. It's like the wild west out here.

—On a related note regarding Keith: while the Neo NOA faction has its own emblem, why is Keith the only one who actually wears it?

Staff: Probably because the emblem design wasn't finished until late in the development. (laughs) Or maybe Carlo forced him to wear it. Maybe Carlo said, "It looks cool! It's got a patch on it!" And then Keith would be like, "Then why aren't you wearing it?" I bet that exact kind of conversation took place within Neo NOA. (laughs)

There were actually patch designs for the fire-users, gravity-users, and so on. The person who designed them just threw them in on a whim. So you can see that if that's the level of coordination we had internally, there's no way an official explanation exists. If you were to ask every single member of the team about it individually, you would probably get a completely different answer from each person. When it comes to the lore, everyone has their own interpretation.

I bet someone like Regina would hate it. She'd be like, "No way, this looks terrible."

—Emilio's outfit looks a bit like a school uniform, doesn't it?

Staff: Well, whether that's an official school uniform or not is something only God knows. Actually, there was initially a plan to put emblems on the military psychic unit too. Sharp-eyed players might remember that Emilio had a plate on his chest during the location tests. That was originally intended to feature the military psychic unit's emblem, but we decided to drop it and scrapped the idea. (laughs)

—So it's possible that the military psychic unit did have a standardized uniform or something similar?

Staff: Well, even if they did, those guys probably wouldn't wear it. Emilio's outfit definitely has a school uniform vibe to it, though. It might very well be the military psychic unit's uniform. But I just can't picture the rest of those guys wearing a uniform. It would look pretty ridiculous if they were all matching like that. (laughs)

—To wrap things up, let me ask the question that fans are likely dying to know the answer to most. Do you have any concepts or plans for a sequel?

Staff: Just like when we finished the first game, we haven't thought about it at all, and there are absolutely no plans. (laughs)

—Just like the fans, we will keep our expectations high and look forward to it. (laughs)

---

Hiroshi Osaka - Illustrator

Character designer and chief animation director for Mobile Fighter G Gundam, animation director for Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, among many other works.

—You normally work in animation. Was this your first time collaborating on a video game?

Osaka: I've been involved in anime movies that were adapted from TV series I worked on (such as Escaflowne) which later received game tie-ins, but this is the first time I've created illustrations meant to be used directly inside a game.

—So this was your first time handling character designs from scratch for a game?

Osaka: No, the characters themselves had already been designed by Taito. My role was to take those existing character concepts and render them using traditional animation illustration techniques.

—Is that kind of workflow common in the anime industry as well?

Osaka: Oh yes, it's very common for the person who creates the initial character design to be entirely different from the person doing the actual key animation. In the end, this project felt very similar to drawing promotional illustrations for an anime magazine.

—This game is the second entry in the Psychic Force series. The character illustrations for the first game were handled by Kenichi Ohnuki. Did you look at his work for reference?

Osaka: Yes. Before starting, I was given a reference book that included various screens of the actual gameplay, which I looked over.

—Were you conscious of trying to match his specific style?

Osaka: No, not really. It seemed to me that when Ohnuki drew them, he didn't overly restrict himself to Taito's exact base designs either—he clearly digested the characters and interpreted them in his own style. So I didn't worry too much about matching him. Plus, the foundational models for the characters changed quite a bit between the first game and this one. Because of that, I didn't worry at all about matching his style.

—Then you didn't focus too heavily on distinguishing between returning characters and the brand-new ones?

Osaka: On the contrary, I deliberately tried not to think about it.

—Your task was to take a subject whose visual look was almost entirely locked down and translate it into your own illustration style. What were some of the challenges you faced?

Osaka: I made a conscious effort not to destroy the core identity of the original art. The returning characters from the first game are incredibly popular, so I knew that if I ruined their established image, I would be letting down the fans. Balancing my own artistic tendencies with the expectations of the players was incredibly difficult.

—So it was a job that carried a certain amount of pressure in that regard.

Osaka: Yeah.

—How long was the total production period?

Osaka: I first heard about the Psychic Force 2012 project around the spring of 1997. So from start to finish, it spanned about a year.

—Did you get a look at the 3D character models before you began the actual drawing process?

Osaka: I was given a reference videotape showing sample footage, but that was about the extent of it.

—So the characters were already moving on the game screen before you even started rendering them?

Osaka: Yes. Because of that, I was able to use the footage as a helpful reference for things like the color palettes of the psychic effects.

—What did you think when you saw the game in motion for the first time?

Osaka: I don't really play video games myself, so I was genuinely amazed by how much technology had evolved without me noticing.

—Were there any specific elements you had to pay extra attention to when refining the artwork?

Osaka: Well, every character has a distinct personality. For instance, there are three main female characters: Patty, Wendy, and Regina. When drawing them, I had to infuse their expressions and poses with their distinct personalities, which was a real challenge.

—Were the production meetings with Taito pretty intense?

Osaka: Oh, without a doubt. While this project was active, I was working out of Osaka, but the staff would travel all the way down here just to hold meetings with me.

—Given the geographic distance, I imagine you couldn't just meet up constantly.

Osaka: Right, so we relied heavily on phone calls instead. Kamimura was incredibly patient and walked through everything with me. The team at Taito had an immense amount of passion and attachment to these characters. We went back and forth with those discussions countless times during the rough sketch phase, well before moving on to the final clean-up line art.

—The game is set in the year 2012, which represents a future world. The costumes and backgrounds clearly contain a specific vision of the future. How did you approach that aspect?

Osaka: Hmm, let's see… Where that futuristic setting really comes into play is in the opening cinematic sequences. The first thing I do is the overall composition, where you draw the characters framed against the background. I struggled quite a bit trying to figure out how to give those background environments a sense of tangible realism.

As a matter of fact, the person who handled the background art for this project is actually an old high school classmate of mine. Since he lives in Osaka and works as a background artist in the anime industry, I reached out to him. I was even able to visit his workspace in person, and that close connection is what allowed us to achieve that level of detail in the background art.

—It doesn't really have that stereotypical "retro-future 2000s" anime aesthetic, does it?

Osaka: Yeah, I approached it with the mindset that the future probably won't look all that radically different from our modern world.

—If you receive another offer to work on a video game in the future, would you want to participate again?

Osaka: I would, though it always depends on how it balances with my primary animation work. Games are a medium with so much potential, so it would be a lie to say I'm not interested.

—Is there anything specific you would like to try your hand at?

Osaka: If possible, I'd love to be involved right from the initial planning stages. Though to be fair, I feel the exact same way about my primary work in anime.

—So you genuinely don't play video games much in your personal life?

Osaka: I don't. We do have consoles at home, but I almost never touch them myself. My interaction with games is pretty much limited to watching my kids play them.

—Then you don't have strong feelings about games one way or the other?

Osaka: Well… a lot of console games nowadays are RPGs, right? I just can't do RPGs. (laughs) I always end up getting frustrated and giving up halfway through. If it's a simple arcade shooter, though, I'll occasionally head out to the game center with my kids and play.

—Hypothetically speaking, if you were to design a game from the ground up, an RPG would be the last thing you'd make?

Osaka: Definitely. Beyond that, probably because I am an animator by trade, I am far more fascinated by character motion. Things like how a completed 3D model moves, or how they handle the timing of an action. That's the kind of stuff I'd love to get involved with.

—The animation work you normally do is in a 2D medium. Since you just brought up 3D, does that mean you have an interest in working with three-dimensional space?

Osaka: Even in modern anime production, 3D elements are starting to see a lot of use. So it's a mix of needing to learn the technology and having a genuine curiosity about it. If given the opportunity, I'd absolutely love to try working with 3D.

—Do you see a lot of future potential in computer graphics as a tool for artistic expression?

Osaka: Yes. There are things you simply can't achieve by hand-drawing, and even for things you can, processing it via computer can be significantly faster. In terms of sheer efficiency and expanding the scope of visual expression, it's incredibly appealing.

—Is there an emotional difference for you between seeing audiences watch an anime you worked on for TV or theater versus seeing players actively interact with a game you contributed to?

Osaka: No, it feels exactly the same. When I'm working on an anime, I am always pouring my energy into thinking about how to make the audience enjoy it. My mindset for this game was completely identical. The media format might be different, but the intent on the creator's side remains exactly the same.

—To wrap things up, do you have a brief message for the fans of Psychic Force 2012?

Osaka: I hope everyone enjoys the game itself, of course, but I also hope you enjoy the illustrations I provided for it. As a creator, nothing makes me happier than that.

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