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deSPIRIA's staff interview

Interview given by the creators of deSPIRIA, published by the Dreamcast magazine in 2000-06-09. The interview is located at pages 44 and 45 in this pdf.

Many thanks for the person who archived this issue! You can see other deSPIRIA articles in here, but this is the only entry that has an interview, the other JPN ones are game guides.

Translation done by rio 🧬🦠🧬

Title in page 42: STAFF INTERVIEW　The up-and-coming

Text on the first photo: How was 「deSPIRIA」 unique system and setting made? We will now chat with the staff of Dennou Eizou Seisakusho and a producer from Atlus to better understand the development of this piece of work.

Text under the second photo: Dennou Eizou Seisakusho, a company based in Osaka, situated right next to Higashiyodogawa. It has approximately 20 staff members, the game 「deSPIRIA」 has been developed in a garage modded into a production room. The scenery in this room is very different when compared to most game companies.

Profiles:

行澤星人　・　Seito YUKUZAWA

Dennou Eizou Seisakusho (limited). Managing director

President and CEO of Dennou Eizou Seisakusho and deSpiria's art director. His most prevalent work is the PS game 「Dark messiah」 [Hellnight] (published by Atlus).

[Please get lost in the peculiar setting os this game]

藤本裕　・　Yutaka FUJIMOTO

Dennou Eizou Seisakusho (limited). Planner

DeSPIRIA's director. He was responsible for the script, setting and such. His body of work includes RPG computer games and 「Dark messiah」 [Hellnight].

[Please have fun in this peculiar cybernetic world]

上田清隆　・　Kiyotaka UEDA

Dennou Eizou Seisakusho (limited). Planner

DeSPIRIA's director. He has been involved in works such as 「Last bible」and 「ぐるぐるガラクターズ」(published by Atlus).

[Please pay attention to this dark script]

田中裕之　・　Hiroyuki TANAKA

Atlus (incorporated). Producer

DeSPIRIA's producer. His body of works include 「Princess crown」 and 「Growlanser」.

[Please get absolutely hooked on this game's world]

- I want to know how did Dennou Eizou Seisakusho and Atlus get involved with each other.

Tanaka We have been associated with them since the release of the PS title 「Dark messiah」. Yukuzawa went to study CG in america, we started talking to each other about how I knew that there are people like this out there but how I had never met any one them. We talked a lot and as a result I got interested in this company Dennou Eizou Seisakusho that Yukuzawa and company created and asked them to proceed with the development of 「Dark messiah」.

- What is the reason for the company to be established in Osaka?

Yukuzawa Three years ago when we made 「Dark messiah」 and whatever location was fine for us really, but I was born and raised in Osaka and by pure coincidence the garage of a company building happened to be vacant. We didn't have any money we could borrow for the company, "so let's set it here" and that was it.

-What occasion caused the creation of deSPIRIA?

Yuzuzawa When we finished working on 「Dark messiah」 and we started talking about what we should make next, and made 「Dark messiah」 is also like this but, our scenario planner Fujimoto said he wanted to create a setting with an even stronger appeal and that is what kickstarted this project.

Ueda And then while thinking about the components in this dark world, we were shaping to this idea of making it a traditional RPG but then we thought "what if we make a system where we are able to read the opponent's true feeling without speaking to them" and then we fleshed it out.

Fujimoto 「Dark messiah」 is a horror adventure game set in Tokyo, but this time we wanted to produce a chaotic city based in Osaka, Hong Kong and such other places. But at that time we didn't plan for it to be a dark work. But then we incorporated the idea that Ueda mentioned and it resulted in a darkly cool Osakan setting that you can see in its visuals, script and such.

-Is there any building that was used as reference?

Ueda While talking with Fujimoto about creating a fictitious city based in Osaka, we talked about things like Naniwa and joked around about a tsūtenkaku robot, takoyaki missiles and making a game with an image like that, but we wanted to try creating a more serious game. We wanted to make a motif with a significance similar to the image of 「Black rain」 but not overly so. This is Fujimoto's own unique setting.

-What does this reinstated Osaka look like?

Yukuzawa Setting wise rather than a parallel world, it is like a possible future. It has the feel of a place that has the remains of the once destroyed city, but also has things that are completely different. It has areas that feel incredibly realistic with a setting that is completely different. It has many things that will make a resident of Osaka go "Ah, it is that thing".

-What is the theme of this piece of work?

Fujimoto The theme is "dread". This expression also means fear, but it is a type of fear that originates from internalized feelings, like desolation. Many other horror games have things like monsters and other things that are scary to look at, but we wanted to express through the dialogue a type of internalized fear that stems from the ambience and such.

-To express such a theme, the team also had to represent things that are taboo in the game industry though

Tanaka We worked on the game while being conscious of those restrictions, but once the game was finished, we looked back and saw that at some point it became a half-assed effort. It was something we wanted to avoid the most, but while trying to create this new setting while imposing those restrictions, that world ended up disintegrating mid-air. So we decided to adopt a creation style where we create whatever we wanted to create and fix any portions that were troublesome later.

Title in page 43: The staff's goal is...?

-How did the MIND system come to be?

Fujimoto As we mentioned before, the general idea stemmed from being able to read people's minds. To create a game in the RPG genre means you can't leave battles out, right. The MIND system was created by applying our concept into the battle format. That system has 3 functions: listening, absorbing and peeping into people's minds. The materialized shape of these beings is similar to that of a monster. Since they aren't proper living beings nor monsters, they were shaped in such a way that their function can be easily understood. Since there is no way for them to actually have a body we actually didn't want them to be shown.

-So MIND battles became a sort of combat that happens in the mind, is that right?

Fujimoto Yes. But, it is not a fight that happens completely inside the mind, or the subspace so to speak. It is simply the protagonist's point of view which changes. There are enemies who aren't MIND users after all.

-Was there anything referenced for the creation of MINDs?

Yukuzawa We didn't reference anything in particular. The designers came with a bunch of ideas and then we decided amongst those ideas. Rather than looking like a monster, an animal or anything of the sorts, we wanted something with the impression of something that lives inside a human, so we set on this depiction of a parasitic insectoid.

-How many MINDs are in the game?

Ueda We have planned more than 60 of them.

-Are the battles planned encounters or random encounters?

Ueda There are both event battles and encounter battles.

-Is there a set amount for the number of MINDs the protagonist is able to release?

Ueda In the battle field it is 2, 3 if you include her. But there is an outer layer of consciousness where she can hold the 2 MIND previously mentioned plus 4 others, making it 6 in total. There is also a deeper level of consciousness, if you go to a special facility you can access those MINDs in the deeper recesses of the mind and interchange their places.

-How did the explorational spheric system come to be?

Yukuzawa There was a feature in QuickTime movie where you could see a static image with a 360 degree view, right. I think it came around 7 or 8 years ago, but it gives the images such an incredibly realistic feel to them and since it is basically a flat image it can look incredibly pretty even without any rendering. Thanks to it we were able to display the environments seamlessly.

-The idea for the messages in the mind diving sequences to be displayed in movement is really innovative.

Ueda From the start we wanted it to be a type of expression method that was done through a message rather than something graphic. We reached the feel of it by wanting to show a message in a representational manner, so the emotions can be felt around through how they are displayed. Actually, it would have been fine to present the information all at once using something graphic, but we set out from the place of wanting to show that by seeing how the words are displayed in the other party's consciousness the feeling they are experiencing can be understood. By the way they move I believe it is possible to form an image of how they are feeling.

-How many patterns are of this display?

Ueda It changes according to the other party's condition, circumstances and such. If it is a peaceful moment, if it is a violent moment. Since there are also cases in which the main point is hidden in between the text, in such times the sentence stops and forms in a way in which it can be readen. There is no standardization at all. The movement of the messages are manually created.

-What are the circumstances surrounding the conception of Allure, the protagonist?

Fujimoto It started with this image of her being raised by the sisters in the church. In the process of incorporation of the MIND user setting, she became this character who was born without a heart, who was raised in the sterile environment of the church, she kills those who interfere with the church, heretic leaders and such. She doesn't speak to other people and is solely focused on her duty. She herself does so without questioning the morality of it and behaves only according to the success or failure of her mission.

Since she is this emotionless human being who gradually acquires these emotions through the choices she makes, one of the reasons why we chose a girl protagonist was so this change could be easily understood.

-What is the origin of this work's title?

Fujimoto It is a made up word, but in this game's world 「SPIRIA」 while mainly referred to as a memory solution, it is also the name of the process of the materialization of a human's memory, so we wanted to name the game by expanding upon this word. We thought that 「SPIRIA」 by itself felt weak, so we added 「デス」 [read as desu, but it also reads as death] so it would have more of an impact.

-Lastly, please pitch this work to us.

Ueda I want the players to see this profound setting, with a world that is a little off. It is a bit text heavy, so please take your time and play it without haste.

Yukuzawa I want the players who play this game to get lost in this peculiar world that cannot be found in any other game. I want them to have a first hand experience of wandering in this world through the eyes of the protagonist.

Ueda I want people to play through the dark scenario in the game while deliberately reflecting upon its contents. I also think that the cyberpunk setting is another point of interest.

Fujimoto I think that an unprecedented setting has been made. I want people to enjoy this peculiar cybernetic world.

-Thank you very much

#deSPIRIA #translation

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