The latest game of the "Sakura Wars" series, "New Sakura Wars", will meet with players on December 12, and looking back at the "Sakura Wars" series, it is necessary to mention the soul of the character Prince Hiroi.
Prince Hiroi is versatile and successful in animation, games, and music, but in his bones, hirai considers himself closer to a bohemian culture than a producer of various entertainment products. Works such as "The Legend of the Demon God Hero", "The Magic Realm outside the sky" and "Sakura Wars" are inspired by his love of classical culture. All of this is inseparable from the environment in which he grew up from childhood to adulthood. Sakura Wars is a parody of the story of Hiroi himself and his family.
Prince Hiroi is 65 years old this year
<h3>Hard work</h3>
Prince Hiroi was born in 1954 in Xiangdao Town, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, Japan. His childhood was a time of relative scarcity in Japan, and under the leadership of the child King, Hiroi and his classmates collected scrap iron after school in exchange for pocket money to buy snacks. Each time he received his income, the child king had to take the big head alone and give the rest of the small head to other classmates, which made Hiroi feel unfair.
Hiroi gradually grew up and became the new child king, he evenly distributed pocket money, if the snacks bought were not enough to eat, and then let the friends take some from home, the same equal distribution, won everyone's trust. At that time, Japan did not have a variety of toys, and when he was tired of playing with spinning tops and fans, Hiroi made toys from wooden strips and other waste products. In order to make everyone happier, Hiroi thinks about the question of "what to play tomorrow" almost every day.
The lack of materials stimulated Hiroi's initial imagination and command, and as the king of the children, Hiroi unconsciously slowly accumulated some of the skills needed to become a professional producer in the process of playing after class.
Hiroi's family loves movies, and since childhood Hiroi has watched many films through television and cinema, mainly Toei's period dramas and Toho's monster films, the Japanese manga industry has produced many famous works in the 1950s, and Yokoyama's "Iron Man 28" has impressed Hiroi as a pioneer of robot manga.
Manga "Iron Man 28" that has been serialized since 1956
In high school, Hiroi officially took movies as his main hobby, watching more than 100 films a year, film magazines and newspapers at that time were not yet developed, information was limited, Hiroi sneaked to the door of the cinema for three days, through observing posters and advertisements to obtain the release information of the film, with his own experience to judge what movie is worth watching. Of course, Hiroi also has a time of judgment error, when encountering a failed film, Hiroi will also look at it roughly, as a negative teaching material.
At that time, Hiroi aspired to become a film director, and hired a second-hand 8mm camera for the part-time fee earned by installing home appliances. Because a box of photographic tape can only shoot for 3 minutes, and the price is expensive, Hiroi can only save it, and the connector required for editing the photographic tape is more expensive, and Hiroi can't think about it. Under limited conditions, Hiroi could only try to shoot with montage techniques, condensing the story into 3 minutes and winning by creativity. These rough but evocative short films have won the praise of their classmates, allowing Hiroi to once again understand the essence of "creative winning".
However, Japan's film industry was not prosperous, and Hiroi had no hope of directing films, and in 1976 he founded Red Company, which was responsible for selling various creative projects and trying out business opportunities in various fields, such as designing costume patterns or television advertising storyboards. Hiroi's first industry to make a name for itself was "food play", which is a small toy given away with snacks. The tabletop game "Nicholas Fortress", which was launched in the late 1980s, became his original masterpiece.
Cards and models of Nichros Fortress
The characters of Fort Nicholas can be described as a hodgepodge of East and West, including knights, samurai, cowboys, Vikings and other professions. Hiroi loves board games and is familiar with the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, so many classes in Nikeros Fortress refer to Dungeons & Dragons, where players need to manipulate models or cards by rolling dice, and oriental images such as samurai are derived from Hiroi's favorite Japanese Kabuki performances.
Those familiar with Hiroi's work are probably very familiar with the three-headed or even two-headed figures in The Fortress of Nikeros, a style that Hiroi claims to mimic the more successful play-eating stickers of the same period, the Holy Devil Wars, which is his preferred head-to-body ratio.
"Holy Devil Wars" is still launching a new product
Although he did not enter the film industry, after a small success in the toy industry, Hiroi got the opportunity to enter the field of TV animation. Many animation companies in Japan have close ties to toy companies, which want to use animation to promote products.
In 1988, the children's robot animation "The Legend of the Demon God Hero" was launched, which was Hiroi's first household name, which not only received praise in Japan, but also became a childhood memory for a generation of viewers when it was broadcast Chinese mainland. This work inherits many of the features of Fort Nichros, such as the game-like plot and the character design of the smorgasbord of East and West.
The Legend of the Demon God Hero was released in 2013 in a Blu-ray version, and a new game will be broadcast next year
<h3>First test CD</h3>
Legend of the Demon Heroes has since rapidly grown into a series, with a large number of anime, manga, novels, and games. However, at the beginning of the project, the toy manufacturer was not optimistic about this plan, and the bottomless Prince Hiroi decided to continue to expand the business. At this time, Japanese IT giant NEC had just launched a new console PC-E and co-opted HUDSON, which had been an important third party to Nintendo, hoping that the latter would provide game support and compete with Nintendo and Sega's consoles.
In 1988, PC-E introduced the CD-ROM optical drive peripheral, becoming the first host to use a cd-ROM as a carrier. The capacity of CD discs is hundreds of times more than that of cassettes, but the price of optical drive peripherals is also as high as 57,300 yen, plus the main unit body, a total of 82,100 yen. HUDSON needs to provide software support as a large optical drive peripheral, otherwise sales are worrying. To this end, HUDSON approached Prince Hiroi, hoping that the latter would develop a work that would take advantage of the advantages of the optical disc carrier.
PC-E main engine plus optical drive peripherals are expensive
Hiroi himself is also a passionate gamer, he previously bought a Fujitsu FM-7 computer for Nobunaga's Nobunaga, and later bought a NEC PC-98 computer for Nobunaga's Nobunaga: National Edition, and as for the Nintendo FC console that swept all over Japan, Hiroi naturally had one.
However, Hiroi didn't know much about game development techniques and even asked HUDSON programmers, "What does '8 bits' in '8-bit machines' mean?" The programmer replied, "Mr. Hiroi, you don't need to think about these questions, it's our job, you just have to design the game's characters and story." ”
Hiroi eventually came up with a new RPG titled "Outer Heaven Demon Realm", which was conceived from an abandoned live-action film script, and the story was based on the Edo period novels "Shōya Talk" and "Erlei Ya Haojie Tan", featuring three ninjas, Shiraiya, Tsunade and Ōsnake Maru, and was full of Kabuki-style Japanese atmosphere.
From left to right are Tsunade, Shiraiya and Great Snake Maru
In terms of division of labor, Hiroi's Red Studio is responsible for character setting and plot, and HUDSON is responsible for the actual game content such as programs and pixel maps. In order to make full use of the disc capacity, the game was crammed with a large amount of audio, and the voice cast included first-line voice actors such as Kanehito Shiozawa and Wanzhang Galaxy, and the soundtrack was given to the Oscar-winning music giant Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Prince Hiroi believes that the price of optical drive peripherals is expensive, only by making customers feel that they have value for money can promote sales, and the combination of fame and musicians can generate certain topics in magazines, HUDSON also agreed to these cooperation plans, and the cost of the game exceeded the 1 billion yen mark, setting a record in that year.
The original "Outer Heavens" sold 200,000 on PC-E, when the PC-E console sold less than 1 million, and the customers with optical drives were even fewer, such sales have satisfied HUDSON, but as far as the results are concerned, the popularity of "Outer Heavens" in Japan was lost to the later "Sakura Wars", in addition to the expensive hardware platform, other factors also caused this result.
The capacity of CD discs was more than enough at that time, but the PC-E host itself was still limited by the number of colors, memory capacity, disc reading speed, etc., and could not fully realize the potential of CD discs. The system of "Outer Heaven Demon Realm" has a certain innovation, but it does not make an eye-catching breakthrough.
The battle screen of "Outer Heaven Demon Realm" is limited by its function
Yoshiaki Tsujino, the painter in charge of the "Outer Heavens Demon Land" was well-known at the time, undertaking Disney outsourcing tasks and serving as the original artist in the theatrical version of the anime "Lupin III: The Conspiracy of the Wind Demon Clan". His basic skills are solid, but his style is relatively simple and difficult to attract attention.
Prince Hiroi's favorite Edo Kabuki culture also helped out during the promotion of the game, and the overly quaint worldview was not suitable for the tastes of young players. Now that the names of Uzumaki, Tsunade, and Ōsnake Maru are mentioned, 80% of the readers think of the more modern Naruto, rather than the old "Outer Heaven Demon Realm".
HUDSON has since serialized "Outer Heavenly Magic Realm" and followed the habit of hiring excellent musicians, with the soundtrack of the orthodox sequel "Outer Heavenly Magic Realm 2" being made by animation director Hayao Miyazaki's right-hand man Hisaishi, and the soundtrack of the game "Kabuki Kabuki" to Tanaka Ken.
The protagonist of "The Legend of Kabuki" is the flamboyant Kabuki actor Shiro
In terms of popularity, Tanaka was slightly inferior to the thunderous Ryuichi Sakamoto or Hisaishi, but he was not a hurried visitor to Prince Hiroi's career, and the two soon became friends with Mo Rebellion, and their cooperation continues to this day.
In the gap between the completion of the first TV anime of "The Legend of the Demon God Hero" and the second part has not yet been released, Prince Hiroi came up with a similar style of "Demon King" (Chinese mainland translated as "Light Messenger") as a transition. The soundtrack made by Tanaka For "The Demon King" attracted the attention of Prince Hiroi, but the two had not yet met.
The similarity in style between "The Demon King" and "The Legend of the Demon God Hero" can be seen at a glance
After that, Tanaka once again scored the OVA animation "Self-Transformation" of "Outer Heaven", and the two finally had the opportunity to communicate in person, and they hated each other late. Since then, the cooperation method of Tanaka composing music and Hiroi lyrics has become a template for the two to work together in the future, and the later game "Kabuki Kabuki" also entrusted the soundtrack to Tanaka.
<h3>Sow cherry trees</h3>
After meeting Tanaka, Prince Hiroi eagerly asked him for music knowledge, and a wish that had been buried in his heart for a long time became stronger and stronger.
SKD Opera Company is one of the three major girl opera troupes in Japan, Hiroi has an aunt who works as a clerk at the Tokyo International Theater and became a close friend of SKD actor Mizumi Mika, thanks to this relationship, as a child, Hiroi has watched SKD's performance many times, and he dreams of one day, he can also create such a gorgeous stage.
SKD Opera Company actor Mikami Mika
In 1993, Prince Hiroi confided his long-cherished wish for the first time, and he told Tanaka Fair: "I want to make a musical, but it takes a lot of money to create music and rent venues, and this dream is difficult to realize." Tanaka replied: "In that case, it is enough to develop a game with the theme of musical theater, and as long as the game is successful, the musical will become." This suggestion inspired Hiroi Daigo, and the two have since discussed the direction of the musical.
In retrospect, Hiroi believed that Tanaka was not only a genius musician, but also his great benefactor, and even Hiroi himself felt that this dream was very willful, and Tanaka not only did not oppose, but also fully supported. If it hadn't been for a genius like Tanaka, Sakura Wars would never have come true, and even if Hiroi himself had come up with such an idea, he would have been forced to give up halfway through.
On the other hand, at Hiroi's Red Studio, several young people who love table games are also conceiving a new project called Sakura, including director Shunichi Iai, who later contributed a lot to the development of Sakura Wars.
The "Sakura" project already has many key elements of "Sakura Wars": the Taisho era, steam mechs, wargame gameplay, street battles with Tokyo as the stage... However, Sakura was originally conceived not as a video game, but as a table game.
Sakura in the form of a tabletop game
The studio later considered the genre of the game, and if it became a video game, it could be made into an SLG like Grand Strategy to command a large army. But Red is a studio that mainly operates virtual characters, and the new game needs to highlight the characters, and after discussion, the game type has become an SRPG similar to Fire Emblem, downsizing the size of the troops.
As for the performance style that imitates TV animation, such as the opening song and the preview of the next episode, it is also included in the project. The biggest difference between the scheme and the finished product at this time is the complete opposite of the role arrangement, and the protagonist of this stage is a woman, surrounded by a bunch of men.
In the spring of 1994, Prince Hiroi came to a crossroads of fate. The 32-bit console war will start at the end of the year, the Sony PS and Sega Saturn are both threatening, and the new console PC-FX of neC is very unlucky. The console focused on playing videos, lacked 3D capabilities, and had no chance of winning. However, for the sake of years of friendship, Hiroi does not intend to completely break away from the NEC camp, and continues to help HUDSON develop a new game of "Outer Heaven" for PC-FX.
At this time, the PC-E console that is about to retire has ushered in a topical work: KONAMI's love game "Heartbeat Memory". Hiroi loves Heartbeat Memories, believing that it "reminds players of their youth." He proposes to HUDSON to develop a similar work, and the reply is that "this beautiful girl game is not OK", and hiroi is depressed when he refuses.
"Heartbeat Memories" made Hiroi have a sense of competition
Subsequently, a phone call completely changed the future of Prince Hiroi. Sega Vice President Shōichiro contacted Prince Hiroi, hoping that he would join saturn. Hiroi was distraught and undecided, so he replied to the exchange, saying that he was going to Saipan in the Pacific Ocean for half a month of vacation next week, but he did not expect to choose to go with him. Faced with this enthusiasm comparable to that of Sangu Maolu, Hiroi could not refuse, and eventually the two flew to Saipan together.
On the island, Izumi made a playful request to Hiroi: he did not limit Hiroi to develop a certain type of game, but wanted him to create a character that could be passed on for posterity. Sonic the Blue Hedgehog has long since become Sega's mascot, but this image is biased towards The European and American styles, and Japanese players need a more intimate character.
Saipan holidays, prince Hiroi on the left, Andi Shoichiro on the right
Hiroi was also inspired at this time, he pointed to the distant beach, and said: "Mr. Inomi, please imagine such a scene, a group of girls in battle suits standing neatly on the beach, suddenly 'snapping' to salute you, in the distance is a robot attacking from the mothership, how about such a scene?" ”
It can be said that the basic concept of the game has been formed in Hiroi's mind at this time.
After returning to Japan from Saipan, Hiroi re-examined the wargame plan of several young subordinates, and he decided to integrate this plan with his own ideas to make a new work with both the love elements of Heartbeat Memories and the wargame elements of Fire Emblem, and "Sakura Wars" was born and quickly approved by the exchange.
<h3>No Pole Tai Lai</h3>
The general direction of Sakura Wars has been finalized, but there is a big difference between the early setting and the details of the finished product. For example, the early male protagonist was named "Shimanuma Kusanagi", the female number one was named "Saijo Sakura", and the female number two was named "Masugiya-ji"... Like these names that feel familiar and unfamiliar to the player, the script for each level has been repeatedly revised.
Yoshiaki Tsujino's setting map for "Shikanuma Grass Ten" and "Saijo Sakura"
In terms of screenwriting, Goku Akai rose rapidly with TV animations such as "Sky Wars" and "Space Rider Blade" and was selected by Prince Hiroi. Akabori didn't know how to write the game script, and Hiroi said that Sakura Wars was an anime-style game, and the script was done according to the rhythm of the anime.
Hiroi believes that the plot of this game is a "semi-autobiographical family history", and much of it is inspired by the real experience of Hiroi himself and his family: Maria is based on his sister in college, Li Honglan has the same surname as his cousin, and Asakusa Park, which Alice plays on her birthday, is the place he often visited when he was a child... Hiroi incorporates his true feelings into the game, and the rest of the details are left to Akahori Goku to supplement.
The original case was handled by the famous manga artist Yasusuke Fujishima. At that time, Fujishima was still serializing the manga "My Goddess", and there was not much spare time, but Hiroi insisted on cooperating with him, and fujishima took over the job. Hiroi left a bullet point for each of the main characters and hoped that Fujishima would at least complete the setting of the female number one within 1994.
The comic "My Goddess" had been successfully serialized for 5 years at that time
Before Kosuke Fujishima was completed, Prince Hiroi approached Yoshiaki Tsujino, who had been in charge of the "Outer Heavens" series, and drew a batch of emergency tentative drafts. Hiroi knew that Tsujino's character was not as appealing as Fujishima, but as a temporary solution, that was the only way to do it.
The mechanical setting work went well, and the protagonist's car, Mitsutake, quickly completed the setting draft and 3D model, following the two-headed body shape that Hiroi had tended to, with details referring to the old steam train and diving suit. Strictly speaking, Guangwu does not have a real head, only a camera, not so much a robot, but rather an armor with a camera installed on the front chest, so the official definition defines it as "Lingzi armor".
CG model of Guangwu
At this time, the development of the game was in a dilemma, the script was repeatedly revised, and there was no news from Kosuke Fujishima's character Tuliao, and the program and the artists could not continue to advance, only Mitsutake made a completed draft. Prince Hiroi, who had lost his confidence, gave a picture of Mitsutake to Koichi Hamamura, the editor-in-chief of FAMITsu, and was the first person to see Mitsutake outside of Red Studio. Hamamura was responsible for promoting Sakura Wars in magazines, and if he wasn't interested, Hiroi considered canceling the game, but Hamamura gave it a good review, and Hiroi reluctantly persevered.
By the end of 1994, After half a year of accounting for Kosuke Fujishima's personnel work, there was still no news, and Prince Hiroi had to go to Sega for a meeting with a temporary personnel set up and a simple schematic map, which caused booing. Red Studios is not a subsidiary of Sega, and although Shoichiro has full confidence in Prince Hiroi, other Sega executives feel that Hiroi is an untrustworthy outsider, and if there is no substantial progress in the development of Sakura Wars, Sega will consider canceling the project after New Year's Day 1995.
A rudimentary schematic
With a glimmer of hope, Prince Hiroi did not change the original case, but persisted until the end. In the early hours of December 31, 1994, several employees of the Red Studio stayed up all night, waiting in front of the fax machine, waiting for fate to decide. The miracle finally appeared, at 2:00 a.m., Kosuke Fujishima faxed the setting map of the female no. 1 Zhengongji Sakura, and Prince Hiroi cried with joy on the spot, and the studio was shaken. Hiroi has since taken the setting drawings to Sega's headquarters for circulation, winning unanimous praise, and previous doubts about the project have dissipated.
Wait until the setting of the last day of 1994
Fujishima said that the delay for such a long time is because hirai's request is quite difficult, not only do not dress strangely, but also let people recognize at a glance that this is a female number one with a heroic temperament, so he conceived for a long time to take the image of Masanomiya Sakura, and everything behind it will be much smoother.
Fujishima then spent two months, completing the setting charts of the other characters at an average rate of one sheet a week. During these two months, Fujishima often sent a fax in the form of a set chart in the middle of the night, and the last subway passed near the Red studio at 11:30 p.m. every night, and employees may encounter situations where they could not take the subway home in order to wait for faxes. Even so, there are still employees who voluntarily stay and wait for the setting map to appear, which is not simply work, but waiting for exciting moments that witness history.
(To be continued)