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TGS 2004: The Darkstalkers Chronicles Interview
During the Tokyo Game Show Billy got a chance to meet with Minae Matsukawa, Capcom's Producer for Darkstalkers Chronicles for the PSP. Not only did we dig up some sweet dirt on the only playable PSP fighting game, but some interesting things on the PSP itself.
Game Informer: How long did you have to put together the demo you’re showing off on the show floor for Darkstalkers Chronicles?
Minae Matsukawa: One week.
GI: That’s it?
Matsukawa: Well basically it’s a port of a Dreamcast game, so in order to make the minor adjustments for the game to fit into the PSP specs, it wasn’t that difficult. Let me clarify, when I say one week, I’m referring to the demo that’s being shown off here at TGS on the show floor, not the entire game. To get everything in, from start to finish, will be more along the lines of four months.
GI: How do you like working with the development tools for the PSP?
Matsukawa: Basically anyone that’s worked with a PS2 before will find that working with the PSP isn’t that much different. It’s not that the tools are exactly the same, but if you already have the experience from working with the PS2, you’re not going to have much trouble.
GI: What’s your team size for this game?
Matsukawa: 10 people, and that’s a lot.
GI: So you’d say that number is a lot for a PSP title?
Matsukawa: With this game, Darkstalkers Chronicles, it’s very different from other games. 10 people will be a lot for some games and not enough for other games. It depends on whether you’re going to be doing all the motion modeling, animation, 3D motion capturing, and all that stuff. If you’re going to do a 2D fighting game you just need pixel drawing and things like that. So your team could comparatively be smaller. That being said this game was already developed on another platform so the team that’s working on it is the team that’s worked on older versions before, so they’re just using all that information that they’ve had in their brains all this time and then just sticking it into the PSP framework.
GI: Will the game be a straight port?
Matsukawa: The game is actually half a port and half not. The part that is being ported is from an old Dreamcast game that you could only buy online in Japan. Even though it’s a port, it’s not something that Americans have ever had the chance to play. Basically it includes all five installments of the game that were ever released in Japan, because there were only three released in the US. In addition to that we’re touched up some areas and added some other modes which make the game have some more content. That’s what I mean by saying that the game isn’t strictly a port.
GI: How many secret characters are you planning on having in the game?
Matsukawa: I can’t really tell you an exact number but I can say that every single hidden character that’s ever appeared in a Darkstalkers game will appear in this game. So basically this Dreamcast game, this chronicle, was kind of a collection of everything Darkstalkers. We’re basing this PSP version off of that game so it will have every single character in it as well.
GI: Do you have to modify anything to make the game run on the16:9 display of the PSP?
Mastuskawa: This game was originally designed for the arcade board the CP2. That board itself was very close to the 16:9 ratio so every time we’ve taken the game and put it on the Saturn or the Dreamcast specs on a normal TV we’ve always had to modify it for that ratio. So now, for the first time, you’re going to be able to see it in its real size, the way it should be. For those players that don’t like it, they can scrunch the image onto the screen to fit a 4:3 display.
GI: Since the Dreamcast controller button layout is very similar to the PSP, did you end up changing button commands or layouts?
Matsukawa: There are basically two button configurations that we’re planning. One will be a regular six button layout and in addition to that we’ll have a special PSP only configuration that will allow you to utilize all six buttons in the space of four. This will free up two extra buttons for special features.
GI: Will these “special features” be something for combos or supers?
Matsukawa: I can’t comment on that.
GI: Capcom, in the US, is mainly known for the Street Fighter games. What do you think makes Darkstalkers Chronicles unique compared to that franchise?
Matsukawa: If I were to state my personal opinion on the matter, I’d have to say that the staff that make Street Fighter also works on Darkstalkers. They’ve taken their experience in creating a fairly realistic world that’s based on the actual world with real locations and taken this expertise and created an completely original fantasy world. If I were to say what represented Darkstalkers the most is this fact; that it’s based more on fantasy whereas Street Fighter is more focused on reality.
GI: How does it feel to be working on probably the only fighting title for the PSP launch?
Matsukawa: It’s always interesting to be making the only game in a genre in a situation like this but here we have this new piece of hardware that has so much potential and just the challenge to us, in a limited amount of time, is to try and utilize that hardware and come up with something that shows off the power of that hardware, that’s the big challenge. But I think that you can tell by the way it looks that we’ve managed to pull that off to a fairly good degree.
GI: Do you think it will be ready by the time the PSP launches in Japan as well as in the United States?
Matsukawa: The only thing that I can say on the subject is that in both territories we’re going to release the game near launch. The only reason I say near is that we still have to wait for Sony to come up with an official date to release the PSP. Once they do, then we’ll come up with an official date, too, for the game.
GI: Would you like to have the game ready for launch?
Matsukawa: Yeah, I’d really like to be able to do that.
GI: What do you consider the biggest challenge in working with this new hardware?
Matsukawa: It’s probably going to be the wireless LAN feature that we’re going to integrate into the game. So far the developers we have haven’t worked with wireless LAN in the past, so they don’t have the know-how or experience so they don’t really know yet on how to best utilize the feature. So these next few years are going to be a learning process for both the DS and the PSP and we’re going to have to try to teach our programmers the best way to utilize that and work with the tools so they can get better and better with them. It’s always tough in the beginning when you’re working with a new feature that you’ve never worked with before.
GI: Will you be able to play people via the Internet as well, in addition to wireless LAN?
Matsukawa: You’ll be able to play against people in the same area.
GI: What are you most excited about this new hardware?
Matsukawa: It’s gotta be the screen. It’s wide and it’s beautiful and I’ve never seen anything like this before. That’s what I’ probably most excited for, creating some new and pretty widescreen games. People don’t seem to realize just how big the screen is. What that means that the distance you can see on the screen is so much larger. If you were going to play Viewtiful Joe you’d be able to see things really far ahead of you that you couldn’t usually see before. Every time you jump now, that distance you do jump is going to have to be adjusted because the screen is so much longer now and you have to make the jump larger. This also comes into play if you’re going to do two-player split screen games, since they’re going to fit far more easily into this widescreen layout than they did on a smaller 4:3 screen.
GI: Would you ever like to make a Darkstalkers Chronicles versus title, like they’ve done with games like Marvel Vs. Capcom?
Matsukawa: Another producer here at Capcom is making a title called Capcom Fighting Evolution and that title is going to feature Darkstalkers characters in it. So you’re already going to get a similar game like that but I’m going to wait, as a producer myself, and see how well that sells. If that game does well maybe we’ll think of making one ourselves. But all I can say is that game is fun all by itself, as well.
GI: Are you concerned about the battery life of the PSP?
Matsukawa: Not really because when you think about it the lifestyles that most people are living these days, they use games to fill the free time that they have. Free time meaning the time that they’re not working, not sleeping, not going to school. So the amount of time you have to play during the day really isn’t longer than those batteries are going to be able to last. Another thing is that you’re going to be playing the game portable, meaning time away from a place with electricity, I think that the amount of battery life should be plenty to keep you entertained. I think that it’s actually just the right amount of battery life and it fits the amount of time in people’s lifestyles, especially Japanese because we’ll just get on the train and play it for 30 or 40 minutes.
GI: But that idea would be very different for Americans.
Matsukawa: Yeah, you’re right. I guess in American it would be different since it’s a much wider space. If that’s the case, I’m sure Sony is working hard to make sure that the Americans are satisfied with the PSP’s battery life.
GI: What are your thoughts on the Nintendo DS and would you ever like to make a game for it?
Matsukawa: Of course I’d like to work with that hardware as well, it seems very interesting. One thing that people have to do, though, is figure out which target that they’re aiming for rather than just recklessly putting out a game on the market. I don’t think that the DS means that only kids are going to buy it; I think that adults will buy it as well. I think the same way about the PSP; both adults and kids will buy it as well.