Nintendo Power 215 - Diamond and Pearl Interview
All emphasis and commentary is mine.
NP: Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl have the chance to introduce a big wave of new gamers to the Pokémon world. Have you made adjustments to your design approach with that in mind?
Junichi Masuda: I definitely thought about how this game could bring in new people to the Pokémon world. The part that we really thought about thoroughly was to make sure that the people who are watching others play the game would want to join in and play the game themselves. For example, the touch-screen interface during battles—that was designed so that people would be lured in, or be attracted to the game, by watching players who were controlling the game with their hands and stylus. We wanted to make it something that people sitting next to the player would become curious about, so they would ask that player if they could try it out. We wanted this title to be something like when you open a toy box and turn it upside down, all these things would pour out of it where people would pick out what they like from the pile, saying “this looks fun!” So in that way, there’s a whole lot of fun inside Diamond and Pearl.
NP: Do you consider Diamond and Pearl to be more or less difficult than previous games? How come?
Masuda: When we made FireRed and LeafGreen, we intentionally made the game so that it’s easier to play. But from that experience, I learned that if you make the game too easy, you need to explain a lot more about the game, making the game experience feel more complicated. So this time, we made it so that it would be easier for those people who are having a hard time figuring the game out and need a little help. As a result, I think Diamond and Pearl ended up being easier than Ruby and Sapphire, but is a little more difficult than FireRed and LeafGreen. Diamond and Pearl ended up being easier in the first half, making it easier for the players to get into gameplay, and it gets harder toward the later half of the game.
NP: Can you hint at some of the plot surprises players can expect in Diamond and Pearl?
Shigeru Ohmori: Aside from the main storyline, there are many elements in the game where the players can choose the way they want to play. You can go underground, compete in contests, and go to the Global Trade Station, where you can exchange your Pokémon using Wi-Fi Connection. From the main story to all the features that surround it, the players can play any way they want. (NOTE: Ohmori COMPLETELY dodges the plot element!!)
Masuda: Like Ohmori just said, there are so many elements that are outside the storyline, like the TV station, for example.
Ohmori: In the beginning of the game, you are even able to go right to the underground passages. I think the players will be surprised when they realize how the underground is similar to the surface, in the way that it has such a huge map, and how it connects to the rest of the world.
Masuda: Right; you do get surprised when you first go underground. Something else is that in this game’s story, characters that appear in the beginning will continue to appear throughout the game. It may be fun to keep track of the people as you play, wondering who these people are. (Note: Not sure what he's talking about?)
NP: What new features of Diamond and Pearl have you been most pleased with?
Ken Sugimori: For me, I think it’s the Global Trade Station [GTS]. It makes you feel you suddenly have a lot more friends. I like how you can exchange Pokémon with people who you’ve never met before. I’m excited that players in Japan and America will get to connect to GTS to exchange in more ways than ever before.
Ohmori: I like things like the Pokétch, but for me I think my favorite would be the underground passages. It is the part that I was responsible for, but I put in features where you would be able to meet all kinds of people to play with, so I would definitely like people to gather around to play. I think the fun part of it is watching the number of people gradually increasing.
Masuda: I think so, too. The underground is always connected using the DS wireless connection, so it would be great if people could just gather around to play. I would like the American players, who live in a much bigger country, to find their own way to play, in a different way from the Japanese players.
Ohmori: Right. It’s great playing with friends over Wi-Fi, but I would also like everyone to just gather around and have fun! There are a lot of features to it that are different from everything else in the game, so I think the players will enjoy the experience.
Takao Unno: What am I most pleased with? Everything! (Laughs.) About the new features, to be honest, I first felt uncomfortable pressing the touch-screen buttons with my thumb, in the early stages of development, I was worried about how far it felt from the normal buttons, and how the screen gets dirty. But as the development moved on, the design and the UI change relieved those worries, and when it was finally finished, using the thumb actually felt more comfortable than standard buttons. I was really impressed with that.
Masuda: Well, just because Unno said good things about it, for me it’ll be the bottom touch screen! (Laughs.) Regarding the touch-screen controls, I was telling everybody that I wanted the game to be controlled with your hands, and it was something that I was talking everybody into along the development process. Because, for me, I thought it would be best for the game to have this feature. The good thing about the touch screen is that’s it’s an interface where people looking at it from the side can jump in on the action. We wanted to make an interface where the parent can peek in on their child who’s playing, and the parent would want to try it out, saying something like, “What is that? Can I give it a try?” It’s something that is definitely different from using the A Button, so I think we made a good decision about the touch screen. (NOTE: Interesting that as in the other interview, Masuda wanted to attract parents to play D/P.)
NP: The GTS feature allows players to exchange their Pokémon with players across the globe. How do you think it will spread?
Masuda: Diamond and Pearl were designed to be the ultimate Pokémon titles of the series. In Diamond and Pearl, the GTS is there as the ultimate form of the Pokémon exchange feature.
Ohmori: The good thing about GTS is how you can interact with people all over the world.
Masuda: Right. With the GTS, players can communicate with people across the globe, trading their Pokémon with other Pokémon fans anywhere in the world. The game was designed so that anyone, anywhere in the world, could feel connected to Pokémon fans across the globe, so that they could feel like they have friends in multiple countries. And as you exchange your Pokémon, the location of the person you traded with will appear as dots on a globe. I would like the players to have fun filling their globes with dots in the country they live in, and also in countries around the world.
Ohmori: Like going through the 50 states [of the US]. It might be fun for the players to set their own goal. Like trading Pokémon with people around the world exchanging the same Pokémon with different people in different countries. I would like the players to exchange a lot!
NP: With 3-D landscapes and new attack visuals, the graphics have experienced their first major upgrade in a long time. How much extra work went into developing these new aspects?
Sugimori: It took a lot of time—should I say that I thought all our hair was going to turn gray?! (Laughs.)
Masuda: That’s a good one. (Laughs.)
Sugimori: But the number of actual hours that we worked wasn’t that different, right?
Unno: Right, but the time it took experimenting with the 3-D visuals, which was something that we never did here at Game Freak, as to how it would be implemented in the Pokémon world, did take about twice as long when compared with previous titles. (NOTE: The limited 3D graphics in D/P were massively challenging to Gamefreak.)
Masuda: That’s because we were looking for a 3-D visual that’s not so much realistic, but rather for 3-D visuals that look like 2-D. It was hard trying to keep the visuals in a similar style as previous Pokémon games, in a good way. We weren’t going for something that looks too realistic, but more of a visual that we’re used to, but still looking like it’s very new.
Unno: Right; experimenting with the controls and thinking of ideas took the most time. I think if we tried to make it look realistic, it would not have taken that long. It was very difficult trying to make it feel realistic only when you interact with it, compared to making something that looks completely realistic from the beginning.
Sugimori: Let’s leave it by saying that since there were two screens, it took twice as long. (Laughs.)
NP: Graphics haven’t always been a focus of the Pokémon games, but the new effects show a renewed dedication to the game’s imagery. Have you changed your philosophy on the importance of visual design?
Sugimori: Instead of rethinking the importance of the visual design, it was fitted to match the style of the gameplay. Since we’re now working on the Nintendo DS, the visuals do feel new, and there’s a lot more of what you can do with them.
Unno: I agree that we’re doing a lot of new things visually. But when you’re talking about the importance of visual design… I don’t think it has changed from before, because as we develop the game, our top priority is to have the visuals match the purpose of the game title and gameplay.
Sugimori: That doesn’t mean that we’re always going to stick with the same graphics, though. For every game, we think about what would be the easiest way to get the players to understand the game, and what would be the best-looking graphic for that hardware. I also think that if it doesn’t have more content than past titles, we wouldn’t be able to make the players happy. I made Diamond and Pearl thinking that there are people out there that are going to buy the DS for this, so I thought about making the experience as rich as possible so we won’t ruin their expectations.
Updated 3-D visuals show perspective and detail, but retain the classic Pokémon graphical style.
Masuda: It’s about how to make it look new, without being different than before. Since we’re focused on the gameplay, the path and the tall grass are clearly defined, and the roads are straight like it’s always been, so it’s easy to tell where the Trainer is.
Unno: Right; the gameplay has evolved gradually along the series, but as the things we could do expanded with 3-D, it actually broke some of our conventional wisdom. Maintaining a balance was very difficult.
Masuda: Rather than showing off to players saying, “Look how pretty the graphics are!” it was designed so it wouldn’t look awkward to the players who have played previous games. But then the players would notice that little things have changed, like the conveyor belt. I thought that would be better for the players.
Unno: There definitely are parts of the game that were suggested from the planning team, but there are also things in the game that were put in because of suggestions by people in the graphic department like myself, about certain effects we wanted to do in the game. Some of the things that resulted from our suggestions [would have been] unimaginable in previous games.
Masuda: Rather than saying the importance of visual design, it evolved to better the game experience. But we do hear that the visuals in fact do look really new.
Sugimori: I think that as we upgraded the visuals, we were thinking about what can be done using the new hardware.
Unno: The amount of information that could be displayed on the screen increased, so it may feel new just being able to go out into the field to look at the side of a building.
Masuda: There are things that really look 3-D, like the windmills in the power plant, and Oreburgh City.
Unno: From early on in the game, players are able to see visuals made possible only by the use of 3-D. I think that also helps to give the game a new feel.
NP: The Day/Night feature of the Pokémon games has been gone for a while. What made you decide to bring it back?
Masuda: One of the reasons is that the total number of Pokémon has increased. I wanted to show that there are different types of Pokémon depending on the time, by making them appear in certain times of the day, and giving them other characteristics. The other reason is that there was a clock and date function already in the DS hardware, and I wanted to add that as one of the features. The DS can also display a lot of colors, so looking at how the day changes is very nice. And you feel as if you’re in the game when it’s actually daytime in the game when you’re playing during the day, and it’s night in-game when you play at night. The Day/Night feature was put in to bring those fun elements in the game.
NP: How does the process of designing new Pokémon work?
Sugimori: I do feel that I always want to show new Pokémon that people have never seen before. To do that, I think of ways that I can surprise the players. That doesn’t mean anything goes as long as the idea’s new, but I design the new Pokémon so the players can believe that these are different than previous Pokémon, but are still Pokémon. Even if people say these don’t look like Pokémon at first, they’re designed so that they grow on you. As you look at it, it begins to look more like a Pokémon. They’re designed intentionally to look a little awkward at first.
Unno: I have a collection of these things that I find interesting in everyday life that I use as inspirations, and as these ideas get accumulated, there’s a trigger when all these things are let loose, where these ideas are brought to life as characters. In this case the trigger was when I wondered what kinds of Pokémon would be living in the land of Sinnoh. That’s how I design my characters. I think of the balance so these new designs could be welcomed with new surprises. When I design them, rather than having our players say, “Oh, it’s another one of these Pokémon,” I want them to say, “I didn’t expect they would think of this!” I think that would be better appreciated, and it’s more fun for me as I’m designing them.
Masuda: In Diamond and Pearl, the strongest Pokémon in each of the classes were designed first, and then the overall balance of the Pokémon was set, so the planning team were the ones that presented the new Pokémon designs.
Unno: Right, Diamond and Pearl heavily emphasizes the strategic balance in gameplay.
Masuda: Weren’t about half of the new Pokémon presented by the planning team?
Unno: I think so… it was about that much.
Masuda: The planning team presented ideas, and suggested certain kinds of Pokémon that were on their minds, saying things like, “What about this Pokémon?” There’s also a sea-slug Pokémon that we weren’t able to put in Ruby and Sapphire that we were able to put in this one… those elements keep it fun and interesting. There were times that the designs and the characteristics were defined after talking things over, like, “How about a fun new Pokémon like this, based off of that idea?” Dialga and Palkia were created in this manner.
Unno: The suggestions given to us by the planning team became a great stockpile of ideas, and we were able to come up with all kinds of designs. When someone suggested that a certain Pokémon should be added to maintain the strategic balance, I was able to come up with a completely new Pokémon design although it was in the middle of working on another Pokémon.
Masuda: Coming up with new Pokémon takes a lot of time, and it’s very hard work.
NP: How do you decide how many new Pokémon to make?
Masuda: We didn’t have a set number in the beginning. We did, however, have a rough idea that we wanted to make about this much. We first set the number of Pokémon that can evolve to about half compared to past Pokémon games, and as we continued making the game, keeping the balance in mind, we ended up with the number of Pokémon that we have in the finished product. The number is a result of looking for the perfect balance of great gameplay.
NP: How do you decide which Pokémon will receive new Evolutions? Will we ever see a fourth Pokémon evolution?
Sugimori: The Pokémon that evolve are decided by the ones that look like they would evolve, or having them evolve will make the gameplay more enjoyable. The Evolution is there to power up the not-so-strong Pokémon and the ones that have the potential to become stronger, to make them more powerful.
Masuda: Their looks and their strength, Pokémon that seem to have room for an Evolution, and maybe size. With the Evolutions, the planning team keeps the balance on them.
Unno: I’ve never thought of their Evolutions from the design, but there are suggestions during the planning stages, such as, “It’d be fun if this Pokémon evolved like this.”
Ohmori: I think the main thing is looking at it from the overall balance; you look at the design, and add new Pokémon by looking at what kind of Pokémon need to be added, and how it would make things better if certain Pokémon were in a certain class. There’s also looking at the Pokémon to see which ones would be the most interesting if they evolved. I thought about putting in the fun factor by surprising people by making some Pokémon evolve that the players wouldn’t expect to.
Sugimori: A fourth Evolution… hmm, I wonder?
Masuda: I’m not really thinking about it.
Sugimori: If a fourth Evolution is going to make things more interesting, that would be a possibility. (NOTE: lol Masuda is really like "I do NOT want a fourth evolution. I am NOT really thinking about it)
Masuda: Right now I think it’s great how some of the Pokémon evolve to different forms, so I’m not really thinking about it.
NP: Of the Pokémon games that are to be developed in the future, could you please tell us of certain game elements you want to try out, or game ideas that you would like to challenge?
Masuda: Maybe a game that’s ever-expanding, where you’re learning about Pokémon, but you’re not really playing a Pokémon game. Like the way the DS is linked to Wii, I want to do something that’s fun and exciting, that goes beyond the boundaries of hardware and video games. The foundation of a Pokémon game is the way that it can reach out, connect, and communicate with others, and I don’t want to just leave that enclosed within the borders of a video game; I would like to go outward, rather than inward.
NP: After the critical acclaim of Drill Dozer, can we expect more non-Pokémon games from Game Freak?
Sugimori: If there’s an opportunity, I’d love to take on the challenge!
Masuda: My thoughts on how I want to always be creating something are unchanged, and as I see the Pokémon game as something that’s within a single framework, I would like to maintain my ideals of wanting to pursue the fun and excitement of games, even in a new framework.