Part 3 of an English translation of the 2016 EXE developers’ interview from inside-games.
- The motive behind the boldly arranged designs
Speaking of EXE, the designs are appealing, how did you arrange Classic Rockman’s designs?
Kaji: The basis was “designs that make it easy for people who aren’t familiar with Rockman to get into”.
Ishihara: We tried to make it so that kids at the time would think Rockman was cool, while still having the existing Rockman fans enjoy the changes. In the end, he became something with a strange aura that matched the cyberworld instead of being like a normal robot.
Were designs drawn while thinking about making them into sprites later?
Nakashima: That’s right, care was taken with the number of colors and how densely we put in details. We had 16 colors to use, so we used skin color in clothing… That kind of thing.
How’d you do those fantastic lines in the official illustrations?
Nakashima: Those were hand-drawn.
Ishihara: The illustrator in charge drew freehand on their PC. It looked good while being fast.
That’s amazing… Are there any characters you’re attached to?
Nakashima: I put a lot of enthusiasm into drawing cute outfits for Princess Pride and Kero-san. [1]
Kaji: She’s really picky about clothes.
Nakashima: But looking back over things, I tend to let my interests run a bit too wild.
Eguchi: Characters like Jasmine were really great.
Nakashima: Her design was approved after showing her rough sketch just once.
Ishihara: Also, after more expressions and situations are drawn, a character becomes easier to picture.
Nakashima: Drawing a character that doesn’t really exist is really difficult, so first I would think, “if they were really my friend, what kind of expressions would they show me?”. So I’d appreciate it if you have a feeling of friendship or familiarity with these characters.
Ishihara: I like Elecman. But apparently everyone in the original development team pushed for a change to his design because he looked like Blues… Looking at him now though, that’s clearly not the case. (laugh)
Eguchi: Speaking of Elecman, I was in charge of that Power Plant map, but it was really poorly received… Everyone I met told me “that stage was rough”. And right after beating Elecman, Blues shows up right? I really want to apologize for that.
True. That stage did have the impression of being the hardest.
Eguchi: I think so too. (laugh)
This is a question from our readers, do you have a character sheet of Blues’ bare face?
Ishihara: Hmm, we actually don’t. It’s left up to your imagination, but I’m sure he’s handsome at least.
We ran a poll on “what character would you want to have as your parther”, and of course, Forte was popular. The reasons for that was really interesting, they were things like “I want us to share our loneliness”. (laugh)
Eguchi: Forte was a popular character, we treated him pretty well. He was a hidden boss in EXE1, and was involved in the story in EXE2. Then you’ve got EXE3 leaving behind more mysteries. So he was like a “secret” main character, or I suppose a character with a lot of fan expectations on his shoulders.
He was crazy strong too, after all.
Eguchi: If I were to try now, I definitely couldn’t beat him. (laugh) Plus, he escalated as the series went on… At first, he just went ratatatata, but by the end he brought out all sort of attacks.
Matsuda: But you haven’t completed things until you’ve S-ranked him.
Translated by Jumi.
Edited by MidniteW.
Japanese to English names:
Kero = Ribitta
Blues = ProtoMan
Forte = Bass
Notes:
[1] Although the interview images show their BN2 outfits, Nakashima only worked on their newer BN5 outfits.