VGDensetsu

Mallow drawn by Minaba

Geno drawn by Minaba

Hideo Minaba designed Geno and Mallow (short for Marshmallow) for Super Mario RPG, based on ideas submitted by the dev team. Some of their ideas were used for the NPCs.

Each employee had a Mac LC and it was only in the last few months that they got 2 Silicon Graphics stations.

Super Mario RPG main visual

On March 9, 1996, a few weeks after Square announced that it was developing Final Fantasy VII for the PS1 rather than the N64, Super Mario RPG was released on Super Famicom.

4 sprites drawn by Ryushiro Miyazaki

Mutation Nation enemies drawn by Ryushiro Miyazaki

Painting in red tones of several heroic fantasy characters

Bahamut Senki back cover by Hiroaki Shioya / 塩谷博明.
The game turns 35 today.
vgdensetsu.net/hiroakishioya/

16 photos of women who have developed or illustrated video games.

I've also added a page listing the profiles of female video game developers and artists that I've put online. The list is still short, but it will grow very soon.
vgdensetsu.net/womeningames/

Je reconnais au film d'avoir su trouver un lieu qui colle très bien avec la scène de l'intro sur le parking du premier screen.

an autumn scene with Mega Man walking to the right

a winter scene with Mega Man walking to the right

a spring scene with Mega Man walking to the right

a rainy scene with Mega Man walking to the right

Mega Man 2 ending illustrations by Yasuaki Kishimoto:
xcancel.com/ak_blueprint...

an illustration of Mega Man

Rockman title screen, featuring a pixelated version of the previous illustration

Rockman title screen:
Rough sketch = Akira Kitamura
Line art = Keiji Inafune
Pixel art = Yasuaki Kishimoto (who worked on the game's backgrounds)
xcancel.com/ak_blueprint...

If you were looking for Famicom Disk System game flyers, there's a website for that (yes, it's very specific):
pony.velvet.jp/fcdisk/fmcmd...

Violence Fight [034] Arcade Longplay/Walkthrough/Playthrough (FULL GAME) YouTube video by Virtual Gaming Library - VGL

According to Akiman, the idea of adding an idle animation to the characters in Street Fighter II ((which turns 35 today) came from Taito's 1989 arcade game Violence Fight.
xcancel.com/akiman7/stat...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBKM...

真説･セガハード─第3回 世界初公開の真相Scoop!! セガサターンアクセラレーター幻の企画「TRIP」の真相に迫る！─｜Beep21 当時のセガハード開発者へ複数の関係者を集め、ロングインタビューによって、未発掘だった真相を明らかにし、後世に遺していく企画「真説･セガハード」。 第1回はゲームギア35周年を記念したゲームギア開発秘話をお届けしました。 続く第2回は、セガが家庭用ゲーム機事業を立ち上げる前夜の様子と、立ち上げメンバーが集結してきた話をお届けしました。 第3回はその続きをお届けする予定でしたが、掲載順を変...

The Saturn graphics accelerator was real, as confirmed in this BEEP interview between Kenji Tosaki and Junichi Naoi! And Virtua Fighter 3 and Shenmue indeed were developed with the accelerator in mind.

note.com/beep21/n/n5c...

#sega #saturn #segasaturn #retrogaming #videogames #セガ #セガサターン

World order

This article aptly captures the real state of Japanese game dev right now. For years, companies have prioritized outsourcing/contract hires because of fewer legal obligations. But as this piece describes, it also lets them skirt around layoff laws by ceasing to contract that external work at all.

Pense à toutes ces personnes qui vivent grâce au marché de l'unboxing ainsi qu'à tous ces plastiquophiles.

There's a Magician Lord 2 prototype on NeoGeo Pocket Color.

Probably, yes.

Tokeijikake no Aquario, Nekketsu Oyako, Blast Wind, etc.

The Hyper Neo Geo 64 system was originally designed for 2D, and a prototype racing game similar to Outrun using 2D sprites was in development (probably Roads Edge / Round Trip). But along the way, the system and the project switched to 3D.
5/5

Pinball Fantasia: Last Odyssey title screen

The NeoGeo game Pinball Fantasia: Last Odyssey underwent a location test at the same time as World Heroes Perfect in 1995, but with less exposure, in an isolated corner of the NeoGeo Land in Osaka. The game was completed but never released.
Video:
youtu.be/R6CjyIyzJb4?...
4/5

Mutation Nation was scheduled for release in 1991 and was even completed by that date, but SNK spread out the releases of its beat 'em ups, and Robo Army and Eight Man were released first, partly due to their results in location tests.
3/5

Mutation Nation was originally called Dream Over, but the name was changed by SNK's marketing department. Among the ideas that were scrapped were battles with hoverboards, similar to those in Back to the Future.
2/5

【10/13・19時より公開生配信！】NEOGEOトークRound1(１回目)元SNKグラフィックJ.MIKAMI出演！ネオジオ開発トーク＆ネオジオ実機ゲームプレイ（MAX90分のトーク） YouTube video by GAME IMPACT

In 2024, Masashi Mikami gave a lecture in which he discussed his years at SNK.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Cj...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGGY...
According to him, Shinkiro was also involved in game development when he started at SNK; for example, he did playtesting on Soccer Brawl.
1/5

The console looks like a flat NeoGeo CDZ

"As February comes to an end, I’d like to reintroduce myself. I’m JM (real name: MASASHI MIKAMI), and I was with SNK from April 1, 1991 to January 1995. When I first joined, I worked at SNK’s Tokyo development studio, which was located in Akihabara at the time. Later, in the fall of 1991, SNK Tokyo Development was closed and the team relocated to the Osaka headquarters. During my time there, I was mainly involved in the development of titles such as Mutation Nation, Samurai Shodown, Super Sidekicks, Savage Reign, and the Sega Genesis version of Art of Fighting. I was responsible for character and background pixel art on these projects. I hope to continue sharing memories and behind-the-scenes stories from those days. Thank you for your support. “JM” comes from “J. MIKAMI,” the name used in the staff credits of my early works."

I, JM, was with SAURUS from February 1995 to February 1997. SAURUS was established in part as a tax strategy for SNK, which was making tremendous profits at the time. All of its shares were 100% owned by SNK’s Executive Vice President, Nishiyama. I also believe it was meant to fulfill the promise of bringing the former SNK Tokyo development team back to Tokyo. During my time there, I was mainly involved in the development of titles such as Pleasure Goal: 5 on 5 Mini Soccer and Shock Troopers. After that, I joined Grams (the company that developed titles like QUOVADIS) at the invitation of a junior colleague from my SNK days, and I participated in the development of the Avalon Hill series. However, the company went bankrupt just six months later…

Former SNK / Saurus / GLAM / Camelot graphic designer Masashi Mikami on SNK and Saurus:
xcancel.com/JM_NewBreed/...
xcancel.com/JM_NewBreed/...

He is a mix of two references: Mad Bull 34 + Jean Valjean from the play Les misérables (which explains why Haggar was the mayor).
game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/colu...
x.com/neo_tarou/st...

And it's probably also well known the graffiti in Street Fighter 1 literally is him!

Bill Bull sprite

picture of Bill Craven

According to Akira Nishitani, Bill Bull from Final Fight was based on former Capcom USA VP of Sales & MarketingBill Craven.
xcancel.com/game7650/sta...

Note that some graphics were redone or added after Utata left for the US version.

image 1: Mai in a well-lit background image 2: Mai in a darker background

In Fatal Fury 3, the characters' color palette varies depending on the lighting in the levels (dark or light).
xcancel.com/ryo_redcyclo...

an issue of Nintendo Power featuring Metal Storm on the cover

... which Utata discovered via a store in Akihabara that imported Western games, where he spotted an issue of Nintendo Power with Metal Storm on the cover. The game did well in the US and was finally released in Japan in 1992.
2/2
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