Overview

The Graphics of Breath of Fire IV, also titled Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono Koushiki Settei Shiryoushuu (Official Design Materials), is the official art book for Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono released exclusively in Japan on September 14, 2000.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents (Artbook)

Development Staff Interview (English Translation)

Translation: RJ Seitz
Editing: Odjn Ryu

Note: This translated interview uses in-game English localized names/terms wherever applicable, with editor’s notes included in parentheses to clarify any differences between English and Japanese.

Warning: This interview contains major spoilers for Breath of Fire IV.

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We interviewed 5 key development staffers from the BoF series, and their responses will astonish fans! Read the backstory here in this exclusive jam-packed interview.

■ System Edition

From BoFIII to BoFIV

― I bet everyone’s taking it easy now that the production is complete.

Makoto Ikehara: Oh yeah, it’s time to kick back and pig out. (laughs)

― Did things proceed smoothly during the approximately 2 year long production cycle of BoFIV (hereafter referred to as “IV”)?

Ikehara: No. We actually had to push back the release date from when it was initially scheduled.

― What caused that?

Ikehara: Not being able to commit to mass production was a big reason. However, thinking about it now, that was actually a good thing. We were particular about working towards giving the game a handmade feel, and this added a lot of value to it. But when it comes to selling something as a product, in retrospect we can’t just only be thinking along those lines. That’s because putting something out quickly is also a kind of service to the fans.

― But with the release date being in late April, other software was fortunately running dry and so I thought it was good timing (※1). Though that’s a little lowbrow (laughs).

Ikehara: It was indeed a bit of fortune in otherwise unfortunate times wasn’t it? (laughs) We fell unsteadily from above and landed in a nice spot where there were no alligators. It was a “Mega Man” (ロックマン / Rockman) style landing. (laughs)

*

― Did work begin right after the completion of BoFIII?

Ikehara: The plan was finished then, but the beginning of production itself came later. Work on the overseas version of BoFIII and related books, among other tasks, came pouring in one after the other.

― When transitioning work from BoFIII to BoFIV, was there anything you thought should be carried over?

Ikehara: Conversely, the crew had the feeling during work on BoFIII that much was left undone, therefore we decided to work diligently this time towards making sure that didn’t happen again.

― Can you give an example as to what kinds of things were left undone?

Ikehara: I can’t help but wonder if BoFIII’s characters and direction were a little plain.

― BoFIV’s graphics were powered up quite a bit, weren’t they?

Ikehara: Yes. We were able to make it the way we wanted.

Tatsuya Yoshikawa: During the production of BoFIII, Yasuda (※2) once told me, “Try it like this.” We were already halfway done with production though, so there wasn’t time to implement his idea. So we used it in BoFIV. This time around, we reinterpreted it in my own way and pushed the technology to its limits to bring the high quality graphics sought by Capcom to life.

― The overall color tone of the screen has also changed, hasn’t it? Last time, a lot of primary colors were used, but this time things have a generally muted feel.

Yoshikawa: Right. Looking back, BoFIII’s characters were more or less what everything hinged on. You could say it took a character-oriented approach. But with BoFIV, we wanted the whole screen to be viewed as a single picture. We intended to make it so that brightly-colored characters don’t stand out against the background, but instead, players could take the scene as a whole and think to themselves, “Oh, it’s pretty, isn’t it?”

― Would you say the release of BoFIV is like a revenge match for its predecessor?

Yoshikawa: Yeah, it is, isn’t it? You could say it’s like revenge on the technical aspects, like the pixel art. The game industry is changing its focus from pixel art to emphasize the importance of polygons. And so, I wanted to see the extent of what we could do with pixel art; how far we could push it. This is what I, as a character designer, fixate on. I won’t stop even if I’m told it makes the project planners cry. (laughs)

― The character movements have become incredibly smooth. Approximately how many pixel art patterns did you prepare per character?

Yoshikawa: If we go by how many there were in relation to each playable character…

Ikehara: The figure we’ve been giving publicly is 3000. (laughs)

― Whoa!!

Yoshikawa: Well, speaking in extremes, even if the body remains the same, if the movement changes from the neck up, that’s considered one pattern. If we go that route, then there’s about 3000… but I don’t know if I’d go that far. (laughs)

Battle System

― I’d like to move our discussion to the battle system if that’s okay? First off, regarding the battles, please tell me how you arrived at the idea of what you call “Slick Rotation Battles” (※3), where all 6 members of the party can fully engage in battle.

Yugo Togawa: Putting it simply, I thought it was a bit strange that even though there are 6 party members, only 3 could join battles. So why not see if we can’t just let them all join? But handling that volume led to difficult capacity issues and other factors, so in the end we settled on what we have now.

― In BoFIII only 3 characters could participate in battle at a time, so a character’s levels differed depending on the frequency they were used. This time everyone is made to develop equally, right?

Togawa: Because of that, we unfortunately bumped into a constraint regarding the number of characters. What if we included one more character, but the volume became too much to deal with and they told me I had to get rid of one? …I was concerned about that kind of issue coming up.

― You couldn’t put in a secret character.

Togawa: I couldn’t put one in.

Tatsuya Kitabayashi: The layout of the status screen gave us away didn’t it? There’s no space for one more character. (laughs)

Ikehara: Though there was a time when there were 8 main characters.

*

― Given that combos are a specialty of Capcom’s, were you satisfied with the newly introduced combo system?

Togawa: That was the starting point. It does seem to have been made with that Capcom feel in mind. But y’know, when I first tried to explain the system, no one understood me.

Kitabayashi: Even though I understood the explanation, I had a difficult time with it. “What the heck is this? Can it be done?” Now that I see the final product, I get that it was properly systematized, but when I first received the specifications, they were complicated!

― The combos were logical. If you cast a fire spell and followed it up with another fire spell, you’d get a greater fire spell, and if you followed up a fire spell with a regular attack, it would become a fire attack.

Togawa: Yeah, if you just do that. Though of course it seems logical in theory, I was also thinking it should be easy to understand and be able to give a sense of exhilaration. Are you familiar with Sagat from Street Fighter? His Shoryuken hits more rapidly than Ryu and Ken’s with that rapid “bam-bam-bam-bam”. It feels good. I wanted a taste of that in a BoF game.

Kitabayashi: It feels better dealing 10 damage 10 consecutive times than dealing 100 damage at once.

Ikehara: I left most of the battle system to the two of them. My only directions were, “make it feel good.” When we made adjustments and gave it a playtest, it turned out just as we had expected! Those two were clearly already able to see the finished product during production.

― It’s nice that you can also use healing magic for combos. And things like being able to cast defense magic on the whole team at once.

Togawa: It is, right?  If you first cast Protect (カテクト / Katekuto), a spell that increases defense, and then cast restorative magic on everyone, you’re able to pull off not only an increase in healing, but an increase in defense as well. When I was able to get that down I thought, “Yes, I did it!” (laughs)

― It’s fun searching for powerful magic and hidden, unique abilities.

Togawa: I tried not hiding the unique abilities too much. For example, Nina has tons of wind magic, so if she uses wind spells, you’ll find something. 

*

Are there any combos the developers recommend?

Kitabayashi: Hmm… well, if the Resist (大防御 / Daibougyo / “Great Defense”) skill is cast, followed by a group-healing spell, then Resist will be cast on everyone. Even though Resist can only be used on one party member normally, with this combo, everyone will be able to attack without taking any damage, so it’s quite advantageous. Oh, and if you assign 20 faeries to Troops and use something like FaerieAttack (ばくげき / Bakugeki / “Bombardment”) and FaerieCharge (ダンスマカブル / Danse Macabre) (※4), I’d say that’s rather exhilarating.

― Faerie magic earns you extra hits, too.

Kitabayashi: I really wanted to pack a little more into that! Unfortunately because of the faerie magic, the max number of hits was fixed at 146.

― How about a combo that reaches that max?

Kitabayashi: With a character equipped with a weapon that can attack twice, use Tiger Fist (散烈撃 / Sanretsugeki / “Scattered Fierce Attack”) → with 20 faerie troops, use FaerieAttack → FaerieCharge. After that, if luck allows, you can use all 3 party members to deal some additional damage, theoretically putting you at around 140 hits. Though it must be said, we didn’t actually intend on this, things just kind of ended up that way! After all, I wanted to make a combo that hit the max we had in mind. I should have thought about making the max 999.

― But reaping extra hits and rubbing salt in the enemy’s wounds is pretty amusing, isn’t it?

Kitabayashi: I agree. It would have been great if we could have made a little more effort in devising various approaches to further increase the hit counter.

Ikehara: If we were systematic about it, it would have been 256 hits or something; a pretty number. 146… it’s such an amazingly half-baked max number, isn’t it? (laughs)

Kitabayashi: That’s because it’s one we never calculated! (laughs)

Regarding Monsters

― The regular enemies were made with pixel art, but the bosses and dragons were made up of polygons, right? Were you considering the combined use of pixel/dot art and polygons from the beginning?

Yoshikawa: From the time of BoFIII there was talk of wanting to use polygons, but due to not having the equipment or know-how at the time, we couldn’t make it happen. So this time we wracked our brains over the bosses and dragons to see if we could make it a reality.

― How was the response?

Yoshikawa: On-site, there were people saying “What, polygons!? Wouldn’t pixel art be better?” However, in terms of direction, we could better articulate things like scrolling pans and camera angles, so we decided to try them out, considering future potential, as well.

― Would you say that’s still in the experimental stage?

Yoshikawa: Yeah. Considering all that, doesn’t it have a nice feel once you get used to it?

*

― You really dedicated yourselves to the individual settings of the monsters this time around, didn’t you? If you blind an Eye Goo (めだまグミ / Medama Gumi / “Eyeball Gummy”), the experience points you get increase, and if you use fire magic on a Wyd (ウド / Udo / “Wud”) it becomes Firewyd (ファイアウド / Faia Udo / “Firewood”).

Togawa: I was thinking BoFIII was more or less complete, but we took it further with the development of things like the combo system that we want you to play around with.

Kitabayashi: We were basically doing it as a hobby. (laughs)

Togawa: The enemy algorithm prioritizes appearance. I talked with Yoshikawa about what kinds of models would be used, then gave it some thought while looking at what was actually done.

― I was taken aback when the movements of a series favorite, the cockroach, were similar enough to those of an actual cockroach that it just about seemed like the real thing. It moved right down to the antennae. (laughs)

Togawa: Ah, yes. I was surprised too when I saw that. So I thought, let’s try giving it some more obscene movements and tried things like making it jump.

Ikehara: Even though some people say they won’t play BoF because of the roaches.

Yoshikawa: Cockroaches, flies, earthworms… earthworms didn’t make an appearance this time, right?

Ikehara: Every time, the hero is fighting with these unworthy monsters. (laughs)

*

― The final bosses Tyrant and Astral (スピリチュアル / Spiritual) were tough!

Togawa: You think so? I was thinking of making them tougher, but I was told by Ikehara, “C’mon now, quit that.” So I let it go.

― It was plenty difficult the way it is. I was glad I caught and set aside all those fish that could restore HP and AP.

Kitabayashi: I know right, it would probably be pretty harsh without them.

Togawa: Because eating tons of fish during the last battle is a tradition. (laughs)

― It somehow seems strange to imagine doesn’t it?

Kitabayashi: Well, mid-battle would be the time to take advantage of tearing through all that stored up fish and meat. (laughs)

Is there a favorite among the monsters? The bosses I and II (シャイ & ツウ / Shai & Tsuu) (※5) changing the magic they used based on the roll of the dice was really well done.

Kitabayashi: That was a challenge. I was diligently bug checking to see if the attack was coming out properly, but the numbers I wanted would not readily turn up. “Hmm, it’s not turning up… 11.” (laughs)

Togawa: For me personally, it’s Fantam (ムンマ / Munma). When its body got bigger and its nose raised up, seeing eyes appear in the hole was frightful!

Yoshikawa: Though he spoke of its huge nose as a creepy point of interest, giving it a mouth below the nose on top of all that gave it an unthinkably detestable face.

― If you keep haphazardly attacking Fantam, he turns into a giant!

Kitabayashi: That’s an example of the difficulty changing according to whether or not you are someone that uses combos.

Togawa: Before Fantam (ムンマ / Munma), 5 Fantam kids (コムンマ / Komunma / “Munma Kids”) appear. If you read their names by linking them together, it’s “Boku-tachi ko-munma go kyoudai” (“We are the Komunma siblings”). (※6) It’s a play on words!

― What!? I didn’t notice that!! I definitely thought there was something going on with the “kyo” and “udai”…

Kitabayashi: Yep, it’s “kyoudai.” (兄弟 / “siblings”)

Togawa: Ikehara plays around with words like that, too. Like with the hide-and-seek kids in Synesta.

Ikehara: What was it again? “Kono kodomotachi no naamae tsunagatteru da yon” (コノコドモタチノナーマエツナガッテルンダヨーン / “These kids’ names are connected, y’know“). (※7)

― Ohh!!

Yoshikawa: If you look at the various names scattered about, you’ll notice some correspondingly cute and cool things!

Ikehara: Though I’ll quickly say I’m not good at thinking of names and this is just kind of my way of running away from that. (laughs)

Yoshikawa: I’ll receive names like that and create the characters, but I don’t notice at first! I’ll pretty much just think, “Konoko? That’s cute.” Then I’ll hear about what the names mean and go, “No way!!”

Ikehara: There was that Joy Mecha Fight (※8) thing too, right? (laughs)

― The iron demon Rasso summons, right? Joh (ジョ / Jo) and Ymechaf (イメカフ / Imekafu)…?

Yoshikawa: With “Ight” (アイトー / Aitou) it becomes “Joi Meka Fuaitou” (“Joy Mecha Fight“).

― I was thinking it’s a strange name, but now I see what you were doing.

Yoshikawa: While creating the characters, I thought, “That’s a Chinese-sounding name.” (laughs) But afterwards I hear about what’s behind it and am so surprised!

― With characters like Fou-Lu and the main characters, is there a source behind their names?

Ikehara: Those names are actually pretty noncommittal.

Yoshikawa: You have to just say, “I can’t tell you the source behind them” even if it’s just for appearances! (laughs)

Ikehara: I can be a bit indifferent when it comes to names.

― The names of the main characters Ryu and Nina are ubiquitous from the viewpoint of the series. Though speaking of them, there was no Rei this time.

Ikehara: There was Cray instead.

― Ah that’s right, “Ku-Rei”.

Yoshikawa: There’s the connection between BoFII’s Rand of the Shell Clan and BoFIII’s gargoyle Garr (Garland), right? It’s the same kind of idea.

Maps and Dungeons

―This time around, the world map changed from BoFIII’s dungeon-integrating style to what looks like an actual map upon which you move to and fro. Why the change?

Ikehara: We tried at first making it similar to what was done previously, but during production my mind was made up that we don’t really need it. Just a map is good.

― If anything, I’d say it’s easier to understand this way.

Ikehara: Though I’m also told the tempo of the story was too much. I can’t help but wonder if the new style is to blame for sometimes feeling like the events are overly packed in.

― There is indeed a large helping of events, but there are also loads of varying solutions to dungeon riddles and traps. Which ideas were hard to come up with, and did anything in particular leave a lasting impression?

Kitabayashi: I had a hard time dealing with the programming in the dungeon north of Chamba. With the party divided in two, using the box seesaw (※9) to move, that was quite a peculiar thing wasn’t it? When one party goes up, the other can pass through down below… I really toiled over that.

Togawa: What sticks with me is the snake from the Ahm Fen swamp (アムの沼 / Amu no Numa / Ahm Swamp)!

― When you cross over the snake’s back?

Togawa: When I first heard about it I thought, “Huh!?” But when I went ahead and tried it, it was very BoF-like.

Kitabayashi: Looking back now, I wonder if it would’ve been a good thing to also have some dungeons where there were no contrivances.

― Players seem to get stuck most often in the Golden Plains. It’s so spacious, they can’t find their destination in the slightest.

Ikehara: A similar system used in BoFIII’s desert got a bad rap, so my way of thinking was let’s try that again. (laughs)

― You’re malicious. (laughs)

Ikehara: I was thinking, with the new world map, moving about was a bit comfortable. If you don’t get to walk around in a vast place it doesn’t really feel much like a journey.

Minigame Fixation

― On the subject of the BoF series, as one might expect, this installment too is abundant with minigames. A new system was introduced where points from the minigames level up the dragon transformations.

Ikehara: At first, I was thinking it would be weird if you couldn’t beat the game without clearing the minigames. But at the same time, not rewarding players who clear them with all their might is weird, too. That being the case, I went along with the dragon transformation idea.

― This time around there is a lot of stuff you can replay repeatedly, like the desert race and the river raft minigame.

Kitabayashi: As expected, since the minigames are a factor tied to dragon level ups, if you could only do them once, but you failed and it ended there, wouldn’t that suck? I wanted it to be so that if you could hang in there and play as many times as needed, the points you get each time would power up Ryu’s dragon form.

― It got to a point where people who were good at the racing minigame were using jump tricks so they could earn even more points.

Kitabayashi: In terms of story flow, that doesn’t make any sense at all. (laughs)

Ikehara: During production, when I suggested adding tricks to the race minigame, they thought I had lost my mind. (laughs)

Kitabayashi: I saw it during the playtest whirling around like it was possessed. I went, “What the hell is this guy doing!?” (laughs)

Ikehara: When we tried making it, everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I thought, well, that’s good.

*

― A minigame that must not be forgotten is the series’ legendary signature fishing minigame right? Are there those among the developers that love fishing?

Ikehara: I fish. Aren’t there tons of people that love fishing?

Kitabayashi: Yeah, if I’m not mistaken there’s quite a lot.

― The types of fish species you can catch in the game are so plentiful!

Kitabayashi: It’s almost like I’m a fisherman or something. (laughs) I love it, so I give it special attention.

― I was so surprised to see it supports fishing controllers this time.

Ikehara: When BoFIII was done we joked, “Next time there will be a fishing competition,” but we turned out to actually do it.

Kitabayashi: Yep. I was just gathering the right materials.

Togawa: He was getting carried away with it.

Ikehara: The difficulty level is higher if you use a fishing controller!

― It looks like among users, there are those doing nothing but fishing that won’t clear the game.

Ikehara: When I hear things like that, we’ve got to power it up even further. Let’s aim for it to become a Legend of the River King (川のぬし釣り / Kawa no Nushi Tsuri / “Fishing Master of the River” game. (laughs)

*

― The Faerie Colony was also more powered up compared to the one found in BoFIII. And the hunting from BoFII was brought back, too.

Togawa: The hunting was fierce. You must really like the brutal stuff. (laughs)

― Well the faeries WERE meat eaters (laughs). All things considered, the colony system was deep. For example, even the types of goods found in the shops changed depending on the personality of the faeries.

Ikehara: From the start, a huge fanfare was rolled out over it, but along the way the person in charge of the project had to step away due to unforseen circumstances. And so the person that took on the job in their place grumbled the whole time making it. He was like, “Why did you have to make it so damn big?” (laughs)

― I have a feeling that faeries with the Explorer job, tasked with searching for items, are often used in a way that is contrary to what was planned for them.

Kitabayashi: We use faeries we don’t want as explorers!

― And then they go missing…

Ikehara: It’s possible it was originally made with that intention. (laughs)

― If you really get into it, then various ideas come to the surface, don’t they!?

Ikehara: The minigames are made in such a way that if you play through them thoroughly, you will be rewarded. If you master fishing, you can chow down on fish at an insane pace during the final boss fight, and if you train the faerie mercenaries, you will be able to use faerie magic.

The Newly Implemented and the Curtailed

― The system this time is incredibly considerate! You even brought back warp magic (ヒュール / Hyuuru / “Shift”).

Togawa: Although the Exit magic (デルダン / Derudan) (※10) was not allowed in.

Kitabayashi: Exit was troublesome! If we had put it in, events would be affected in strange ways. Players would end up leaping over characters waiting at the exit and breaking out of dungeons. Things like that.

Ikehara: And the platforms for mechanisms would stop in weird places.

Kitabayashi: Because it’s such a nuisance, we don’t plan on bringing it back. (laughs)

― On the subject of changes, the description for the Rotten Meat item is taken right out of Resident Evil (バイオハザード / Biohazard), and the Disembowel (滅殺 / Messatsu / “Annihilation“) skill is the same as it was in Street Fighter Alpha 3 (ストリートファイターZERO 3 / Street Fighter Zero 3). You put in some elements that are sure to please Capcom fans.

Kitabayashi: Isn’t Disembowel cruel? (laughs)

Togawa: We said, “pretty please?” to the Alpha 3 team working next door…

Kitabayashi: We got all the characters over for a complete transplant. (laughs) Then, without fluffing them up, we recycled them. The guy in charge of effects took a look at it and said, “I can’t get the sounds just right.” So we went to the Alpha 3 team again, got the sounds, and stuck it in. (laughs)

*

― Did you plan on fitting the game onto 1 CD from the start?

Kitabayashi: We were cutting it close. Even while making the actual game, we nervously went about our business not knowing whether or not it would fit!

― Were there things like certain systems that had to be omitted due to capacity restrictions?

Kitabayashi: I wanted to make more areas and create a lower world, but it couldn’t be done. Same with stuff like trying to add a song, or making the ending into a video. On account of leaving things like that out, we didn’t need 2 discs. On the other hand, if we forced our way into 2-disc territory, I wonder if it would have given off a sense of volume and increased sales. (laughs)

― How about monsters that didn’t make the cut?

Yoshikawa: There was this one boss that had the appearance of a frog. We completed the patterns and had it on standby, but couldn’t fit it in, so we canned it.

Ikehara: As far as events that were left on the cutting room floor, we planned an episode that delved into every main character’s dreams. It helped the player understand the characters’ sentiments, but due to time and data constraints, it wound up on the chopping block.

Togawa: But there was something I crammed into the end. It was a secret part regarding Infini’s (アンフィニ / Anfini) appearance during the final boss fight. If he uses a healing item on Nina, she exclaims, “Is that Ryu!?” (※11)

― Ah, so that’s why there was that whole thing where some players argued, “Can’t Infini be defeated?”

Kitabayashi: Was it because of that?

Ikehara: We shouldn’t have put that in. (laughs)

Kitabayashi: But it seems Infini CAN be defeated.

― Yeah, you can beat him. But you’ll get a game over.

■ Storyline

The Two Main Characters

― From here I’ll ask you about things related to the story. So one major feature of this installment is that another main character has been added besides Ryu, right?

Ikehara: The circumstances at first were such that the plan revolved around only controlling Ryu. We were merely able to more or less sandwich Fou-Lu’s episodes in. Though as one might expect, being able to control him made things more emotional.

Yoshikawa: But If we had just stuck to event characters, we’d have wrapped things up without having to make another 3000+ character patterns. (laughs)

― Well, Fou-Lu is more popular.

Ikehara: Well, that is what we intended. “Fou-Lu is cooler, isn’t he? I bet he’ll be popular.” But on the contrary, if his actions were too much in the same class as those of the main character’s, then there would be something disagreeable about it.

― Although, aren’t there 2 endings, one of which was tailored for Fou-Lu? There will naturally be players that prefer his ending, right?

Ikehara: Uh-huh, and if so, then things are better that way.

― Doesn’t that mean there isn’t necessarily a good ending? Although Ryu’s ending is more “good ending” material, what with the theme song playing, and all.

Ikehara: If we didn’t do it that way, there would be a bunch of people going, “What the heck is the good ending?” (laughs) Though the best-case scenario is that players think about it and are convinced, “I think this is the right one!”

― There are two groups of music for the battles and field areas, right?

Ikehara: Since there are 2 main characters, we tried to clearly split the world. We figured if one is European, why not try making the other with an oriental flavor.

*

― The main character Ryu didn’t speak much in this installment, either.

Ikehara: It’s an unfortunate occasion in a game when the main character makes a brief comment and the player goes, “I wouldn’t have said that!” But conversely, when a character isn’t able to speak, it can become a bit of a limitation, right?

Kitabayashi: Nina speaks excessively on his behalf.

Ikehara: For the purpose of supplementation, she speaks profusely. And then things like, “She has a bad personality” are said, right?

― But she goes about things relatively gently this time…

Ikehara: It was said at the time of BoFIII, she’d say, “Let’s go over there, let’s go this way…” and people would go, “What the heck? What a selfish woman!” (laughs)

― This time Ryu and Nina have an eloquent relationship from beginning to end.

Kitabayashi: But I also think it would’ve been good if we went into it more. At the Saldine fishing spot, we kind of just left it at “Ryu is a good person as far as Nina is concerned.” When it is said by Nina, “I actually like Cray,” it is something along the lines of, “Whoa whoa whoa, you’re gonna talk about THAT with ME!? (laughs) Well, you can probably take it from there, right? We just want to supplement your imagination, y’know?

― In the ending you can see what happens to the characters, right? Like with Cray and Ursula reconciling, among other things.

Ikehara: When Cray was being wishy-washy, Ursula would scold him. After that, when things took a turn for the worst with his beloved Elina and everything came to an end, it’s as if a weight was lifted off him… Well, if we went any further into the depiction, various possibilities could be considered.

Character Creation

― The characters are all cheerful. Always looking forward and whatnot.

Ikehara: Sadness and suffering are more personal matters. To have them come up in events where the characters are moving as a party doesn’t come off to me as very true to life. Though it’s sad in a way, I don’t really feel the need to show you that stuff.

― Scias and Ershin (マスター / Master) were comparatively so carefree that even during sad scenes they nonchalantly cheer you on. It really furthers that feeling of the party being united as one.

Ikehara: I’m happiest if rather than empathizing with a sole character, players can feel as if the story as a whole is an extension of themselves. Inside oneself are likely feelings of sadness and positivity, as well as sentitments of resentment and forgiveness. I think, after all, isn’t it a combination of such aspects that make up a person?

Yoshikawa: Though I am often told, “the story is heavy.”

― Isn’t it the positivity of the characters that rescues them from this?

Ikehara: If a dark story is told through dark characters, it leaves a weird taste in your mouth.

― Thanks to the spirited characters, it seems well-received even by the younger crowd.

Kitabayashi: But there are a lot of brutal scenes. I wonder if that isn’t a bit of a problem.

Yoshikawa: Like when Soniel’s head flies clean off. (laughs)

*

― Speaking of brutality, the scene where Mami becomes a sacrifice, while necessary to move the story along, was quite sad. But it’s what broke Fou-Lu, right?

Ikehara: With Mami at his side, Fou-Lu probably would have been OK living that kind of life. Despite his momentary recovery in her care, things ended with the surrounding pursuit and he ultimately lost hope in humanity.

― Did you ever consider making Elina’s sacrifice scene more innocuous?

Ikehara: From the start, we were thinking of the sister as a stand-in for victims of humanity’s cruelty. But that doesn’t mean we gleefully killed her off. (laughs)

Togawa: If we did, then that would be a little terrifying. (laughs)

Ikehara: Well, from the start she was put there as an essential wound for the growth of Nina and Cray. When I say that, people might say, “Did you create her to be killed from the outset!?”

― Could you not even get rid of Elina’s modified form?

Ikehara: You could say she was made that way to my liking. (laughs)

Hironobu Takeshita: Doesn’t that bring us right back around to the accusation of having gleefully nixed her? (laughs)

Favorite Characters

― Which characters were your favorites to shape?

Ikehara: I really liked Yuna.

― Yuna?

Ikehara: He was so well done, wasn’t he? Everyone hates him, just as I anticipated.

― It’s because he’s a super heel (a term used to describe a contemptible villain in the pro wrestling world). You think that kind of character is set up from the start to be punished, but that conclusion never arrives.

Ikehara: In the original plans he was going to meet his end by means of getting bitten to death by Fou-Lu’s pet Won-Qu (オンクー / Onkuu)! There was also the idea of him being strangled to death by Ursula’s adoptive parent, General Rhun.

― In a way, that’s just.

Ikehara: We considered having someone other than a protagonist hand down his judgement, but due to time restrictions…

― Yuna survived because of time restrictions!? (laughs)

Takeshita: There were times I figured it was alright BECAUSE it was Yuna.

― His lines during the ending seemed so revolting, didn’t they!?

Ikehara: I wonder if that too isn’t a kind of hope for humanity. If you can manage to feel that way, we’d call it a win.

*

― Which characters were your favorites in terms of battle?

Togawa: For fighting random battles, it was clearly Ursula.

Kitabayashi: She’s the only one that can attack all the enemies at once.

Togawa: On the other hand, I’m remembering how Cray was universally hated. He was slow no matter how you look at it. (laughs) “I can’t get my combos to connect because of you!”

Takeshita: But you made him! (laughs)

Togawa: Uh, well that is true.

― It was a big change from the Woren character Rei in the previous installment who was quite fast, wouldn’t you say?

Togawa: This time there were no power characters outside of Cray!

― Though I think my first impression of Ershin was wondering if they were a power character or not.

Togawa: There is a reason for that even though they didn’t become a physical attack-only character. (※12)

― And that is?

Togawa: Though we planned for Deis to emerge as a playable character, we never actually got that far.

― So there was a scenario where Deis was released from her intial seal within Ershin and joined the party?

Yoshikawa: At the moment Rhem (リーム / Riimu) became Deis, specifically. We intended to have her appear as a playable character.

― Because Deis has been so popular ever since BoFI right?

Yoshikawa: Yeah. I figured things had to be arranged so that Deis would come up. So I stuck her in there!

*

― Among the particularly impactful scenes was the one where Ursula dropped her trousers.

Ikehara: Yep, although it was completely cut from the overseas version. (laughs)

Yoshikawa: That’s the first I’ve heard of it! (laughs)

Ikehara: They weren’t having it over there. Even though I was quite pleased with it…

Yoshikawa: But they kept her in her trousers.

― Though conversely, there was the scene of a similar vein where Nina and Ursula were bathing in the water.

Ikehara: Uhh, but they cut that overseas, too.

Everyone: SERIOUSLY!? (laughs)

― They’re strict over there. What about the scene where Mami got into Fou-Lu’s futon? Did they cut that too?

Ikehara: That one was OK.

― Though I think in that instance, the fadeout spoke volumes.

Ikehara: Well, something was going on there. (laughs)

Theme of the Production

― Was the theme decided at the outset of production?

Ikehara: We lacked the skill to decide upon a theme first and hit it on the nose, so we went ahead with working step-by-step and it gradually became clearer. First, we made the characters, and then things seemed to have moved on their own from there.

― If forced to cite a theme, would you say it was similar to BoFIII’s theme of cutting our own path into the future?

Ikehara: I’d say it’s close to looking forward and staying positive.

Takeshita: In the past, we expressed that kind of thing passionately. At the time of BoFIII, it was, “In the end, people should think more for themselves and walk on their own two feet.” In BoFIV, people defied the gods and turned the tables on them, but they forget about fundamental aspects of what it means to “live.” We wanted to convey something along those lines.

*

― What was the intention behind including the subtitle “The Endless” (うつろわざるもの / Utsurowazaru Mono / “The Unfading Ones”)?

Ikehara: I was thinking of affixing a subtitle in Hiragana (form of Japanese lettering). The first one I considered was “Passage of Dreams” (ゆめのかよいじ / Yume no kayoiji). I tossed around the idea of integrating dreams into the game and so it seemed to fit. But while we worked, it became apparent that we inadvertently weren’t including much in the way of dreams. So we went with Ryu’s alternate moniker, “The Endless”.

― How about the tagline, “You musn’t run away” (逃げては、いけない / Nigete wa ikenai)?

Takeshita: Looking at the finished package, the image of being tense and cornered came to mind, and so I wanted something that fit with that. It’s like a line of dialog, but also unlike one. It felt like it gave off a whiff of the worldview. We also wanted to intentionally use negative words. Ikehara and I put out a considerable amount of ideas, but nothing really clicked until about 4 or 5 in the morning when we ultimately went, “Maybe this one.”

― You guys really went to town with that, eh?

Takeshita: Middle schoolers and high school students, among others, are at a time where they encounter various emotional and mental difficulties, so I thought it would be good if it could be used by them… That’s the gist of it, but it also has an air of silently insisting in the store that one please not run away in the direction of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. (laughs)

― Is this the true meaning!? (laughs)

Ikehara: It also means “You musn’t run away” to the development team. (laughs)

Takeshita: Everyone really didn’t run away, huh. (laughs)

Plans For Next Time

― How was the response from players?

Takeshita: It’s like this every time, but we get a lot of, “That was fun!”, “Hurry and make the next one!” …Didn’t the dang thing just come out!? (laughs) There was quite a bit of, “I’ll be anticipating it”, “V”, and “When’s ‘V’ coming out!?”

― Any major points of dissatisfaction?

Takeshita: …Well, there was Yuna.

(everyone laughs)

Takeshita: There was a big upset over Yuna. Though among that, there were people writing in with things like, “To forgive Yuna is to forgive others.” That would have been a good way to consider ending the game, even for us. Aside from that, fishing had a solid reputation.

― As one might expect, the fishing was well received.

Takeshita: That, and as far as systems go, I’d wager to say the battles. A lot of positive things were said regarding how the feeling of fighting using every character was really brought out. It was worth toiling over.

― Sure enough, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in “BoFV”. Is there anything in the works?

Takeshita: Right now, we’re working on the overseas version of BoFIV with all our might. We’re still considering whether it will be the next installment in the BoF series or something else entirely, but as of yet it’s undecided. I’d like to consider it from a broad perspective.

― So it might not even be a BoF game?

Takeshita: Though that may well be a bummer for BoF fans looking for the next one, I think as long as we can bring something interesting to the table, then we won’t betray players’ expectations. Saying we 100-percent intend to do so-and-so next time is not really our thing… But if I say that, people get the feeling, “Maybe they aren’t gonna do it.” (laughs) I’m not saying that, it’s just that I want to strive for the next BoF game to really be worthy of the BoFV title.

*

― Tentatively speaking in regards to the next installment, in concrete terms, what kind of game does everyone think they want to try making?

Ikehara: I’d like it if no one died next time. (laughs)

Kitabayashi: That’d be nice. It sounds so carefree. It feels like I did everything I set out to do this time, so next time I’d like to take on the challenge of something more unusual.

Togawa: Same here. I’d like to make a comparitively dark BoF, or even go with the opposite of that; something like Future Boy Conan or Laputa: Castle in the Sky. I’m in the midst of exploring my options.

Yoshikawa: I think I myself am still in the process of growing. I’m always practicing as I go along. Although it is enjoyable, I’m getting paid for it, so I’d like to draw while conscious of the fact that people are going to be purchasing my work.

Takeshita: I think on-site, there was the feeling that we really got it done this time; that we were able to do higher level work than we did on BoFIII. But among our staff arose the question, “Isn’t there a difference between something sold as a product and something solely made to be interesting?” And so once more, I have the feeling of wanting to dig into what is currently relevant in terms of how interesting works are evaluated. To put it concretely, rather than having folks go, “Hey, a simulation” or, “Oh, a puzzle game,” I’d like them to say, “Whoa, that looks interesting” regardless of what kind of game it is.

― I’m looking forward to what you put out next. Thank you for your time today.

Recorded: July 7, 2000 / 14:00 ~ 17:00 at Capcom Co., Ltd. Headquarters

Ask Yoshikawa

[Illustration Design Q & A]

Q. What do you pay attention to when illustrating for the BoF series?

A. I want it to feel tender, as in, “Hey, the rays of Mr. Sun sure are warm!” The primary colors on screen during BoFIII were a bit harsh, but this time, you can see things are completely different. I set my heart on something simple that still enables one to carry a sense of place. Character clothing was geared towards simplicity, and the link between the game screen and pixel art was handled with the utmost care. What you see is the result of working on both at the same time. So there’s that, and this time I especially paid attention to things like the character’s faces and eyes. As for enemy characters like Yuna and Rasso, I worked hard to make it so that one can tell what kind of person they are with a quick glance. “He’s so mysterious isn’t he?”, or “Doesn’t Yohm look like he has a nose that was hit by a ball?” Of particular concern was how the silhouettes might be seen.

Q. Do you have anything to say regarding this installment’s worldview?

A. The setting of the entire world being covered in mud is reflected in nature and culture. Details like patterns and ethnicities were handled with care, and although I very much wanted to illustrate the face of every last townsperson, the plan had to be abandoned due to circumstances surrounding the time involved in making pixel art. Since the various species that emerge in the BoF games are more or less already decided upon, I intended to stuff in as many of the ones that have appeared until now as possible.

Q. Who is your favorite character?

A. I like everyone, but I take an exceptional liking to Nina. It’s often said she doesn’t change much, but throughout the series I’ve grown really fond of her. This time around I wanted to make her delicate and weak, with a gentle feeling. As for the villains, I’m into Yuna. I wanted him to come off as especially smart. My pride in his design hinges on the fact that he is so stupendously disliked.

Q. Did any specific character give you trouble?

A. Since the previous game’s Woren character Rei was so incredibly popular, I spent a lot of energy this time fussing over Cray. While he is the same species, he was changed from a speed-type character to a power-type character. I was careful when considering whether or not he was able to display the virtue of the tiger people. I wonder if I was ultimately able to come up with a good resolution.

Q. Which monster can you most get behind?

A. That would have to be Maman and Papan. I threw myself entirely at those pixels. Having set out to create a design for a monster that has faced as little difficulties as possible, I think I nailed it. In terms of dragons, I quite like the Sea Dragon’s design. Coming at it from an image based perspective, I’d say I’m keen on the Wind Dragon, P’ung Ryong (ラーウィ / Raaui).

Q. Which artists are your most respected?

A. In our company, the one I respect most is Mr. Akiman. Boy do I respect him, though I do wish I could get closer to him. There was a period in the world of manga artists that I held special reverence for Masamune Shirow. Recently in the magazine “Afternoon” (アフタヌーン) there is something called “Narutaru” (なるたる) where dragons are handled in a fashion reminiscent of the BoF series. That kind of thing catches my eye.

Q. Where do you come up with your ideas?

A. I travel from a very rural area in Nara to my job in Osaka. The train runs at a high speed, so the commute doesn’t take a ton of time, but the hour and a half I spend looking out at the lush green scenery is very useful when coming up with ideas for monster designs.

Q. What materials do you work with?

A. The time I spend coloring images with paint has decreased lately. Due to the contents of my work, the volume of CG has gone up. The number one thing I like about that is there’s no need to clean up afterwards. (laughs) On the other hand though, I think I’d really like to paint again.

Artbook Credits