Ys I・IIThis sessions focuses on the development team that took on the industry's first attempt in packaging the first and second games of Nippon Falcom's popular PC game series "Ys" into a single PC Engine game.
Featuring Hiromasa Iwasaki and Toshimasa Ebina who were the programmers and also Taiichi Matsuda who was the designer, discover some of the extraordinary backstories behind the making of "Ys I・II" ("Ys book I&II," hereinafter called "Ys I・II").
First off, please introduce what your roles were in the making of "Ys I・II". Hiromasa Iwasaki (hereinafter called Iwasaki) I wrote the programs for all the animation parts and around 20% of the game. I generally overlooked the game balance, and did around half of the character dialogs. I pretty much handled the animations as well…I guess I had a lot of roles (Iwasaki laughs).
Toshimasa Ebina (hereinafter called Ebina) I was told, "I will be implementing the bosses, and I need you to analyze them" so, I was in charge of analyzing the PC version (PC-8801). It was quite difficult since each and every boss had a different code. I also was in charge of adjusting the game balance and debugging the game.
Taiichi Matsuda (hereinafter called Matsuda) I generally assisted in dotting the pixels for the graphics.
Where did the idea to bring "Ys I・II" onto the PC Engine come from? IwasakiI was really into "Ys II" on the PC and I was saying how good of a game it was, and then Hudson told me, "then why not port it?"
I replied with "Well, since the first and second "Ys" is one story, I would like to combine "I" and "II" into one game," and we ended up actually porting it (Iwasaki laughs).
Until then, "I" and "II" had never been bundled into one game before, right? IwasakiFrom what I was able to look up, I think this was the first.
I explained to them that we should absolutely do it since we would be able to show off the CD-ROM's large storage capabilities, and we can finally combine the two parts of the story into one game.
But thinking about it later, it meant that we had to pay the royalty fees for both games, so from a business perspective it was a "nope" (Iwasaki laughs).
EbinaThanks to that it led to "Ys IV."
MatsudaAs a result, "III" came out so I'm very grateful.
Were you already thinking about "how to make it better" from the original PC version from the start? IwasakiYes. From the beginning, it was a no-brainer that it needed to be better than the original PC version. What I mean is, the main memory for the PC version was 64 kilobytes and had a storage capacity of one floppy disk.
In comparison, the CD-ROM² for the PC Engine had the same memory, but had an abundant amount of storage to do whatever we want. Now that data was more disposable, I thought that we'll be able to make something far better than the PC version.
Did the large storage capacity also spark the idea to add voice audio and animations? IwasakiThe CD is a devise that has many drawbacks. It can carry a lot of data, but on the other hand it's structured to take a while to access it. Though, no one had any understanding of it at the time.
I was designing the CD-i so I happened to know about it, but the majority of developers weren't aware of it and thought they could just use it in the same way as a floppy disk. But that would only make it take longer to read the data.
I thought the solution to that was to compress everything into 1 megabyte of memory and pack in the CD audio to have the songs play; I would be able to make a fast and awesome game since the music would play from the CD audio without having to access the game.
The three key advantages of the CD-ROM is the CD audio, voice data, and disposable storage capacity. Therefore, minimizing the amount it has to read is the right way to utilize it.
My initial thoughts were, to use the CD audio, the moment you boot it up is when it's the most powerful, so if I played the music using the CD audio and add the voice data on top of that, and did a history of "Ys" then everyone would be very happy.
*CD-i: A standard called Compact Disk Interactive that was proposed by the Dutch company Philips.
Was it decided from the very beginning on how the opening cut scene would look like? IwasakiYes, it was already decided. When the title appeared in the opening and you loaded the game, you would start from the beginning of "Ys I," and once you've reach the end of "I" it would continue into "II" all the way up until the end of "II."
It's a game with a remarkable use of animation, including the opening cut scene. MatsudaAt the time, my main job was porting "Daimakaimura" ("Ghouls 'n Ghosts"), but I was suddenly called in to help out with "Ys."
I was first told to fix the Luta Gemma cut scene, and once I fixed it I asked, "If no one else has touched the images of Lilia, could I do those too?" (Matsuda laughs). And so, they let me do that cut scene with the biggest close-up of Lilia.
IwasakiI believe at first, they said to make it scroll, then later on they said, "It has memory so make it full screen." It took us quite a while to do that Lilia part.
MatsudaThe top of her head was cut off in the original image, so we had to create the rest of her head, as well as make her hair flutter and add more animation patterns for her eyes and mouth.
IwasakiSince the PC Engine allowed more room to be expressive than the PC, we were able to increase the quality of the graphics. But back then, the graphics on PCs were supposed to be prettier than on home consoles, so I'm sure the PC users were critical about it.
That's why I knew we had to raise the quality to a level where anybody could clearly recognize the difference. The staff that worked on the graphics was very meticulous about the smallest details, which we appreciated, but if you left him alone he would for some reason be nitpicking at a tree (Iwasaki laughs).
(Everyone laughs) IwasakiI would have to tell him, "Leave that alone and go work on places like the entranceway of the temple, you know, the parts people will be focusing their attention at."
There's a forest in "Ys I" that is full of trees, and he would spend so much time arranging the tree line, and the character's hair (Iwasaki laughs).
MatsudaI remember that (Matsuda laughs).
In fact, he probably was eager to finish his tasks just so that he could fiddle with the hair and trees… (Matsuda laughs).
IwasakiWe would make arrangements like that, but I don't think we had ever gone far off from the source material. One of our goals was to implement every single element that the original staff members would have wanted to put in if they were given the time.
And there were parts that I personally wanted to improve, such as giving all the bosses their own cut scene when they appeared, since the original only had one or two bosses that had that.
You were a huge fan to begin with, which is why your love for the original was so strong. IwasakiVery true. That is why I was very thorough in making the exciting parts actually exciting.
We had in fact conducted interviews with the dev members from Falcom in advance. They told us about what kind of things they wanted us to do, like have the bell tower be a sunset, or this part didn't turn out that great and would have rather done this instead, and so on.
How did Nippon Falcom react? IwasakiAfter making "Ys I・II," I received a call in December and was told "This is Kato from Nippon Falcom" (Iwasaki laughs).
He said, "Please will you come to Tachikawa?" so when I went to Falcom in Tachikawa, Kato the president of Falcom gave me lots of compliments saying, "Mr. Iwasaki, thank you very much for 'Ys I・II'!" I even met the winner of the Miss Lilia contest, and got a signed poster and CD, and got to shake her hand (Iwasaki laughs).
They must have been really pleased.
Mr. Masuda, you drew pictures of that very Lilia, but did you ever have a hard time with it? MatsudaThey let me do it rather freely, but Lilia might have been the most difficult…
Her face is somewhat tilted at an angle, and I wanted to slightly have it slanted, but with pixel drawings it just becomes straight lines.
I had a really hard time trying to get that slight angle. I would draw here and there, then go in and erase the jagged edges, then go back and fix it again...and repeated that process over and over again.
EbinaI came into the office one day and there was Lilia on every monitor in the company (Ebina laughs).
I said, "Huh? What's going on?" and he responded with, "It looks different on all of them" (Ebina laughs).
MatsudaThe colors vary with each monitor, and I knew I would need to make adjustments so that it would look good on any TV, so I had it load all the data so that I could check how it would display.
IwasakiI remember stuff like that happening.
EbinaI didn't know what had happened (Ebina laughs).
That is quite the determination. How long did it take to develop "Ys I・II"? IwasakiDevelopment started in March and finished in November.
It was around June or July that I had Ebina analyze the bosses, but we barely were able play to the end of "I" at that time. By July, we were able to play a little bit of "II."
EbinaAround that time, there had been talks about the map system for "II" being difficult, and when I had a look at "II" it was just full of things I've never seen before.
The multidimensional paths were especially notable. If you have multidimensional paths on a 2D map, you have to be careful on how you handle that data or else you could create a lot of trouble.
With the help of some tools we set the upper and lower levels to be A-mode and B-mode, have it display different colors like yellow and red, and made quite a few improvements.
MatsudaI think we used that for "Ys IV" as well.
Ebina"Ys IV" was even more difficult to handle, due to having the concept of height on the map.
IwasakiAs a result of modding the editor a bunch, the second thing we struggled with was the bugs. Since it was full of unique processing, it caused a lot of unique bugs (Iwasaki laughs). Debugging it was extremely daunting.
EbinaAs a programmer, I had a hunch that if I do something weird, it could cause a bug. Even still, so many jaw-dropping bugs would happen left to right.
IwasakiI think that resulted in the development being delayed by about a month.
EbinaThough, it was more so to improve the quality of the game, and not due to debugging. We were adjusting the game balance repeatedly.
We had a lot of people fine tuning the Darm Tower battle at the end.
IwasakiBack then, "Ys" was known among PC users for having such good balance that it was deemed legendary.
But that doesn't mean we didn't need to fix anything. We needed to make sure that the balance ranged wide enough so that people that are bad at it, and people that are good at it can clear the game.
Going back to our earlier conversation, having to combine "I" and "II" together, doesn't that also affect the game balance? IwasakiIt was originally supposed to be a single story, so I didn't think it was any necessity to intentionally split it up into two. Also, many of the characters from "I" appear at the climax of "II," and it wouldn't make sense if you hadn't played "I."
We didn't want people to be able to start playing from "II," so that is what drove our decision to combine "I" and "II" into one game.
IwasakiThe only concern I had was, if we combined "I" and "II" then we would have to get rid of the ending of "I." The ending song, "THE MORNING GROW" is a masterpiece written by Yuzo Koshiro, so I was very disappointed that we wouldn't be able to put it in…but it couldn't be helped (Iwasaki laughs).
(Everyone laughs) EbinaWe couldn't even put it in as audio. The CD was already full.
What? It's a CD-ROM! IwasakiYeah, it was full due to the music.
Actually, the spec sheet for the CD-ROM said it could contain up to 60 minutes, but there were other spec sheets that said you could put in up to 74 minutes. So, we ended up making a 70-minute CD. They got really mad at us though (Iwasaki laughs).
EbinaIt stated that it could hold 540 megabytes at that time. But afterwards it was 700 megabytes, which means someone at some point removed the hoops from the barrel (Ebina laughs).
In a way, it was a path that Mr. Iwasaki and the team tore open through "Ys I・II"? EbinaSomething close to that. We saw that it could be interpreted this way, and did exactly that.
IwasakiIt wasn't written anywhere that we aren't allowed to make it that way. But once the CD-Rs became practical, we could no longer fit "Ys I・II" since the CD-R could only contain 60 minutes.
EbinaYou couldn't burn it onto CD-Rs, so before we began debugging we would have to make what was called a stamper, the master version which cost 1.5 million yen to make at a time.
IwasakiWe kept having to make something that cost 1.5 million yen once a week (Iwasaki laughs).
It would be odd for them to not get mad at you for that (laughs). IwasakiThis contained lots of features that were barely seen on all the other games that Hudson has made on the CD-ROM, so I think there were many things that only "Ys I・II" has done.
The world's first CD-ROM game was being made by Hudson, right? IwasakiI also wanted to make a CD-ROM game, but no one had actually done it yet. I knew that playing the songs through the CD audio would have a powerful impact, and I became sure of that the moment I heard the CD audio in "Fighting Street."
By having the CD track play while playing the game, all the sound effects and everything else would be mixed on top of it, becoming something entirely different.
What about the other parts besides the sound? IwasakiWe were worn out by the lack of memory it had.
EbinaIt was only 64 kilobytes at the time. Plus ADPCM.
IwasakiIt was just compressing, compressing, compressing…constantly (Iwasaki laughs).
At the time, there was a bulletin on the computer BBS that exchanged information about compression algorithms, and those algorithms were simple and easy to understand. It was fast even when we used an 8-bit machine. We would find these and think to ourselves, "we can do it." When we try to put the data in and create the build, it just piles up everyday. Invariably.
EbinaThose days, I couldn't tell if I was actually making a game or just compressing data.
In the end, "Ys I・II" turned out to be a success, and do you genuinely believe that as well? IwasakiThis game holds a special place in my heart, and I thought, "If I make it like this, people would love it," but no one had actually seen it yet.
I had confidence that if I took the music, and the character animations in this direction, then they'll absolutely enjoy it. But in reality, you never know.
That's why I went around asking a lot of people, "Is this interesting?"
EbinaWhat I personally thought was "interesting" was the narrative for "II" after "I" ended.
What was foreshadowed in "I" came together and revealed the truth in "II." That was really impressive, and the fact that they rearranged it to all be animation made it even more enjoyable.
You could feel that this was what the developers of the PC version of "Ys" had intended to do, and I really thought "This is crazy!"
MatsudaIt's now more enhanced than before.
IwasakiI also had confidence, but I didn't know it when I was making it.
But in my mind I had hopes that, "Everyone would want this type of game," and after I made the game I thought, "I knew it! That was it!" Since then, I've been making games that I know people would want to play, like “Tengai Makyō" ("Far East of Eden") and "Emerald Dragon." Although, like with "Linda³," I do persistently make games without being quite sure if they are something everyone would want...(Iwasaki laughs).
How did you feel about it, Mr. Matsuda? IwasakiI think with Matsuda, "Make Lilia cuter!" is all I ever said to him (Iwasaki laughs).
MatsudaEven for me, when I saw the original Lilia my reaction was, "Oh, this is such a cute girl!" and so I wanted preserve that aspect of her.
It wasn't about making her "cuter," but more about keeping it faithful to the original, and more subtle. With the increased resolution I wanted to also increase the richness as well.
You've even added blinking, and many other animation patterns, right? MatsudaThat is correct. Originally, there was only 1 middle frame for the eyes, but we increased that to five frames to have them move more smoothly.
From making "Ys I・II," has that led to any other jobs or opportunities? EbinaFrankly, without it we wouldn't have been able to make "Ys IV."
We did have to completely start from scratch with "Ys IV" and had no examples to work with, but I wanted to at least keep the flavor of "Ys I・II."
I also reworked the multidimensional paths and expanded that mechanic, as well as the editor, so I think that took me to the next level.
MatsudaFor me, the next game after that was “Tengai Makyō II" ("Far East of Eden II"), and because of "Ys I・II," I was able to learn how to create the visuals,
as well as take on challenges on how to deal with massive amounts of visual data.
It also taught me what sort of frame of mind you would need when developing a game, and I believe that it was thanks to "Ys I・II" that I got to work on more PC Engine titles after that.
IwasakiLikewise for me, it was “Tengai Makyō II" ("Far East of Eden II").
After making "Ys I・II," Hudson's upper management told me, "Oji Hiroi is saying that he has to have Iwasaki or he won't do it," so that's how I got involved with “Tengai Makyō II" ("Far East of Eden II").
When I met Mr. Hiroi, he had told me how "Ys I・II" had done everything that they said Hudson couldn't do, but to Hudson's credit, the way they made "Ys I・II" was very extreme.
Also, what surprises the younger people when I tell them, is that the English version "Ys book I&II" won Game of the Year.
You can also play the English version "Ys book I&II" with the PC Engine mini. IwasakiWell, if you ask me, winning Game of the Year happend by coincidence.
The game would have crashed if Ebina didn't analyze the bosses, and who would have redrawn Lilia if we didn't have Matsuda? There were many other coincidences that happened to pile up on top of each other to make it happen.
Though, because of that, it became the definitive reason why from then on I was able to work as a professional game creator. But that was really just luck.
What parts of "Ys I・II" would you want the people who bought the PC Engine mini to focus on? Matsuda…"Don't look at it" is what I would say (Matsuda laughs).
(Everyone bursts into laughter) MatsudaWith HDMI you will be able to see a lot of the roughness, and the timing of when the eyes blink is like, "This is terrible" (Matsuda laughs). Just don't look at it at all, is how I feel (Matsuda laughs).
But, the game itself is very fun so I do wish for people to play through the whole game. The music too; it's truly amazing even when I listen to it now.
The final battle with Dark Fact is such a chilling, goose bump inducing scene.
IwasakiYou can go straight into playing the English version after playing the Japanese version, and so I want people to see how strong Khonsclard is in the English version.
That boss is super weak in the Japanese version.
EbinaThis might be a little off topic, but the paint process for the Underground Canal in "II," I didn't quite get it when they were explaining the logic behind it, but when I actually played it I was like, "Oh, this is how they did that!" It blew me away, and I would go back and forth through it for no reason.
I would like for people to enjoy this game, not just because of it being a 2D game, but to be able to relish the technology that was used from one end to the other.
Mr. Matsuda, are there any titles in the PC Engine mini lineup that you personally like or have an interest in playing? MatsudaThe one I want to play is "Dungeon Explorer." The one I would recommend to others is "Nectaris."
Definitely, please play "Nectaris"! It was pretty much the only game, where the project, programming and design was all done by Hudson staff, that I was involved in.
You have Mr. Sakuma for "Momotarō Dentetsu," and you have Mr. Hiroi, Mr. Iwasaki, and Mr. Masuda involved with “Tengai Makyō II" ("Far East of Eden II").
IwasakiCome to think of it, you're right. In terms of what was made entirely by Hudson, that's true.
PROFILE
Hiromasa Iwasaki As a student, he was involved in the system design of the CD-I while also working as a writer. On the other end, he has worked on numerous titles including "Ys I・II" ("Ys book I&II"), "Emerald Dragon," “Tengai Makyō II" ("Far East of Eden II"), and "Susano Oh Densetsu" as a programmer and director.
Toshimasa Ebina Former programmer for Hudson. He was in charge of the programming for "Ys I・II" ("Ys book I&II"), "Ys III," and "Ys IV," and was involved in the development of several titles including “Tengai Makyō II: Manji Maru" ("Far East of Eden II") and "Bomber Boy" ("Atomic Punk" or "Dynablaster"). Currently he works at Konami Digital Entertainment as project manager in the development department.
Taiichi Matsuda Former graphic designer for Hudson. He has worked on the graphics and served as the art director for numerous titles such as "Ys I・II" ("Ys book I&II"), “Tengai Makyō II: Manji Maru" ("Far East of Eden II") and “Tengai Makyō: Daiyon no Mokushiroku." Currently he works at Konami Digital Entertainment as a designer in the development department.