Phantasy Star IV – 1993 Developer Interviews

Summary

Rieko Kodama – Director / DesignerToru Yoshida – Director, Story Plan, Graphic DesignerKazuyoshi Tsugawa – Battle Planner, Graphic DesignerAkinori Nishiyama – Designer, Scriptwriter —Please share your feelings with us now that the development of PSIV is nearly complete. Kodama: There was a lot of chatter around the office that we weren’t going to finish by the end of the year (laughs), but we somehow just made it. Everything has calmed down now, mostly. The instruction booklet is finished too. It was a really long development. Now that we can finally relax, my brain is kind of a mush. (laughs) At this point a lot of the pressure is off our shoulders, but as we now move toward the actual release date, there’s a new kind of stress. I saw the commercial for PSIV and was like, “is this really ok…?” (laughs) Yoshida: For me, at the halfway point, a lot of the visual cutscene work still remained to be completed. I really thought it might never end. I actually started to think of an escape plan to bail out. (laughs) But now that we’ve safely crossed the finish line, I’m glad I didn’t. All that remains now is the release date… though I am a little worried about all the other big titles coming out around the same time. To be honest I’m just hoping it will sell ok. But yeah, either way I’m really relieved right now. Nishiyama: The large size of the ROM made it harder. Tsugawa: (laughs) It was a lot to handle, but I don’t think it made things harder, exactly. Kodama: The hardest period was definitely transitioning the development from a 16Mbit cart to a 24Mbit. We were very worried whether Sega would approve the change. However, once they gave the go-sign, the pace got a lot more aggressive. (laughs) By the end, we weren’t even sure that 24Mbit was going to be enough! (laughs) But we made the game we really wanted to make, and I’m very thankful for that. —What was it like being team leader for PSIV? Kodama: Well, I’m the “team leader”, but it’s not really a big deal. I continu...