The Story behind Development of “Sengoku BASARA”

“Put me on any team, just not ‘Sengoku BASARA’.”
“Right. I feel sorry for whoever’s making that game, it will never sell.”
Kobayashi overheard comments like these as he walked down the hall outside the development room. For the last few months word had been going around the company, and though he had known that few people supported his effort, the murmuring took an emotional toll nonetheless.

July 2004.
Eight months had passed since production of “Sengoku BASARA” began, with only 10 months left until completion. It felt as if even after the title was finished, it would continue to receive a chilly response internally. It wasn’t as if Kobayashi didn’t understand the feelings of his colleagues. In a sense, this was new territory for Capcom, so he didn’t expect everyone to understand. But still…

There was another reason Kobayashi felt uneasy. The development team was losing its sense of unity, and fast. The biggest reason for this was because both the section leaders and the director did not understand the direction development was taking.

The game concept Kobayashi envisioned was a Japanese warrior action game anyone could enjoy. However, this was different from what had become conventional thinking at Capcom. The problem was the idea of a game “anyone could enjoy”. In other words, the simplicity of the gameplay.

Capcom’s specialty was action games, which were popular in part because of their difficulty. Enemies were vanquished using advanced techniques requiring precision command of game controller buttons. The joyous taste of victory was savored only by those passionate and skilled enough to achieve it. These games are fun precisely because they are difficult. This was the conventional line of thinking with regards to action games.

Even members of his own development team frequently raised doubts, asking Kobayashi, “What’s so interesting about a game where you can mow through enemies with a push of a button?”

However, his aim was to create a game anyone could play. While Capcom action games had a passionate fan base, they had earned a reputation for being too difficult for beginners. Kobayashi wanted to remove this barrier completely and cultivate a new fan segment. The challenge was: what would replace “difficulty” as the game’s appeal? Kobayashi himself had yet to discover the answer to this question.

Amid impatience and frustration over the inability to move forward, conflicts within the team began to increase. As the situation began to escalate, Kobayashi was worried things were out of control. A month later, he decided to replace the director.

Like the director of a movie, the director of a game development team plays the leading role. Changing the director mid-development is like changing directors on a movie and having to reshoot all the existing scenes.
Considering how little time was left, it seemed a reckless decision. Yet if a change was not made, the project would end in failure, just as others in the company had predicted all along.

Kobayashi had only one person in mind as a candidate for the new director position: game designer Makoto Yamamoto. The two men had worked together a number of times in the past, but they didn’t know each other on a close personal basis. Nevertheless, Kobayashi had a feeling Yamamoto would be able to straighten out tthe situation.

Yep, he’s the one… Kobayashi thought, determined as he reached for the phone.

“What? Masamune Date is going to speak English?!”
Yamamoto responded to the surprised staff with a nod and a smile.

“That’s right, the Date clan engaged in foreign diplomacy throughout the Warring States period. Of course, they probably didn’t use English, but we want to create distinctive characters while maintaining a link to those kinds of historical facts.”

When using an actual warlord as the model for a character, convention calls for the design to be faithful to historical fact. However, Kobayashi and Yamamoto established a developmental policy where they turned up the dial on historical fact, from a baseline of 1 all the way to 100. Their line of thinking was, even when based on historical fact, imagination should be used freely to thoroughly distort and expand those facts to create a completely off-the-wall feudal warlord character.
“A warlord named Tadakatsu Honda fought 100 battles throughout his life and never lost once.”
“Let’s run with that and make him the game’s strongest character.”
“Why not go further? Let’s make him a steel robot, impervious to swords.”
“You know what’d be cool? If we made Lord Ieyasu Tokugawa a young boy and had him control the robot.”

Open discussions such as these between Kobayashi and Yamamoto gave rise to a host of ideas. Through this, they realized that the mishmash of various entertainment themes created a patchwork feeling. Turning Tadakatsu Honda into a robot was a touch of science fiction; other elements were borrowed from young girls’ comics, horror, the occult and comedy, all to add color to the characters and create a sense of excitement since no one would know what to expect next.

One other element that enhanced the characters’ presence was conversation. Characters rarely speak in action games, as there is little time for idle chatter while engaged in heated battle. But in “Sengoku BASARA”, which places more emphasis on characters than battles, dialogue like Masamune Date’s English are an important part of the character’s distinctiveness. Lines were given not only to main characters and enemies, but also to the legions of rank and file soldiers who are noisily taken down in battle. Even warlords not present on the battlefield speak freely to provide commentary on the battle action.

These conversations are made more appealing through the use of voice overs. At the time “Sengoku BASARA” was being developed, game character lines were typically displayed as subtitles, but text alone would have left the characters feeling flat.
“Let’s add voices. And let’s use first-rate voice actors,” suggested Kobayashi.
“Using talented, top flight voice actors will really boost the presence of each character, and in itself create some major buzz.”
“Yes, but it will also increase expenses.”
“I’ll take care of the budget. Let’s get premiere voice actors for all 22 characters.”

One month later, a test run of the game screen was conducted incorporating voice overs provided by the actors. The excited reaction of the staff was unlike anything up to that point.
“I’ve never seen an action game like this!”
“I finally understand the vision for this game that Kobayashi and Yamamoto had talked about!”

Thus the unique appeal of the “Sengoku BASARA” world, which had not been experienced before, came clearly into focus. This was definitely going to sell; every one of the staff sensed a hit in the making.