[ad_1]
The first day of Japan Expo ends gently with the screening of a film. It was a revival on the hats of wheels for one of the largest French fairs dedicated to geek culture. On this occasion, we met Hiroshi Matsuyama, CEO of CyberConnect2, the developers behind Dragon Ball Z Kakarot, Naruto Shippuden and Demon Slayer to recite nobody else but them. But, it is not to talk about these fighting games that our Japanese guest was there. In 2012, he and his studio released their first self-produced game, Fuga: Melodies of Steel, a Japanese RPG, a first for the studio! It was at his stand where he was selling goodies of his last “child” that we exchanged with him.
Hiroshi Matsuyama, can you introduce yourself? Can you show us your work?
My name is Hiroshi Matsuyama, I am fifty-one years old and I am the CEO of CyberConnect2. CyberConnect2 is a video game development studio born 26 years ago, in 1996, in Japan.
Today, the company has three different studios, including one in Montreal. In the past, I worked on licensed games like Dragon Ball, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Demon Slayer.
You have long worked on manga license adaptations. Was there a particular desire behind this choice?
Originally, CyberConnect2 was good for developing original games, but there was another thing we were good at. So I decided to shape this ability that the studio had, this strength is the power of Shonen Jump type manga.
The shonen jump is a weekly manga preprint magazine. I’ve been reading Shonen Jump since I was six, today it’s forty-six. This desire came twenty years ago with the Naruto series on which I worked.
Hiroshi Matsuyama in great shape for the Japan Expo
What did you learn from this experience?
All these creations allowed me to understand one thing. At one time, in Japan, there were a lot of video games whose characters were of poor quality. I was not happy at all and neither were the customers in this industry. In order to fundamentally change things, CyberConnect 2 decided to create a whole new series of fighting games with characters from a well-known manga..
It’s the Naruto series!
How did you come up with the idea of going independent?
Over the past decade, the way the video game industry behaves has changed dramatically. On the one hand, and currently, there is a polarization of AAA-style games, made by a large number of people and taking a lot of time. On the other hand, we have indie studios that develop (indie) games, these are created by a smaller number of people, but sometimes just as time consuming.
There was a time when Japanese games stayed in Japan and didn’t cross borders. It was quite rare and/or complicated. Today, with the global spread of the internet, social networks, it has become possible to deliver games while staying in Japan.
Hiroshi Matsuyama live from his stand, who answers our questions via a translator on his phone!
Your previous titles include a lot of fighting games, why did you go for an RPG?
Originally, CyberConnect2 was a company particularly competent in action and fighting games. Dragon Ball Z Kakarot, Naruto Shippuden, Demon Slayer are all fighting games, very competitive games. I’m very happy with what we’ve created, but I can’t just be happy with competitive games.. I then decided to launch the creation of an RPG type game.
Japanese RPGs are recognized around the world, I therefore knew that there were many fans of this kind of games whether in our country or elsewhere. So I decided to create a Japanese RPG, that’s how Fuga: Melodies of Steel was born, it was released in 2021.
A way of creating and consuming video games that has changed, AAAs are increasingly present and make room for indie games with difficulty. However, some manage to make their way to the front of the stage thanks to an original story or gameplay. Hiroshi Matsuyama, our friendly guest in any case, is not ready to stop creating, regardless of whether the industry has changed or not.
[ad_2]
