Aka to Blue Type Revolution – Soushi Hosoi and Ikeda Minorock Interview

Magazine Translations

Stories From Aka to Blue Type Revolution With Soushi Hosoi and Ikeda Minorock! We Talk to Them About Taking Inheriting the Arcade Sound Just Before Their Live Performance!

The arcade shooting game Aka to Blue Type Revolution was officially released on 11/27/2019. Having been awhile since a new shooting game was released in arcades, this long-awaited title acts as the debut game to utilize the new exA-Arcadia board. Today we bring you a special in-depth conversation about arcade sound with Sonic Wings series composer Soushi Hosoi and Game Center Mikado owner Ikeda Minorock. They were preparing for their live performance at a rock event called "Game to Techno ga Suki!" (officially titled "We Love Video Game & Techno!") (taking place on 02/16/2020), and talked to us quite a bit about the idea of inheriting the arcade sound. Soushi Hosoi - Formerly the composer for the Sonic Wings series from developer Video System. These days he produces various musical artists, performs live himself, and is also involved in streaming. Ikeda Minorock - The Representative Director of INH. Not only is he responsible for the planning and business operations of Game Center Mikado arcades as the owner, but he's also a musician that serves as the lead guitarist for band Heavy Metal Raiden. Continue Reading

Darius Cozmic Collection – Darius Interview

Magazine Translations

Interview - Darius: Until We Make A Giant Battleship

Seiji Kato - A Taito employee in the hardware section of the Technological Development department, he's involved in arcade cabinet design. He's worked on a lot of big games released from Taito and Square Enix in recent years. Yukiharu Sanbe - Joined Taito in 1979, and was involved in a lot of their 80s games, starting with Darius. After that he went on to help establish their karaoke and mobile games division, and currently serves as a technology adviser for Taito. Zenji Ishii (Guest) - Former Editor-In-Chief of Gamest magazine. He's the guest interviewer. Continue Reading

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi x Masayoshi Soken Interview

Magazine Translations

An Interview With Japan's Best Singing Company Employee, Sega's Takenobu Mitsuyoshi & The singing game developer of FFXIV, Masayoshi Soken - "Under The Weight" Wouldn't Exist If Not For Daytona USA!

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi is Sega's "Best Singing Company Employee": A game music composer having worked on such things as Daytona USA and the theme song for the anime version of Virtua Fighter, a band vocalist, and he's even made his solo debut singing other anime theme songs. Many have probably heard him singing songs such as "Kimi no tame nara shineru" and "Akachan wa doko kara kuru no?" in games such as "maimai", "Chunithm", or even "Phantasy Star Online 2". He held a dinner show for Sega employees back on 10/28/2019, which became highly talked about on Sega's official Twitter account. Someone replied to that tweet with "Can I transfer over to your company by 7:30 tonight?". That someone was Square Enix's Masayoshi Soken. Continue Reading

Looking Back on the Original Resident Evil 3 With the Announcement of the Remake

Magazine Translations

Fans are excited about the announcement of RE:3 remake, so in this special feature we're going to take a look back at the original Resident Evil 3 from 20 years ago! Will Famitsu editor Dedeo and writer Gojira Ota talk about the Famitsu strategy guide articles from back then!? Dedeo (Famitsu Editor) - His first job for Famitsu was writing the strategy guide articles for Resident Evil 3 in 1999. Finding the fun in knife-only runs and speed running the game, he's eager to walk around a more modern version of Raccoon City once again! Gojira Ota (Freelance Writer) - He joined Famitsu in 2000, and has been a freelance writer since 2007. He had a lot of fun with the series from parts 1 through 3 (his favorite), but he's a little foggy on them now. When RE:3 remake comes out, his job will be...just playing the game! Continue Reading

Perfect Performer: The Yellow Monkey

Reviews

Hardware: PlayStation
07/01/1999 (Japan)
パーフェクトパフォーマーザイエローモンキー

The Yellow Monkey (abbreviated "Yemon" or "Iemon") are often described as the band you'd get if you mixed 70's British glam rock and enka (traditional Japanese ballads) together. They started their career as an indie band who primarily played out of a Shibuya rock club called La.mama in the late 80s, which was something of a home-base for the "Japa-Metal" movement that sort of forked off into glam rock. The first several years of their career were spent struggling to find an audience, constantly being misclassified by Japanese media as visual kei. Their third major label album "Jaguar Hard Pain" finally started gaining them that audience in 1994, and their popularity slowly took off from there. After 1997's "SICKS" was released, they were one of the most popular rock bands in Japan. This is viewed by many as Yemon's best album, and is a very influential rock album in general. 1998's "Punch Drunkard" continued that upward momentum, resulting in a tour made up of 113 dates that lasted almost an entire year. Yemon was at the height of their popularity, so it was the best time to release a game that would take advantage of this. The singles for My Winding Road and So Young had been released not too long before this game, and both are featured in some way. Continue Reading