Rieko Kodama GDC Pioneer Award Interview

Magazine Translations

The world's biggest game developer conference, GDC (Game Developers Conference), was held in San Francisco recently. And at the GDC Awards, Rieko Kodama of Sega Games was chosen to receive the Pioneer Award, for accomplishments that drove the game industry forward. Famitsu.com held an interview with her to commemorate this occasion. Since joining Sega Enterprises in 1984, her career has consisted of being a graphic designer, director, and producer. She's also shown her abilities across many game development projects. We spoke to her regarding her feelings about and the many notable happenings along the way of the journey that she began on with the creation of Sega's home consoles, and continues on still today.

Reiko Kodama

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, blood type A. She joined Sega Enterprises in 1984, and worked on Champion Boxing and Alex Kidd in Miracle World as a graphic designer. She also did the character designs for the original Phantasy Star, and continues to be heavily involved in the series moving forward. From there she moved on to director and producer roles, leading the way on hit RPG titles such as Magic Knight Rayearth, Skies of Arcadia, and the 7th Dragon series. She's currently working on the Sega Ages series as both a producer and director.

The Reason She Chose Sega is That She Wanted to Create Things

Congratulations on receiving the GDC Pioneer Award. First of all, please tell us how you felt when you heard about it. Continue Reading

A Dragon Quest Talk Between Parent and Child: Enjoying Games Across 2 Generations!

Text: Kamio Takeshi Raised in a house with a retro gaming environment and with exposure to Dragon Quest games both past and present, my grade school aged son has gotten into Dragon Quest as well. As a video game enthusiast with a love for Dragon Quest that's spanned over a period of 30 years, I'd like to present this talk between father and son that spans two generations of Dragon Quest! I was born in 1973, and my first encounter with Dragon Quest was as a middle school student. I found out about it through the pages of weekly Shounen Jump, and played all of the games through XI when they came out. My 12 year old son was born in 2006, and his first encounter with Dragon Quest was in his third year of grade school. His first game in the series was the same copy of the Famicom version of DQ II that I played back in the day. Continue Reading

Ninja Ryuukenden

Reviews

Hardware: Arcade
10/1988 (US and Europe), 02/10/1989 (Japan)
忍者龍剣伝
Legend of the Ninja Dragon Sword
Ninja Gaiden
Shadow Warriors

Taking full advantage of America's lingering ninja boom, the Ninja Gaiden arcade game was released four months earlier in the west than it was in Japan. This game is not to be confused with the much more well known NES/Famicom game by the same name though, and here's where things get a bit confusing! According to this wonderful interview with Hideo Yoshizawa and Keiji Yamagishi by gaming.moe's Heidi Kemps, the two titles were in production at the same time, and retained the same names to achieve name recognition (seemingly at the insistence of the company president). The arcade game hit America quite awhile before the NES game did, but didn't hit Japan until after the Famicom version. Regardless, history has already determined which Ninja Gaiden people would end up caring about. Continue Reading

A Woman Gamer and Dragon Quest

Magazine Translations

Memories of Taking Great Joy in the Female Hero She'd Been Awaiting

Games were largely a pastime for boys in the Famicom era. Dragon Quest gained a girl fan simply because of the Dragon Quest 4-Panel Comics

Text & Materials: Misao Sanjou Ever since I was a kid I had no interest in playing with dolls, but instead with sentai heroes and the Famicom. My first encounter with Dragon Quest was in 1993. DQ V had already been released, and the DQ I & II remakes for the Super Famicom were about to come out. But the reason I got into Dragon Quest was the first volume of the 4-panel comic, that I just happened to pick up. Primarily based around DQ III, I was enthralled by all of the well-known components that made up the Dragon Quest world contained within: The weapons, armor, items, magic, creatures, stores, fields, and the characters that made up the party. It was the reason that I then wanted to play the games. Continue Reading

The Sudden Rise of Dragon Quest and the Consumer RPG Boom

The RPG genre was already popular in the international PC market. It all began with tabletop RPGs, but here we'll take a look back at the explosive RPG boom that began here with Dragon Quest. Text by Kaze no Iona

An RPG was a game that involved playing a role?

I wonder if it wasn't the Famicom version of Tower of Druaga that first introduced the term "RPG" to Famicom users (The text "High Quality Role-playing" appeared on the packaging for Bokosuka Wars later on, but actual use of the term RPG hadn't really caught on at that time). I myself found out about the RPG genre through a publication that had launched around this time, Famimaga. The way that RPGs were introduced as games in which you're "playing a role" stood out in particular. Continue Reading