Tag Archives: Shooters

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.

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.

Shooting Live 2019 – Vertical Shooting Night: An Event Packed With Shooting Love

Magazine Translations

Shooting Live 2019 - Vertical Shooting Night was held on 02/21/2019 at AREA in Tokyo's Takadanobaba. This event was the second in Famitsu's series of concerts (following the first one that was centered around pixel-drawn RPGs), and was centered around vertical scrolling shooters. There was a live music section featuring performances by two bands that know the sounds of an arcade better than anyone, a DJ set featuring wonderful composers, and a talk segment featuring some shooting game-loving celebrities. We're bringing you coverage of this event that was packed full of shooting love.

The People Reviving the Darius Series

Magazine Translations

We've interviewed the main staff responsible for the Darius Cozmic Collection at Taito and M2 (who is responsible for the porting). It's divided up into three topics: We start with the details of planning the collection, move into the fixation on sound, and then end with some features found only in this collection.

Tatsuhito Kasuga (Sound, M2)
Kazuki Kubota (U-Design, M2)
Tetsuya Abe (Main Programmer, M2)
Saoki Kudou (Sound, M2)
Hirotoshi Kobayashi (Producer, Taito)
Yuuichi Toyama (Development, Taito)
Naoki Horii (Producer, M2)
Yukiko Karashima (Director, M2)

Famitsu Feature: The Present State of Shooting Games

Features

A big multi-article feature entitled "The Present State of Shooting Games" which published in the 07/12/2018 issue of Famitsu magazine, centered around the recent release of famed shooter Ikaruga to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 stores. Ikaruga got its own set of articles that I won't be translating, however there were three key articles in the bigger feature that interested me quite a bit as a fan of the shooter (Shmups, whatever you want to call it, just as long as you understand I'm not talking about First-Person Shooters) genre:

Famitsu's 2D Shooting Family Tree 2018
- Famitu put together a basic family tree (no it won't have EVERYTHING on it) on the evolution of the 2D shooter as of 2018, which gave me a chance to break out my draw.io flowchart skills for the translation once again!
Talking with ZUN from the Touhou Series! A Conversation Hell
- A very interesting conversation between old-school shooter fans, featuring various writers and editors, as well as Touhou Project creator ZUN. They discuss their memories of classic shooters, as well as how the genre led up to Bullet Hell and the formation of Touhou. All of this comes with pictures of them having a lot of fun in a dark izakaya with very delicious looking beer!
Talking With Minoru Ikeda, Owner Of Takadanobaba Arcade Mikado: The Allure And Future of Shooting Games
- In perhaps my favorite of the three articles, Famitsu talks to owner/operator of famed arcade Mikado in Tokyo's Takadanobaba area Minoru Ikeda about his history with shooting games and as an arcade operator. It's very interesting to hear about this sort of thing from the standpoint of someone who runs an arcade, and how what he feels it will take for shooters and arcades to revitalize themselves. I'll definitely be stopping into Mikado on my next trip to Japan!

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