Tatsuya Uemura - Toaplan interview (Shooting Gameside vol.4)

[Steven]

Yeah, this is real*. Yes, real with an asterisk.

Uemura-san doesn't remember making an overseas version and the character sprites are different from what was in the version that he worked on for training, but aside from that it's legit.

Taichi was never meant for commercial use or release as far as I know, and Uemura-san would have worked on this during training at Orca in 1984 or so. We might never know who made these altered graphics, but just having this is already incredible enough as it is.

Notice the name entry music; yes, he later recycled this music for the Out Zone name entry music. I've known about this music for a while now, but I never thought I would ever get to hear it.

Considering that STGs wouldn't even exist in their current form without Uemura-san, this is a truly legendary find.

[Alpha1]

Honestly I didn't know anything about the game. Here's the PCB.



It's potted like most prototype boards to hide the trace cuts and wire links. You can see the Orca/Crux ROM labels.

I'm hoping the dips switch between title screen, fingers crossed.

[Steven]

Yeah, it's hard to say exactly what this is, given that somebody possibly worked on this after Uemura-san did and altered it slightly, but it is most definitely the game he made at Orca/Crux, other than those slight modifications.

I'm not even really sure what to make of it or what to say. For the past two years I've really wanted to see this game and now here it is. It's really really really good to finally see it.

BTW your image is not showing.

[Alpha1]

Hi

I'd be interested to know where he's discussing this as I would be interested to be part of the conversation.

I'm getting it dumped and will share the ROM images soon.

[Steven]

He's talked about this on Twitter a bit:

https://twitter.com/u_brand_/status/1773180092518146441
https://twitter.com/u_brand_/status/1773182347560583616
https://twitter.com/u_brand_/status/1773186031027655138

I don't know if you can do Japanese, but I know he can't do English. Pretty sure he is okay with using DeepL, though, and I can do Japanese, so if you need some help, I'll do what I can. We'll figure something out somehow!

[Alpha1]

This is so cool, thanks for linking to those.

I love the remade music someone has done lol.