Turrican wrote:
Basically, yeah. I'm just a fan - Mr. Campbell is a well-known journalist in the field. The amount of raw information in both articles was around the same (the most noticeable difference is, he disliked Arrangement's music). Of course, a person fluent in Japanese AND with a solid retrogaming passion could write on the same subject more than twice.
He could read the Xevious novel, for example. Or interview Masanobu Endoh.
Which is something Retro Gamer has done - but mostly on the western side, of course. I mean, I lost count of Archer Mclean interviews and contributions...
The trouble is... it's not all that easy talking to Japanese developers about projects they worked on for other companies. Many are just plain unwilling to talk about their work for former employees. For example, Yoshiko Okamoto, refuses to make public comments about his games for Capcom or Konami. Whereas in the west, as well as the lack of language barrier, many classic games programmers are a lot more willing to engage in reflecting on past projects. Although I was lucky in gaining a small interview with Kazuma Kujo on the making of R-Type Delta, thanks to Keith Masuda at Irem, who kindly provided an english translation for my questions. The result will be in issue 51.
Also at the end of the day, being a niche mag, RG has very little resources itself, (at many points in its history the in-house staff consisted of just one editor. Now there are two in-house staff). They do have to rely on freelance comissions for much of the content - but as I've said they've picked up a regular Japanese speaking contributor in Japan so expect to see more on this score (starting with the Gunstar Heroes interview with Masato Maegawa).
By the way you'll note if you read the article that he woudn't talk about his and other staff members work at Konami either...
PS If anyone thinks they may be able to help out with interviews with Japanese developers I'd be all ears
