[game_preservation] Hironobu Takeshita on MM9

[Captain Commando]

Here's the Gamasutra interview with Hironobu Takeshita, the producer for
Mega Man 9. He discusses how they made the game, and brings up some
interesting points related to preservation:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3752/he_is_8bit_capcoms_hironobu_.php?page=1

For one, MM9 is not made using Famicom tools - but it is done in the Famicom
style. In fact, MM9 is much too big and complex to fit on an NES cart
anyway. This tells us something interesting: that the development tools for
those old systems, they're not really used anymore (and it's a stretch to
ask whether or not Capcom even has original Famicom dev kits still). So to
begin with, the old technology is not readily available for work.

However, you can still make an NES-style game today because the technology
allows us to make something that 'emulates' (or rather, replicates) the
style of the past. However, knowing what the hardware could do is important
still for making an 'authentic' Famicom game versus simply replicating the
look and feel. However, there are still people today who make NES games (and
not by hacking existing ones). I don't recall the name of the team, but I
believe it was led by a guy named Snowbro who is legendary for his NES
hacking abilities.

Second, the people who are making games today do not know how to make the
games the way they did 25 years ago. This is another interesting point for
preservation, because now from a design perspective, we wouldn't be
concerned just with development environments but rather with techniques. Who
teaches people today to make games like this? Only the people who made games
25 years ago and who are now in producer or lead design roles.

Whether or not we want to consider things like this as our main turf of
preservation, it's certainly something that's going to be needed by the
production side if we want to understand 8-bit as an option. Knowing what
you can and can't do with 8-bit style is as important as being able to use
it as a means of expression.

I also think that I was going to somehow write Cave Story into this, but I
can't remember how :)

So from a design perspective, there is not only tools but also technique.

-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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