Earlier this year, Japanese website GAMER interviewed the producer and director of Valkyria: Azure Revolution and Valkyria Chronicles Remastered. Recently, NeoGAF member Nyoro SF translated the interview in English, and our editor InTheSky already wrote an article about that earlier on, summarizing the info from the translation. However, Nyoro SF has now kindly given us permission to post the entire translation on our website. As such, you can now find the first part of the translated interview below! It’s an interesting read, as the developers also discuss the popularity of the series in the West, and whether or not a remaster of Valkyria Chronicles 2 and 3 is a possibility. Expect a follow-up article with part 2 of the translation soon!
GAMER:
On February 10th, 2016, we spoke to SEGA for an interview on the same day Valkyria Chronicles Remaster released for the PS4. Interviewing with us today is Katsura Mikami (Producer) and Takeshi Ozawa (Director). On April 4th, 2008, SEGA released the original Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3 (VC1). VC1 unites the worlds of strategy games and RPGs with a unique battle system, an unmatched new-generation watercolor visual style and a story of a country that must strive in-between two mighty powers.
Afterwards the sequels entered development and the Valkyria Chronicles anime began broadcasting in April 2009. The popularity of the franchise extended internationally and in 2010 won “Best Simulation RPG for the Playstation 3” from the Guinness Book of World Records. Its impact on gamers as a next-generation title has not been forgotten and endures today.
The year is now 2016, 8 years from VC1’s release. Valkyria: Azure Revolution (VAR), a new title in the Valkyria franchise, has been announced for the PS4 alongside the VC1 Remaster. SEGA can keep quiet no longer! As such, we sat down with both Ozawa and Mikami to chat about these two titles and more.
Why was Valkyria Chronicles Remastered created?
GAMER: To start things off, please let everyone know what your roles are in the Valkyria series.
Mikami: I was the assistant producer on Valkyria Chronicles 3 (VC3) and developed the concept for Valkyria Chronicles DUEL (Now defunct) and also offered my input on secondary elements of both games. When it came to understanding the ins and outs of the franchise I relied heavily on the original staff and Ozawa for assistance.
Ozawa: I was the main planner for VC1 and managed the particulars of the BLiTZ system. For VC2 onwards I became the director of the franchise and for VC3 in particular I was in charge of its world-building aspect.
Mikami: For VC1 Remaster I’m acting as a general supervisor because as a port its creation falls more under the purview of a technical director. We’re not changing the core of VC1, so we’ll be focusing more on what we end up enhancing with the remaster.
GAMER: Tell us the whole story about how the remaster came to be.
Mikami: The remaster came about due to a gap in development within the franchise itself and to provide an easy entry point for gamers unfamiliar with the Valkyria series. There were a bunch of additional reasons including popularity of the Valkyria brand overseas along with Media Vision’s desire to develop a PS4 title and build up their PS4 development experience.
GAMER: Would you say the workflow for PS4 title development is noticeably different than for PS3?
Ozawa: Compared to when we initially launched VC1 for the PS3, the differences are pretty significant. For instance back then trophies were becoming ubiquitous so we received messages such as “What do you mean Valkyria Chronicles has no trophies?”. Before we could implement these trophies, however, we had already shifted development to the PSP, which was much easier to develop for.
GAMER: Regarding trophies, what form did they take in VC1 Remastered?
Mikami: Originally in VC1 in order to appease those who like to speedrun or perform difficult strategies the original staff created a medal system based around the assumptions of what people would like to challenge themselves with. In the remaster, trophies are now activated alongside medals.
GAMER: I see! So unlocking a medal and a trophy at the same time will feel like a 2-in-1 deal!
Mikami: That’s the way it turned out. We don’t want to betray our fans by asking them to do impossible tasks [for trophies]. The platinum trophy for this game is merely “unlock all the other trophies”. We’ve been very careful during development of the remaster to respect the original team’s wishes for items like this.
GAMER: After you announced the remaster and the new title, what was the player reaction like?
Mikami: We heard quite a variety of reactions from Twitter. “There’s a lot of games I want to play on PS4 but I’m buying THIS one!” and “I’ve only played VC2 and VC3, but since I never played the first in the series so I’m interested.” We’ve offered quite a few preorder bonuses and the preorders are starting to trickle in.
GAMER: Do each of you have your own theories for a player’s reason to buy the remaster?
Mikami: We’ve heard rumblings throughout our playerbase that they had missed out on the fun of the PS3 generation. The original release date of VC1 might be a little too recent for “nostalgia” to be a reason, but we’re really happy that all of these players can now get a chance to enjoy the franchise on the PS4 regardless of why they want to play.
Ozawa: When portable gaming was at the height of its explosive popularity, we had shifted our development to the PSP for VC2, aiming the game squarely at middle schoolers. Many of these VC2 players said things like “Valkyria originally started on the PS3, right?” and “I remember watching the Valkyria anime”. Now, 8 years later, we are trying to resonate with those thoughts and emotions with the release of Valkyria Chronicles: Remastered.
Mikami: For those invested heavily in the Valkyria franchise, we wonder “how does the new title Azure resonate with these people?” It’s a point we are concerned about even now.
GAMER: Speaking of which, the Valkyria series is ridiculously popular overseas, isn’t it?
Ozawa: A surprising thing about that… when we revealed the first YouTube trailer for Azure Revolution in November last year, all of the comments on the video were in English! (Laughs) We had each line translated for us, one by one.
What’s changed for the PS4 remaster?
GAMER: So what parts changed exactly for the remaster?
Ozawa: The truth is we didn’t do much to change the “face” of the game. The game has always looked amazing from the beginning, and we thought it would be best not to make any strange alterations. Thanks to the PS4’s better specs we have achieved 1080p resolution and 60 frame per second gameplay, but we haven’t done anything to the original graphical work.
GAMER: Certainly, trying to alter VC1’s graphics to reach the very high standards of today’s high definition would cause visual disconnect with the CANVAS’s blue color tones…
Ozawa: When it comes to CANVAS and BLiTZ we view those things as “already completed for HD”. With VAR’s graphics we altered some things while maintaining some similarities to the VC games.
During development of the new graphics, we initially recommended names like CANVAS 2 and NEO CANVAS, but during this time we came to the conclusion that at the rate that VAR’s graphics were evolving it wouldn’t apply the same visual strengths as CANVAS in the end. So we decided to continue our graphical struggle under the new name GOUACHE.
GAMER: Has the sound design of the original Valkyria Chronicles been kept the same as before?
Mikami: That’s right. The original dev team created a so-called “Doppler effect” of whizzing gunfire during missions that utilized 5.1 surround audio that we’re using once again. The PS4 middleware for handling the same sound is much different than before though.
GAMER: Changing tack, has any corrections or adjustments been made to any part of the game?
Mikami: The first thing that comes to mind is the physics engine. When we tested the PS3 version out on the PS4 we noticed tanks not being able to climb hills properly among other problematic things.
Ozawa: VC1’s physics engine allowed for easy parameter adjustment, but the toolset became totally unusable when shifted to PS4. To make the remaster possible, a lot of painstaking work took place to ensure that no one would uncomfortably feel that anything is off when playing.
Mikami: We fixed “tanks not being able to ascend hills” and “shooting an enemy soldier causes him to fly a huge distance”, stuff like that.
Ozawa: During VC1’s original development while tweaking the physics engine the tanks would suddenly catapult into the stratosphere, and the camera would stare at the ground while the tank careened out of orbit until we could see only total darkness. I remember that the phenomenon was nicknamed “Laputa” as it continuously tortured us. Every time this problem occurred staff would say “Laputa has appeared once again!”
GAMER: It’s a pretty funny story in retrospect but it sounds like it wasn’t the most amusing thing at the time…
Mikami: Changing the framerate from 30 to 60 caused all sorts of little problems but on a different note loading times are extremely fast now.
GAMER: Ooh, that’s nice… because I’m the kind of player that saves and reloads like crazy.
Mikami: You’ll probably be shouting “Mr. PS4 is AMAZING!” then. It’s all thanks to the PS4.
Perhaps this means a remaster of VC2 and VC3 is possible…?
GAMER: While we’re on the topic of the VC1 remaster, has the original series staff convened for these new projects?
Ozawa: The main staff has already split up and changed positions and roles over the years and because of that the current teams are largely different. The main staff that’s stayed together since the original release of VC1 to VAR today would be me, Daisuke Tabayashi (Art/Setting Director), Mikami (from VC3 on), and several designers and programmers here and there. And if we include outside work, of course Media Vision (development group of VC3, and currently working on VAR).
Mikami: I rely on the longtime internal staff at SEGA for quite a few things even now.
GAMER: At the rate of the momentum the series is getting is a remaster or such of VC2 and VC3 possible?
Mikami: You say “remaster”, but it would end up being a “remake”, wouldn’t it? (Laughs). Regarding porting them over from the PSP… fixing up the resulting unsatisfactory parts would be a herculean effort. Whether it’s actually practical to do, that in itself is tough to digest.
Ozawa: Because VC2 was my directorial debut and because I helped create VC3’s world both of those games have a lot of meaning to me. If we could remake them that would be fantastic but right now we’re focusing all of our efforts on VAR.
Mikami: We’ve only given it thought for now. Remaking the entire series will be quite difficult, so we’re going to talk about that possibility after Azure Revolution has been released.
GAMER: By the way, there have recently been various crossovers and collaborations with the Valkyria series recently, who is the person in charge of that?
Ozawa: That would be Mikami. He came to me for approval each time. Before the crossover was allowed we had to make sure it aligned with the games and their scenarios.
Mikami: Right now the collaboration with Chain Chronicle is in effect. I decided that the premise of Chain Chronicle matched up with Valkyria, but I had to seek out approval for some of the more finer details. Naturally I am very familiar with the Valkyria series and its themes myself, but when it came to the final decisions I always came to Ozawa asking him for his thoughts.
GAMER: If it’s like that, you’re basically comrades-in-arms, right?
Mikami: In my current position that sounds about right. (Laughs)
Our thanks go to GAMER for the original interview, and Nyoro SF for the English translation.