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Kirby Star Allies director shares secrets of Hyness’s design development

Posted on November 11, 2018 by (@NE_Brian) in News, Switch

Shinya Kumazaki, director of Kirby Star Allies, has provided more insight into the game’s creation. In a post sent out to Switch owners, Kumazaki details the process of creating the design for Hyness – one of the major bosses players encounter.

Here’s the full post:

Bonjam!

I’m Shinya Kumazaki, general director of the Kirby Star Allies game.

Have you cleared the main story of the game? Today, I would like to talk about some secrets regarding the origin of Hyness’s design, a boss from the climax of the story.

Even in earlier sketches, Hyness was designed to be a mysterious new character with a hidden identity. Hyness’s name was inspired by him being an elite mage, a noble being, and a high-ranked priest. He is also a genius among the mages, so his strengths made him the head of the Jambastion mages and leader of his people.

For Hyness, we wanted to design a character with a little more depth to build up his boss battle that contrasts with past antagonists like President Haltmann – a man obsessed with eternal prosperity – in the Kirby: Planet Robobot game, and Queen Sectonia – an evil villain obsessed with beauty – from the Kirby: Triple Deluxe game.

We wanted to make good use of his face hidden under his hood, so after discussing with veteran designers, we decided to heat up the climax of the story when his face is revealed.

There were various ideas of what should be under his hood, like: “What if he didn’t have a definitive form under the hood?” “What about a pure-hearted philosopher?” “How about a long-haired woman?” “What if he had a beast-like face?” etc.

While these ideas were being discussed, the lead character designer sketched out the alien-like design at the very bottom of the image. It’s a surprising face, but the design somehow fits into the world of the Kirby series and reminiscent of a mage from another galaxy.

He is also voiced by Shigeru Chiba (Ed note: a prolific Japanese actor – look him up!), so a character that matches the greatness of his voice was born.

We incorporated his rain dance-like movements when he worships the Dark Lord, and the sound team created tracks that matched his image. Altogether, a battle scene with a mood like no other past Kirby games was created.

The impressive Hyness character was created through teamwork, but every single character’s movements, designs, and sounds are created by staff members working together, all with the goal of making the game as exciting as possible.

Enjoying the design, imagining deeper settings of the characters, or just simply enjoying their actions… all is as good as one another. If there is something intriguing for you, we hope you enjoy that.

Until next time, Jambuhbye!

HAL Laboratory’s Tatsuya Kamiyama also recently discussed the making of Kirby Star Allies’ menu skits. If you missed it, you can read the full thing here.

Source: Switch news

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