Tidbits from Iwata Asks: Sin and Punishment: Star Successor

A new Iwata Asks interview has gone live on the U.S. Wii website. Iwata, along with developers from Nintendo and Treasure, discuss the development of Sin and Punishment: Star Successor as well as the original game. We’ve picked out some of the notable quotes below, though you can check out the full interview here.

Iwata
Yamagami-san and I had actually been talking for some time about making Sin & Punishment for the Wii console.

Maegawa
Huh? Really?!

Yamagami
Yeah. (laughs)

Maegawa
I was surprised when I got a reply a mere three days after submitting the proposal. It can take up to a few months to hear results, so I was telling these two to take it easy.

Nakagawa and
Suzuki
(nods)

Yamagami
When I received the proposal from Maegawa-san, I was really pleased with it, but I didn’t get to discuss it with Iwata-san until three days later.

Iwata
If I’d been able to meet with Yamagami-san the same day it arrived, I would have approved it that very day.

——————————————————————————–

Nakagawa
So we were making the game to be how we like games, and it was really difficult.

Iwata
In true Treasure style. (laughs)

Nakagawa
I was looking over their shoulders and thinking, “Nintendo’s gonna make us change this later on” If I had said anything, though, it would have got their backs up, so I waited for Nintendo to do it.

Iwata
Because you didn’t want to say it yourself, you let us do the dirty work! (laughs)

Nakagawa
That’s right. But the feedback was the exact opposite!

Iwata
Huh?

Nakagawa
You guys said, “It’s too easy! What’s the deal?!”

Everyone
(laughs)

Nakagawa
They said, “The enemy gets wiped out in no time.” When I said, “But it’s supposed to be really difficult,” they said, “Fans will never approve of something so easy.”

Iwata
We said that? To Treasure?

Nakagawa
Right. It turns out that with the Wii Remote it’s easier to aim, so you totally clean house.

Iwata
Oh, I see.

Yamagami
The Wii Remote is particularly suited to shooting.

Iwata
That’s why it was easy to defeat the enemies. But, of all things, did you tell none other than Treasure to make it more difficult? (laughs)

Matsushita
Yes. During the last stage of development.

Hattori
I had voiced my concern over the fact that even I could clear it without losing once. (laughs)

——————————————————————————–

Maegawa
As I’m sure you’re well aware, back in the days of the NES, one person could make a whole game.

Iwata
That’s right. Once upon a time, there was just one programmer. It was normal for the whole team to consist of only three people.

Nakagawa
Even now, Treasure is like that!

Iwata
(laughs)

Maegawa
Even today it’s normal for three people to be a team at our company. That way they can do what they want and really make it stand out.

But it’s not like that’s the only reason I insist on my policy of working in small numbers. The reality simply is we don’t have many people…

Nakagawa and
Suzuki
(nods in agreement)

——————————————————————————–

Iwata
I see. By the way, it was Yamagami-san who came up with the title, wasn’t it?

Yamagami
Yes.

Iwata
How did you decide on that?

Yamagami
At first, we were using the title Glass Soldier during development.

Maegawa
Because the main character is fragile, like glass.

Yamagami
Around that time, all the games coming out had titles in katakana, so I suggested thinking up a title using kanji.

Editor’s Note: Katakana is one of the three Japanese writing systems. Katakana is phonetically written, and is typically used to show how foreign words are pronounced. Kanji is the other one of the three writing systems, and most of the Kanji characters can be pronounced in two or more different ways.

Iwata
Yes, it wasn’t uncommon for games with titles in katakana to get buried amidst all the others coming out, but what was your reason for deciding on those particular words—sin and punishment?

Yamagami
It just so happened that at that time one of the titles being developed by the Entertainment Analysis and Development Division was called Red and Black.

Iwata
Oh, you mean Perfect Dark.11
11 Perfect Dark: A 3D shooter for the Nintendo 64 released in October 2000.

Yamagami
Yes. Red and Black was the working title during development. It was eventually sold as Perfect Dark, but if Red and Black was all right, why not Sin & Punishment?

We thought that title might be too obscure, though, so we decided to add a subtitle that would make the theme more apparent. I consulted the younger staff members, and they suggested using kanji that typically reads Chikyu (Earth) but reading it hoshi (star). I thought, “That’s it!”

Editor’s Note: Although the typical way of pronouncing the Japanese Kanji for “Chikyuu” (Earth) does not include “hoshi” (star), purposely giving Kanji characters alternate pronunciations by placing corresponding Hiragana or Katakana characters aside them is commonly done in Japanese pop culture to suggest alternate meanings.

So, in consideration of the theme of the story, we came up with Hoshi no Keishosha (Successor of the Earth).

Iwata
And this time?

Yamagami
I wanted a tie to the original game, so we looked for a similar title. Since this time the underlying themes in the background are larger in scale, we left chikyu (Earth) behind and decided on uchu (universe).

Iwata
And suggested reading it sora (sky).

Yamagami
But this time we used kokeisha (another word for “successor”), and settled on the subtitle Sora no Kokeisha (Successor to the Sky).

Editor’s note: The western subtitle to the Wii sequel is “Sin & Punishment: Star Successor”.

Iwata
Maegawa-san, what did you think when the title changed from Glass Soldier to Sin & Punishment?

Maegawa
I was surprised. (laughs)

Iwata
I suppose it took some time to get used to it.

Nakagawa
Um…I was glad about it.

Iwata
You liked the title Sin & Punishment, Nakagawa-san?

Nakagawa
Well, one of the other final candidates was really wild. I think it was Dark Apocalypse.

Suzuki
No, it was Dark Wasteland.

Nakagawa
Yeah, that’s it!

Iwata
Wasteland?

Nakagawa
At the time, I really didn’t want it to be Wasteland.

Iwata
(laughs)

Maegawa
And while we were using Sin & Punishment, we gradually took a liking to it.

Yamagami
Yeah, we did.

Maegawa
If we had released it as Glass Soldier, I don’t think the title would have grabbed people the way Sin & Punishment did.

Thanks to Robert and our Nintendo rep for the tip!