English transcript of our Gamescom 2012 interview with Yosuke Hayashi.
JPGAMES.DE: For me Dead or Alive 5 has a more realistic look. Can you tell me why you decided to do that?
Yosuke Hayashi: We started the devolpment of Dead or Alive 5 and really wanted to bring the characters out a little bit. We kind of wanted them to stand out on the stage and really feel a little bit more alive actually. It´s almost like as if you can reach into tv and touch them. When we started doing that we looked at the charakters and kind of refind them and we went through a lot of trile and error when we´re actually making the charakters and we really thought what the best kind of directon is to make the charakters for Dead or Alive 5. Going through all the trial and error we got a lot of feedback from the fans and we wanted to really refind the charakters again. So we really wanted to give something new to the series after coming back. And we think, making the characters a bit more alive an a bit more leading than in the past, that was kind of our biggest idea.
JPGAMES.DE: In the presentation we saw this interaction with a car flying around and the character hanging on the edge of the stage. Can this lead to a breaking of flow?
Yosuke Hayashi: I think, when sou see it for the first time it looks like a kind of a cuddle from the main gameplay it kind of gives that impresssion i think with the kind of over the top flashy presentation. The reason was actually not to make it look like that. You kind of see it when you play the game a few times you will realise our concept and our intention to putting it in to actually make it a tool in fight. When you kind of learn the stage a little bit more you learn where all of those parts in the stage are for example when the cars come down r when you kick down a character from an edge or whatever. You will kind of be able to utilise it as a tool you can use that to actually deal more damage. Those things are really more like places on the stage that kind of allow you o use your advantage in a fight and allow you to redo the fight and really use it as a tool. That was really our intention to enrich the fight.
JPGAMES.DE: An interactive stage is a kind of unexplored media. Do you think this is the potential future of fighting games to interacte more with the environment or are there other ways to develop the genre?
Yosuke Hayashi: In Dead or Alive 5 it´s always the head of point that it actually is a fighting game with stages. In the first and second game we started evolving the stage. I think it really is one of the biggest characteristics. In Dead or Alive 5 i think it´s a kind of natural evolution to bring the stages up to this level. We just explain the dead or alive stage without thinking what will happen next. There might be different potentials to move the genre foreward but for us Dead or Alive has done it and has kind of pushed the standard foreward while using it´s kind of natural characteristics.
JPGAMES.DE: Can you tell us something about new Online-Playing Game Mode?
Yosuke Hayashi: Firts of all for the Offline Mode you have standard Dead or Alive modes. The arcade, solo and tag as well, time attack, survival and the training. These modes we are going to keep there along with the story mode. With the story mode we tried making it kind of a format thats called hypolic cinema. Its like ech character is gonna have his own kind of scenes and its gonna be kind of sketches. We are expolring the story mode and using it as a kind of big massive tutorial for the game. Teaching the players how to master the basics of Dead or Alive through its story mode. That´s for Offline.
So for the Online Mode we have the kind of standard modes that are used in online fighting games, so there will be player matches, rank matches and it actually has a voice chat with the other players as well. There will be also lobby match with 16 players, they can actually go to the lobby, wait and inspect the games. Some new thing we are exploring are the challenges, where someone can send you a challenge online while actually playing offline. You can make them wait until you´re ready to actually acccept that. So this is some different than the challenges other fight games use. What we also use and are actually introducing is online training mode where you can actually practise with a friend online. You can access a lot of different options of training mode as well and voice chat while youre training. And also facebook-compatibilyity, where you can just push a button and upload your results to your facebookaccount.
JPGAMES.DE: So the huge and fluffy game lobby of Dead or Alive 4 is gone?
Yosuke Hayashi: We actually and fortunatly had to get rid of the cute and fluffy online-lobby with all the little things, characters and animals. There are two things in the team as well. People thought it was very cute and we should keep it. The second thing was that there are actually rules when you make the online modes. You have to kind of seperate two boats to have a online mode. At the start of the 360 there were´nt any rules for online gaming so we did not have to worry about making a cute little lobby mode but another reason why we got rid of it is we wanted the game to function as smoothly as possible and kind of really give hardcore fighting gamers something they really want in a fighting game instead of experimenting with cute, fluffy creatures. We just wanted to focus on the gimmick people really need. The fighting game is what they really want rather than some kind of juicing it up.
JPGAMES.DE: Now that you finished Dead or Alive 5, can we see a glimpse of something else on the horizon?
Yosuke Hayashi: We are doing different things and we might be telling you more on the TGS this year maby.
JPGAMES.DE: So a new extrem Beach Volleyball maybe?
Yosuke Hayashi: Maybe. Do you want an extrem beach Volleyball 3?
JPGAMES.DE: If it´s a good game maybe.
Yosuke Hayashi: I think like better than beeing…looking at…no not just looking, there is more to that looking. I think you want a prioperly functioning game, i think thats the oppinion that most people have.
JPGAMES.DE: Thank you very much.
