We recently had the chance to interview Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori from Game Freak about Pokémon Sun & Moon. Here's our full interview.
Q: Could you start off by introducing yourselves and your role on Sun & Moon?
J: So I worked as the producer on Sun & Moon. My name is Junichi Masuda and I work at Game Freak on video game development. I was also involved in the music creation.
A: I’m Shigeru Ohmori also working at Game Freak. This time I was the director on Sun & Moon.
Q: Sun & Moon are the 3rd round of Pokemon games for the 3DS, so given you’ve had those two games to get acclimated to 3D games, what were you looking to improve on with Sun & Moon?
A: So in terms of making Pokemon games in 3D from a graphical perspective of course with X & Y and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire we did our best at the time and felt like we maximized our output. But with Sun & Moon we kind of wanted to challenge ourselves even further and take it to new levels of graphical expression, so we actually ended up creating completely new development environment and rendering engine for the games. We also went back and changed it to you’d now have full analog movement in the games and changed it so that human characters have more realistic proportions. And we did all of this to make the players feel more immersed in the Alola region and another thing we did on that was allowing the trainers to appear alongside their Pokemon in battle. So we did a lot of things to just increase the sense of immersion,
Q: What inspired you to choose Hawaii as your inspiration?
A: So I really go to Hawaii sometimes even in my personal life and whenever I’m there I always just feel like this kind of overwhelming power of nature--the sun is really strong there and the oceans is just impressive. And I felt like if we were to draw inspiration from Hawaii we were able to kind of bring back this feeling of this really powerful nature into the Pokemon world. And within that environment, abundant nature, kind of also express the relationship between Pokemon and humans and how they can live closely together in these natural environments,
Q: What made you want to introduce Alola forms?
A: So this being a 20th anniv. Title, I felt like this was a good moment to reflect back on Pokemon and what are Pokemon--these living creatures. And one of the ideas I got that might be interesting was that Pokemon that moved to the Alola region would evolve into unique ways kind of similar to what you see in the Galapagos islands so that’s where the inspiration came from. And we really went with the Pokemon that originally appeared in the Kanto region because they were the most recognized by long-term fans and we felt like we could express this concept of unique evolution best with these most recognized Pokemon so one example is the Eggsecutor, its neck grows really long in the Alola region. We worked on each of the original Kanto Pokemon and see how they would adapt in the Alola environment.
A: It’s also kind of a sign of our appreciation to have this special surprise for the fans that have been with us for the entire 20 years,
Q: Is Gen 1 the only Alola form of Pokemon?
A: Yeah, we based our decision to do the Kanto Pokemon based off the--we really wanted to make people really surprised with this and we felt that it would be most effective by selecting those Pokemon.
Q: Has the design process for creating new Pokemon changed over the years? Is it different for Sun & Moon?
A: (From Mr Masuda) Yeah there are definitely quite a few differences. In the very beginning for example, we would just be designing the Pokemon as pixel art right from the get go. And then that’s how we did it for a while and then starting with Diamond and Pearl we would move over the process of actually doing the illustrations and designs separately and then from there translate them from there back into pixel art for the game. Now with 3D though, even at that original stage of coming up with design illustrations, we have to think about how they move for example in 3D and then we have to make their 3D models. So there’s a lot more considerations.
A: (From Mr Ohmori) More speaking about the design process in general, we really do get ideas and requests from a variety of different team members. For example, maybe someone might want to use a specific animal as inspiration for Pokemon--they have a great idea to do that. Or our battle system planners--they need a Pokemon to fill this role in battle or achieve a certain balance or also for story reasons, people want to fit a Pokémon into a role in the story so lots of requests lots of ideas come up and we have to work really closely with the designers and artists and find a right mix a right balance of Pokemon. It’s really because we have so many people coming up with requests and ideas that we have such a wide variety of Pokemon in the games.
Q: How did Ultra Beasts come to be? (what was their inspiration?
A: So actually that’s a big part of the story and the setting--no one in Alola knows what these mysterious creatures are and figuring that out is a big part of the story that I hope people figure out for themselves.
Q: THe Ultra Bests feel alien in nature--is that intentional?
A: Yeah so from a design perspective I think maybe you’ve seen in the promotional videos the way they’re introduced and appear is a very strange way--kind of conveys that maybe they’re from this mysterious, different place. SO I think that outside feel is intentional.
Q: In Sun & Moon, are you focused on expanding the shared lore across the games?
A: So yeah the way I would answer that I think it’s a unique trait of Pokemon that there’s really no old and new. We try and make sure that everything feels like it exists on the same level. There’s a lot of different regions but they all exist alongside each other, even if they take place in different games. We always want to expand on this Pokemon universe that’s why we have some characters from previous games appearing in the current games. Also with Pokemon we kind of treat them all as if they’re all current, like CHarizard is still just as popular as it was before and can still be just as active.
A: We make sure they feel connected. For example, the main character in this story moves to the region from the Kanto region.
Q: Can you talk a bit about how Mega Evolution and Z Moves work in concert with one another?
A: So when it comes to Z Moves, they’re these really powerful moves but what makes them special is that any Pokemon can have access to Z moves and that really kind of expands the options that players are going to have in battle. I think that a lot of Pokemon that previously maybe weren’t getting used very much are going to be start being used by players. And that was really the ideal I had when creating this was to have a much more varied battle environment and allow for a lot of new strategies as part of this constantly shifting environment. So for the main story, the main scenario of the game, we really focus on the player using the Z Moves--they can learn what those are all about. But once you finish the story you gain access to Mega Evolution and that will even further deepen this battle environment so that you’ll have this combination of Z Moves alongside the already super powerful but exclusively Pokemon Mega Evolutions. SO I hope people look forward to how the battle environment changes.
Q: We noticed that there are QR rental teams, did you develop this with an eye toward competitive play? Are you trying to focus more on competitive play?
A: So yeah our desire for these new QR rental teams and some other features is just to get some more people interested in trying out the competitive battling features--you know raising your own team of really competitive Pokemon can take a long time but having the option to test some of them out that other people put together have put together really allows other people to get experience and learn and think of ideas they want to try when they make their own competitive team
Q: Would you say that’s also what led to the decision to include hyper training to try and help the competitive players out?
A: So yeah I think one of the goals for Pokemon Sun and Moon in general is to increase the number of people who would try out and get interested in multiplayer battling and of course the features we just talked about are a part of that but also we wanted to improve the UI--make it more clear and understandable so that pretty much anyone could get into it. SO with hyper training, it’s kind of a cool option for people who have adventures alongside their Pokemon and then they find out they’re not really viable in competitive play that’s not fun, so giving them an option to take those Pokemon *indiscernible* and use them in battle, I think that’s going to make it a lot more accessible.
Q: No more gyms--why and how does it make it play differently?
A: So with this being the 20th anniversary, this is also my 1st time being a director on an all new generation of Pokemon games so I really wanted to go back and look at what I think Pokemon games should be or have my own take on it. Up until now you’ve had the gyms which has been a trainer and his or her Pokemon versus another trainer and and their Pokemon--it’s more like humans vs humans.* BUt going back to the theme of this really powerful and abundant nature and the aloha regions, I felt like these kind of trials where you encounter these really powerful wild Pokemon that are kind of the bosses of these areas and having to beat them as part of your journey would be an interesting concept. And by changing this up, from the gyms to the new trials, I think the game’s really going to feel fresh for veterans of the series and new players alike.
Q: Why did you set the 2 games 12 hours apart?
A: So the time difference between the versions is a new challenge for us. But we got inspiration from the idea that they’re living creatures, some are active during the day, some are active during the night. And I also knew this would be a cool feature to facilitate more communication and trading amongst friends, so even if you’re playing the games at the same time and go into the same location in one of the routes, you’ll probably encounter different Pokemon if you’re playing one of the different versions. So that’ll really get people talking like “I didn’t find this Pokemon” so you’ll want to go trade with them--so that was kind of the reason for it.
Q: Ash Greninja was a surprise--why did you decide to include an anime element in the game?
A: So yeah, that’s really a new thing for us to do definitely, but we knew we were going to do a special demo version and we knew we wanted lots of--especially kids--to get to really know the game and have fun with it. And because there are so many anime fans and viewers who really like Ash Greninja--it’s a really popular character amongst them--I got the idea, and of course a lot of them probably wouldn’t want to roleplay or be Ash themselves. So I thought it’d be a really cool thing with the special Demo version to attract people that have Ash Greninja appear in there and also give them the option to bring it into their game and continue their adventure their.
A: I think people would have a lot of fun if they go out and get one of Ash’s hats and put it on while playing the demo and really enjoy it that way.
Q: Fans like trainer customization--will there be more customization compared to X & Y? And will the male trainers have more options than females?
A: So yeah I think you’ll find there’s a lot more options compared to X and Y when it comes to customizing your trainer with clothing options. And we just announced the Pokemon festival plaza just earlier today and that has a cool little feature where you can get dyes and even besides just unique pieces of clothing you can actually color them in any way you want. So I think people are really going to be to make their own unique trainer appearance.
Q: Will Sun & Moon have more post game content once they finish the story as compared to X & Y?*
A: So I really can’t say too much about the post game content because I want people to enjoy that and discover it for themselves, but I can say that the team put in their all with this game, each individual feature we really fleshed them out to make sure they have a lot of depth whether it’s the Poke Finder where you go around taking photos, the festival plaza we announced this morning, and even the battle system which has added so many things. We really want this to be a gamer that people enjoy for a long time so that’s all I can really say on that.
Q: How did you approach developing the soundtrack for Sun & Moon--influences and thoughts versus other games?
A: So I worked primarily on the battle music for this game, but I always put the focus on making it feel very Polemon-like is the expression I use--a lot of fast tempo music to get people excited for the battles, When it comes to the soundtrack in general I think one of the things we focused on was a lot of the rhythms of traditional Hawaiian music but also kind of conveying this feeling of warmth, tropical island type thing. We did a lot of unique takes on all these things to make it not just *indiscernible* but i think this is one of the things people can look forward to.
Q: Can you tell us more about Samson Oak and his role in the game?
A: So he’s kind of a mysterious guy himself, but his main role I think is to research these Alolan regions forms--these regional variants--but from my perspective he's kind of an Alolan variant himself.
Q: Hau is always using the starter weak to yourselves, like Shauna--does this mean something for another rival?
A: I don’t know about that--I can’t really say. Please discover it for yourselves.
Q: Dexio and Sina are back from X & Y--might we see more returning characters?
A: So yeah you’ve got Dexio and Sina, as well as professor Oak’s cousin n the game, and I think this being the 20th anniv. Project, I’ve definitely tried to make sure there’s a lot of things--a lot of surprises or fun things in here for fans of each of the different generations.
Q: We liked Team Skull. They’re funny and cool--how did you come up with the idea for them and their movements and how they carry themselves?
A: So I think the reason for the design--their exaggerated gestures and whatnot is that we always think of it from more of a kid’s perspective--we want it to be comical but also easily convey that these guys are bad guys or something. So they definitely are the bad guys, they do bad things, but we also wanted to have a bit of humor in there make it easier to understand that they’re the bad guys
