A name you'll be hearing a lot more from this year is Marigul and its lineup of Japanese game developers. One of those developers is Noise, whose first title, Custom Robo, was just released in Japan. Our Japanese correspondent Yutaka Ohbuchi sat down with Kohji Suzuki, president of Noise, and Hisakazu Hirabayashi, adviser to Marigul, to talk about the game and the industry in Japan. Here's what they had to say:

　　EGM: Where did you guys come up with the idea of Custom Robo?Suzuki: During the meeting for our first video game, one of the programmers had an idea where two players would shoot each other in a 3D environment. From the beginning it was set in a third-person viewpoint. If it was first-person, it would've been too much like Virtual On, and we thought that game isn't easy enough to get into. At the time we started development, the N64 was the only console that had analog-control standard. With that stick, we can control the character easily if the camera is moving quickly.

　　EGM: How about the idea of the Robo itself?Suzuki: While battling in a third-person view was fun, it lacked the hands-on feel... Some said that it looked small and tiny when compared with other multiplayer games. It looked like you were controlling an RC robot.

　　EGM: And it also has an element of dice.Suzuki: That idea came from the producer of the game - Tsunekazu Ishihara. He suggested to give it more appeal, probably inspired by Pokemon, (Tsunekazu Ishihara is also a producer of the Pokemon series), and the tumbling of the dice added a random factor to the game.

　　EGM: And it also has customizing element.Suzuki: That was something we included from the very early stages of development.

　　EGM: How many robo parts are in the game?Suzuki: Total of 90 parts you can use to customize your Robo, and there are ten types of Robos.

　　EGM: You guys definitely took a lot of time to balance all those parts.Hirabayashi: There's a division within Marigul called Sarugakucho, consisting of more than 40 people who test out the games. Existing debugging/assessment people, like Mario Club (an internal team at Nintendo that judges games, like NOA's Treehouse) look mainly at the finished product. We prefer to have people involved at a very early stage in development and let them play the game many times throughout the process so they can give us suggestions and ideas. They are very much a part of the development, working on the game with the programmers.Suzuki: When the game took some shape, we let them play down to the ground. We did most of the weapons ideas but some of them came from test players at Sarugakucho.

　　EGM: Did any particular manga or anime you inspire you to developed this game?Suzuki: It's definitely Puraresu Sanshiro (Puraresu = plastic wrestler), an anime series from the early 80's, although Custom Robo is a shooting game and Puraresu Sanshiro is a fighting game.

　　EGM: This is the first game from Noise. So what were you guys doing before Noise?Suzuki: We formed this company three years ago - September 1996. Before that, we were all at Namco except one guy. We mostly worked on arcade games there.

　　EGM: What kinds of games did you guys do?Suzuki: We weren't all there as members of one team, so we all worked on different games. Tekken was one of the popular ones some of us worked on .

　　EGM: What's the origin of the name Noise?Suzuki: What was that?... I think because it sounds good. Later on we cooked up the reason that it's because we are noisy guys or something ... But I'm not sure we really are ....(laugh)

　　EGM: What led to you guys to sign with Marigul?Suzuki: During the preparation of establishing the company, we saw a Nintendo ad in a game magazine that said Nintendo was recruiting developers. That ad actually was about recruiting staff for Mario RPG2. But I thought, maybe this was an opportunity. So we decided to talk to Nintendo - and they introduced us to Marigul.

　　Hirabayashi: All the teams who had contracts with Marigul somehow lead back to us coincidentally. When Tetsu Kayama and I talked about the possibility of doing business as agents for video-game developers, it was a "should happen" or "would happen" thing. But when Kayama and I had a chance to sit and talk with Satoshi Tajiri (Game Freak, creator of Pokemon) and Hiroyuki Sonobe (Parity Bit, creator of Derby Stallion), we were convinced that there's a definite demand for this kind of 'agent.' For instance, it took Mr. Tajiri six years to develop Pokemon. I believe that he spent a lot of time during that six years not only developing the game but also negotiating with Nintendo. It must been stressful. So we decided to go ahead and do that kind of business - an agent for developers. That was December of 1995.

　　EGM: So you did form a company with the help from Marigul? Did all go well from the start?Suzuki: We had a difficult time developing the games. As far as running the company, we entrust everything and we don't have to worry about financing and accounting. Not only that, but they give us moral support, too. They don't rush us through developing a game.

　　EGM: Did you feel pressure from Marigul?Suzuki: Definitely not. We felt that it's not like developing a small puzzle game or something. We realized we were in the middle of very intense situation and we had to develop a really good game. That point really struck home to us. At the same time, we also felt that what we were doing was worthwhile. This is what we were waiting for, this is why we became an independent developer. We wanted to develop a big game. It doesn't matter if it's on a big scale or not. We didn't even think about making a mainstream game. When we were at Namco, the situation was that we could only develop fighting games.... We thought we could do many different things in the console game space. Most members of our company and I had been working on arcade games for a long time and lost interest in them.

　　Hirabayashi: No matter how talented its members are, arcade-game divisions have to develop a game that can be played for three minutes on a single coin (100 yen). But there are tons of possibilities in video games and that seems to irritate them. Perhaps that motivated them to develop the scenario mode in Custom Robo. The funny thing is that former Koei guys who developed many PC-type (simulation/resource management) titles, are now working with us to develop an arcade-style game. That's what we're all about.

　　I've seen the kids in America playing Doom and Quake. I think Custom Robo is a lot like Quake. It has the same elements. I really hope that American players think that Custom Robo is a well-thought-out, Japanese-crafted version of Quake. You don't need to use ten keys, no need to regulate the clock speed, all you have to do is just plug in and play. Everybody can play it and even an experienced Quake player can find depth in its gameplay. I'd be happy if someone gave the game that kind of review. At the same time, I've been wondering why Japanese people don't play Doom or Quake (as much as American players do). Hopefully Custom Robo will lead Japanese people to play games like Quake more.

　　EGM: Is their any concrete plan to release the game overseas?Hirabayashi: I've been working on Marigul's overseas plans for about a year. We've been working on establishing a company that will act as an agent for all Marigul-related games in America since last summer. The company starts up on New Year's Day. It will handle things like who will publish our games in that market. If our games are accepted by the overseas market, we will release them. That's what management is all about, and that's the job for an agent like this. I think Custom Robo will definitely be released in America, although I can't say who will publish or what the US name will be.

　　EGM: Now that you've finished your first game, do you have any thoughts about what you'll do for your next game?Suzuki: Actually, there are few things we want to fix for the overseas version of the game. After that, we'll discuss our next game.

　　EGM: Lastly, can you tell us about Marigul's future plans?Hirabayashi: I cannot speak for Marigul. This is my own personal thought. Take this to mean that I am not saying that Marigul equals Nintendo equals the Dolphin for sure. The game is changing and developers have to think about the future. Five years from now, I don't think console machines will serve as just game machines like it's been in the past. It will probably be a "home server" like the PlayStation 2, or it could be the set-top box that Microsoft is working on. Next year, the Game Boy will be connectable with a cell phone, and you can download games with i-Mode. The time will come when you can't differentiate home appliances from game consoles. In short-communication, broadcasting, video games, interaction... all those things will be combined. When that happens, game developers won't survive if they operate in the old ways. Hopefully we, Marigul and developers will be successful in the future. If you think that the game will be the same, and it's still a war between Sega, Sony and Nintendo, which game to put which console... You'll be dead in the future.