Takashi Morinaka – Toukiden: Kiwami
When Toukiden: The Age of Demons first launched in Japan for the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita back in June 2013, it entered a genre of games that already had plenty of stiff competition. Squaring off against the likes of such titles as Monster Hunter, Gods Eater, Ragnarok Odyssey, and Phantasy Star Portable, Koei Tecmo’s addition to Japan’s multiplayer hunting game craze really needed to stand out—and one way it did so was by eschewing the traditional fantasy or sci-fi settings of other games and instead steeping itself in Japanese history and mythology.
Now, Koei Tecmo is set to bring the next step in the Toukiden series to North America. At its core, Toukiden: Kiwami contains everything that the original Toukiden did—but it then goes beyond being a simple upgrade to that game by offering twice the content the first release included, more technical weapon options, better control over your AI partners, and an overall push to address the concerns and complaints fans had the first time around. Plus, players will now be able to hop into the adventure on both the PlayStation Vita and the PlayStation 4—a first for this previously portable-only series.
Ahead of Toukiden: Kiwami’s launch, I had the chance to sit down with the game’s producer, Takashi Morinaka, and get his thoughts on the franchise’s historical connections, the challenges of bringing such a Japan-focused game to the West, and what mythological Japanese beast he’d least like to face off against.
Mollie: Why is Japanese history interesting?
Takashi Morinaka: That’s a big question. [laughs] I think Japan’s history is very unique and interesting, in a sense, because Japan is an island country, so it’s a smaller, more regionally focused country. If you look back at, say, its last 3,000 years of history, being an island country, we haven’t really faced many invasions, nor seen a huge mix of cultures or people from outside of Japan. So, I think our history has unfolded in interesting ways due to that isolation.
Mollie: Was the focus on taking elements from Japanese history always part of the plan for Toukiden? Given how many other competing games of a similar nature there are, that was one of the elements that made Toukiden stand out for me when I first saw it.
Morinaka: There were, of course, varying factors around the game’s development, but we knew a few things going in. One was that we wanted to come up with a “constantly attacking” style of game design, and another was to include some sort of historical context. Those ideas started to blend together, and the connection to history was pushed on once the Mitama [spirits of characters from Japanese mythology that are collected and equipped by players to boost stats or unlock abilities] came into play as well. Combining all of those factors together led to what became Toukiden, and since then, that’s the direction we’ve been taking.
At Koei Tecmo, we’re known for games that are based in history, and putting historical facts into the games themselves. And, obviously, one of our prime objectives is to create games that are entertaining, making things that are enjoyable and interesting for players. We always try to remember that philosophy—to add value to the entertainment, make it something that’s more accessible to players, and also, hopefully, help teach people things at the same time. That’s the approach that we take on any projects we work on, and where we still are in terms of our mindset as a developer.
Mollie: Personally, I’m able to come into a game like Toukiden with some knowledge and understanding of things like those historical connections, but there are plenty of potential players in the West that won’t have any pre-existing knowledge. Are the historical elements lost on Western players? Do you ever worry that they won’t get the value out of a game that Japanese players would?
Morinaka: Obviously, people might not understand 100 percent of what we put into the game itself. We recognize that. At the same time, though, the principles of the team, the main goal they have is to come up with something that everyone can enjoy, even if they don’t understand all of the real concepts or the real meaning behind those things.
In Toukiden: Kiwami, we have oni appearing—that’s one of the key aspects of the game, of course—but, if you think about it, they’re very similar to what would be considered “monsters” in the West. If Western players just want to see them as monsters, that’s OK, because the team is quite confident that we’ve worked hard on the excitement and enjoyment of the game itself, even if concepts like the oni can’t be understood. So, maybe all players won’t understand every small detail, but we hope was that there’s a balance, one that keeps the game understandable and enjoyable for all.
Plus, if you look at the Mitama, there’s over 300 variations that appear in the game. Even for your average Japanese player, there’s no way that one person is going to understand all of their names and the meaning behind those Mitama! The first step to understanding them could come from simple things—the characters being portrayed are cool or beautiful. Maybe they have a dedicated skill that sounds interesting to you or they’re strong at a particular thing you need. From there, that knowledge could shift to the next step, where now you’re asking, “Who is this character?” And perhaps you go onto the Internet, to Wikipedia or other sites, and look them up. It’s a step-by-step process, and we’re trying to lay the foundation for our players to hopefully learn something.
Mollie: When I was young, two games I loved were Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga’s Ambition…
Morinaka: Me too! [laughs]
Mollie: Of course, I was playing them for the gameplay, but I was also learning about the history of China and Japan. So, it’s interesting how, with Koei Tecmo’s games, you’ve been successful at finding that line between entertainment and education.
Morinaka: I’ve been with the company for over 20 years now, and when I was young, I of course played those games you mentioned. At the time, I didn’t know the full history or facts behind those stories or scenarios, but they were still fun to experience and sparked some interest in me to learn more. It’s a learning process, to an extent. You play the games, and you learn other things afterward. So, I definitely know what you mean—and, hopefully, that’s an idea that we continue to pursue.
Mollie: Why bring Toukiden: Kiwami to the PlayStation 4, after it’s existed, up until this point, as a portable-only game?
Morinaka: If we look back to when the Toukiden series started, at that point, games like Monster Hunter and Gods Eater were out there already. We knew we wanted to take the approach of coming up with something similar in terms of a hunting game, and that’s where the concept ideas for the series started. At that point, mobile devices were becoming a more popular way to play games, and you had players getting together, in person, bringing their own handhelds with them, and teaming up to play games together.
Looking at the Japanese market, though—as well as those overseas, really—we then saw an increase in the amount of interest people had in playing over the Internet through networked gaming. So, we don’t see people actually gathering together in one area as much anymore; they were instead making that connection over the Internet. That’s definitely a change that we’ve seen. Because of that, for Kiwami, consoles seemed like a logical next step to take, but we also needed to make sure that those on the Vita wouldn’t be left out, and that the two groups could play with each other. We want to make sure that everyone who wants to play, who wants to connect with others, has an option for doing so in the way they want to.
Mollie: Has the concept or direction for the series changed between the original Toukiden and Kiwami, either due to fan reaction or the changing tastes of the team? Or does the new content stick pretty close to what the original game’s concepts were?
Morinaka: We haven’t changed the concept one bit. We always wanted to make a game that was based off of historical and mythical Japan, and combine that with fun action-based gameplay that could incorporate things like destructible elements on the bosses. Those ideas haven’t changed.
In terms of the storyline, for the original Toukiden, and this expansion, we’ve tried to keep the story as straightforward as possible. To a certain extent, people might think that the story was light in the first game, because the storyline was as deep as it could have been.
For Kiwami, our goal was to keep the concept the same, while also adding more depth and length to the experience and increasing the content volume of the game itself. There was a lot of feedback from fans and players that the first game was quite light—not just in terms of storyline, but also in terms of the enemies you see in-game, the items you can use, the weapons and armor available, those kinds of things. We’d heard that complaint over the lack of content, so the team really wanted to make sure that the volume of the game was increased—especially considering the fact that Toukiden is a title that came out after those other hunting games. We wanted our fans and players to be more satisfied with Kiwami, so that’s why you’ll see a huge increase in terms of the amount of content. And, you know, we really want to establish Toukiden as a franchise in the long run, so part of that comes in making sure that, in Kiwami, we increase that content drastically.
Mollie: When you were getting that feedback from fans about the original Toukiden, what had the most impact on you?
Morinaka: There’s been a lot of feedback from fans over the course of development, but the ones that had the most impact, I think, go back to the early days of the original Toukiden. We released an “action demo” for the game—sort of a pre-launch demo for players to get their hands on Toukiden before it was released so that we could get some feedback from the players directly—and the response we got was that the game was too slow, almost boring in a sense, and not so fun. That was the feedback we were getting. The direction the team wanted to take the project at that time was quite similar to maybe the Monster Hunter series or From Software’s Souls series—something really physical, really tactical. Unfortunately, it was a direction that also could be seen as being a bit slow, in terms of the overall gameplay, as well as things like attacks and animations. So, we decided to change direction and moved to a faster-tempo style of game.
Having said that, though, the team made sure that we didn’t lose the core of what we wanted to make it Toukiden. Really, it’s a balancing act between what we wanted to make and what the fans wanted. I think that shows how important feedback is, from not just fans, but all players in general. Ever since that point, the team has been open to listening to new ideas from the outside, and not just from inside the team itself. I think we’ve done an even better job of finding that balance in Kiwami.
Mollie: I love Dark Souls’ combat, so I’m a little sad to hear that. [laughs]
Morinaka: I think maybe we have similar tastes in games. [laughs] I liked the slower, more tactical approach to combat that we’d implemented at the time, but of course, it goes back to that balancing act. You’ve got to listen to the voices of the majority as well, not just your own. Especially given that Toukiden was a brand-new IP, we had to make sure that we were able to capture a wider audience, and not just a core audience. So, that’s why we took the approach we did and decided that we needed to reduce that original idea of creating a slower, more tactical game and give more consideration to the concepts that players wanted. That’s why Toukiden became the Toukiden we know now.
Dark Souls is one of my favorite games, but some of the concepts it’s built around—such as dying over and over in the pursuit of making process—are more geared to a core group of players, I think. If you look at those core players in terms of markets—and comparing Japan to the U.S., for example—there’s a bigger core fan base in the U.S. than Japan. I think, in Japan, players take a more relaxed approach to games, rather than the more dedicated side of gaming in the States. When we were working on Toukiden, of course we had to first consider the Japanese market and take the approach of making some of the more core elements a bit more casual.
I feel like we’ve made Toukiden more light-ended at the end of the day—but, having said that, since Toukiden has now been established as a brand thanks to that previous installment, we’ve been able to make Kiwami more technical. For example, the addition of the rifle as a weapon—that’s somewhere we feel we can provide a more technical approach to combat for players. So, now that the first installment is out of the way and we’ve established the brand, we have a bit more freedom in balancing the game back to the ideas we originally had.
Mollie: If Japanese oni were real, which would you be most afraid of?
Morinaka: That’s a difficult question! [laughs] It might make for a complicated answer, but if you go back to the roots of oni itself, it used to come from the word “onu,” which referred to anything that didn’t exist or which people feared. Anything unknown was referred to as onu in Japan, and that term, gradually, turned into oni. So, going from that, I consider anything that I haven’t met or seen before as the oni I fear—those creatures that I can’t expect or have any knowledge of before seeing them.
This is kind of becoming a discussion on Japanese as a language, but back before oni came to exist as a term, “mono” was used to refer to such things—as in, for example, the mono part of the title for the Japanese animated film Mononoke Hime. That’s why, actually, we decided to use the name “Mononofu” for the oni-hunting units in Toukiden—for that connection back to the older words for those things which are unseen or unknown.