Suda 51: Contact established

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Grasshopper director and president Goichi Suda isn't crazy, but his games sure are. Killer 7, his first title to reach Western shores was a visually unique gore-fest, developed in collaboration with Capcom. The game's impressive art style and unorthodox gameplay put Grasshopper on the map, and the Japanese developer is now getting more publishing offers than a circa-2005 Abi Titmus.

But the latest title to roll out of Grasshopper's doors is Contact, a fantasy RPG for DS which is a world away from the blood-splattered madness of the PS2 and GameCube blaster. Contact sees you helping an elderly professor crashlanded on an alien planet, and it's the eclectic mix of gameplay on offer - item collecting, animal training, old-school mini-games and wi-fi online modes - that has piqued our interest.

At this year's E3 we got a chance to sit down and chat with Suda-san along with Takeshi Ogura, both of whom are acting as producers for Contact, Suda-san additionally main manager on the project. During our conversation, we touched on the ideas behind Contact, developing for Nintendo's Wii, Grasshopper's mysterious PS3 project and, somehow, girls' panties. Read on for the full interview...

Can you give us a brief introduction to Contact, and to yourselves?

Ogura-san: Contact is an adventure game that involves the player and the character in the game in a long journey and huge adventure. That is the main theme of Contact. It's using the dual screens so that events are happening on both screens but independently of each other. With the two screens you are more involved in the game - we are using them in a new way that wasn't used before. It's going to a big, huge impact for the world (laughs).

Suda-san: I am the main manager on the Contact project, supervising everything from the beginning to the end. In Contact there is a character called YanYan, a kind of cat-dog; it was my idea to put this character in the game. My main focus was about YanYan. That's pretty much everything I did in Contact (laughs).

The main director for Contact is Akira Ueda, the director of Shining Soul and Shining Soul II. I really trust him and think I can count on him. There were never any problems when he was supervising Shining Soul I and II.

What attracted you to the DS hardware and how have you taken advantage of its unique features?

Ogura-san: It [Contact] was first in development on the Game Boy Advance, but during development the Nintendo DS was released so we just changed from GBA to DS. One of the main features of the Nintendo DS was the wi-fi connection and we wanted to use this feature for Contact.

Which system feature excited you the most in the transition from GBA to DS?

Ogura-san: Using the mic, I really liked that feature.

Suda-san: It wasn't really about the specs or new features of the DS like with Brain Training or Nintendogs. More people were carrying a Nintendo DS with them so for me it was an opportunity to make a game for more people. One of the most interesting parts of the Nintendo DS wasn't just a new feature or anything, but that the DS was touching more people.

What's the philosophy behind Contact, and what makes it unique from other games in the RPG genre?

Ogura-san: One of the main differences from other adventure games is what you can see on the top and bottom screens; the graphics are really different. The director, Mr Ueda, is a graphic designer and he wanted to have really nice graphics compared to the other adventure games on the DS. That's why you can see the graphics are really good in the game.

Suda-san: Mr. Akira Ueda was actually working for Square Enix before, he was in charge of Super Mario RPG, all the graphics and visuals. I think that he's one of the best graphic designers in the world.

You've mentioned a couple of DS games already like Brain Training and Nintendogs. Which DS games inspired you when developing Contact?

Suda-san: For Contact we didn't really use any other titles for inspiration. When we were working on it we were really focusing everything and had to work really hard to get it done so we didn't have time to play or find ideas from other games. That's why for us Contact is a really original game made from scratch from the beginning. We didn't really need inspiration from any other games.

You also touched on the wi-fi features of Contact. Could you tell us a bit about them?

Ogura-san: One of the main wi-fi features is that you can group up to eight players in the same game and play together with your friends. When you are connected to the wi-fi there are new characters that might appear and new events that will happen. The more that you connect to the internet the more characters and events you will have to play with.

The cute and friendly world of Contact is a drastic departure from Killer 7. Why move to Contact after Killer 7?

Suda-san: In this case the main director is Mr. Akira Ueda. I would've made something more crazy (laughs) but I've really enjoyed working on this title. Even though I make very crazy games I'm just a normal person, but on the opposite Akira Ueda is a crazy guy (laughs).

Ogura-san: It's true! (laughs)

Have you had a chance to look around the E3 show at all? Has anything surprised or impressed you?

Suda-san: I think there is a high level of quality titles at the show. A lot of new ideas are coming out. I really like Rockstar's Table Tennis on Xbox 360 and I also really like the concept of Wild Summer - it's kind of like GTA where you have to steal panties.

Regarding the Wii, I think it's really good hardware and I think that from now [on] there will be a lot of new ideas from different creators, I think in Japan you should have a lot of announcements for new games on Wii. I think all of the Wii games from Nintendo are really good and they use the console's features really well, but from now on the other developers could just copy the ideas in Nintendo's titles. But if the third parties can make use of the Wii better than Nintendo, the Wii will definitely be a success.

You're already developing a game for the Wii...

Suda-san: We have a project on the Wii which is called Heroes. It's a partnership between Grasshopper and Marvellous again. So far, just the title of the game has been announced.

Can you give us any hint about what to expect from Heroes?

Suda-san: I can't say too much at the moment, but people who really enjoyed Killer 7 should enjoy Heroes too.

What about your PS3 project, Kurayami?

Suda-san: So far we've presented the product to different publishers but so far the publisher hasn't been decided and it's still on stand-by. We still don't know what's going to happen with this title on PS3.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your projects?

Suda-san: The director of Contact, Akira Ueda, was working for Grasshopper when he was working on this title, but from the beginning of this year he became independent and created his own studio called Audio. I think that Akira Ueda is a really great game director and I'd like you to focus on his studio because I think that some good games should come from it.

Also for the world cup, I think England is going to win. I'm really worried about Rooney but I think it'll be okay.

Ogura-san: I think Japan is going to beat England (laughs). You should be really careful about the player Nakamura; his free kick is pretty adventurous!

Andy Robinson