Article/Shadow of Destiny Junko Kuwano Interview

> You might not have heard of Junko Kuwano up until now, but if her latest effort, Shadow of Destiny, is any indication, it won’t be long until her name is as familiar to gamers as Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima. In Shadow of Destiny, players jump into the shoes of Eike Kusch, a man who is fated to be murdered and has to travel through time to prevent his own death. Ms. Kuwano is not only the writer and director of this completely unique mystery adventure, but also the producer and character designer, and she even played the “voice” of a kitty in the game. Gamers Republic was fortunate enough to interview this multitalented game designer and pick her brain about one of the most innovative games to hit consoles in a long time.
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> GR: Shadow of Destiny isn’t like anything else out there. What were you trying to accomplish when you set out to create this game?
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> JK: I wanted to create a time-traveling game because there weren’t any time-traveling games out there. I always want to come up with something new.
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> GR: what was the most challenging aspect of creating something fully unique like Shadow of Destiny?
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> JK: Trying to make sure there are no discrepancies in the storytelling that could result when the player time travels to various time zones.
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> GR: what was it that inspired the “Death teaches you how to live” theme of the game?”
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> JK: One of the messages I wanted to give in the game is that you cannot relive your life or go back to a certain time in life to redo what you have done wrong. By being able to do such things in this game, I hope the player learns to take life more seriously and make better decisions in life.
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> GR: Did any movies/Books/other games influence the story and/or atmosphere?
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> JK: The motif of the game is Goethe’s Faust. I ran into Faust in my college days and fell in love with the story. I then wanted to do my own version of Faust with time-traveling elements.
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> GR: What does the Japanese title of the game, “Shadow of Memory”, mean? What do you think of the American title, ‘Shadow of Destiny”
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> JK: We wanted to come up with a name that could be ued in Japan, US, and Europe. The name our US office came up with was Shadow of Destiny. I like this name. However, due to trademark reasons, we had to change the name to Shadow of Memories in Japan and Europe.
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> GR: What is the game’s setting? What made you decide to set it there?
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> JK: The game is set in a fictional European (German) town. The town is imaginary and the time zones are set in a way that allows us to tell a totally fictional story and avoid real historical events. If the game were to be set in Germany, there are certain historical events such as World War 2 that you could not avoid encountering. Since I wanted to leave out such events, I chose to set the game in an imaginary European town with a German look – German because of the Faust motif.
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> GR: The game seems to have a lot of cinematics. How were the cinematics used to further enrich the game experience?
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> JK: The cinematics are only a means to tell the story. The main part of the game is to decide whom to talk to and make certain decisions in certain time zones to avoid death. But yes, the cinematics definitely add to the player’s experience in avoiding death.
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> GR: From what we’ve seen, the game uses all real-time graphics (which look great). How come you did this instead of using prerendered backgrounds or CG cut scenes?
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> JK: showing everything in real time with polygons enables different camera angles. If the player approaches a character from a certain angle, you’ll see what follows in that angle. This could not be done with CG cutscenes.
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> GR: Can you explain how you used color to emphasize each time period, and why the particular colors were used?
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> JK: Different time zones are given different colors throughout the stages. This helps differentiate the stages and the events within them from those of other stages. Since the story is quite complex and confusing (because of the time paradox) a visual binding within each time zone should help the character. I gave the different time zones the color they are assigned simply because those were the colors I associate to them in my imagination.
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> GR: Was it difficult to maintain continuity with actions performed in one time period affecting others?
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> JK: Of course. Since we found many discrepancies within the game after the voice recording, we had to redo certain lines to get rid of the discrepancies. Making sure all the lines work and make sense throughout the time-traveling episodes was definitely the toughest challenge.
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> GR: How did the designs for the characters come about? What kind of research was done to reflect the costumes for each time period?
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> JK: The main character had to be a handsome man because his attractiveness does play a major role in the game. One thing I did with the other characters is to make the ancestors and descendants look identical. This makes it easier for the player to tell instantaneously who is related to whom. Books and movies did help a lot when working on the costumes.
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> GR: What previous games have the design team members worked on? Especially, what other games have the writer, director, producer and character designer worked on?
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> JK: The team members come from various teams. I was the character designer of Suikoden 1, and I was the game planner for Twinbee RPG. Mr. Kitao, the [executive] producer, was the producer of Silent Hill (and is that of Silent Hill 2)
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> GR: How was the power of the playstation 2 used for the creation of this game? Could it have been done on another system, such as the Dreamcast?
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> JK: The Emotion engine was used to show the very emotional facial expressions of the characters. Not only do the facial expressions convey the emotions of the characters, but these emotions actually serve as hints in the game. You really want to keep an eye on their facial expressions. This probably would have been very difficult with the Dreamcast.
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> GR: What do you want players to feel when they are playing Shadow of Destiny?
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> JK: I want players to think about life, take it more seriously, and be more careful when making important decisions in life. You’re not Eike, and you don’t have a digipad.
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