This time, we heard the story from the "TECHNIC BEAT" staff from the Planning Team and Shinji Hosoe who is known as "MEGATEN" from SuperSweep.

Part 3 is about the commitment to TECHNIC BEAT.

Mihara was working on Tekken Force Mode of TEKKEN 4 (PlayStation 2) at the time of this interview, so he is not participating in this interview.

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I would like to ask you about what you were particular about in creating "TECHNIC BEAT".

Hosoe

I'm very particular about "Genpei Touma Den". The other tracks are techno-ish but Genpei strays from the techno-ish.

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What genre will it be in?

Hosoe

It's a progressive type of music. The sound is made vividly. I wanted to make a track that was about 10 minutes long, but it wouldn't be a game if it was that long, so I cried and kept it to about 1.5 minutes.

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What did you stick to in your role as a director?

Tsubouchi

In my mind, the concept of the TECHNIC series is not "let's make a sound" but "let's play with a sound".

I also wanted to make sure it won't ruin the image of the tracks.
We wanted beginner users to enjoy this game as well, so we added a C button. You'll be able to clear some parts of the game if you use it.

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Was there a difference between consumer and arcade?

Tsubouchi

After releasing the consumer product, we found a point we should've done it in a different way. And also...

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It looks like you have more. LOL

Tsubouchi

Um, yes I do.

The most important thing is that we can't have people who put 100 yen into this game but end up not knowing how to play and not being able to do anything.
Mihara told me again and again that consumers and arcades are different.
The other thing I was told to do was to thoroughly eliminate fundamental bugs, such as not being able to play the game even though you put money into it.
Also, he told me to make a game that people who don't know TECHNICTIX got hung up by the nostalgic NAMCO's music and put in 100 yen won't say "Damn it!" after playing it. LOL

Mihara and Takano often struggled with the number of stars in the difficulty level. Also about the number of Super Action.
It usually gets in a pinch about twice per track, so Takano says that 2 is fine. But Mihara says that he wants 3 because he wants to have enough room to hit even when he's cleared.
Takano was told that you want 2 because you know the game, but who doesn't know the game wants 3 to clear the game.
In Mikawa's case, he said he was fine with just one. LOL

Takano

Well, what Mihara said is right. There would be some parts where we can clear but would be difficult for the beginners. So there are a lot of places to use the C button, and I think there are a lot of situations where you can't clear even you to use all, so I think 3 is a good choice.

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If we were to roughly divide this game into genres, it would be a music game, right?
I think the boom is getting over, and the current music games have an image of being too difficult for beginners to play. Are you trying to eliminate that kind of thing as much as possible?

Tsubouchi

It is a music game by classification, but I think it's an action game that you put 100 yen in and enjoy playing the music as an "arcade".

To be honest, I don't care about the music game boom, and also there aren't that many action games out here these days, so I'm hoping this will be a good start.
I hope many people do it by listening to NAMCO's old music and reminiscing about the old days.

Good feeling = You get a high score

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In regards to the arcade obsession, there was some score ranking in the previous game, but how is it for this game?

Tsubouchi

This time, the method of calculating the score is quite different. Probably it will be booed by fans of TECHNICTIX, but I believe that this form is the right choice this time around. LOL

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How did it change?

Tsubouchi

The previous one was "how can I feel good and score high if I do this?". This time it's "if I do this the higher score would be better".
I believe that when you get used to TECHNIC BEAT, you'll know that this good feeling equals that you get a high score. LOL

Takano

Basically, the more you connect, the higher your score will be. We had that in the previous, but this time we built the system as the main concept.

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What are the reasons for being so refreshed?

Tsubouchi

You can play the track from anywhere you want as the previous, but I think the melody of NAMCO's music is in your mind, so we made this system. I want you to play the track as written, and if you clear that, you will get a higher score.

In some cases, the score is completely different from the previous, so the patterns we've made in the past could be gone. But I believe this was not wrong.

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©ARIKA CO., LTD. 2002 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
GAME MUSIC LICENSED BY NAMCO LTD.

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