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I was the creative lead on this collection, and it's one of the things I'm most proud of in this world. I rarely feel satisfied with my own work, but I don't think we could have done this one any better with the time and resources that we had. https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1326612645198266368
I'm going to start listing off parts that I'm proud of in no particular order
- We made all of the twisty joystick arcade games work flawlessly as twin stick games on the controller. This is the first time the arcade version of Ikari has EVER felt right at home
- We made all of the twisty joystick arcade games work flawlessly as twin stick games on the controller. This is the first time the arcade version of Ikari has EVER felt right at home
- Since we were so satisfied with the results, we worked with SNK to get the go-ahead on including EVERY arcade game that used this "rotary stick," even the really obscure ones that people weren't excited about.
- We invented (afaik?) a "Watch" mode for this collection. You don't have to be good at the game to experience it all, you can scrub back and forth through a tool-assisted run like it's a YouTube video, and at any time, you can jump in and take control.
- Every video in Watch Mode (that's me playing! ...in slow motion and with rewind) was very thoughtfully done. I try to show you every little trick and technique I know, and I do so in a fast-paced way that is never boring, but not crazy like a TAS. They're believable.
- While we couldn't make EVERY game by SNK playable, we were able to at least SHOW YOU every one of them. There's this really extensive gallery explaining every game they worked on prior to the Neo Geo. Research was extensive, and it is the only complete list of SNK games afaik.
- If I am aware of any promotional piece of art, sell sheet, magazine ad, etc. existing for any SNK game, it's in here (though we often had to censor parts of them...). There's a ton of arcade key art in here that wasn't on the internet at the time, and maybe still isn't?
- What we wanted to express was the innovation and creativity of this studio in the 80s, and SNK gave us their blessing to include some weird and, actually, kinda bad games, because we felt it helped tell the story. I don't know of any other collection that does that!
- Unlike other Japanese game companies I've worked with, SNK acknowledges its past and allowed us to work with former staff. We were able to work extensively with 80s developers to make sure we were presenting their games correctly, and to show some old material they kept!
- For every game in the collection, we included every version that SNK made. For example, there are four versions of Ikari Warriors: Japanese arcade, USA arcade, Japanese Famicom, USA NES. The only ones we didn't include were made by others.
(there is exactly one exception to the rule: we did not include the MSX version of Ikari, which SNK developed in-house, though we did talk about it in the museum gallery)
- The game selection menu is beautiful. We wanted it to feel like browsing Netflix, except good, so every time you hover over a game it waits five seconds on the (4K!) cover art, shows you a random five second clip, back to the art, repeat, with uninterrupted soothing music.
- We found a bug in Sasuke vs. Commander and patched it (a one byte change iirc). For the first time ever in the game's 40 year history, you can see the ending screen.
- This is probably the first retro game collection that wasn't targeting existing fans...at least, from our perspective. It's what I want to see more of in the world: a collection of interesting work for people who want to explore the past instead of reliving it.
