Content area
Full text
When the secret history of video games is finally written, a special chapter will have to be devoted to Naoto Ohshima. He played a crucial role in exploring the creative possibilities of new console technology by working on some of the most innovative titles of the 1990s. After contributing to early installments of Wizardry and Phantasy Star, Ohshima created the iconic character designs for Sonic the Hedgehog. The blue mascot's success paved the way for Ohshima's directing turn on Sonic CD, a game brimming over with fresh ideas that few had an opportunity to experience due to the Sega CD's unpopularity. His next major project, NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn, was an audacious and beautiful attempt to claim the high ground during the early days of 3D console gaming. He followed Nights with Burning Rangers, another game for the ill-fated Saturn that was radically different from its violence-oriented 3D contemporaries. As the 90's came to an end he weathered the shifting fortunes of Sega by forming Artoon, and now heads the sometimes brilliant, occasionally aggravating, always interesting Cavia.
BS: Your first major console game with Artoon was Blinx. You might say it was ahead of its time ... games like Prince of Persia used a time mechanic long afterward and saw great success with it. Where did that idea come from?
NO: It was purely a product of the hard drive included with every Xbox--the original one, not the 360. We wanted to build a console game from the ground up that used the drive effectively.
BS: That's where the play mechanic came from?
NO: That's right. There wouldn't be any other way to do it. The PS2 wouldn't have been able to do it.
BS: Do you think it would be possible to make another mascot-style platforming game in the current era?
NO: Ah, well, I'm making a game like that right now. (laughs) I can't quite talk about that yet, though. In more general terms, the game needs to be something that anyone is able to play, and it needs to have one thing or element that is brand new, that hasn't been done before.
BS: Nights Into Dreams on the Saturn was the first really 3D game I played, long...