Tag Archives: Famitsu

This Week’s Issue of Famitsu Magazine Will Feature 48 Pages of NieR Goodness!

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On Monday, April 27, the Weekly Famitsu official Twitter account dropped a teaser for this week’s up-coming issue of Famitsu magazine, which will feature 48 pages worth of NieR related goodness, including interviews with Yoko Taro and Saito Yosuke.

The April 30th issue of Famitsu magazine will include 48 pages of NieR goodness! Both the front and back covers feature illustrations by Koda Kazuma.

Additionally, according to Ryokutya, the issue will discuss these points about the new version of NieR Replicant (my personal comments in red):

  • A considerable amount of work was put into this updated version of the game that it doesn’t really feel like a simple “remaster” but rather something more.
    This was already discussed during the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream, in which they said that this will neither be a remaster nor a remake. For more on this, please read here.
  • Since the camera movements are pretty similar during event scenes, the game feels more like a remaster even though we’ve implemented many modifications.
  • All additional elements are brand-new, so we put a lot of effort into them.
  • There were some things in the original game that may have felt a bit clunky or unrefined, so if people thought we ought to update those areas, we wanted to do so. We wanted to be sure that fans of Automata could enjoy playing this as well.
  • Please look forward to hearing the voices of Ishikawa Yui (2B) and Hanae Natsuki (9S). We previously knew this from the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream that the three main voice actors of 2B, 9S, and A2 will be returning in the new version of Replicant; however, they they will NOT be reprising their roles from Automata.

Additionally, here are some more Famitsu leaks about NieR Re[in]carnation from another Ryokutya post:

  • The girl in the trailer is NOT Kaine. I thought that was pretty much a given, but people always want to believe what isn’t there…
  • The ghost sort of character floating there is literally called “Mama”. It’s a sort of character that watches over the MC as a mother would.
  • Yoko: There are more than one MC.
    Saito: There are lots of them.
    This suggests to me that we will be seeing the Original Accord here. Please take a look at what we were recently discussing about Accord here. Additional hints were given during the March 29 NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream, which I discussed here.

Famitsu just posted a couple preview images of their article on twitter! Check it out!

Please stay tuned for more news and info regarding this release in the coming days! In the meantime, here are a couple of preview videos for you to enjoy and help you stay up-to-date with all things in the Yokoverse!

There also seems to be a bit of misinformation going around regarding these leaks originally stated by Ryokutya. Like a game of telephone, the information seems to be going through several different journalists, each time losing more and more of the original intent or meaning.

The original leak started with Ryokutya, traveled to Game’s Talk, and then over to Twitter. The thing is, Ryokutya often adds his own personal comment at the end of his posts of leaked information, so for anyone unfamiliar with this, they could misinterpret his personal comments for actual leaked information.

Let’s break this down to eliminate any misunderstanding, starting with Ryokutya’s personal comment (not part of the official Famitsu leaks):

Taura wanted to keep the same action feel of the original (since he was a fan of the original), but Saito, Yoko, and the development company (Toylogic) seem intent on changing the feel considerably.

But if Taura’s going to check on the work, then I guess there’s noooooooooooooo need to worry.

The only thing left to worry about is maybe changes to the somewhat taboo aspects of the game… [Ryokutya]

Then Game’s Talk picked up this bit and wrote it like this:

PlatinumGames’ Taura Takahisa, who worked on the game design for NieR:Automata, will be cooperating on the development by supervising the game’s action.

Taura, a fan of the original game, didn’t want to change the feel of the original, but it is said that Saito, Yoko, and the development company, Toylogic, intend on changing it considerably. [Game’s Talk]

And then other folks on Twitter picked up the information and rolled with it:

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1255436979036213248

https://twitter.com/StormYorha/status/1255253748538060800 (Removed)

The majority of this “new” information is actually a month old, as it was originally announced during the 10-hour NieR 10th Anniversary Livestream on March 29, which I covered here.

I do recall them discussing on the same program that Taura would be “helping” with the new version of Replicant, but exactly how much or what his actual role would be, working with Toylogic, was not discussed.

So, looking at how the information gradually changed the further down the grapevine it got, it’s clear that we need to stick with official sources and to be careful what gets passed around. Even if the overall statement is accurate, the slightest inaccuracy could be passed around and taken at face value.

Edit: April 30

The one line of dialogue that we saw spoken by Mama says, “Wow! Sand is pouring down! What’s going on here?” What’s interesting with this is that Mama clearly uses “feminine” speech. Of course, we don’t know anything about the character to know if Mama is actually a living being, a machine, or what… but this sort of speech is really difficult to get across when it’s translated into English.

Famitsu Special Feature on Yoko Taro – Interview

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The interview with Yoko Taro in the special feature this week covers four pages worth of interesting details about his past and much more! There’s a TON here, so I don’t think I will be translating it word for word but will be making notes about all the interesting things that I come across.

This post will be edited the further I progress into this section (I’ve only read half of it yet), so please expect the info on here to change over time. I’m also getting pretty exhausted right now, so the phrasing here might be rather lackluster. I’ll try to fix this up over the next couple of days. xP

Here we go!

  • First gaming experience was with the Cassette Vision in 1981. The game that impressed him the most was “Gradius” and it was this game that eventually got him interested in entering the gaming industry.
  • Both his mother and father worked, so his grandmother took care of him most of the time. He felt like he was mostly raised by his grandmother. She gave him considerable freedom as long as he studied, so he often could have whatever food he wanted, etc. and his grandmother would do it for him. He got a little chubby around this time in junior high where his grandfather was the principal at his school. He knew his grandmother loved him very much but says that she had the “soul of a demon” and referred to her as a “Spartan”. Apparently, she would tell other teachers in the school to favor her grandkid. She was also extremely overprotective of him, and he thinks that this lead way to the collapse of his personality. (His real-life grandmother sounds a lot like Kali, Kaine’s grandmother…)
  • In junior and senior high school, he didn’t exercise and a strange feeling aimed against those who are good at sports: “Stupid offline ppl!” His grandmother stopped checking to see if he was doing his homework since he entered junior high and so he never did it or studied. His grades plummeted. He even thought that he was becoming a real idiot and still he loved games and anime–they were fun. So, this is how he passed every day in folly.
  • His parents wanted him to join the kendo club at school but he was more interested in the ping pong club that was next door, so he eventually switched clubs. He never aimed to enter the national tournaments, so he merely had fun.
  • In high school, he joined the manga club but was sucked into the art club. He grew to hate the authority of “art”. With a spirit of malice, he thought things like “at some point you guys will be replaced by games and new media.” This is around the point where his flame of hatred is ignited. “The people around me who chastised me like that are bad, aren’t they?”
  • Ever since he graduated from high school, he lost contact with his old friends. He called out three of his friends to contact him at his twitter: Mutou and Ichikawa from Ogidai JH, and Teshima from HS.
  • His father is a cook and owns a small restaurant that has unique set meals every day. He never had anything negative to say about Yoko going into the gaming industry, even though it’s very distant from his own profession.
  • Yoko has a younger sister.
  • He was in the “science” path in high school even though his grades weren’t very good and he knew he wouldn’t be able to go to a science focused college. Since he liked to draw, he thought to aim for an art school and from the summer of his third year in high school he went to an art cram school. Just, he never told his teacher that he wanted to enter the gaming industry since he was embarrassed by it.
  • He wasn’t very good in English, so he looked for a school that didn’t require English, and he decided on Kobe Design University. He also chose this school because they offered a course in CG art, which was a pretty niche course given the technology at the time. He learned some computer programming, video editing, and a bunch of other related things– it was a fun time.
  • He didn’t really play many games during college, though. He has very few memories of the Super Nintendo because of this.
  • He met many of his current friends and business partners at this school in Kobe. Iwasaki Takuya (ILCA) is the same age as Yoko but was one year below him. Okabe Keiichi (MONACA) is one year older than Yoko but because he was learning to be a hair stylist before, he was in the same school year with Iwasaki. Yasui Akira (director of DOD2) was in Yoko’s same graduating class.
  • Yoko went to study in the UK for a year, so his graduation was thusly delayed a year. He had just been dumped by a girl and felt like he couldn’t bear to be in Japan. It was during that time that he saw a recruiting notice about a study abroad program. After he decided on the study abroad program, he still had about a half a year before leaving, and in that time he was again dumped by a girl. He throughly felt like there was nothing left for him in Japan. He thinks even to this day that should he have been even the slightest bit more popular among the girls or if he had more fun in life, he might not have ever entered the gaming industry. He felt some strange darkness pushing him toward the world of making things.

Yoko Taro Featured in This Week’s Issue of Famitsu Magazine

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There will be a whopping 22-page article featuring Yoko Taro in this week’s issue of Famitsu Magazine (the 8/2 issue, 7/19 publishing date). The article will touch on multiple Yokoverse topics, including the NieR and Drakengard series, SINoALICE, his stage plays, manga, and much more!

We’ll get a closer look at his history and who he really is, his quirks for game development, as well as a mash-up of various interviews, questionnaires, comments he’s made in the past. If you are a Yoko Taro fan, this is an issue you won’t want to miss!!

Images courtesy of Famitsu. The 1st image below may have actually inspired the most recent loading screen in SINoALICE. Additionally, the headline on the 2nd image says, “Yoko Taro and the Path of 48 Years” (Please note here that Yoko Taro just turned 48 years old this past June 6th).

Famitsu Livestream for Nier and Yoko Taro’s Birthday, June 6!

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There will be an official livestream by Famitsu to celebrate the birthday of NieR Replicant/Gestalt’s titular character, Nier… as well as Yoko Taro himself.

Yoko has stated in past interviews that Nier sharing his own birthday was actually a mistake. He originally used his birthday as a place holder but forgot to change it later, and by then it was too late.

The livestream will be on Wednesday, June 6 from 8:00-10:00pm (Japan Standard Time). You can watch live via the following sites:

Scheduled guests include:

After the broadcast, they will switch over to the Famitsu Channel on NicoNico Douga for a 30 minute bonus segment for subscribed members. Here’s the direct link to the bonus segment.

Source: Famitsu

As a side note, there was an old issue of Famitsu magazine (No.1120 6/3 2010) in which the interviewer asked Yoko why he used two different birthday dates for Nier in Replicant and Gestalt. I was working on translating this entire article before the hard drive on my laptop died  and I lost everything… But here’s a brief excerpt regarding this point:

ーOne of the differences between “Replicant” and “Gestalt” is Nier’s birthday on 6/6 in Replicant and 9/11 in Gestalt. What were you intending with this difference?

Yoko: The 9/11 date comes from the release date of the first Drakengard. Regarding the 6/6 date, however… That was entirely a goof in the character setting. (haha) I forgot to change the temporary place holder, and before I knew itー it had become reality. I saw some people online were speculating that it was meant to be a reference to the holiday “Brother’s Day” in Japan, so when I searched about it, I discovered there really was such a holiday on that day. So, please write that this was how the date became an official part of the setting. (haha)

Just for a little additional clarity on this, he used 6/6 as a place holder because that’s actually HIS birthday. He meant to change the date later, but obviously forgot and kept it that way in spite of it all. One of many Yokoisms. (haha)

  • Notable Happenings on June 6 (Japanese)
    Big Brother’s Day: Established by Kunio Hatada, a sister/brother researcher. Comparatively, March 6th is “Little Brother’s Day”, September 6th is “Little Sister’s Day”, and December 6th is “Big Sister’s Day”.