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Burning Rangers - 1997 Developer Interview

https://shmuplations.com/burningrangers/

This Burning Ranger interview (actually a composite of two interviews) originally appeared in Saturn Fan magazine about six months prior to the game's release the following year. Led by producer Yuji Naka, the Sonic Team members engage in a light-hearted discussion about their design goals and inspirations. I've also added some commentary from the game's three composers, taken from the OST liner notes.

Burning Rangers - 1997 Developer Interview Burning Rangers - 1997 Developer Interview

Comments

That's interesting info, and yeah, I'd like to know more about that too. I've never seen Naka talk about Burning Rangers and that era outside of a recent interview where he says the programming language used for NiGHTS/BR (assembler) has made it hard to port those to other systems. It's too bad about Naka's fall from grace--it would have been nice to see him go the Yoshiki Okamoto route and start dishing about this stuff more openly in a youtube etc format. Btw, while this BR interview offered a nice top-level view of the development, I've ordered the JP Burning Rangers strategy guide which apparently has more commentary from the developers, so we may publish a "round 2" in the near future. :)

shmuplations.com

Neat to hear the good nature of this game's team, in spite of what was suggested otherwise in the game's development, according to Hidden Palace. Or of Oshima-san for that matter.... I've always wondered if it was the results of BR were a massive factor that compelled Oshima-san to leave Sega (I don't buy for a second about that supposed "oh the Sega CEO left and I thought, 'yeah, I'll dip too'."). After BR's Japanese release and its low sales, he would be delegated from Director of his own game, to a relatively minor story role in Sonic Adventure (a credited role, with his name, that would later be erased from the staff roll in SADX). He would not be highlighted in much of the promotional material that featured that game's staff, inspite of his own crucial noriety, while Naka is basking in glory with full-size pages dedicated to him (never mind that giant egg bullshit at the unveiling!). He couldn't even join their ventures at Machu Picchu and all those places for SA1's preproduction phase. Not to mention... Naka himself (especially much later with Balan). That all couldn't possibly have done any good for his morale. I would love to hear his side of the story about this period in better detail one day.

Aaron

Blessed.

PandaMonium


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