The Arc of Fighting

It's an all-girl characters fighting game. We just wanted to show European people there is a fighting game like this, which is quite unique. Arcana Heart 3 has BlazBlue's online battle system, so the online battle experience is as good as BlazBlue. The matching system is superb.

There's quite a long process. First we design the character. Second, we decide which skills they have and their background. Then we do content drawing – the pencil drawings for all the movements. Then motion drawing, including 3D models, then hand-drawn animations. After that, colouring. Then we put them into the game.

Because we want to make the best-quality 2D fighting games, and this is the way to make them.

Arc System Works' fighting games are pretty much designed for anime fans. The anime style fighting game is the one we want to make. 2D drawing is best suited for the time being.

There is already a wide variety of characters that have appeared in other fighting games, such as Street Fighter. I want to create something totally different from them. That's why my characters are quite unique, and even strange to some people.

There are two ways of creating a character for a game. First of all I create the game system. Then I create a character that matches to that game system. Vice versa, some characters are drawn, and then the game system is adjusted.

The character called Venom, he uses a billiard cue. I got that idea when I went to play pool with my friends. That's from the real world.

Every single character I've created is a part of me. Everyone is equal. But if you want to say this is the character that's my favourite of all, then that would be Sol Badguy, because he most matches my personality and sensibilities. He is the real meaning of Guilty Gear.

Guilty Gear got too hardcore for some people, so we wanted to reset the level of entrance. BlazBlue was the answer to it. Also, the generation of Guilty Gear players has become a certain age – maybe a little bit too old for playing games. So making that reset brings in a new generation of fighting game players. Then they will be with us for the next few years.

It is impossible to create a fighting game everyone can play. The basic rule of a fighting game is: one wins and one loses. As long as that's the basic rule of a fighting game, there will never be a perfect fighting game that everyone can enjoy.

Well, first of all, Japanese houses are quite small, so playing a fighting game with Kinect is difficult. If there's a Kinect fighting game, then a real setting would be quite difficult. It could be a game where the person who performs the first hit will be the winner. The person who hits first will always win.

Motion fighting games could be random, determined by things like which player is faster. That could happen when a Kinect fighting game happens, but that won't be too much fun. The judgement of win or lose cannot be which one is stronger. If that's the point you want to judge, then you should play sports instead of a video game.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike. It's the nervousness between you and your opponent that gives me joy. You have to guess what the next move is by your opponent. That was the most fun thing about the game. It was so enjoyable.