When asked, Kujo laughs: “Well, for a long time I could not come up with any good ideas, and for about a month I would sneak out of the office every day to think in the park. The inspiration for the submarines may come as a surprise, though. It certainly was different, with a tremendous amount of personality in the submarines you controlled, enhanced by detailed animation for everything on screen. Also, most shooting games were set in outer space, and I wanted to make something different.” However, I did not like that in shooting games there was forced scrolling, so the screen would just keep on moving even if one of the players was out of the game. Some bosses are quite tough, making a second player very handy.Īll of this, according to Kujo, owes something to the vast range of other shooters available, including Irem’s own R-Type: “The plan to make a ‘shooting game’ had already been decided, but also, at the same time, I had decided to make the game for two people who could play simultaneously. It was an extremely detailed 2D shmup featuring submarines, a simultaneous two-player option, and the ability to manually move the play area forwards. His first creative role was on In The Hunt, which was released in arcades in 1993. But to fully understand Metal Slug’s creation, you need to go way back, since in many ways it’s an evolution of scrolling shmups such as Irem’s R-Type, rather than traditional run-and-guns like Contra.Īfter joining Irem, Kujo’s first job was helping playtest R-Type II, though he wasn’t involved in design. Detailing his background, Kujo revealed that he wrote the original concept for In The Hunt (aka Kaitei Daisensou) at Irem and oversaw its development, later helping to form Nazca and taking charge of the Metal Slug project. Also, with the exception of a transcript in the Metal Slug Anthology release and a surreal Q&A with MeeHer on Metal Slug Database (), there don’t appear to be any interviews with the team – at least not in English.Ī breakthrough was made when previously unpublished excerpts from an interview with Irem’s Kazuma Kujo were leaked on the old Insert Credit forums. Further complicating things is that the original series is credited only to a series of mysterious pseudonyms: Kawai, MeeHer, Akio, Susumu, Cannon/Max-D, Tomo, Kuichin, Andy, Seeker and Hamachan. It’s also hard to even get interviews via SNK Playmore, as many of the original developers no longer work there. While Metal Slug has become synonymous with SNK, it was actually developed by the mysterious Nazca Corporation, an offshoot of Irem that was later absorbed into SNK, and a company that many know little about. Yet for a long time we didn’t really know who made it. Metal Slug’s incredible graphics instantly made it stand apart from similar games. Whether in arcades or as a console port, Metal Slug is something that today remains aesthetically and functionally beautiful. Even when ported elsewhere, such as to Sega’s Saturn, it required an additional RAM cartridge to function, reinforcing the fact that it was special. It was also developed for SNK’s Neo Geo hardware, which epitomised rich and cool. Developed at a time when 3D was usurping sprites both in arcades and at home, it showcased what was still possible with 2D. Here we speak to Kazuma Kujo and discover how he created the iconic blaster.Īlthough now easily available thanks to several mainstream re-releases, Metal Slug has long been a focal point for the hardcore. Filled with outlandish humour and boasting brilliantly animated graphics, it remains one of the best franchises on the Neo-Geo and delivers a satisfying amount of 2D carnage. Metal Slug is widely regarded as one of the best run-and-guns of all time.
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