‘I thought I was going to die. Well, I did die.’
Sony has beenrounding up developers to curatetheir favorite PlayStation 4 games. I’ve peeked at a few of these “Discover the Creators” lists in recent weeks, but none have fascinated me as much asYoko Taro‘s. What’s the director and writer ofNieR: Automatainto? Some unexpected stuff.
Taro only needed “one to two lines per game” for Sony’s purposes, but he ended uptalking at lengthabout his eight recommendations:Resogun,Final Fantasy XV,Horizon Zero Dawn,Gravity Rush Remastered,Gravity Rush 2,Danganronpa 1.2 Reload,Life is Strange, andThe Last Guardian.
Here he is onFFXV:
“I was creating a title calledNIER Gestalt/Replicantwhen this title was calledVersus XIIIbut because it was very likely that our games would release around the same time, I was thinking ‘oh man,Versusis an action RPG right? It would suck if the release dates were close to each other.’NIERended up releasing without having to worry aboutVersus XIIIbut then, when I was creatingDrakengard 3I thought ‘it would suck if they release close to our release,’ and it was the same again when we were creatingNieR: Automatathis time too. Looking back, I feel like I was trapped by the curse ofVersusfor about 10 years. This game and its content created over the course of 10 years is unparalleled and unique, and I enjoyed it a lot. The one thing that surprised me the most is theirincomprehensible passiontowards food and beverage.FFis amazing.”
And theGravity Rushgames:
“I feel like recent Western titles are polarized into super AAA titles and indie games, but theGravity Rushseries is a game right around the middle of the two. By the way, I go out to drink with the director Keiichiro Toyama once in a while but the only image I have of him is him being drunk, and I can’t help but think ‘how can a title like this come from a person like him?'”
And, yes, Yoko Taro is not only intoLife is Strange, he dugRemember Me, too:
“There is a game calledRemember Methat was released for the PS3. It has great artistic taste and I have awarded it my personal ‘most visually beautiful game on PS3 award’ and the company that created that game is DONTNOD Entertainment in France. And as a new title from that studio, I just can’t help but pay attention to… wait, what is this graphic! The direction is completely different! This surprise was how I metLife is Strange. In sharp contrast toRemember Me, this title is about life in school in a quiet city. This title is great with many small youthful moments scattered around the game within the boundaries of restricted expression. By the way,Remember Meis still not localized into Japanese, when is it going to be localized?”
Be sure to pore over hisfull list of gamesfor more anecdotes about death and drinking.
