Takehiro Homma (Earth Defense Force 2017) - Interviews

Earth Defense Force 2017 is on Omni's shortlist of Action Games of the Year for 2007 simply because it's straight-up fun. No complicated, emotionally involved stories, complex game mechanics, or realistic physics. It's just you, and assortment of 200 different weapons against an invading force of giant robots, bugs, and flying saucers. In a recent Q&A with Takehiro Hommo, director at Sandlot, he talks about the actual number of weapons that could have been included, why buildings crumble without much encouragement, the driving force behind EDF 2017's development, and the decision to leave out online multiplayer.

Thank you for your time, Takehiro!

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Takehiro Homma (Earth Defense Force 2017) Conducted by Omni

Tell us a bit about yourself: Your name, how long have you been part of the gaming industry, and your role on Earth Defense Force 2017.

My name is Takehiro Homma , the director at Sandlot. Below are the titles that I’ve worked on.

“RAD (Robot Alchemic Drive)” – PS2

“Remote Control Dandy” – PS *Only in Japan

“Cho-Soujyu Mecha MG” – NDS *Only in Japan

“Gigantor” – PS2 *Only in Japan

“SIMPLE2000 THE Earth Defense Force” – PS2 *Only in Japan

“SIMPLE2000 THE Earth Defense Force 2” – PS2 *Only in Japan

Five years ago I started questioning the course of Japanese games. My issues comes down to these two points:

The games are becoming too complex.

I see a lot of games that put too much focus on the graphics, and neglect the core game-play.

First and foremost, I believe a game should be ‘fun’. And unfortunately, I feel like the recent trend has strayed from this quality. As a producer, I started to think I must create games that are “easy to play” while offering game-play that is addictively entertaining. This was the concept on which the “SIMPLE2000 THE Earth Defense Force” was made, with a price tag of 2,000 yen. The good sales of

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the original lead us to develop the sequel, “THE Earth Defense Force 2”. It is our pleasure to bring the series to Xbox 360 platform with our third installment.

A central focus of EDF 2017 is the bugs. What process did the team go through to decide the two central bug types (ant and spider)? What other bugs could have been included?

The best part of game development is that you

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can take even the most unworldly life-form, such as the giant ant, and make them parade around a city. There were talks on creating an imaginary bug, but eventually we decided to take an existing bug type. One of the reasons we did this was to recreate the feel of grade B disaster movies from the old days. We chose ants because they’re the least grotesque. We tried out other bugs, but felt that using bugs that are too creepy might affect the player’s incentive to play the game. For the same reason, we paid special attention not to make the spider too grotesque. Other contenders were grasshoppers and praying mantises. In the “THE Earth Defense Force 2”, we used centipedes and rolly pollies.

The city environment is filled with buildings that collapse after only one hit with an explosive. Did the team consider making the building much more “realistic” in the amount of damage they would take before falling?

We’ve focused on making the game fun to play instead of making the game environment realistic. Players might not be able to see a realistic building demolition, but can enjoy the exhilarating game-play.

EDF 2017 includes a huge assortment of different weapons. Some of the weapons are simply tweaks on previous guns, but others like the acid spitter and unique. Did you want to include more weapons?

We’ve wanted to make the game enjoyable instead of realistic, so yes, we’ve worked hard to come up with this weapon collection. Some of the weapons in the Inferno difficulty mode boast knockout features that are sure to entertain the players.

If weapons were cut from the game, why were they cut?

During the development of “THE Earth Defense Force 2”, our team kept on adding more and more weapons up until the master submission and ended up with more than 300 weapons. Some of them were far from being functional, and this was one of our biggest regrets. In the new installment, we sorted out those weapons, mainly the repair sprays for the vehicles. As a result, I believe the new weapon collections are much more legitimate and potent. In addition, the Ze-Gun auto-rifle and mines are new additions to the series.

Many have commented on the challenge of playing on the higher difficulty levels. To your knowledge has anyone finished EDF 2017 on “Inferno”?

Yes. In the higher difficulty levels, the weapons will become stronger. So if you stick with it, it’s not an impossible level to clear. If it’s still hard, I suggest you to try the co-op mode. If you play with a partner, you’ll have much stronger fire power.

I felt one of the most underutilized and poorly realized parts of EDF 2017 are the vehicles. Would you do anything different with them in future installments?

It is possible. The concept of the game is the infantry soldier fighting against the enemies, so we wanted to keep the vehicles to a minimum. However, we have an excellent team that is great in developing mech games, and have extended experience in that field. One of the most known titles is the “Cho-Soujyu Mecha MG”, which was released in Japan . So we might add more vehicles in the future, but nobody knows for sure at this point.

What was the toughest part of EDF 2017’s development?

We had a hard time on balancing the game, especially on the enemy movements and weapon properties. Even a slight change in the weapons affects the overall outcome of the game, so I believe in spending more time on adjustment. I also believe our development has a unique sense in game balance.

Though co-operative play is included, do you feel that it would have been better to include play over Xbox Live? Why wasn’t play over Xbox Live included?

The most essential point of this game is to display tons of enemies and dozens of fellow troops all at once on the screen. It is really difficult to create an online multiplayer mode while keeping this feature. It might be possible if we only featured the ‘one-on-one’ battle mode, but we concluded that this didn’t match the game’s intention and goal. We do hope to incorporate online co-op play in the next installment, but not with the cost of cutting down the essential components of the current game, such as the massive number of enemy characters. So, although it might sound pretty challenging, we would like to develop a co-op mode that keeps the current core gameplay.

(May 10, 2007)