Interview with the creators of Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2
The following interview was translated from the EnterBrain! guidebook for Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2 (2002), known in the west as Raw Danger. While the original episode benefited from some cult following in the west due to how experimental and rudimentary it was, it is my sentiment that the sequel was far more polished and ambitious, taking the concept of interwoven character arcs much farther than any of the other episodes that followed. I would not hesitate to consider Zettai Zetsumei Toshi one of the most original and daring independent PS2 games coming from Japan. Kazuma Kujou, the lead designer of the original, acted as producer at Granzella for the release of the third installment, Damaged Town and Her Song; as well as the fourth part which, as I reported many years ago in this page, was halted due to the Fukushima incident in 2011 - a principled decision that speaks volumes of the creator's moral fiber. The game would later be recovered and published for the PS4 under the name "Summer Memories". Playstation Plus Premium users can currently download it for gratis.
Up to the birth of “2”
On the left, Maki D. (designer). On the right, Kujou Kazuma (producer).
-- Firstly, what were your thoughts at the end of the game’s development?
Kujou, Kazuma (herein referred to as Kujou): In a word, I think it was a long development cycle. From speaking with Maki D. (herein referred to as Maki), it seems that we began before the end of development on his previous project, and so it took until about February or March of 2001.
-- He already started on something new before it was finished?
Kujou: That’s right. I suppose, because it was Maki who was directly creating the game, my feeling that it was taking a long time was quite different to his.
-- How about you, Maki?
Maki: Thinking about it now, I was under quite a lot of pressure from my uncompleted project, and I felt like I was being stretched in different directions. Especially when I was considering the initial planning, and when I was searching for the best way to proceed, I was spread a little thin.
-- Before your course of action was finalised, what kind of ideas did you have?
Kujou: The fact that the main character is not a hero in the city’s disaster never changed. There was the element of cold though.
-- The idea of the cold was there from the beginning, right?
Maki: In the beginning we envisaged a snow storm game, at that time we planned on having snow falling down.
Kujou: From initial development, I mentioned the winter-like setting amongst the staff and they told me that it would be difficult to create. Afterwards we came up with the idea of stopping an earthquake. However, if we made “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi” about an earthquake, it would have become just an ‘earthquake game’, so if we wanted to create a true ‘disaster game’, we had to come up with something else.
Maki: Although at the beginning we had all kinds of ideas and images of snow and volcanic eruptions, the cold aspect was leading us to an impasse. So, we planned what would happen if we made it about a flood. This was also the time we started to build a rough map.
-- And that’s when you moved on to set up the characters and scenario?
Maki: That’s right. The story doesn’t just begin with the disaster. From the beginning we had thought of having it start from a peaceful place.
Kujou: Yes, since, in our previous project, we had the main character thrown into a place that had been left a ghost town right at the beginning.
Maki: Although it’s a peaceful party scene, if you notice, there’s one person who is without a date. With this project I also wanted to show the contrast between that elegant scene and its turning to total confusion. Maybe that’s the reason the map took so long to create.
-- As for the party, a lot of preparation was put into the choices available in the subevents, is that right?
Kujou: That’s right, the choices… well, we emphasised it so much, by the end I felt like I was writing a thesis on it! (laughs). It’s because the method of inserting these choices made it so difficult. It was weird, and the order was all jumbled up and things like that. I thought that because the player is only watching the images that have been directed, they don’t feel that they’re playing a game. That’s why we wanted to add choices to the important scenes.
Maki: Yes, and on top of that, as the choices were added, the forking conversations just kept piling up (laughs).
-- Did the branching aspect cause you trouble, what with so many characters?
Maki: Oh yes. Staff members didn’t have an accurate overall image of the project’s stages because there was a lack of communication and they weren’t giving their opinions when they were unsure of the characters’ time schedules.
Kujou: Right until the end, discussions got a little bit warped and because it was easy for it to become incoherent, they were having to constantly reconfirm why they were working together and what the scenario writers were working on.
-- There was also a mutual interference?
Maki: As far as that goes, I was thinking about how simple it was for the main character to get out of scrapes, maybe just brushing past, and that the player might find this a little boring; I wanted to stick my nose in and add some gaming strategy, that’s why the game turned out more like this.
About the main characters
-- You created Shinohara (Joshua Harwell) first and added the other characters
afterwards, is that right?
Maki: Looking back on it, Shinohara was there from the beginning, but when we got down to the other 5 characters, I felt they were not as rounded, and we needed to add something.
-- Of all the characters in the game, which one caused you most trouble?
Maki: Tsuge (Isaac Schiller) was the most problematic. Of course, he’s driving around in his taxi, and he covers quite a distance. Because we’d said for a long time we were going to use the same map, in order that you can’t see it being reused, we made it at the end.
-- Don’t you think there are a lot of characters with a negative image? People getting arrested, losing their memory, and all kinds of skeletons coming out of the closet (laughs).
Maki: Although we originally planned for Nishizaki (Paige Meyer) to win friendship, it ended up developing quite unhappily. But by the end of Saeki’s (Amber Brazil’s) character arc, I felt very happy inside.
-- Were there any characters you discarded?
Kujou: During the organisation of the game scenario, there were changes to the characters, but we wanted to add meaning to the number of people, so we came to use them all.
-- Comparisons to your previous work were being drawn?
Kujou: That was for characters that were decided much later. About a year ago I suggested that we include them, but it wasn’t taken seriously.
Maki: The characters from my last work came from inside me, and there’s a part that was eaten up, and I didn’t like that. On top of that, since the character set from my previous work had almost no bearing on the new, we could do whatever we wanted with them, which added a little element of fear.
-- Did you want to include the Woman Looter from the beginning?
Kujou: At first, before I even knew we were going to include her, I just had this feeling, of doing things my own way (laughs).
Maki: For some reason she was a very easy character to use, from a positional standpoint.
-- Sudou (Keith Helm), who was a character in your previous work, also makes an appearance, and his image changed quite a lot from the last game.
Kujou: Well, I guess we added that character because we wanted to contrast him with the cuteness of the impudent Honda (Sophia Briggs). We also wanted to give the player a feeling of recognition when his name appears onscreen. At that time, he was a non-controllable character, but autumn last year, around October, we changed him to a playable character.
-- That was fanatastic timing.
Kujou: We were also wondering about the end of Tsuge’s (Isaac Schiller’s) segment, so we brought them together and included them in the modified Editorial Department’s map.
-- Did you make any other modification?
Maki: We also changed the scene in which Shinohara and the head chef fall off the expressway, at short notice.
Kujou: The designer got angry with that scene too. The falling scene was decided around November, but of course, because there was no terrain underneath… we started to develop the idea of Shinohara and the head chef dropping off here.
-- And you had sudden talks about that too?
Kujou: About the ambiguity of whether the head chef lives or dies in the end, and whether he could be thought of as a main character, is what we discussed, and in the end we added him. I think it turned into a good scene filled with ideas.
-- Were there any elements that you wanted to add, but had to leave out?
Kujou: We were wondering if it would be possible to tie all the endings together.
Maki: It was just, the amount of endings… there were twice as many as there are now, so we had to cut some of them.
The little details
A page borrowed from Tomonobu Itagaki's fashion book.
-- So why is there no health gauge this time?
Maki: In order to make the coldness stand out, we got rid of the health gauge. Of course, unable to rely on a health meter, the player has to concentrate on the movement to determine where to go.
-As the body temperature drops, the character’s movement gradually slows down and the player starts to panic, especially when visibility worsens.
Kujou: It turns that way right at the start. When it’s so tough at the beginning you really feel like you’re about to collapse.
Maki: Thing about the cold is, although the player understands the cold, it’s hard for them to know the effects of the temperature, and the items, and so they wonder if they’re going to run out, so in the end we added the TP gauge which shows the character’s body temperature and if they are wet.
-- Were there any other last-minute alterations?
Kujou: We also changed the characters’ names, didn’t we?
-- Like Avolon?
Kujou: Calling it Avolon happened much later. We also had talks about the name ‘Echidna’ (laughs).
Maki: His role was always like this, even though some things had already been decided, he would rearrange things, like scenes which would suggest characters’ motives or true colours.
-- I was surprised when I saw the number of choices.
Kujou: The number of choices was greatly cut down, but in the final scenes, they have real consequences; I wanted to hit the player with some tough choices. We could only add up to 7 choices at that point, but I asked them if we could have 8 choices, so they added it in for me (laughs).
Maki: Because the number of choices increased, at first, we had to place a cursor to the left, but this made them difficult to read, so we gave the choices colours.
-- There are some choices that people probably won’t make, right?
Kujou: There are. Even though some choices might only be selected by one in a hundred people, the voice actors still recorded them for us.
-- Were there any issues with the sound?
Maki: As much as possible, I wanted to refrain from having the music define the atmosphere, and instead let the sound effects create the atmosphere of actually being there. As you’d expect the sound of rain falling was essential, and when you can hear that, it makes you feel melancholy, and that was an atmosphere that was important to the game.
-- Lastly, could you tell me your greatest highlights of the game?
Maki: Probably the scene in the second half of chapter one, when Shinohara (Joshua Harwell) causes the train to derail. Also, when the characters die (laughs).
-- How about you, Kujou?
Kujou: Let me see, there are so many great scenes. What I want the players to see is obviously, the presence of the disaster, but I hope they enjoy the freedom of the choices. Whether it’s a disaster, or something heart-warming, it’s all the same when it comes to creating a fun game. I think the choices are one of the most Irem-like features of the game.
