Hey and thanks for taking the time to swing by HJU.

Tell us a little about yourself, like where you’re from and what you liked to do as a kid?

My name is Joe Fletcher, Producer on Kamen Rider Dragon Knight for the Wii and DS. I’ve been living in (not so) sunny California for the last bit, but I’m really an Arizona boy, born and raised. Growing up, I played games constantly (video and otherwise) and watched more than my fair share of cartoons and anime. Quite a few days were spent rushing home from school to catch Ronin Warriors and hop onto my SNES to play some Chrono Trigger.

How did you get into the biz of video games?

Perseverance and a bit of luck. As a kid, I always wanted to get into the industry. I was one of those people that played Combat on the 2600 and made up new rule sets not covered even in the multiple play types that the cartridge offered. I was drawing out Mega Man level designs on paper in elementary school for the fun of it. As it happened, I had just gotten back from Japan for some schooling (language and culture) and heard through some acquaintances that a new QA outfit was opening in my area. After that, it was a matter of impressing the QA manager in the interview and working my way up through the ranks.

Can you tell us what a average day is like for you?

The first couple hours of every day is taken up with reading over emails and taking action on anything that needs the be done. This ranges from making decisions on bugs in a game, updating in-game text spreadsheets, offering up opinions on marketing materials, to figuring out game design to move the project forward. That usually takes up the morning before lunch. After that, it’s a whirlwind of meetings (project related and otherwise) and cramming in time to handle any issues that come up during the working day.

What were your impressions of the Kamen Rider Universe when you got to see it?

Seeing Kamen Rider Dragon Knight wasn’t my first exposure to the Kamen Rider universe actually. Way back when on the USA network there was a show called Night Flight I used to watch with my Dad. They had a parody dub of Dynaman that they’d show from time to time that I thought was funny and entertaining. I asked if there was anything like it, and my Dad being my Dad, managed to find some subbed VHS tapes of a couple Godzilla films and some episodes of Kamen Rider Stronger. Of course, at that time, I knew nothing of the history of Kamen Rider, so it was all just a guy in a suit beating people up to me. I had mostly forgotten about that until Dragon Knight came around and reminded me that the series (in its different forms) has been around all this time.

Tell us how you came to the general design of the Wii game, like of all the game designs from fighter, RPG, open world, or first person adventure.. how did this version come about and were any other ideas played with?

I can’t speak to different ideas for the game in regards to genre changes (most of that was done in early design before I ever had a hand in it) but the idea of the free roaming and arena style combat being in the game was one that was definitely a goal of the project. Kamen Rider in general, and especially Dragon Knight, has many battles against multiple minion type characters as well as having “big bad boss” battles. Having the ability to run around and beat up multiple foes in one form of combat then going into a fight against a Rider and switching to a more “standard” form of combat was a natural evolution of the concept of the show. Both Eighting (on the Wii) and Natsume (on the DS) implemented this feel slightly differently, but both were very successful in bringing the feel of both these combat styles to life.

How about the DS?

The DS version has a lot of the same feel of the Wii version while being placed on the portable screens of the system. We wanted to make sure that the Kamen Rider feel of multiple enemy combat was there as well as having fun and challenging battles against the other Riders and Xaviax. While the free running system works fine on the Wii, the DS’s smaller screen makes this difficult to really hold to. After all, how fun is it to try and pick out the 5 pixels that make up the Blue Minion that is 100 yards away and decide to move towards him? With that in mind, the DS focused on the close in, feeling constantly swarmed combat style when facing multiple enemies that the Kamen Rider shows are known for.

Can you tell us some of your influences in making this game?

Well, I’ve worked with Eighting in the past (I was Senior QA on the Naruto: Clash of Ninja games on GameCube and the first two on the Wii) so I knew what they were easily capable of and what would take more effort to get their Wii engine to do. Given that, I wanted to make sure that the game was as easy to pick up but at least as deep as any of the Clash of Ninja games. It’s simple to hop in, mash the buttons, and beat up a friend. When you start getting into it though, there’s a lot of strategy in the card selections, combo cancels, Contract Beast attacks and the like. When looking at this game from that standpoint, I started looking at pretty much every fighting game in recent history to see what made them simple or complex and making sure that our game would easily be able to meld the two and remain fun.

What are the main differences between the Wii and DS game and what kind of gamer would you recommend to one or the other?

Both games are fighters, both have the 13 Kamen Riders and the cards that they use for their abilities. The main differences lie in the way their story modes are run. Wii opts for a grid based system with random paths, making the player move from encounter to encounter with a countdown timer to clear the whole mode. The DS is based around a tier based system with the chosen Kamen Rider gaining more health, attack power and the like as they fought. So the Wii plays more like a Time Attack while the DS has RPG elements to it. The Wii is all about playing with friends, so we wanted to make sure that the single player modes that you’re going through develop those skills. What better way to do that than challenge you in different ways and make you work on skills to defeat your opponents more effectively? The DS on the other hand is single player and focuses on the building up of the Kamen Rider’s power as they face off against more and more powerful opponents, much like Dragon Knight himself faces in the show. It’s also more bite sized, allowing you to run a mission and put down the game for a bit which definitely helps when you’re on a plane and the flight attendant is telling you to turn off portable electronics.

What kind of considerations did you have to make when determining what you could accomplish on each of the platforms?

For the Wii, the prime consideration was the control style. Sure, the game supports the Classic Controller, and plays well using it but we wanted to make sure that people that either didn’t have one or didn’t want to use one could still play the game effectively. I’ve seen far too many fighters out there on the Wii where the Wii Remote is a useless compared to their friend using a more standard controller. Making sure that all the attacks and defenses that the characters used could be quickly and easily executed on the Wii was high on the list in making the game enjoyable for the Wii Remote and Nunchuk players.

The DS was a bit more difficult, since we had to take into account the DS handheld’s power. Natsume was able to pull out amazing graphics while still keeping the frame rate and game play solid, so we knew their technology was up to the task. At that point, we had to figure out how best to make the game accessible for people with only a couple minutes of time here and there to play and how to make sure that the multi enemy combat that is a staple of the show were represented in the game. Going with a tiered mission format solved the first, with the RPG elements keeping the player involved and giving a sense of progression with every fight. The DS having touch screen capabilities nicely solved the second issue, since we could take advantage of having multiple enemies attacking at once while still allowing players a quick and easy way to react to the changes in combat. Of course, tapping an onscreen enemy to select him as a target is very precise, so it actually worked out even better than a button based target switch and having the player hope that it locked onto the right opponent.

Where does the story take place in the show’s continuity…and If it’s a retelling of the series, will gamers get to know the true ending of the saga before the television viewers?

Hints, hints, and more hints, but no actual spoilers. We wanted to make sure that players would see everything that they have seen so far in the show, and even know a bit about the future. However, we didn’t want to give away the series for those that don’t want that kind of closure before they can see it in the show itself. So we ended up striking a balance in the game’s story where the player won’t be spoiled by the game itself but if they watch the entire story through the show they’ll see things that hint at what happens in the plot of the game.

Did you have someone on staff that was familiar with the franchise or did you have someone involved with production that you were in contact with to make sure everything fit?

We maintained close contact with Adness throughout the project. Their US office is located in the same building, so it was pretty easy to stay in touch. Given their support, it was pretty easy to have access to everything we needed to make sure that the game reflects the show very strongly and vice versa.

Big thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to hook up the fans. Got anything else you’d like to add?

Thanks as well for taking the interest! Hope you enjoy the games and more Kamen Rider TV goodness!

[In stores now!]