Saturday, March 19, 2022

Rockman DASH 2 Development Secrets from Keiji Inafune

The June 2000 issue of Dengeki PlayStation was recently added to the Internet Archive. And among the topics of the era, it features a Rockman DASH 2 postmortem interview with Keiji Inafune. 

The former Rockman series producer goes on to dish juicy development secrets, including cut ideas and what he hoped to do with series at the time. (He also gets a little too TMI about a certain fetish, too.)

The interview hasn't been translated in English before. Until now, that is! Read on for the scoop!


Courtesy of our good, cute friend Midori, here's the link to the full English translation: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8QxMF3JdkrqYbxSU_wyFoIG89iKZmCuUAwDgLPTJ3Y/edit?usp=sharing

It's about a page and a half long. Here's a very quick rundown on a few fun points of note:


  • Inafune admits the story presented in second half of the game may have been too difficult to follow. He wishes they could have refined the scenario a bit more.
  • He addresses rumors that Roll is a "villain" in the sense that she is constantly skimming Special Weapon funding. Inafune says she has a "devilish but adorable demeanor" and "People who enjoy being stepped on are really into that sort of thing. I speak for myself a little there."Alrighty then.
  • The dev team considered Rockman DASH 1 opening with Rock's fight against Sera.
  • A "Fishing Arm" Special Weapon was cut from the game. You could use it to fish and yank items from afar. 
  • Inafune deliberately left the "hold up on D-pad to increase rate of fire" bug in. He said if a bug is fun and doesn't interfere with other elements, leave it in.
  • Ideally, Inafune wanted a sequel to be on PlayStation 2 as the "ultimate action game". But he didn't rule out the original PlayStation or the Dreamcast. He wanted to make something that carries on the fun of DASH's world regardless of the platform.

And that's that! Give it a read and drop your impressions in the comments.

16 comments:

  1. I always love to his perspective on the series, thanks for this. I hope Inafune get's to work on a DASH-like again sometime.

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    1. If only Red Ash hadn't been strangled at birth...

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  2. I wonder about that 2nd half of story that is difficult to follow. I played it but since I am dense and think like it is normal. Anybody care to jog my memory?

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    1. Wish I could. I started the first half of the game fifteen years ago, finished the prologue, saved it after the first mission, set it aside for later, and haven't touched it since.

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  3. i've thought he came out of his post-Mighty No.09 hiding. ah well, nice to see another translated interview.

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    1. He's been out of hiding for a while, showing up in Inti Creates videos and such.

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  4. Never really saw the second half of the story to be that complex, if anything, Legends 2 story was overall
    more enjoyable than even the first game in my opinion. Definitely would've love to see the fishing arm as
    a cool mini game option...maybe one day?...I know, I give myself waaay too much hope.

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    1. It's been a loooong time since I last played it, but I remember understanding the story pretty easily.

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  5. I don't know why everyone freaks out over legends 3 even a decade later. Its not as hard as one would think to make a fan game in a similar art style especially with the recent surge in psuedo-PS1 art styled indie games. I'm doing it but in the ZX universe.

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    1. For starters, fans have been wanting a sequel for quite some time, we got SO CLOSE. The cancellation was seen as a very low blow against the fan base, and handled very unprofessional, as far as companies go.

      People to this day still beg for Half Life 3, only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. At the end of the day, it comes down to a highly passionate cult following pleading for a game to made by a company that only wants to make big games that make big bucks. But we still hold out hope.

      As for making a fan game? It’s one thing to say for people to do it, another for people to actually follow through. Game design, no matter what graphics you work with, is a lot of work. I imagine it’s the very reason why most MM fan games tend to go 8-bit. Can’t imagine how insane it would be to make a fan made sequel to Legends 3, especially if you wanted to include voice acting, a story, etc.

      Lastly, from what I saw…the game just looked so good! Gimme Legends 3!!!

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    2. My Fangame is more of a loose sequel to ZXA in a similar art style to metroid prime. So far I've made a model for Pandora as my Main character, a story outline, a ton of concept art encompassing everything, and a test map using assets I've made and imported into Unreal with several different busters with placeholder FX and three different biometal outfits to swap into.

      Was easier and far less frustrating to do even as little as all that than waste any more time rerolling in one of the worst gacha cashgrabs ever devised by bugmen. What gacha post 2020 doesn't let you choose a single S rank character to start off with? Apparently the Taiwanese think its acceptable.

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. @Gary Daniel
      OR you can buy anyway before emulating it to play on a big screen

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    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. I hate this man so much you wouldn't believe.

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