Yu Suzuki, the creator of Shenmue, Space Harrier, and many other games, is releasing his latest, Air Twister, via Apple Arcade on June 24. Ahead of its release, we spent some time with the game and even had the chance to speak with Suzuki through a translator about the dream-like experience wherein you ride giant swans across alien landscapes. Suzuki confirmed some of the game’s details–like protagonist Princess Arch’s size and what classic children’s novel served as the game’s main inspiration–and talked about how much he enjoyed one of GameSpot’s top 10 games of 2021, It Takes Two.
I’ve been playing Air Twister and it is bizarre. Is that how you thought people would react to it?
Yu Suzuki: I didn’t really know what people would expect. I just made the game. That’s normal for me.
Air Twister feels a bit like you’re playing an interactive dream. Was that the intention?
Thank you very much. I appreciate your comment. Yeah, not particularly. I wasn’t really thinking that it was an effort specifically to do that. I just wanted to put everything that I was really interested in or into as a kid and have it all put in one game.
One of the influences for me, in creating this fantastical landscape, was The Never Ending Story. Riding some big creature in the sky, and having things floating around in the air and existing in this fantastical work base–almost like anti-gravity. Like, kind of… controlling the world. So, having these floating things flying around. That was really interesting to me. I also really liked the fusion of mechanical and biological creatures together. That’s always been part of this fantasy idea. So, yeah. When you put it all together, it definitely, I guess, seems like it would come out of a dream.
I assumed this would be a smaller project for you, after Shenmue 3, but there is a surprising amount of story and lore. Is that something that you can’t help but create? Do you have to write a lot of lore, and story, even if the gameplay feels like it belongs on an arcade cabinet?
Well, I wasn’t really thinking about having to put a story in it. But, for having the game on Apple Arcade, I was really putting a lot of thought into repeatability, and having people come back, to keep playing the game, asnd, how will we do that? Well, maybe putting a story in, is one good way of having users come back, over and over again.
Also, the addition of the adventure map where you can go through, and get power-up items, helps with replayability. It also means you don’t necessarily have to rely on your skill, to be able to beat the game. You can go through the map, and pick up items, and power ups. So, that all just played into bringing users back to the experience.
You said, “Replayability is important.” Did you ever consider putting in modern checkpoints? Or, was it always the intention to restart from the beginning every time?
So, there are game modes where they have checkpoints. So, you can start from the beginning, or the middle, or the end. As long as you’re going to go through the adventure map, and then pick up those items along the way.
In Air Twister you fight a giant clock while riding a winged elephant.
I have never played a game that sounds like this. Was the intention for it to sound completely unique?
The person who created the soundtrack is Valensia. And, I have been a long time fan of his. I’ve always thought that his sound would be a perfect fit for this fantasy-style world. Of course, for a shooting game, there are certain sounds that maybe fit that genre, but for me, I really wanted his sound to be included in the game. But, of course, I had no personal contact with him. it was kind of like, “Well, how can I reach out to him?” So, I just started going on social media, and Twitter, and Facebook. Finally, I found his Facebook page and DM’d him, introduced myself, and said, “Hey, do you want to make a game together?” After that, we were introduced [to] each other and we got on video, and we were able to meet, and that’s how that started.
Were you surprised by the music he was turning in?
I knew of his style of music from the very beginning. I knew what kind of music he can create, and what he does create. I know what he does is genius, in that respect. I had a lot of respect for him from the very beginning. So, when we started working together, he just picked everything up so quickly, we were bouncing ideas around, and I said, “Well, we kind of want something like this.” He’d have it, like right away. He just worked so fast, and it was just there. It was really easy to work with him. He created new songs for the soundtrack and he has arrangements of his older songs that he fit into the soundtrack, particularly with the lyrics. We had to change some of the lyrics, to fit the Air Twister world. He was very amiable, and came up with some really great lyrics, to put these new arrangements together.
I was hoping you could clear up something for me. Is the protagonist human sized, or is she tiny?
[Laughs] Yeah. She’s human size.
So, the swans are huge and the garden on this alien planet is filled with massive plants?
Right, that’s correct. The animals are large.
Speaking of those large animals–is there a greater meaning to the animals you’re riding during boss fights?
In conception, they were just cool to me. I just thought they were really neat to have, you know, those different kinds of animals. I became particularly enamored with the fish one. My first thought was to put the fish, the trout one, as the main mount. But, I thought that might go a little bit off the edge. So, I went something a little bit more mainstream, with the Swan, as the main animal. It would be a little bit too adventurous perhaps, to go with the fish for the main one.
In the game’s various lore directories, it mentions the protagonist is good at a sport called Flying Cucumber. How do you play Flying Cucumber?
I don’t know how to answer that one [laughs]. I can tell you, it’s just part… it’s there to help to fill out the world. We don’t have rules for it. It’s just a kind of a one-off thing.
Air Twister is coming to Apple Arcade June 24.
That’s for the sequel, is what I’m hearing. Does Air Twister represent a small project for you? And, for whatever you plan on doing next, do you think you will get back to doing something larger in scale?
Yes on both accounts. Small project here, then probably go and move on to a larger one later.
Are there any video games you’ve played recently from other creators that you’ve enjoyed?
Do you know a game called, It Takes Two? I really enjoyed playing that, especially with another person. It Takes Two, I thought, was really fun to play. And, another game that I played recently was Little Nightmares II. I’m not really good at the horror kind of stuff. So, I don’t really want to play it alone. But yeah, I thought that was a good game, too.
Air Twister releases tomorrow, June 24, exclusively for iOS devices on Apple Arcade. You can read why Yu Suzuki does not consider the game a spiritual successor to his 1985 arcade game Space Harrier–another game about flying across alien landscapes–here.
Source: Gamespot
