The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 3: Monochrome

Untold History of Japanese Game Developers #3

by John Szczepaniak

The third and final volume of The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers is complete! It's 423 pages and features over 35 interviewees.Full contents listing book is cover to cover interviews, meaning it's 100% pure revelations from the mouths of those who made the games.Highlights Turns out Michael Jackson sang "a capella" for Sonic 3's music* Falcom RPGs in-depth, including Legacy of the Wizard on NES* Evolution of Dragon Quest* Microsoft Japan secrets* Yu Suzuki wants to direct Swan Lake to heavy metal* Hironobu Sakaguchi spent $10'000 on parties* The Final Fantasy team adapted the Aliens film into a computer game* Konami secrets and the origin of Parodius* PC Engine versus Famicom coder face-off* Unreleased games - too many to count!* Some companies tried to sabotage others!* Capcom secrets with exclusive photos* Design documents of games; archive photos and maps Breaks more Non-Disclosure Agreements than a corporate espionage mole!And so much more! There has never been a book with so much first-hand information on the Japanese games industry, and there never will be again!Includes interviews Aziz HINOSHITA, Bill SWARTZ, Henk ROGERS, Hidenori SHIBAO, Hiroshi ISHIKAWA, Kazki MATSUMURA, Kelly ROGERS, Ken OGURA, Kenichi YOKOH, Kotaro HAYASHIDA, Kouichi YOTSUI, Manabu KUSUNOKI, Manabu YAMANA, Masahiro FUKUDA, Microsoft Japan, Mitsuakira TATSUTA, Naosuke ARAI, Naoto OHSHIMA, Nasir GEBELLI, Rieko KODAMA, Ryota AKAMA, Satoshi FUJISHIMA, Seve HANAWA, Takashi TOKITA, Takato YOSHINARI, Takayuki HIRONO, Takayuki KOMABAYASHI, Terry WOLFINGER, Toshinari OKA, Yasuhide KOBAYASHI, Yoji ISHII, Yoshio KIYA, Yuichi TOYAMA, Yutaka SUGANO

Genres: Video Games, Gaming

1865 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 31, 2021

Reviews

[I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book may have the most unprofessional introduction in the history of books wherein the author rants about how no one appreciates his work, how much of his life he wasted on the book, etc. This kind of thing would never be allowed in a professionally published work. Which is a refrain with this series. I’ve bought and read all 3 and the same praises and problems exist for each one. The subject is interesting and parts of the books are extremely illuminating and valuable but the editing is awful. Duplicate foot notes appear all over the place, entire interviews are transcribed wholesale, even parts with no bearing like when asking someone to sign an autograph book. The author spends waaaay too much time and effort getting people to draw out their old office layouts or discuss cancelled projects. You really see the difference between the makers here as they don’t care about a project that never went anywhere while the author obsesses over them. I believe there were only 2 times he was given anything worth including through these questions.
So overall this series was worth it but I feel that an editor worth his/her salt could have drastically cut this stuff down into one awesome and focused book instead of 3 padded and decent ones.
I do hope the author keeps on working in the field, just that he hooks up with a real editor or publishing company.

[Anton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interviews are such a pain to read and include so many unnecessary, almost annoying things, that I was really struggling to continue reading. I paid money for the interviews with the developer and was hoping to read nice book about development, not things around it. Instead I got a mess: and not only visual side but, what is much more worse, content mess.

Book is full of weird statements & forced questions, each interview feels like if two people were locked in the room and were asked to talk about something which they don't really care about now but they have to still do it. Are you a kid trying to write something or adult writing serious book? Why the hell didn't the author take a small effort to be professional and really prepare instead of shooting questions based on what he is currently thinking about, furniture next to the developer, or what lies on the table in the room? There's no concept, everything is written so randomly and in an annoying style! Almost like the author wants to patronize his readers by pretending not to know anything about game dev and asking for any stupid thing he thinks of. Writing is at a middle school entry-level; it hurts your eyes and brain the more you try to read, and you want to be over with it ASAP and do something else.

Avoid, not worth of your time even if given for free. Yes, not guilty pleasure bad, just plain bad. I think there are better books from other authors, or read some nice short & focused interviews on internet.

(This reviews is for the first 3 volumes.)