Interview with Jun Takeuchi

Takeuchi-san: "Onimusha 3" is the third and could be the final title in the popular Onimusha series. The whole production team went all out to achieve an emotional closure of sorts. For example, previous games in the series used to use pre-rendered backgrounds, but this time everything is fully 3D a first experiment for the Onimusha series. There are so many features that I can't tell all at once, but most of all, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Jean Reno are the two heroes who must face battles in both France and Japan. I think this is the biggest selling point of the title. Exhilarating swordfights have been a staple of this series, which I hope lives up to everyone's expectations. There are really a lot of features packed into this title.

Dolby: Dolby Pro Logic II is used during the game, and Dolby Digital 5.1 is used for the movie scenes. What made you decide to use surround sound for this title?

Takeuchi-san: We based our decision on two considerations. We realized that home theatre systems were becoming increasingly popular both in Japan and worldwide, so we partly based our decision to adopt surround sound to satisfy the game player's environment. Another reason came from our sound team, who strongly insisted that we try new technology for this title. Since it could be going to be the concluding Onimusha title, we, as producers, wanted to push our techniques to the limit. Based on these two factors, we decided to go with a full adoption of Dolby technology.

Dolby: Thanks! We're really honored that your team implemented Dolby surround sound.

Takeuchi-san: To be honest, at first I felt a bit uneasy. In past Onimusha titles, we had a hard time with the sound. This time we adopted two new technologies: sound streaming and Dolby Digital Pro Logic II. I was really wondering whether suddenly adopting two new technologies would be ok, knowing that we've had a hard time in the past. However, the sound team really made great efforts to implement the technology and finish the project on schedule. Dolby also offered great support, so I want to thank you all. "Onimusha 3" ended up with really high-quality audio!

Dolby: What did you think of Onimusha 3's audio?

Takeuchi-san: I was really surprised! The sound team actually implemented two different listening modes. One allows the player to listen from the camera perspective; another allows the listener to listen from the main character's perspective. Depending on which one is selected, the atmosphere is totally different, and I was really impressed. I thought it was great that a game could sound so great. I was very impressed by the sound team's efforts.

Dolby: What is your favorite listening point?

Takeuchi-san: The battle scene. Here, dozens of characters, both enemies and friends, appear at a time, so of course the 5.1 mix is especially powerful.

Dolby: When the first Onimusha in the series came out, I remember I got goose bumps by watching the strong visuals at the store - if you made that movie scene in Dolby Digital 5.1, I would imagine it would be even more vigorous - what do you think?

Takeuchi-san: In "Onimusha 3", both the game play and the opening movie scene use 5.1 surround sound. Mr. Takashi Yamazaki, director of the movie "Returner", directed the opening CG movie, and also we appointed Mr. Donny Yen, an action director of the movie "HERO," as the CG movie action director. Moreover, we produced the sound in Dolby Digital 5.1. These factors lead to a high quality game that has never been achieved before. For users who do not have a home theatre system, they would benefit from buying one to experience this game in 5.1.

Dolby: CE hardware manufacturers in general love to obtain 5.1 demo contents to use at the retail stores. We're really glad to hear that you, as a producer, have a deep understanding of the importance of audio.

Takeuchi-san: We very much appreciate your help as well. We are happy to offer our contents if there are opportunities like that. To tell you the truth, I'd like to get a 5.1 home theater system myself! Now that I'm so used to listening to our game in 5.1 at work, listening in stereo at home just isn't good enough. For future games, as Capcom, we think that it's very important to raise the bar of the entire quality, including high-quality sound and visuals — not only the number of polygons, or the characters. Using Dolby technology was our first step to achieve our target. We'd very much like to use Dolby technology in our future titles. To be honest, we didn't expect to be successful in implementing Dolby technology like this, but as a consequence, we dramatically improved our sound quality. I think it's really something. Being that this is our first time to create 5.1 surround sound, I think we fully took advantage of 5.1 surround sound in the battle scenes that had a mass of characters, but using 5.1 effectively throughout all the game play remained out of reach. In the next title, we'd like to express the off-screen enemies in the rear speakers!

Dolby: What kind of factors do you think are necessary to give game players a new type of experience in the next generation consoles?

Takeuchi-san: I have some things I want to do in future games. Now, if you compare games and movies, movies have a social status superior to games I think. Adults recommend watching movies to children, but they may not suggest they play video games too much. However, I believe games can go beyond movies to touch people, so that I want to make a game that does this. When it comes to making this a reality, we need solutions like 16:9 screen ratios or Dolby technology. I think it's very important to continue creating games that strike fire by using those technical factors.

Dolby: Thank you so much Takeuchi-san.