MMBN Legacy Collection - Masakazu Eguchi 4Gamer Interview

We're back with another interview with Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection director Masakazu Eguchi. This time, we have a detailed conversation from a recent interview with 4Gamer, where shares his insights on how he got involved with the first Rockman EXE game and other topics of interest.

You can check out the English translation of the interview below! Many thanks to our friend Windii for the translation!

To commemorate the release, 4Gamer conducted an online interview with Masakazu Eguchi , a.k.a. "Meijin," who was in charge of the scenario writing at the time and was also the face of the series in various media, to hear about the background of the launch of the Advanced Collection and his memories of the original version.

―Thank you for joining us today. First of all, please tell us how the "Rockman EXE Advanced Collection" project came about.

Fans of the Rockman EXE series have been asking for a port of this titles for a long time. In addition, various departments within the company have also proposed porting the series. It was because of this that the decision was made to port it.

―When did development start?

I can't say exactly here, but it was about two years ago.

―Two years ago, in the year 2021, was the 20th anniversary of "EXE," and I believe there were a lot of requests for a port of the games. Did those voices have an influence on the realization of the port?

Yes, that's right. There had been a movement within the company to port EXE, but I think the fact that people's voices grew even louder on the occasion of the 20th anniversary helped to make the project a reality. We received a great response when we announced the project.

―Every time new information was announced, it became a hot topic on social media and other places.

I was both surprised and gratified by the response. It has been almost 18 years since "Rockman EXE 6" was released, but the feedback from people who still love the series as much as they did back then has been really enthusiastic.

I was happy to hear from not only the fans but also the staff of that time saying "Congratulations" and "I saw the announcement," making it a bit like a class reunion. I thought that the friends and loved ones who created EXE together back then are still connected to me today.

―The word "connection" is also used in the catchphrase.

Yes. The catchphrase for the first "Rockman EXE" was "We are always connected," and the catchphrase for the Advanced Collection is "We are still connected" in the same vein.

―This "Advanced Collection" is not a pure port, but it also recreates elements that allow you to play through the EXE series in full, such as the implementation of special chips and modified cards distributed at events. Were these implementations decided at the planning stage? 

We were absolutely determined to include these elements when we decided to port the games.

The limited distribution of event chips may have been difficult for those who lived in urban areas, but especially for those who lived in rural areas. It was also expensive to collect all the modification cards, and peripherals were needed to read the cards.

I think there were people at that time who were in agony because they were told in magazines that they could get great chips and modified cards with amazing effects, except they couldn't.

―I also lived in a rural area, so I longed for the chips distributed at the events.

Similarly, I also spent my childhood in a rural area, so I understand exactly how you feel. That's why I wanted to respond to such sentiments by including as many elements as possible in this port, so that you can enjoy the game in full again.

―In the original version of the games, there were some titles where you could get rare chips by playing through linked battles. Is that part of the games reproduced?

Yes. The specifications have not changed. However, this time we paid special attention to the balance of the matches, making adjustments that were not made in the original version. There are techniques and combos in EXE that were banned in tournaments at the time that could destroy the balance, so we had a lot of trouble figuring out how to deal with them.

―Regarding the famous Rockman EXE 2 Prism Combo (*), it was announced that while it can still be used in the story, it has been adjusted in linked battles.

*Prism Combo: A combo using two pieces: a Prism, which spreads attacks to the surrounding squares, and a forest bomb, which keeps the attack designation on the spot. When a Forest Bomb is thrown into the spot where the prism was placed, the Prism continues to spread the attack designation of the Forest Bomb, killing most of the enemies instantly.

Yes. We have modified the Prism Combo and other techniques and combos that were banned in competitions at the time, but since this is a port, we also cherish the "memories of that time."

We spent a lot of time adjusting how best to implement them, not only within the team, but also by listening to the opinions of our in-house staff, who were closer to the end-users.

―Why did you take that much time to make these adjustments?

We took into consideration the difference between the old and the new environment. Back then, you had to connect two Game Boy Advance consoles with a link cable to play against each other, but this time you can play online against people from far away.

In the old days, you had your opponent right in front of you, and you could communicate with them even when they performed a Prism Combo, saying how strong it was or how unfair it was. By talking in this way, you could forgive them, or even try to play against them without using the Prism Combo next time.

However, in online games where you are playing against an unspecified large number of people, the communication part of the game is diminished, so that kind of exchange is no longer possible. That's why we changed some of the specifications for linked battles only, so that the balance would not be severely affected.

―It is true that there is a difference between online battles and face-to-face battles with a link cable connected.

However, there are people who are doing a great deal of research on "EXE," so I have a feeling that new battle strategies will be created. I am grateful for that, but I am also a little scared (laughs).

We haven't completely eliminated any techniques, so I hope that you will make full use of the ones that are available to you as long as you can complete the story quickly.

―For tackling the story, it was announced that there is a new element, "Buster MAX Mode," which increases the power of a single Rock Buster shot by 100 times.

Yes, that's right. The NetBattlers of those days are now adults. They are probably busy with their jobs, and some of them want to just skim through the storyline. We have made it possible to freely use Buster MAX Mode, modified cards, and distributed chips from the beginning, so we hope that you will be able to play the games in your own way and at your own pace.

―I feel like I can sense the seriousness of the development staff when I look at the information that is released on a daily basis. Not to mention the implementation of the linked battles and distributed chips mentioned earlier, I didn't expect to see even collaboration items with other companies, such as the "Bokura no Taiyou (Boktai)" related modification cards.

KONAMI and others were very kind in granting us permission for the collaborative modification cards and chips. The "Crossover Battle" that allows players to link with the "Bokura no Taiyou (Boktai)" series has been omitted, but other elements that can be completed on the Game Boy Advance version of "Rockman EXE" have been left basically unchanged, although some elements have been slightly modified.

―Did you encounter any difficulties in the development of the Advanced Collection?

Once we decided to include the linked battle function, we could no longer choose to emulate the original versions, so we had to rewrite the codes for all the games in the series to port them. That was the first thing that took a lot of time.

The other part of the work was localization. In addition to the original Japanese and English, the Advanced Collection is available in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters, and since it is an RPG with a large number of characters and contains 10 different versions of the 6 titles, it was a lot of work, including checking.

―We often hear that porting a title requires rewriting the code, so in the end it's not so different from making a whole game.

That's right. We also had to spend a lot of time to make up for the fact that there were some parts of the games that were not documented at the time.

―The storage medium for keeping materials is likely to have changed from what was done twenty years ago.

For "Rockman EXE" and "Rockman EXE 2," we were still using paper and floppy disks to compile materials, so some of the data has disappeared. We also found parts that no longer worked technically and problems that had been dormant since the Game Boy Advance days, and we had to fix them.

―How did you reproduce the lost data?

We did our best to recreate the lost data by going back to our memories and interviewing the staff of the original version. It was really hard to reproduce the correct behavior and solve the problem by digging in the code.

―It seems hard to even imagine recalling memories from 20 years ago.

That said, it was not all that difficult. As I look back, the memories of those days come back to me vividly. It was fun to reminisce with old staff members about things we used to talk about when we were working on this project, or about the places we used to go to when we were working on that project. I mentioned the word "reunion" at the beginning of this article, but "Advanced Collection" really reminded me of that kind of feeling as I was making it.

―The word "reunion" was also used in the manga Rockman EXE: 20 Year Reunion drawn by Ryo Takamisaki, which was recently published on the official website. A "Rockman EXE: New Stories 2023" book will be released in June 2023, which will also include newly drawn manga.

As for the "20 Year Reunion," we asked Mr. Takamisaki to do it to coincide with the launch of the Advanced Collection. New Stories 2023 is not directly related to the Advanced Collection, but it is a project that started when Mr. Takamisaki told us he wanted to draw a new story. He himself is very attached to Rockman EXE, and we are very grateful that he is willing to draw new developments in the manga as well.

Can you tell us about the development of the original version back then? How did the development of the first "Rockman EXE" originally start?

Originally, we were considering various prototype titles to create a launch title for the Game Boy Advance, and "Rockman EXE" was one of the titles that came out of that. The team that worked on "Tron ni Kobun" for the Rockman DASH series were the first members, and I was on the development team for "Rockman DASH 2", so I joined the team later.

―When did you join the team?

When we finished the prototype of the battle system and were about halfway through development. However, since I was sitting next to the EXE team in the office, I knew that the project was in progress from the time it was launched. Then one day, out of the blue, I was transferred to the Rockman EXE team.

―Was it that sudden?

At that time, Capcom had a lot of team transfers like that. It was like, "We are short on staff," "We're going to send Eguchi," "Really? Please do." "Then it's settled!" and we would sometimes come to agreements in the elevator.

―The game was a cross between an action game and a card game, something that had never been done before with Rockman. Was this concept already in the prototype stage?

That's right. Card games were popular at the time, and games with a collecting element were also booming. It felt like the completed concept of docking an action game with the element of building a deck of cards has suddenly come down to earth, and nothing much has changed from the beginning.

Action games like the classic series and X had a hardcore feel, but were also difficult and tended to be hard for beginners to get into. With EXE, our goal was to create a new Rockman that even those who are not good at action games can use their knowledge and tactics to successfully conquer, just like a card game.

―So that's exactly what you were aiming for. When I talk about Rockman with people of my generation, we overwhelmingly tend to talk about "EXE."

I think it was great that we were able to put the previous Rockman series aside for a time and offer it as "our new hero." I'm grateful that many people still have feelings for the games.

―Perhaps the fact that the series was based on the PC and the Internet, things that children were longing for at the time, is one of the reasons why it remains in everyone's memories.

We were conscious of this when we made the games. I wanted to portray the use of cell phones, PCs, the Internet, and programmatic terms as something that children would long to use in a mature way, and I wanted them to be able to experience this through the games.

I sometimes talk directly with the fans of that time who come to the events related to "EXE," and many of them have gone on to become system engineers, game developers, or take on other programming-related careers. When I see such people, I am happy to think that the vision and longing for the near future that we had in the making of "EXE" has reached the children, even if only a little.

―The near future that was depicted in "EXE" is sometimes talked about because of the technology that has really come to fruition as of the year 2023. The dishwasher in "Rockman EXE 3" that can be controlled from outside the house via the Internet is an IoT appliance.

I'm often asked about this, but I didn't make the games with the intention of "making a prediction." It was really just a conversation among the team members about what we hoped society would be like in the future and how much fun it would be.

As for the NetNavis, I created them by imagining what it would be like if a program had a will of its own. But in the end, I think there is a certain commonality in the aspect that everyone in the world thinks "it would be nice if things were like this." I think that the technology that we were depicting in EXE just happened to overlap with people's desire to make society a better place.

―The NetNavis are also what Siri and Alexa are today, isn't it? If you think of it as a further evolved form of those, I feel that the times have caught up with us quite well.

In the world of EXE, there is the concept of "a program being a human partner," and the reality has not yet reached that point. I think it would be interesting if we could have more conversations, such as when you try to upload a bad video and the Navi gets angry with you, or acts as the straight man or funny man in banter.

―I'm hoping for an AI that reacts like Rockman with a "sense of humor" built into the Navi customizer.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were many works that depicted the cyber world. Looking at such works, I feel that people look at the Internet and network technology as something mysterious more than now.

Even in EXE, there were spiritual depictions that were almost magical. I wonder if the perception of the cyber world and the Internet was different then than it is now.

Maybe there was a magical impression. The Internet is just a communication network, isn't it? However, I saw it as a cyberspace, or another world formed by connecting terminals to terminals, where it was possible to do things that could not be done in the real world. I thought that if we called it "electro xx" or "cyber xx," most things would be acceptable (laughs).

In EXE 3, the early Internet appears as a boss. Considering that we personified the Internet and made it the boss, I think we had an image of "cyberspace as a mass of dreams." Well, it was a near-future idea that we came up with a long time ago, so there are some aspects that seem old-fashioned when I look at it now.

―When I replayed the game again, I thought that if the game were made today, the depiction of buying a ticket at the station when getting on the train might have been omitted.

Nowadays, electronic money for transportation is the mainstream (laughs). The first thing that struck me was the "plug-in" nature of the system. It became wireless along the way, but in the beginning, we had to plug in a wired plug. If we were to make a wireless system today, it would definitely be wireless from the beginning, and in that sense, I feel that the times have changed.

It began with the birth of the Game Boy Advance and ended with its demise

―I think the fact that new games were released every year is a big part of the reason why this series is still fresh in children's memories, but I think it must have been quite hard for the development team. What was the most difficult thing about "Rockman EXE" and "Rockman EXE 2," which were released less than a year apart?

Certainly the development was difficult. Today's game development has a prototype period and a full production period, but with the exception of the first "Rockman EXE," it was like we were running as fast as we could on a schedule to complete the games without prototyping.

As you say, "Rockman EXE 2" was tough in terms of schedule, but I have memories of having a lot of fun making it. The hardest part was the second half of "Rockman EXE 4".

―The graphics in "Rockman EXE 4" changed a lot, but did that increase the amount of work?

No, that's not it. After the development of the domestic version of EXE was finished, we started developing the English version. We were going to prepare for a sequel at the same time, and that's when we decided to work on the spin-off title "Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation" with the development team of "Rockman EXE 4." The English version of "Rockman EXE 4", the launch of "Rockman EXE 5", and "Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation" were worked on simultaneously, and at that time I really felt like I was going crazy (laughs).

―I can feel how hard it was just by listening to this... while you were involved in the development of the games, you must have had many opportunities to watch players compete against each other at tournaments and other events. There were impressive combos that players found, such as the Prism Combo, and some of them were unexpected by the development team.

The one that left the strongest impression on me was the Prism Combo. It was really shocking because it was the only thing that could kill any Navi in a blink of an eye.

Then there was the so-called "ABD strategy," which utilized the Dark Soul Unison AI in Rockman EXE 4 and Rockman EXE 5 to "randomly use the most frequently used chips." I knew how it worked, and I understood that it was theoretically possible, but I was not sure if I wanted people to go that far (laughs).

―You would have to go back and adjust the game again to make the AI learn stronger chips.

The most notable example of this was in "Rockman EXE 5", where a Rockman with 1 HP suddenly appeared at a tournament and activated Dark Soul Unison, or used the ABD strategy with "DarkInvs", which was later banned. I was surprised when I saw it for the first time, and was very impressed by the style of fighting, which was so focused on Dark skills.

―While the dark chips were powerful, they had some heavy disadvantages, such as permanently reducing the HP limit by 1 when used. The TV commercials at the time were also quite impressive, asking whether or not to use the dark chip.

Rockman EXE 4 and 5 were interesting because they showed the human nature of the players. In the finals of the tournament, there was a match between a player who did not use any dark chips and a player who used dark chips heavily, and I remember thinking it was very melancholic.

―This may be a difficult question, but which title is particularly close to your heart?

I am deeply attached to all of them, but if I had to choose, I would say Rockman EXE 3 and Rockman EXE 6.

I remember Rockman EXE 3 because I wrote the plot with a strong desire to complete the series. The fate of Wily was settled, and Rockman was swallowed by Proto in the final battle, dead or alive. As the staff roll went by and you thought it was going to end like this, you heard Rockman's voice at the very end... it was a pretty neat ending. The reaction and feedback from the fans was positive, and I personally have a lot of fond memories of it. In the end, I ended up doing EXE 4 after that (laughs).

―How do you feel about "Rockman EXE 6"?

Rockman EXE 6 was memorable in that the series really came to an end. I vividly remember when I wrote the final text, "Rockman EXE: The End". I was really hesitant to write it, thinking that the series would be over after I wrote it, so I wrote it, erased it, wrote it, and erased it, over and over again.

―I remember the ending of "Rockman EXE 6" when the time period jumped and the grown-up Netto and his friends appeared, and the feeling that the story was really over became very strong.

The team discussed and decided whether to end the game in a way that left room for a continuation or to end it completely.

If we had not done that, I think we could have done a little more, but at the time we were in the midst of a full-scale transition from the Game Boy Advance to the Nintendo DS, and elementary school students were about to enter a new school and graduate, so I thought it was time for me to graduate as well.

I guess it was a pretty neat way to end it, considering that it started with the launch of the Game Boy Advance and ended with the transition to the Nintendo DS.

―By the way, I have a question about "Rockman EXE 6". Did the idea of having Iris in the game exist from the time of "Rockman EXE 5"? I remember being surprised at how well the relationship between Colonel and Iris was set up in the original "Rockman X4".

When we introduced Colonel in "Rockman EXE 5", we had not yet decided that "Rockman EXE 6" would be the final work, and Iris was not in our plans.

However, as we were finalizing the settings of Colonel, Barrel, and Regal in "Rockman EXE 5", I had the idea to make "Rockman EXE 6" a story in which the score with Wily would once again be settled.

And when it came time to talk about the backbone of why Wily forgot his kindness and became such a character in "Rockman EXE 6", I remembered the setting of "Rockman X4" with Colonel and Iris, two conflicting programs of "destruction" and "peace" that were originally within a single reploid, and wondered if this could be incorporated.

―As a result, it fit very well. I felt that when I played the game.

I remember unintentionally talking to a senior who was near me when I came up with the idea of this trait and told him that people are gonna be hooked on Iris. I am personally satisfied because I was able to make use of the original traits in a very beautiful way.

―By the way, you have been the face of the EXE series as "Meijin", appearing in Corocoro Comic Magazine and at events, among other places. How did you get selected?

It was quite sudden. In April 2001, my boss asked me if anyone could attend an event during the Golden Week holidays.

Then, my boss would ask the team members seated there one by one, and the seniors would decline. When the second senior declined, I glanced over at him and saw my boss and two seniors looking at me as if I was going to go.

―It was silent pressure (laughs).

I was also a young member of the team, and I thought it would be a good experience, so I decided to appear at the Golden Week event.

At first I appeared at events and in the CoroCoro Comic Magazine under the name Dr. Eguchi, but it was decided that children would not admire a doctor who was only a knowledgeable person like that; he had to be strong, and from there I appeared as Meijin Eguchi.

―At first, the costume was not the special white coat you are wearing now, right?

At first I wore one borrowed from the hospital. It was a diligent professional-use one with elastic cuffs, and I had to return it every time I finished an event or a photo shoot. It wasn't until around the time of "Rockman EXE 3" that I finally received a commercially available lab coat, and it wasn't until the end of the series that I had a special one made.

The one I'm wearing now is the special lab coat that made back then, and when the "Advanced Collection" was released, I had the damaged parts repaired and wear it with care.

―You also appeared in the game as a character named Meijin. Did you order the design and such?

Basically, the designers reflected what I looked like at the time. For example, for Rockman EXE 2, I think I was wearing camouflage military trousers and flashy sneakers, which was my fashion when Rockman EXE 2 was developed. I remember that at the time of Rockman EXE 6, I was consulted about the design of the shoes, and I told them that the design should be similar to the sneakers I wanted at the time.

I was so annoyed that they would draw a fat Meijin design every time, saying it was because I've gained weight (laughs).

―It must be tough to write plots for your fat self (laughs). You have been active both inside and outside the game, but does the title "EXE" still have a special place in your heart?

Of course. As Meijin, the opportunity to meet and directly interact with fans and receive feedback on my games was really valuable, and I naturally began to think about game development with their faces in my mind. It was with EXE that I learned the basics of what it means to be a game developer.

―I see.

Even now, people call me "Meijin", and they readily accept me wherever I go. I still feel a connection with everyone, and I am really glad that I have been Meijin for more than 20 years.

―As a fan, I'm glad to hear that EXE is still at your core as a game developer. Now that the time is almost up, could you give a message to the readers who are looking forward to the "Advanced Collection"?

Thank you for your patience. I am very happy to finally be able to deliver the Advanced Collection to you.

I hope you will enjoy the memories of those days and the various elements that were not possible back then, and to experience the new and expanding Battle Network world from here on.