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He was going to be the super-maneuverable, tricky-style character. We thought, since he’s not here anymore, maybe Axel and Blaze have to go rescue him?įrom there we got the idea for his younger brother, Sammy. Making a brand new character was just a quicker way to get there. Plus, you always want to do something novel with a sequel, right? The character sprites for SoR2 got bigger, so we wanted them to have more varied attacks and movements.
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Since it was going to be the same amount of work either way, we might as well add someone new. It probably was more of a simultaneous thing, like, “we don’t really need Adam, do we?” “Nope!” -That way you could add a more distinct character from Axel and Blaze. (laughs) I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but of course I asked Sega for permission first. (laughs) -Ah, you were the one responsible for Adam’s disappearance? but Adam had no real speciality… (laughs) So he was out. But there was also Adam in the first game…. We were also asking, “what would be fun for the sequel?” You had Axel, your standard fighter, then Blaze, the speedy character. My brother and I liked the way they fought in SFII, and between the two of us, a shared vision of the fighting of Streets of Rage 2 arose: two jabs, followed by a straight punch, then some heavy hit, and the enemy goes flying! That kind of flow had to be in there. We liked it so much we bought a cabinet and had it installed in the office at Ancient. I’m sure you’ve played Street Fighter II-my brother and I did too. Koshiro: Yeah, that is true, but there was also a certain flow to the fighting that we wanted. A lot of emphasis was placed on that visual impact. Right, the graphic design took precedence. Koshiro: Yeah, that was just how things were done back then!Īyano Koshiro, circa 1991. It seems strange to me that there was no input from the planners on that…
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Oh, so you designed Max and Sammy from the ground up? For Max and Sammy, they were new characters, so I consulted with my brother Yuzo Koshiro about them. You know, like “jump attack does 1 damage, straight jab does 2, heavy jab does 3”, etc. For setting the actual damage parameters, we had a head planner for that, but the approximate strength of each attack was something I wrote out. Oh, you did the moves/attacks too? Did the planners give you some general guidance about that? I came up with all the special moves and attacks too-in their rough outline/draft form, that is. Nowadays we’d call it something like “art direction” (deciding the overall look of the game). Koshiro: Role? I’d probably say Chief Graphic Designer. To start off, what was your role in the development of Streets of Rage II? New Characters, New Moves -Thank you for doing this interview today. With Ayano Koshiro (designer/planner) of Ancient