SRW X-Ω+Sakura Wars Interview

Is Ichiro Ogami actually the most popular?! SRW X-Ω+Sakura Wars is back! An interview with producers Hiroaki Oochi and Takanobu Terada!

SRW X-Ω+Sakura Wars Interview
Original site: https://app.famitsu.com/20180316_1258267/
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Bandai-Namco Entertainment's popular mobile game Super Robot Wars X-Ω (Cross Omega) is running a second limited-time event featuring Sakura Wars. We sat down with three key figures involved for an interview.

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Middle: Hiroaki Oochi, producer for SRW X-Ω, Bandai-Namco Entertainment (Oochi, for the purposes of this interview)

Left: Takanobu Terada, series producer for Super Robot Wars, B.B. Studio (Takanobu, for the purposes of this interview)

Right: Takaharu Terada, series producer for Sakura Wars, Sega Games (Takaharu, for the purposes of this interview)

It's been in the works since last year?!

--This is the second time Sakura Wars has been featured in SRW X-Ω (first time was March 2017). Could you talk about how it came about?

Oochi: When we ran the Sakura Wars event last year, we hinted that we'd like to do another one. The SRW X-Ω team wasn't remotely planning on treating it as one-and-done. We privately hoped to take another crack at it with similar timing.

Takaharu: We were also discussiong how we'd love to do it again sometime, and we were delighted when they came to us with that.

--What kind of player reception did last year's Sakura Wars event in SRW X-Ω get?

Oochi: Terada (Takanobu) and I announced the event on a livestream last year. From the moment we showed the Sakura Wars event PV with no other info, the word SakuraTaisen started trending hard on Twitter, and the livestream lit up with comments. I was newly impressed by the history and power that Sakura Wars has as a property.

Takaharu: There was this widespread assumption that Sakura Wars would never make it into an SRW game, which I imagine was another reason people were so shocked.

Takanobu: We have a good relationship with Sega, and the season was right, so we've been able to run properties in SRW X-Ω that we never put in a regular SRW game.

Oochi: Even the team that decides what roster entries make it into SRW X-Ω were in firm agreement that if Sakura Wars was featured, it would have to be in the spring, no question. That's why this second event is here a year later, in the same season.

Takaharu: Ahh, of course.

--So you're running it in the spring because it's called Sakura.

Takanobu: Wait, you mean you guys never noticed that?

Takaharu: Nope, went right over my head. (laughs)

Oochi: You should really notice these things! (laughs)

Takanobu: SRW doesn't have any particular season associated with it, but Sakura Wars certainly does, given its name.

Oochi: Our whole dev team's treated that as a given, but the client's never once brought it up.

Takaharu: That's funny! (laughs) No, we weren't concerned about that at all.

Sakura Wars event highlights

--Could you go over the differences between last year's event and this one?

Oochi: Last time around, we put in voice clips for Sakura Shinguji, and lots of people asked us, "What about Ogami?" We've wanted to put in voices for Ichiro Ogami ever since, and now we've finally done it.

--Ichiro Ogami's impressively popular, isn't he?

Oochi: He sure is. We also wanted to keep going after putting in the Flower Corps members, and Sega Games gave us more advice—that if you're doing it anyway, why limit it to Sakura Wars 3 when you can have fun with it? Maybe even go for a post-Sakura Wars 4 kind of atmosphere.

Takaharu: Leni and Orihime came about pretty much the same way. I'm also happy that they're featuring the Paris Flower Corpsn. It was only recently that we started doing Sakura Wars collabs in other companies' games. The Imperial Capital Flower Corps regulars show up all the time, but it's not often that the Paris Flower Corps gets their moment in the sun.

--I guess no matter what form a collab takes, the first time around tends to always feature the Imperial Capital Flower Corps from Sakura Wars 1.

Takaharu: Exactly! I'm honestly happy to see all the other characters from the Paris Flower Corps show up.

Oochi: In fact, Takaharu asked us to put in Leni and Orihime somehow during the last limited-time Sakura Wars event. To start out, we re-ran the first Sakura Wars event and inserted a story featuring Leni and Orihime. Then we hinted that there was more coming.

--Is there anything you'd like to call attention to in this year's Sakura Wars limited-time event?

Oochi: The ridiculous story is the big thing. (laughs) Even Sega Games was thrown for a loop when we submitted it for review.

Takaharu: For my part, what excites me is seeing the Sakura Wars cast interact with all these other different characters. I'm personally a big fan of Mikono from Aquarion EVOL—She's in my all-time top three anime babes. (laughs) In the story, Mikono gets somewhat won over by Ogami, which really impressed me and made me think, "When you do this for long enough, this is the kind of treat you can get sometimes." Now I want Aquarion EVOL in Sakura Wars. (everyone laughs)

Oochi: Even in SRW X-Ω, the scenarios are designed so that when Ogami does things, he scores points with different characters. He earns flags for lots of different characters this time around, too.

--Takaharu, what is it about Mikono that you like?

Takaharu: I love everything about her, from her looks to her way of talking, but I guess what I especially like about her is her wishy-washy personality, her chronic inability to decide anything on her own. (laughs) I hoped she'd go "Ooh, that feels so good!" with Ogami. (laughs)

Takanobu: I'm honestly surprised you're a Mikono fan.

Takaharu: Maybe I should've told you guys that in advance! (laughs)

--Crossover interactions like that are a staple of the SRW series.

Takaharu: In the last event, Ogami interacted with Domon from Mobile Fighter G Gundam. I'm a huge Domon fan, so that was thrilling for me. I agree that SRW's signature crossover interactions are a major highlight!

Takanobu: In Project X Zone, when Sänger from SRW was interacting with characters from other games, I finally understood how it felt for a content creator to see their work crossed over with other things. (laughs) This discussion reminds me of that.

Takaharu: Do you have any hard and fast rules for what characters should never interact?

Takanobu: Nope. We try to find common ground between different characters, and we also try to throw together characters who are complete opposites. That's what we look for when doing a crossover.

Takaharu: Interesting! That's very enlightening. It makes sense that interactions with no real purpose wouldn't make for very engaging conversations.

Takanobu: We strive hard to write it well when portraying a crossover with clashes of personalities or values.

--Sakura Wars has a lot of clashes between group members as it is.

Takaharu: The teams don't mesh well initially, no, and that's the point. Part of the appeal of Sakura Wars is that it's Ogami's job to get these disparate team members all on the same page, to fight their enemy as a single unit.

--Sakura Wars 4 took that a step further with disputes between the two different teams, right?

Takaharu: Yeah, they were arguing over which team Ogami belonged to.

Oochi: I feel bad for Ogami, really. You can't please everybody all the time! (laughs)

Takaharu: But Ogami never, ever makes any sort of romantic declaration. There was a time when we were writing character lines, and the Sega producer at the time said that it was verboten to have Ogami say "I love you, so-and-so". I asked what he should say, and the response I got was to have him say something like "I treasure you", or "I care deeply about you".

Takanobu: Interesting!

--In Sakura Wars terms, what timeframe does the SRW X-Ω event take place in?

Oochi: It's not stated clearly in the game, but the SRW X-Ω event draws from the continuity where Sakura Wars 4 is over and Ogami never picked someone to be with.

Takaharu: Sakura Wars 4's ending is meant to imply that Ogami is going to marry someone, but there's also an "Ogami, who do you choose?!" ending where Ogami doesn't choose anyone, and that's the one it draws from.

--Ichiro Ogami is quite a guy, huh?

Takaharu: People love Ogami so much they were clamoring to give him a voice in the game, I guess.

--But he doesn't talk that much in the actual Sakura Wars games, does he?

Takaharu: He only gets voiced in his super moves in battle and in the FMVs, yeah.

--But he's still so beloved that lots of people wanted him to get voiced.

Oochi: Maybe it's because Ogami is the person that the players project themselves onto.

Takaharu: Ogami represents "the hero you can be", right? When a LIPS choice comes up, you have to pick something, but the player can get more insight into what Ogami is thinking by reading all of the choices given. The player picks the choice that's most convenient for them, and they build Ogami into a hero of their own convenience over time. Maybe Ogami wins points with players because we've all got our own version of Ogami inside of us.

Takanobu: I think it's very rare and unusual to find a protagonist like Ichiro Ogami. He's got his own distinct characterization, yet he's still regarded fondly and beloved by individual players.

--Let's get some final comments to wrap this up.

Oochi: I'm going to keep pushing forward with SRW X-Ω. There's plenty more surprise roster entries in store, believe me!

Takanobu: I try to avoid creating more hype that I have to live up to. (laughs) I hope everybody enjoys SRW X-Ω, of course, and I hope people grab Super Robot Wars X when it comes out March 29, 2018.

Takaharu: It's rare to see the Paris Flower Corps roster show up in crossovers, so I'd like everybody to see their story and their mechs in action. I hope both Sakura Wars and SRW X-Ω fans can enjoy the new Paris Floral Corps story. Also, I served as senior director for Valkyria Chronicles 4, which is out in stores March 21, 2018! It's got a ton of super-rad battleships and tanks too, so here's hoping it makes it into Super Robot Wars! (laughs)