Interview: Cubed3 Interviews producer Yashiro Yahata for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows

By Neil Flynn 13.02.2020

Interview: Cubed3 Interviews producer Yashiro Yahata for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion
One Punch Man shot straight to fame and has gathered a fervent fan base over the past few years. Now, Bandai Namco Entertainment are almost ready to launch an action fighting game based on the events of the anime. Cubed3 sat down with producer, Yashiro Yahata to get a bit more insight into the upcoming title.

Image for Interview: Cubed3 Interviews producer Yashiro Yahata for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows


Neil Flynn: What made you go for an original hero? Rather than following the mainline story?
 
Yashiro Yahata: Originally we did think of making Saitama as the main protagonist, but he is just too strong. We didn't know how much fun that would actually be for the players or as a game in general. Also, you have so many unique heroes within the One Punch Man universe, each with unique powers and we thought it would be fun for the player to be part of that. Which is why we came up with the idea of the protagonist being an avatar hero that participates in Saitama's story as a hero. 

Neil Flynn: What games have you drawn the most inspiration from and what mechanics have you wanted to implement from other games?
 
Yashiro Yahata: Bandai Namco Entertainment has a lot of fighting games and in the sense that this is a 3 on 3 structure things like Jump Force, One Piece Burning Blood and things like that. 
 
Neil Flynn: How did you come up with the novel idea of Saitama being late to the fight?
 
Yashiro Yahata: We wanted to have Saitama as a playable character, and we had this dilemma that he is just too strong. The development team tried to come up with different ideas on how to use Saitama in the game. There was an idea that we could some characters a cost, but if we were to go with that cost based system the risk would be that people would always be playing with the same characters, and so a bit like in the anime where Saitama shows up at the end, we thought that we could have him coming and joining the battle, but joining it much later. 
 
Neil Flynn: What other barriers have you had to overcome to implement other character balance between Class C and Class S fighters?
 
Yashiro Yahata: Balance was one thing that was very tricky about making this game. So our solution was to have the characters who have their different strengths from S Class to C Class to appear in the game with their respective levels of strength, but if characters like Genos (who is S-Class) fights Mumen Rider (C-Class) then it is very difficult for Mumen Rider to beat Genos. At the same time, in story mode, the protagonist is getting stronger and stronger the whole time. So there are characters that you couldn't beat at the start but can eventually beat later on in the game. There is another element/aspect to the balance and that is in battle mode, the other characters (other than Saitama) are well-balanced in terms of power, so players will be able to enjoy fighting as their favourite characters as you would in other battle games.

Neil Flynn: Other than Saitama, what is the hardest character you have had to develop for?
 
Yashiro Yahata: This is very difficult to answer, they all had their little tricky bits but nothing too overwhelming but if I had to pick one then I'd have to pick Sonic. This is because a lot of fans love him so a lot of work had to go into the development. But what is different about the other characters and Saitama actually is that you have two different move sets when you change modes.

Neil Flynn: What is your personal favourite character?
 
Yashiro Yahata: Mumen Rider! 

Neil Flynn: It has been 5 years since the original anime aired, did you plan to release a game much earlier? How long has the game been in development for?
 
Yashiro Yahata: It's been about 4 years in development, development started after the first season of anime. 

Neil Flynn: How important is it to have an easy control scheme to get newcomers to play?
 
Yashiro Yahata: It is important, we have tried to make it that the controls are not complicated. You can press a single button in a sequence and get a cool looking combination. 

Neil Flynn: What games are you currently playing?
 
Yashiro Yahata: I love all sorts of games, but I am very busy with the development of One Punch Man, however I do try to get some time to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Pokemon. 
 
Neil Flynn: What do you imagine the next gen of consoles doing to make the games you're playing different or better?
 
Yashiro Yahata: ​There is a lot I don't know about what these new generations of consoles will look like but I am sure that the graphics will be much better and that online play will be vastly improved.=13px


 

One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows is launching on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam on the 28th February 2020. Be sure to check back to Cubed3 for more information on the game closer to launch.

Disclaimer: Cubed3 conducted this interview with the supervision of Bandai Namco Entertainment and with the facilitation of a translator.

 
 

Box art for One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows
Developer

Spike Chunsoft

Publisher

Bandai Namco

Genre

Fighting

Players

2

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  5/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  0 (0 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

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