The Xbox 360 version was created exclusively for use with HDTV. Players using the game on a standard TV expressed concern with the dark image of it. As a result, Ubisoft recommended players play the version created for the original Xbox until a patch was released.
The live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie was originally slated to be released sometime in November 2019, but was delayed to February 14th, 2020 as a result of the reception to the film's debut trailer released on April 30th, 2019. The main cause of the backlash being that the film was planned to feature a humanoid redesign of Sonic that was so negatively received by fans and audiences alike that the film's team hired artist Tyson Hesse, who had previous experience with the Sonic franchise, to make a more visually appealing redesign for the final movie that was more positively received and incorporated into all previously-released film footage.
Although the PlayStation has extraordinary copy protection, many hackers, home-brewers, and pirates worked around it via the infamous "Disc Swap" trick which is possible as the console uses a lid in a similar fashion to a portable CD player. This trick involves swapping a regular PlayStation disc with a back-up or rewritable CD during the startup.
Likely because of this exploit, Sony created future numbered PlayStation consoles that use disc trays rather than lids.
In an interview with the game's programmer, Hidetoshi Takeshita, published in the 1998 AZEL -Panzer Dragoon RPG- strategy guide, he was asked if some of the characters were easier to create than others. He responded:
"Hm, not really. What came my way was mostly data, and it’s kind of hard to get a feel for what a character is like from that. I didn’t touch the character design stuff. I did see the illustrations as they got completed, and those would set my imagination off. There were some things I was surprised by in the final game, compared to what I had imagined from those pictures. So playing the game for the first time was actually a pretty fresh experience for me."
In an interview with the game's producer/writer Hiroyuki Takahashi and director/programmer Shugo Takahashi published in the 7/93 BEEP! Megadrive magazine, Hiroyuki stated that he took a step back on "The Sword of Hajya's" development, allowing for Shugo to primarily direct the game.
Shugo stated that the game employed a compression routine to add more into its memory, which allowed them to add more content beyond the memory's usual limitations. Hiroyuki believed that it was filled to its maximum limit.
Shugo also stated that the scene where the King's face changes took him only two days to make before the game's deadline. Despite the game's memory being full, the designer who was in charge of the face (character profile) graphics showed him how to use that effect in the final game. This designer also drew the underlying cels for the animation, but when Shugo remarked that when saw the face change in-game, he was stunned at its dramatic impact and scrambled to add the scene at the last minute.
Hiroyuki stated that the last scene of the game with Natasha & Deanna is his favorite part of the game. Shugo stated that before they began making the game, that image was the one he knew he wanted to have for the last scene, and despite worrying that there would not be enough space for the scene, it fit without any problems. Shugo also stated that the image it captures is what he really wanted players to see at the end of the game, which he's happy it turned out the way it did.
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After defeating the 12 rare Zodiac Monsters (the most difficult and time consuming task to do) that appear after beating the game, a special alternate ending to the game will play where six female characters (Holly, Colt, Viola, Minta, Crysta, and Miss Sapphire) confront the player, Errick and Cleo. Holly and Colt tell them they rounded "everyone" up to celebrate the defeat of the Zodiac Monsters, but their extremely suggestive praises of the player and anticipations of celebrating "tonight" (with Viola commenting she wants to see what makes him "tick") anger Cleo who feels that she is not being given proper credit for her work and suspects something is up. She tries to save him from the encounter, but she is attacked by Viola and appears to fall unconscious before he is "captured" and taken away by the six women. What then occurs is a fade-to-black followed by the "rest" theme that plays when you let a monster rest for the week, and the sound of two owl hoots. The scene then cuts to the following morning, where Errick remarks that he is jealous of the player and Cleo returns demanding to know what the player did the prior night as Holly and Colt giggle. She angrily denies him supper for a month, while Holly comments she will give him some of hers behind Cleo's back.
This cutscene heavily implies that the player partook in a harem orgy, with Colt in particular implying that the player took her virginity. Monster Rancher DS was rated E for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), but their rating still points out the game features "Mild Suggestive Themes". It's unknown if this warning was added to refer to this scene or if the game's publisher intentionally left out this scene when submitting content to the ESRB for review.
In an interview with the game's producer/writer Hiroyuki Takahashi and director/programmer Shugo Takahashi published in the 6/93 Famicom Tsuushin magazine, they stated that they asked Fumio Iida a.k.a. Suezen, the character designer for NHK’s anime "Yadamon", to be the character designer for the game. When Suezen finished his work on Shining Force II, Takahashi felt Suezen’s designs were better than he expected and almost felt embarrassed, because he felt the designs made the story and writing look weak by comparison.
In an interview with the game's producer/writer Hiroyuki Takahashi and director/programmer Shugo Takahashi published in the 6/93 Famicom Tsuushin magazine, they stated that the chapter format from the first game that they adhered made the story harder to grasp, which influenced them to have a bigger emphasis on story in the sequel.
In an interview with the game's original designer for world/story Satoshi Takayashiki published in the 2011 game's Japanese World Guidance book, he was asked when the planning for the game began? He responded:
"In 2005, myself, Konishi-san, and another programmer began talking about wanting to make some kind of game together. That was the beginning of our basic idea, to do a fantasy RPG, which would be connected to some extent with Radiata Stories. From there we started making a prototype test version. We didn’t work on it intensely or anything, it was something we all did in our spare time, while handling our other work. The battle system and the overworld were both created there in that first prototype. We also wrote an overarching planning document, and decided on the world of Radiant Historia, as well as part of the story. We presented all that to Hirata-san in the fall of 2007."
One of the game's composers Colin Anderson, a life-long fan of progressive rock, had originally planned to include a prog rock radio station called "Ridiculous FM" that played "Regressive Rock", the joke being that it would play a single multi-part prog suite that was longer than any of the other stations in the game on an endless loop. Although this idea was cut from the game due to time constraints and the team feeling it was inappropriate for the game's setting, Anderson would regularly think about what the song would have been like until 2015, when he completed it with the help of several consultants and recorded it with the aid of vocalists and a live drummer. The final product, a 20 minute 16-part song called "YTZ", was released under the name Aori, a duo with Anderson and singer/lyricist Neil Horsburgh. "Aori" was previously the title of a song also written and released by Anderson under the name Ashtar that was featured on the Radio '76 FM station in Grand Theft Auto. Additionally, the song title "YTZ" is a reference to the instrumental "YYZ" by the prog band Rush; both names are airport identification codes used by airports in Toronto, Canada, and both songs feature Morse code messages spelling their respective song titles.
A Sega Saturn version was planned in development, but became the last game to be cancelled on the failing platform as Acclaim withdrew their support from SEGA.
Core Design had pitched to SEGA a fourth installment of the Streets of Rage series, but SEGA declined, resulting in the pitch becoming an original game entirely.
EA had almost withdrawn from developing on the Nintendo 64; however, it was found that pre-order revenues for the game had skyrocketed, so EA decided to reverse their decision and make more sports games for the console.
In an interview with the game's Cave devgroup leader and Toaplan alumni Toshiaki Tomizawa published in the 2002 GSLA and likely featured in Arcadia, Tomizawa stated that the game is actually a orthodox shoot 'em up. Whereas Dodonpachi Daioujou's design has more futuristic looks, with Ketsui the team wanted the game to be a little more realistic and similar to the modern world. The team wanted to emphasize the aspects that would attract to a wider base of casual gamers, so they made the game's world somewhat more recognizable, and be quicker and easier to understand. Additionally, one of the core themes for the game's design was "steel". Since standard modern weaponry was being used, they wanted that to be realistic as well.
In an interview with the game's designer Hitoshi Sasaki published in the 1996 Dengeki SFC magazine, he stated that at the start of the game's development, his team wanted to make a strategy RPG game, but that it was not an explicit goal. They had an indescribable idea that seemed interesting to them which ended up working as a strategy RPG game despite not exactly being set on making the game that genre from the get-go.
The game's intro was vocalized by Hironobu Kageyama, who is known for his vocal work on the Dragon Ball Z anime, while the Goemon Impact theme was vocalized by Ichirou Mizuki, who has worked as a vocalist on the Mazinger Z anime.
In an interview with the game's director Naoki Suda published in the 2003 Nintendo Monthly Online, he was asked why he added the character 'Chibi Fumiko' in the game? He responded:
"As we approached the end of the development, we realized we'd forgotten to include a hidden character. One day I remembered "Chibi Fumiko" from the comic anthology for the first game. She was created specifically for that comic, at the request of the writer, and we never had any intention of using her in-game… but given the situation we found ourselves in, I thought, "We can use this!!!" and we hurriedly added her."
In the opening cinematic, a hidden backmasked message can be heard. When the audio is played forward, a whispery male voice is heard stating the ominous message:
"A nation of fools. The nation is under siege. Don't trust the corporate media. Religious right is insane."
Two likely possibilities for the nature of the message are:
•A possible Easter Egg foreshadowing Citizen Siege, a Hollywood project separate from the Oddworld universe that Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna were designing, but fell into hiatus upon the 2008 financial crisis and it's impact on the entertainment industry.
•Around the time of Stranger's Wrath's initial release, exclusively on the original Xbox, the United State's invasion of the Middle East was very recent, and this backmasked message may have been Oddworld Inhabitants protesting the political state of affairs within the United States at this time, keeping in line with the franchise's themes of opposition towards industrialization, corporatism, and political malevolence.