In a 1995 interview with the game's director Hiromichi Tanaka and designer Koichi Ishii, found within the Family Computer Magazine and Famitsu, they were asked when did they began planning out the game. They commented:
Tanaka: "We started drafting the plans for SD3 two years ago. We then went through a period of trial-and-error, where we programmed a lot of different systems, erased them, programmed them anew, erased them… and so forth, until finally we came up with something we now like."
Ishii: "We more or less wanted SD3 to be a continuation of Secret of Mana, but we ended up scrapping all the code from Secret of Mana. It was like, “All these parts that weren’t interesting, let’s try starting from a blank slate and finding another way.” So we essentially reconstructed all the programming for SD3 anew."
In a 1995 interview with the game's designer Koichi Ishii, found within the Family Computer Magazine and Famitsu, he was asked how the game's team created the "three-dimensional" quality in the game's map, characters and monsters. He responded:
"For example, take a boss battle like the fight with Mispolm. That battle is presented to the player from a certain visual angle. If you completely ignore the background when you’re creating the sprites, then the sense of orientation of the scene gets completely messed up. That’s why we had the sprite artists and the background artists work in tandem for SD3, communicating closely with each other as they went.
We’re aiming for something better than Disney. Also, for shadows and the like, we’re using deep blues and purples instead of shades of black, to impart a sense of softness. If you use black for that there’s a tendency for things to look cold and sterile. As I mentioned, visually we wanted to go for a more storybook, fantasy vibe rather than something realistic. It’s the same direction we went with in Secret of Mana, but in that game we didn’t have enough memory to fully express what we wanted."
In a 2001 interview with the game's illustrator Tonko (Aki Senno), found within the Arcadia magazine, she was asked if both Garou: Mark of the Wolves (MOW) and The Last Blade had the same staff working on them. She responded:
"No, it wasn’t. MOW was originally being developed by a very select group; later, a few of the Last Blade staff joined in. The waterfall stage, and several others, were done by The Last Blade staff. Visually I think you can see a bit of The Last Blade’s style in those stages."
According to a 1998 interview with Sega R&D head Hideki Sato published in The History of SEGA Console Hardware, the Mega Drive's design from Japan was based on the audio player's appearance, and presented the "16-bit" label embossed with a golden metallic veneer to give it an impact of power:
"We had a feeling that before long, consumers would be appreciating video games with the same sense with which they enjoyed music; moreover, since the Megadrive was a machine that you put in front of your TV, our concept was to make it look like an audio player. So we painted the body black and put the “16BIT” lettering in a gold print. That gold printing, by the way, was very expensive. (laughs) But we really wanted to play up the fact that this was the very first 16-bit home console."
In a 2004 interview with D (a pseudonym for one of four members of DECO [Data East Corporation] interviewed), found within the Arcade Gamer vol.1 mook (magazine/book portmanteau), he was asked how development on Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty began. He responded:
"One day our boss came in and declared, “You know what would be a big hit in China? A game based on Suikoden!” And we were off. Most of the staff was a bit perplexed, “Huh? Suikoden… why not Sangokushi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) instead?” In any event, the development schedule was very short so it was a tough one."
In a 2016 interview with Lufia & the Fortress of Doom's director Masahide Miyata, he was asked where the Japanese name 'Estpolis Denki' (Japanese for Biography of Estpolis) comes from. He responded:
"Estopolis Denki was originally developed under the title “Esuteeru”, but someone had already taken out the copyright for that name, so we had to change it. We chose Estopolis since the root of the word resembled Esuteeru. Estopolis means “City of the East”, and we imagined this world having four continents, in the east, west, north, and south."
In a 2016 interview with the director of the first game in the series Masahide Miyata, he was asked how development on Lufia & the Fortress of Doom began. He responded:
"Four or five of us got together and started talking about making our own RPG. We developed a prototype version of “Esuto” for the PC-98, and shopped it around to different companies for distribution. This was before the era of things like powerpoint presentations, so we lugged a PC-98 and CRT monitor around with us to give our pitch. Taito was one of those companies we presented to. Then once the development was officially underway, the idea came up that, since we were gonna do this after all, we might as well make it for the Super Famicom."
Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition, an expanded 2017 re-release of the game for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch and PC, uses the full uncompressed video footage recorded for the original game. Additional bonus content includes deleted scenes like an introduction scene for the game's story and a death scene featuring Danny (which was most likely cut due to Danny's young age), as well as a behind-the-scenes developer commentary, a "theater mode" to watch all of the game's story, a "survivor mode" that will randomly place Augers in the house, and a playable version of "Scene of the Crime", the first prototype of Night Trap created in 1986 to pitch an unreleased console called the Control-Vision to Hasbro.
In a 2010 interview with the game's director Hiroyuki Maruyama, he stated that he originally wanted to release the game on the Xbox. Despite the console's poor sales around the time it was being made, he was very interested in the network capabilities of Xbox Live, so he tried to get in touch with Microsoft to release the game on that platform. Instead, Microsoft asked the developers to release the game on their next console, the Xbox 360.
According to a 1998 Famitsu magazine interview with the game's character designer Tetsuya Nomura, preliminary meetings to plan out Final Fantasy VIII with the game's team, including director Yoshinori Kitase, began immediately after the completion of Final Fantasy VII's development.
During one of the conversations, Kitase said that he wanted to use a character that Nomura drew 3 years ago, before Final Fantasy VII, which was the sorceress Edea Kramer.
He added that although the Final Fantasy series has the word "Fantasy" in its name, it had become routine for them to feature technological civilizations and machines, and he felt the fantasy aspect had steadily weakened its presence. Therefore, Edea was added to the game to genuinely counteract those growing technological aesthetics: "a full-on, high-fantasy sorceress".
In the 1991 World of Valkyrie storybook, there are 2 unused concept art characters that did not make it into the game. The Stone Giant was envisioned as a boss, with one of the 4 Mythical Faeries would have been imprisoned inside of him. The faerie is shown confined in a cursed tree cage by Kamooz.
According to the SNK team in a 1995 Neo Geo Freak Magazine interview, Franco Bash's fighting style of kickboxing was implemented into the game after Joe Higashi, noted by fighting using kickboxing's "rival" style Muay Thai, had his storyline shift away from being one of the main focuses of the series, upon which the SNK team decided that there was enough room for another kick-centered fighting style.
According to the SNK team in a 1995 Neo Geo Freak Magazine interview, Geese Howard's "Wicked Shadow Fist" move was going to be in Fatal Fury Special, but did not make the cut due to time constraints. However, Geese's move did return in Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory as it was on the SNK team's "must add" list from the very beginning of the development.
NiCO was originally intended to be Russian, and her Japanese voice actress Sumire Uesaka was originally chosen for her Russian language skills. However, after changing NiCO to be Finnish, Uesaka's language skills ended up not being put to use.
According to the July 1997 edition of SEGA Magazine in a developer interview, Yuji Naka stated that he added the ability to perform a Spin Dash while crouching and standing still, named the "Super Spin Dash", to make it easier for players in response to critiques of the first game where players had trouble performing the normal, running version of the Spin Dash:
"As for our new additions to Sonic 2, they began and grew out of our dissatisfactions from the first game. The idea for the super spin dash, for instance, came directly from one of those complaints—namely that beginners couldn’t do the loop-de-loops very well, and if they made a mistake they couldn’t get the momentum back to loop through it. That was annoying. So what if he could dash from a stopped position…? Then we had the image of him spinning in a ball to accelerate, and rendering it graphically helped the idea take further shape."
"It came about when we were reflecting on opinions of the first game. We were actually planning on including one other such ability. We also talked about using the B and Up buttons, but that was never realized."
According to the game's artist Yoshitaka Amano from a 1987 Beep Magazine interview, Square told him to make an illustrated cover of a character (Onion Knight) wielding 2 blades. Originally, Amano wanted to draw a landscape-style drawing with no human characters, but he changed it since it was an illustration for a video game, and was later glad he did as he felt the game's final cover had more impact.
According to director/writer Hironobu Sakaguchi and writer Yoshinori Kitase, Final Fantasy V marked the first time they worked together on a game. Kitase then commented about their working relationship during the game's development:
"Mr. Sakaguchi and I worked on [the game's] events in a relay, so when we would go to work, the first thing we'd do is check the data the other had put up to check the continuity. We'd see each other's work and think 'I'll make something even better!' in a sort of competition."
In a 1996 Gamest interview, some of the featured concept art shows designs for 2 characters named "Marisu" and "Teresu" who were not included in the final game. The game's character designer Mimori Fujinomiya commented:
"These were characters looked too much like ripoffs of the koropokkuru, so I abandoned them. Their personalities were too similar to Macky and Pentell, anyway. I do like their Robo-Dog though."
In a 1992 Famicom Tsuushin interview with the game's producer/designer Hiroyuki Takahashi, he stated that Jogurt/Yogurt was originally just a sketch character made by game's character designer Yoshihiro Tamaki. Tamaki thought the idea would be great to have a completely out-of-place character in the game's battles.
In a 1992 developer team interview featured in the Shining Force Encyclopedia, Tamaki admitted the character was created partially as a joke and before any of the official concept art had been completed. He also stated that Jogurt's face is based on the game's director Kenji Orimo.
In the 1991 World of Valkyrie storybook, there are 2 unused concept art characters that did not make it into the game. The Stone Giant was envisioned as a boss, with one of the 4 Mythical Faeries would have been imprisoned inside of him. The faerie is shown confined in a cursed tree cage by Kamooz.
According to the game's artist Yoshitaka Amano from a 1987 Beep Magazine interview, Square told him to make an illustrated cover of a character (Onion Knight) wielding 2 blades. Originally, Amano wanted to draw a landscape-style drawing with no human characters, but he changed it since it was an illustration for a video game, and was later glad he did as he felt the game's final cover had more impact.
In a 1996 Gamest interview, some of the featured concept art shows designs for 2 characters named "Marisu" and "Teresu" who were not included in the final game. The game's character designer Mimori Fujinomiya commented:
In a 1992 Famicom Tsuushin interview with the game's producer/designer Hiroyuki Takahashi, he stated that Jogurt/Yogurt was originally just a sketch character made by game's character designer Yoshihiro Tamaki. Tamaki thought the idea would be great to have a completely out-of-place character in the game's battles.