English dub voice actor Karen Strassman, known for Kitana & Mileena from Mortal Kombat (2011) and Mortal Kombat X, did not return to voice her characters for Mortal Kombat 11, citing internal politics in the gaming industry that affected the game's casting.
In a 1996 interview published in a Dungeons & Dragons mook (magazine & book portmanteau) covering Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystra and this game, the developers were asked why they choose Dungeons & Dragons as the setting. The game's designer Tomoshi Sadamoto responded:
"It was TSR, the copyright holder of D&D, who came to us first and talked about doing a game. However, an agreement could not be reached at that point and the project was on hold for awhile. Sometime later a compromise was reached, and we were able to start working on the first game, Tower of Doom."
He also admitted that from the beginning, the game was only intended for the arcade.
In a 1994 Hippon Super and Game-on magazines interview, the game's field graphics designer Tomoe Inazawa wanted the Serpent Trench's ocean floor less shallow-looking by making it darker and more impenetrable, realistic and alluring than how the ocean appeared in previous Final Fantasy games:
"Well, in reality, that’s how the ocean floor is: dark and impenetrable. What has been depicted in earlier games is really a shallower image of the ocean. So I was thinking about how to convey something more realistic, so I made it dark. Dark and alluring."
In a 1996 interview with the game's director Kouji Okada published in Dengeki PlayStation magazine, he stated that the demons are voiced by the staff from Atlus, including those enlisted from all over the company rather than just the game's developers, while also singling out that the female demons were voiced by female staff members.
In Episode 172 of the webseries "The Angry Video Game Nerd" in which the Nerd reviewed Jurassic Park: Trespasser, James Rolfe conducted an interview with the game's executive producer Seamus Blackley about the game's development. He asked him why they used the Tribe C Alpha Velociraptor as the final boss when raptors were already the most frequently-encountered dinosaur in the game. He responded:
"We didn't have time to create, or budget to create a new boss dinosaur, and we were in a huge rush to finish, and we had a huge amount of pressure from DreamWorks Interactive. Of course all of these things are ludicrous now when you think about them, because as we say 'a late game is only late until it ships, but a bad game is bad forever'."
According to a 1993 Dengeki SFC magazine interview, the game's designer Norifumi Hara commented on the start of the game's development:
"We were tasked with creating a sequel to Tetris, and I love versus fighting games, so I wanted to make head-to-head competitive matches the main focus. Originally the title was "Batorisu" 1 [Note: This is a combination of the words "Batoru" (battle) and "Tetorisu" (Tetris) that does not quite translate well into English], and we were developing it for the Famicom, but of course the Super Famicom was a better choice, we realized."
In April 2012, to promote the game prior to its first playable appearance at E3, Konami created an alternate reality game (ARG) entitled "Make It Right" which primarily involved fans performing instructions revealed on the official Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Rising Facebook pages and websites weekly leading up to E3. The campaign started on April 25th, when Konami released a new teaser for the game hinting at news to be revealed five days later. In addition, Konami manufactured two replicas of Raiden's severed left arm and sent them to Game Informer and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Connected to each of the arms was a USB drive that contained several cryptic images related to the game's plot, as well as the first in a series of short, live-action trailers promoted as secret video files found in Raiden's arm which were released by Konami over the course of the ARG. These videos depicted flashbacks to Raiden (voiced by Quinton Flynn) undergoing surgical procedures initiated by Maverick Security Counseling, Inc. that ultimately turn him into a Cyborg Ninja, as well as flashbacks to his time training as a child soldier under Solidus Snake (voiced by John Cygan). The last flashback trailer depicting Solidus killing a hostage, released on May 17th, ended with a binary code message "01000101 00110011" which translates to "E3", and the final trailer released during the ARG was a short clip of the title screen to the game's E3 2012 demo. The events in the videos were meant to hint at what would be shown in the story to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but these events would end up only being mentioned in an optional codec call between Raiden and Doktor about left arm data.
Two other recognized actors featured in the videos include an interrogator played by Noah Nelson, the voice of Cunningham from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, and a surgeon played by James Horan, who would later voice Skull Face in Metal GearSolid V.
According to a 1998 The Playstation magazine interview with the game's director Hideki Kamiya & writer Noboru Sugimura, they originally had no intention of bringing back the Tyrant, since the first game already had him as the final boss.
Kamiya thought of making him a "perfect, invincible Tyrant", but after the two talked it over, they realized it was a bad idea because he would be so strong that the G-virus would be rendered meaningless, so they came up with the idea of the Tyrant's mission to retrieve the G-virus instead.
Sugimura also commented on about the Scenario choice for the Tyrant:
"One of the consequences of having players go through the same scenario twice was that, by the second time, they’re used to things and it’s too easy. For that reason we decided to have the Tyrant appear in Scenario B, as a way to raise the difficulty."
According to general producer Noritaka Funamizu in a 1997 Gamest magazine interview, he stated that the original plan for the Dark Force system was to make it so that "you could just completely pummel your opponent" while in Dark Force. However, there were problems with the idea, so it morphed into the form that was used in the final game, having been developed with an emphasis to making Dark Force feel unique to each fighter in the game.
In a 1995 interview with the SNK team published in Neo Geo Freak Magazine, they were asked about why several older characters had their previous special moves (i.e. Terry Bogard's Rising Tackle Joe Higashi's Bakuretsuken) removed in exchanged for new moves. The SNK team responded:
"We took out Terry’s Rising Tackle because we wanted to add a new move for him, Power Dunk. Rising Tackle resembled Power Dunk a little too closely, and it would have diluted Power Dunk’s impact as a new move. For Joe’s Bakuretsuken, we cut it because wanted to put a stronger emphasis on his short-range rush attacks and combos."
According to a 1998 The Playstation magazine interview with director/producer/writer Hideo Kojima & designer/artist Yoji Shinkawa, Kojima originally had no intentions of adding the cyborg ninja character design for Gray Fox to the game, but Shinkawa drew that idea "because it's cool". At first, Shinkawa thought Gray Fox should have looked like a normal enemy soldier. He had several different patterns in mind, and thought to try drawing a cyborg-ish and ninja-looking guy, of which that design came out as a result.
According to a 1995 SNK team interview in Neo Geo Freak Magazine, Sokaku Mochizuki was originally going to be a young karate practitioner, but the team wanted a character with more oomph and impact, so they decided to make him similar to a komusou (mendicant) monk, and intentionally designed the character's personality to be markedly darker compared to the rest of the game's upbeat and positive roster.
In Episode 172 of the webseries "The Angry Video Game Nerd" in which the Nerd reviewed Jurassic Park: Trespasser, James Rolfe conducted an interview with the game's executive producer Seamus Blackley about the game's development. He asked him why they used the heart tattoo on Anne's chest as a health bar, and shouting out the usage of ammo, rather than using a regular heads-up display. He responded:
"The idea was that you would feel that it was your adventure, and part of that was not having a bunch of technology in your face. And we were struggling with the idea of a totally natural interface, having everything in the game literally be in the game world in the context of the game world. The tattoo was one of the first ideas we had about a health meter, we were thinking of putting it on the arm and it happened to be on a tattoo on the chest when we ran out of time, and so that's what stuck and that's just how stupid things are."
Geese Howard from Fatal Fury was originally meant to appear as a playable character, but the developers abandoned this plan, citing "various considerations at the time" in retrospect as the reason for his exclusion. Geese would eventually appear as a playable character in The King of Fighters '96.
In a 1997 interview with the game's director Yasumi Matsuno, found within the Famicon Tsuushin magazine, he was asked if his "grand, dramatic" music would be in the game. He responded:
"Actually, in the beginning the idea for the music was more in-line with Sakaguchi’s tastes: exciting, energetic, and upbeat music. But owing to the direction we decided to take with the game—or my personality—we changed it. If FFT had mainly involved Humans vs. Monsters battles, then I think exciting, upbeat music would have been very appropriate, but in this strategy game your opponents are other human beings, and that kind of bright, upbeat music wasn’t working. There’s also the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics takes place in a hard, serious world. So I think it’s only natural for the songs to be similar."
In a 1992 developer interview for BEEP Mega Drive magazine, an early screenshot showed that the game was originally going to have a password system and 4 additional Option Monsters, but these were cut from the final game for unknown reasons.
In a 1995 interview with the game's producer Hiroki Fujimoto in the Dengeki Super Famicom magazine, he was asked if there was any reason he chose the Nintendo 64 for the game, and he responded:
"We started planning the sequel right around the time the PlayStation and Saturn were released, so going ahead with the Super Famicom again would have been harsh, when you consider when the game would actually come out. On top of that, the developers always like taking on new challenges, so we decided to go with one of the next-gen consoles.
That being the case, rather than one of the already-released systems like the PS1 or Saturn, we ended up going with Nintendo’s new 64-bit hardware which wasn’t out yet. At the time, however, we didn’t know anything about the N64’s actual specs, including whether it would use cartridges or CD-ROMs."
When asked if Metroid influenced the "exploration action" nature of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, director Hitoshi Akamatsu instead cited The Maze of Galious: Knightmare II, another platform-adventure game by Konami that features puzzle solving, as having influenced the game's development.
In a 2003 Game Hihyou magazine interview with Xenogears and Xenosaga Episode I's composer Yasunori Mitsuda, he was asked if he would be back doing the music for Xenosaga Episode II. He revealed that he turned down the job partly due to other projects he was working on, and partly because of creative differences when his planned compositions did not match up with Namco's concepts for the game:
"No, I’m not. I had to turn it down. Partly it’s because I’m very busy, but the bigger issue was that I set some goalposts for myself and said, “ok, I want to do this kind of thing for the next Xenosaga.” But my ideas were too far apart from the vision that Namco had for Xenosaga. I had started conceptualizing the music with some of the Procyon Studio members here, and we had even laid down some ideas, but once I realized it wasn’t going to fly, I had to turn the work down. I apologize to everyone who had been hoping otherwise…!"
Ghadius was originally called "Rarapuupu", with either "Kyoumatei" ("Evil Demon Emperor") or Taikou ("Archduke") as it's title depending on the concept art. Very early on in development, this character was conceived as a funky magician-esque clown.
In a 1994 Hippon Super and Game-on magazines interview, the game's field graphics designer Tomoe Inazawa wanted the Serpent Trench's ocean floor less shallow-looking by making it darker and more impenetrable, realistic and alluring than how the ocean appeared in previous Final Fantasy games:
In April 2012, to promote the game prior to its first playable appearance at E3, Konami created an alternate reality game (ARG) entitled "Make It Right" which primarily involved fans performing instructions revealed on the official Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Rising Facebook pages and websites weekly leading up to E3. The campaign started on April 25th, when Konami released a new teaser for the game hinting at news to be revealed five days later. In addition, Konami manufactured two replicas of Raiden's severed left arm and sent them to Game Informer and Electronic Gaming Monthly. Connected to each of the arms was a USB drive that contained several cryptic images related to the game's plot, as well as the first in a series of short, live-action trailers promoted as secret video files found in Raiden's arm which were released by Konami over the course of the ARG. These videos depicted flashbacks to Raiden (voiced by Quinton Flynn) undergoing surgical procedures initiated by Maverick Security Counseling, Inc. that ultimately turn him into a Cyborg Ninja, as well as flashbacks to his time training as a child soldier under Solidus Snake (voiced by John Cygan). The last flashback trailer depicting Solidus killing a hostage, released on May 17th, ended with a binary code message "01000101 00110011" which translates to "E3", and the final trailer released during the ARG was a short clip of the title screen to the game's E3 2012 demo. The events in the videos were meant to hint at what would be shown in the story to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, but these events would end up only being mentioned in an optional codec call between Raiden and Doktor about left arm data.
According to a 1995 SNK team interview in Neo Geo Freak Magazine, Sokaku Mochizuki was originally going to be a young karate practitioner, but the team wanted a character with more oomph and impact, so they decided to make him similar to a komusou (mendicant) monk, and intentionally designed the character's personality to be markedly darker compared to the rest of the game's upbeat and positive roster.
In a 1992 developer interview for BEEP Mega Drive magazine, an early screenshot showed that the game was originally going to have a password system and 4 additional Option Monsters, but these were cut from the final game for unknown reasons.
Ghadius was originally called "Rarapuupu", with either "Kyoumatei" ("Evil Demon Emperor") or Taikou ("Archduke") as it's title depending on the concept art. Very early on in development, this character was conceived as a funky magician-esque clown.